Anthony Mackie talks frankly about how drug dealers in New York were a benefit to their community

The Talking Movies Interview took a turn for the interesting…

Tom Brook: “Why did you find your character in ‘Half Nelson’ intriguing? Is it because he doesn’t conform to the idea of a typical drug dealer?”

Anthony Mackie: “Not at all, that wasn’t on the script when I read it. Where I grew up, drug dealers weren’t bad people. Everytime I tried to hang on the corner the drug dealer would be like ‘What you out here for? You wanna buy sneakers. Look here’s 50 dollars, go buy sneakers. Just go, you don’t need to be out here’.

The drug dealers, until recently, took care of the neighborhood because the government didn’t take care of the neighbourhood. The only way we could live was by the drug dealers taking care of all the kids in the ‘hood.

Drug dealers were celebrities and that’s how it was in the 70’s and the 80’s. In the 90’s when it really took hold of a neighbourhood that’s when everything went bitter. But I don’t know drug dealers that aren’t cool.”

Tom Brook: “You can’t really argue with the fact that are a lot of very exploitive drug dealers who are taking advantage of people.”

Anthony Mackie: “We’re in New York. There’s a lot of exploitive business men. I feel like the buisiness men in America are worse than the drug dealers in every way. How many people who grew up in New York, who work in New York, can afford to live in New York? You have exploitive real estate tycoons, money hounds that are just running people into the ground.”