Michael Clarke Duncan - Part Two

By: Michael O'Connell
Date: Friday, March 24, 2000

Sitting down to interview Michael Clarke Duncan who stars alongside Tom Hanks in The Green Mile, the first thing I notice is his jovial, garrulous manner. He's friendly, open, and extremely happy to talk about the biggest role of his acting career.
Big.
That word was bound to sneak its way into the conversation. One of the reasons that director Frank Darabont cast Duncan in the roll of convicted killer John Coffey is his physical stature. In his novel, Stephen King describes Coffey as a towering seven-foot tall giant of a man. Standing six-foot five-inches and weighing over 300 pounds, Duncan comes close to filling the role physically.
'[I'm}not as big as John Coffey,' Duncan laughingly admits. 'I knew you were going to ask that. I knew you were going to start right off with that question. The weight was not that difficult to do. They hired me a nutritionist who put about 35 pounds of fat on me. I was eating four, five, six times a day. That was something that Frank Darabont wanted. He wanted me to look more natural. He wanted me not to lift weights for the three months that we were filming, which was very difficult. He said that I could do legs, but no upper body. You see, I could do squats because you don't really see my legs. As far as the height goes, that was a little bit of Frank Darabont's trickery.'
According to the Chicago-born actor, it wasn't just his physical appearance that won him the role of prisoner John Coffey. 'Coffey is me,' Duncan says. 'He's definitely me. When I read the novel, at that point, I figured that there was nobody in Hollywood who could play Coffey but me. I wasn't trying to be, you know, cocky or anything, like 'I could do this.' The guy was me because I identified with the sensitivity. I'm a sensitive person. The guy cries a lot. My mother cried a lot; she passed that along to me. I couldn't hurt an animal or anything. I get teary-eyed when I see some animal on the side of the road knowing that he didn't make it across. So, I identified with every aspect of John Coffey and I said, 'I'm reading about myself. So there is nobody in Hollywood like that but me.' So I identified with him right away. I loved him. I loved playing him.'
Duncan's genuine affection for the character comes across in both his conversation and his performance on the big screen. The role is something of a departure for actor, who, because of his physical stature, has primarily played tough guys and heavies on television and in films like Armageddon and Bullworth. Duncan hopes that his performance as the childlike John Coffey will open a few eyes.


'It's very strange when you play a heavy all of the time,' Duncan says. 'In most of your movies, people will put you in that category. This is my breakout role for me. Hopefully, then Hollywood will see that 'Hey, maybe this guy does have a little talent. Maybe we can cast him in something else. Maybe he can do other things.' That's what I want Hollywood to see. I want to branch out. I don't want to be the heavy all the time. Even though action movies and stuff like that are cool. ... I don't mind doing that. But if I do that, I also want to come back and do something else so they can say: 'Oh he did action movies, then he did this.' I want to be like a tennis match where I can go back and forth.'
Despite his interest in branching out beyond the action genre, Duncan credits the efforts of one particular 'action' star with helping him get the role of John Coffey. 'When I was doing Armageddon, Bruce Willis told me about it,' explains Duncan. 'He said, 'I have the perfect role for you. This role will totally change you're acting career.'

'We were at the midway point in Armageddon. We were in Orlando, Florida. He told me to go buy the book called The Green Mile. He said, 'They're going to start doing a movie about it. You could be the guy named John Coffey, but you must do some research on the guy. At least read the novel so you know. When we get back to L.A., I'm going to call Frank Darabont and I'm going to let him know that I found John Coffey.'' Duncan shakes his head as he remembers his reaction to the star's advice. 'At first, I'm like, 'Yeah, Bruce, sure. You're going to take time out to call this guy.' We got back to L.A. and about five days later Frank Darabont calls my house. I couldn't believe it. This was the guy I remembered from The Shawshank Redemption and I couldn't believe, most of all, that Bruce Willis took out the time to call this guy and actually say 'Hey, I found Coffey.' But he did. I went down to read for Frank Darabont and everything else sort of fell into place. The audition went really well. He told me to come back next week. He gave me a revised edition of the script which I re-read. Everything kind of flowed after that. But I have to thank Bruce Willis for that. If it had not been for him, I wouldn't have known anything about the script. By the time I would've found out about it, I would've went in there cold, without having any knowledge of the guy. That probably would've messed my whole audition process up. That's how I found out about it. But I cried when I read it. I cried totally.'

