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What have you been up to the last few years?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-Alive.
I've done quite a lot in the last few years. I seem to do a
lot of guest shots. Those come up a lot. I'm recurring on The
Gilmore Girls. I've done Girlfriends, I'm trying
to think. I think when you've been in show business as long
as have I kind of hit em' and quit em'. I've gone on the road
for the last four years doing plays. I've done three gospel
musicals. One by David Talbert, one by TJ Hepfield and then
I did a play on the road up until right around Christmas titled
Waiting To End Hell. It was a relationship play that
we were touring with, me and Ella Joyce and Phylis Stickney
who are two of the craziest women I have ever met. They are
a lot of fun, Ella has become my darling. Just mixing it up.
I'm a director as well. I was in another film, I directed a
short called "Haunting Reflections," I'm about to edit I also
did a short called "Don't Give Me The Finger." It won a lot
of awards during the festival routes. For some reason they told
me I won the Best Actor award at the Long Island Film Festival
which is coming up in about a week, so I find that interesting.
What was it about the script for "30 Miles" that made you
want to do the movie?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-It
was a challenge. The challenge of having to have basically two
characters, two actors carry the movie and keep your interest.
Maybe a little scary to do it but at the same time an exciting
challenge to try to pull off the multi-layers of the emotions
in the short time that we shot it. We shot it in about 8 or
9 days. More than half of it was done on a sound stage. They
had the car on a rack and they would make it move and they would
add the car sounds later and because we are out in the darkness
of the desert we can just blacken the studio and make it look
like that but learning all those lines. Myself and Rusty we
were a little busy with that, but it was a challenge. To carry
a film and keep your interest. For me it was a little departure
in recent times when I get to play a guy who isn't the tough
guy necessarily or the one that is going to take on the world
and fight everybody. I'm just a regular guy trying to get through
life and a tragedy or situation happens to him and he has to
deal with it. So that was fun. I seem to get cast a certain
way a lot, I think they think I'm the last rough and tumble
guy.
Are there any similarities to you and Anthony?
Lawrence
Hilton-Jacobs-I would say that I have a strong
belief in my career as he does. Very much so. He is a loving
family man and has gone through some multi-layers in his relationships.
The difference between Anthony and me is that Anthony is a little
more haunted by his past. He tries to apologize for things that
are outside of his control. That's not how Larry Jacobs is.
I feel that if you deal with something and it doesn't work or
it doesn't happen you have to face it as fast as you can and
try not to dwell on depression, which I'm just not into although
we all feel those moments. I'd rather just face what's going
on and just move on. I'm human. I feel the stings. If you are
going through a faulty relationship or you have a business deal
that didn't work out and you tried hard to make it happen. But
with Anthony Vs. Larry Jacobs we are both just very determined
people trying to go forward in their lives.
Now I know you had a lot of female fans back in the day. Do
they still look you up and everything?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-Yeah.
I get fan letters a lot still. It was kind of funny because
I was in a shopping mall the other day with some friends and
we were just doing our thing. They were shopping, I was just
hanging around to be honest and when I came out this lady came
up to me, and she was like, "Lawrence Hilton-Jacob you are so
cute." It makes me laugh now because a lot of them don't even
know my age. I'm 51 and I don't hide that, but most people think
I'm like 38 or something because I work out and all that. I
find it amusing, I find it flattering, I don't take it too serious
because I see what I look like when I wake up in the morning.
But....umm that's the way life goes.
Out of all the films that you have made which ones did you enjoy
making the most?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-I
would have to put three of them together as my favorite. My
first movie Claudine was my first major role. I was 19
turning 20 and that was 1973. I had a chance to chance to play
a real multi layered role. In that day with the Black exploitation
roles they were not trying to write roles for young black men
with levels of substance. So I feel really lucky and blessed
that that came along my way. Then Cooley High which was
really just fun. I have a lifetime friend out of it Glynn Turman,
but we are buddies. The most multi layered role I had was The
Jackson Family An American Dream playing Joe Jackson. There
were a lot of emotions to deal with and a lot of wonderful actors.
