Mahershala Ali channels the pain of frustrated black artists in 'Green Book,' but sees Hollywood's changing attitude
LOS ANGELES - Roughly halfway through "Green Book," about one of the unlikeliest friendships of the pre-Civil Rights era, Jamaican piano prodigy Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), explains to his Italian American driver and companion, Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), that though he's found success playing popular music, he was trained for the classical stage.
"Trained?" says Vallelonga. "What are you, a seal? People love what you do. Anyone can sound like Beethoven or Joe Pan or them other guys you said. But your music, what you do, only you can do that."
"Thank you, Tony," Shirley says patiently. "But not everyone can play Chopin, not like I can."
The scene, one of the film's most poignant insights into the musician's conflicted feelings about his identity and legacy, was not always written that way.
"Dr. Shirley used to just say, 'Thank you, Tony,' and that's it, that's the scene," recalled Ali over lunch in Los Feliz. "Like, 'I appreciate it, you're right. People love my music and despite the racism, what I became as a result is alright, I'm cool with it.' And that scene always ate at me. It just didn't ring true to me as a black person. It felt like what I would call a 'TV moment.'"
After watching Nina Simone's Netflix documentary "What Happened, Miss Simone?" Ali was able to pinpoint just what it was that