After being cast as John Coffey, Duncan faced certain challenges in playing the role. After all, how does one portray a giant with the mind of a child who, despite having miraculous powers, is convicted for murdering two children? Fortunately, Duncan had a lot of help on the set. 'I had three people: the acting coach, the dialect coach [Jessica Drake], and Frank,' Duncan explains. 'The acting coach would come over and say 'You know what? Your emotion isn't right on that scene. This is what you need to do.' I'd say, 'I'll remember that.' Now I'm crying, so I have to remember that. Then Jessica would come over and say, 'You missed this word. You sounded too intelligent. Remember, how to drop this off of this and how to curve it.' Then Frank would come over and say, 'If you give me this type of emotion, we can get through this.' You've got these three people coming over take after take after take, and all they want is to get that perfect scene.
'The dialect was a major, major cog, because John Coffey can't sound intelligent at all. He's five years old. That was a major thing, but Jessica worked it out so that even a week after the movie was over I was talking like that. I was like, 'Wait a minute. Let me put these words back together so people can understand me.''
With all this help, Duncan was still faced with the task of getting inside the mind of someone who is sentenced to die in the electric chair. The actor focused on one emotion.
'Fear. Definitely.'
Duncan elaborates: 'You walk into this execution chamber and you have all these people staring at you. All of them are there to see you put to death. They want to see you die, because they don't like you. It's the thing John Coffey said, he said 'There's a lot of people here who hate me boss. I can feel it.' Then the camera shoves back and everybody staring at him real hateful and he feels all that. You're sitting there and really it's all acting, but when you're sitting in a contraption like Old Sparky and somebody goes to put something over your face and you realize...your mind will play tricks on you. You know it's acting, but if somebody's putting this veil over your face, you don't know when that electricity is going to surge through your body. Your mind is just wondering. I knew that electricity wasn't going to surge or nothing, but I was sitting up there thinking, 'What if this were really true? What if they were really putting this veil over my face?' They probably would've had to carry me from that cell, scratching and screaming, because I wouldn't have been like 'Okay, I'm going to go.' I'd be like, 'Man, hold on. Wait a minute.' You can be tough all you want to, but when fear creeps into you, the toughest man would get weak. I think that's what Coffey was feeling at that time.'
Even though going through the motions of an execution was trying, Duncan describes another scene that was more difficult for him personally. 'The hardest was the scene when I was holding the two dead girls and [sheriff and townspeople] ran up to me, because I had to cry and scream,' he says. 'Frank wanted to see veins. He wanted to see me really straining, so Frank does it over and over, from this angle, that angle, every possible angle, so he can pick one and say, 'This is the perfect one I want to use for this scene.' But you, as an actor, have got to keep going every single time. A couple of times, I kind of dropped off and Frank said, 'Mike, I need you back up there, buddy. I need what you gave me earlier.' You're drained, but this is part of your job. It's what you get paid for. It's why you chose this occupation. As an actor, you just have to challenge yourself and pretend that this is the first time you're ever doing it. I think that that was the hardest day for me.'
Of course, one of the compensations that Duncan had as an actor was getting a chance to share the screen with such phenomenal cast members as two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks and Oscar nominee James Cromwell.
'That is an experience like, you're coming to, let's say you're a rookie and you're with the world champion Chicago Bulls,' Duncan says. 'You're a rookie and you walk in the gym and there's Michael Jordan, there's Scottie Pippen, there's Dennis Rodman, there's Phil Jackson. All these guys know what to do to win. You have James Cromwell who's an extraordinary actor. You have Michael Jeter who plays Eduard Delacroix phenomenally. Doug Hutchison, cool, plays Percy so well that you just hate him. You hate everything about this guy. When Sam Rockwell comes on as Billy the Kid, you should these guys get prepared to do their scenes. Sam Rockwell would bounce off the cell wall to get all sweaty and just climb on everything. He was so good you couldn't tell if it was Billy the Kid or Sam Rockwell in there and most of the time, it was Billy the Kid. But these guys, top to bottom, were a top line-up. I was just glad to be on the bench really. That's what it felt like, being on the bench with a championship team.'
Another bonus was the chance to meet the man who created the character of John Coffey. 'Stephen King came on the set on his birthday, which was remarkable,' Duncan says. 'He's a very tall individual, very intelligent looking. He came on the set and I was standing to the side and he walked up to me. He said, 'You're exactly what I pictured what John Coffey would look like in my dream.' For somebody like that to tell you that, that just blew me back. I said, 'If this guy thinks this, I'd better make sure that I'm going to do John Coffey right in this film.' And when he said that, from then on, I had even more determination to make this character larger-than-then. Stephen King was phenomenal. That was my first time ever seeing him.'
Those who have seen the The Green Mile have been universally loud in their praise for Duncan's moving portrayal of Coffey. Though the actor is certainly thankful for the role that will likely change the direction of his career, he says he's ready to branch out into something different. 'I'm not going to say 'No' because you just never know. I think the dead man era is over for me. I hope so. Everyone knows that I can play that now, so I would hope no more bars because I've done bars scenes for like... I've been in jail so many times. I've played bars scenes in The Bold and Beautiful and didn't know how to do it. I thought I was acting and had the bar right down the middle of my face, so really I'm kind of tired with bars, but then again, you never know. '