Some of the kids out of the show we are still friends. Little
Alex, who played the youngest Michael has become my unofficial
adopted son. He's 23 now and we are just as tight as ever. So
that was a great experience.
What I think was really neat about that film is that it was
a mini-series, and you don't always see people talk about mini-series
almost 15 years later. Everybody still remembers that movie.
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-What's
really amazing is when people remember certain things is that
a lot of people remember Cooley High and they certainly
remember Welcome Back Kotter, The Jackson's in more recent
times is something that they remember and it resonates with
them. What's good about that movie and the approach to that
movie is that it wasn't just a movie about The Jackson Family
and their rise to prominence or music royalty, which they are.
It was a love story about a man and a woman-Joesph and Katherine
and they really truly loved each other and they dedicated their
lives to their children and these children happened to turn
out to be these talented really amazing people. But it was all
born out of a father's dream and maybe even his dream deferred
and so with that as a through line and that kind of a feeling
going in, doing that movie was fun. It was a little weird the
first time myself and Angela, who played my wife in the movie
knew that Katherine and Joseph were going to show up on the
set to watch us playing them. It was peculiar but we had so
much work to do and so many lines to learn so we got over that
really quick and Katherine is the sweetest lady you would want
to know. She is very nice and she's been like that since before
I did the Jackson's and after.
Now I know we already mentioned Cooley High and Claudine
two movies I really enjoyed, are you surprised that those movies
have become African-American cinema classics and they were like
your first two films?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-Yeah.
I was a young actor in New York City where I am from and by
the time Claudine came along I had been in the business
about maybe five years but nothing really happened, a lot of
extras and bit roles and a lot of theater and stuff like that.
Again, I just put it on top and really realized and was happily
surprised about the weight of that kind of role in that day.
Every other role was Slaughter's Big Rip-Off off or one of the
super macho brothers, that is what they always seem to want
to make and along came this little gem and I was like wow, "Larry
you are going to really have to buck up and go to work."
When I realized that Diane Caroll was going to be the mother,
originally it was going to be Diana Sands (Raisin In The
Sun, Willie Dynamite) who it was written for but, but
Diana during production had passed away. And so they put Diane
Caroll in the movie who is beyond brilliant and is my friend
to this day and when I heard James Earl Jones was coming on
board I was like, "Man, you better wake up dude. These ain't
no jive actors here." So, just a lot. Especially when I
hung out with James sometimes. We didn't talk anything about
acting. We talked about how he grew up and he told me he was
s stutterer. It's kind of funny that James Earl Jones is a voice
over actor and a legend but back then he was very nervous about
doing any looping. That just shows you how determined a mind
can be when you want to get over something that is holding you
back, nothing holds anyone back but themselves. I believe that.
What have you done to maintain such a long career as an actor?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-I
don't know. I haven't gone to psychiatry yet. It's what I do
and what I believe and over the years I have gotten to layer
it with other things. I'm a writer, I have directed a few films,
I have directed just one television show, and I've written maybe
25-30 screenplays and bunch of them haven't been made.
Well that's cool I am a writer too. I write books. I write
screenplays too but nobody's bought them.
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-Well
all in time. If you really want that to happen and you deserve
to have it, it will. It's where we have to find out humility
in the process of getting there. I always call it how hard you
can hang. Cause you hear so much nonsense about why your screenplay
is not it or it's not your day and you may have all these meetings
and the meetings go nowhere. It can definitely frustrate a person
and you have to pick yourself up come back the next day again.
Like you have to keep on, like you are writing right now. The
best thing about being a writer is when you get the mood you
can do it and it's your creation. You can feel it, put your
nature to it. That's a world that's wonderful to itself.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-Hang
out with the kids. Play volleyball, take walks on the beach.
