I ask if I can read him a quote about his behaviour on the set of Blade: Trinity to see if he thinks it is fair. “Yes, yes, yes, which one is this?” It’s from the actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, I say. “A reliable authority on me,” he replies sarcastically.
I read the quote: “Wesley was just fukking crazy in a hilarious way … he tried to strangle [director] David Goyer.”
“Let me tell you one thing. If I had tried to strangle David Goyer, you probably wouldn’t be talking to me now. A black guy with muscles strangling the director of a movie is going to jail, I guarantee you.”
So that’s a no, then? “Did I go to jail for strangling him? Never happened.”
I continue with the quote. “For the rest of the production he would only communicate through Post-it notes. And he would sign each Post-it note ‘From Blade’.” True or not? “Hehehe!” He starts giggling, but he’s not amused. “Once again, Mr Oswalt is the authority. Hohoho! Why do people believe this guy’s version of this story? Answer me that.”
I’m not saying I believe it, I say. I’m simply asking if you think it’s fair. Now his voice is calm and professorial. “This is part of the challenges that we as African Americans face here in America – these microaggressions. The presumption that one white guy can make a statement and that statement stands as true! Why would people believe his version is true? Because they are predisposed to believing the black guy is always the problem. And all it takes is one person, Mr Oswalt, who I really don’t know. I can barely remember him on the set, but it’s fascinating that his statement alone was enough to make people go: ‘Yeah, you know Snipes has got a problem.’”
And still he’s not done. “I remind you that I was one of the executive producers of the project,” he says. “I had contractual director approval. I was not just the actor for hire. I had au-thor-i-ty to say, to dictate, to decide. This was a hard concept for a lot of people to wrap their heads around.”
The problem is, Snipes says, that Hollywood is still run by white people for white people. “I don’t expect a white guy to go out and write the experience of a black guy growing up in the Bronx the way I grew up. How is he going to know that?” And that’s why he says black artists should follow the example of film-makers in, for example, South Korea or Nigeria. “The South Koreans are not sitting there complaining about not being included in Hollywood. They went and built their own. The Nigerians are not waiting for Hollywood to come along; they’ve got the third largest industry in the world.”