I'm a musician as well so music is a pleasure for me. I will
sit down at the piano for sometimes 7-8 hours and not even realize
it. All things that come out of the creative realm, I draw as
well. In the beginning it was either become a professional artist
or a professional actor and I opted to be the actor. So when
I am designing films or trying to compose a scene I have an
understanding of how light works and composition so it helps
me a great deal in doing my thing.
Do people still ask you about doing a Welcome Back Kotter
reunion?
Lawrence
Hilton-Jacobs-All the time. Recently they
tried to do one. This March we were asked to do a Welcome
Back Kotter reunion. My opinion about that is it's hot and
cold a lot of times. I don't see outside of what the audience
would get out of it…it's not that big of a deal to me. It's
been said and it's been done. It would be a fun thing for the
one time. But that might be it's own wait and it's own goal
but the real deal is they have to get all of us to do it. Not
everybody is in agreement. This last time almost everybody was
in agreement, there were a couple of hold outs. Plus I have
seen a lot of the reunion shows on television and they don't
look very good to me. They look like they just got everybody
together, and most people look like they are tired. That was
not my approach. With this last one I said, "Let me direct it
and I'll be interested." That's an incentive with where I am
going with my life. I would try to make it a real special fun
documentary thing and we would also have an audience. Build
the old Kotter set, have us all come out and we'll talk about
Kotter a little bit before we show clips. I want to include
the audience because a lot of people including some celebrity
people have grown up with the show and even have some of the
new kids who caught the show on Nick at Night, so who knows.
It didn't happen this time and we have been asked 7 or 8 times.
Yeah, I'm 30 years old and it's one of my earliest memories.
I remember watching it when I was 3 or 4 years old and I remember
saying , "Daddy, I wish you could be more like Freddy Boom-Boom
Washington because he's so cool." My thing about the reunion
shows, if they do a whole season set DVD release, this one is
just like maybe 6 episodes, if they can have some commentary
and new interviews, that would be cool. But I wouldn't want
to see everybody back in a fiction or a drama because everybody
is all grown up now and you all were kids on the show.
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs-I
think we need to leave the show for what it was and show the
people as they are today. I had the whole concept written out
just in case they would have gone forward with it. I had a whole
thing, even the studio where we shot Kotter was a historic studio.
It's where they did all these early movies like "Intolerance"
and all of these Charlie Chaplin movies. That's where they happened.
A lot of people don't know that history. It's not a big piece
of history but it's a little piece of history to know that the
ground where we shot the show is where a lot the film industry
actually started, in this little area that is hidden in LA and
you go back there and this big studio is looking at you. There
were a lot of in depth ideas I wanted to include. I wanted to
do remotes with the individual actors. Not just have them come
in one after another and shoot them. I would go to where they
are to their homes. Like Travolta I probably would have gotten
with him on a plane since that's what he likes to do. Bobby
Hedges who plays Epstein he teaches, Ron has a play that is
Broadway broad. I would go into what they are doing and it would
have been capsuled with these little bios that would last 2-3
minutes each. Most of these reunion shows are put together pretty
fast. They are cost effective, they get big ratings, great revenue
for the producers and they move on to the next.
 Interview
copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, and Thabiz.com 2005
Dorrie Williams-Wheeler is the author of Be
My Sorority Sister Under Pressure and the Unplanned
Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students. She is the
founder of Thabiz.com and
Imissthe80s.com and
writes for the Rap,
Teen, and 1980s
section at Bellaonline.com. She is an ASCAP member as a writer
and a publisher. Please contact Dorrie for advertising
inquiries, lyric writing inquiries, reprint rights, paying
entertainment jobs, or general comments.
Visit Dorrie on the web at www.sparkledoll.com
or e-mail her at webmaster@thabiz.com.
May not be reprinted, copied or distributed.
Interview copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, imissthe80s.com
2006
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