Keith David Bids Farewell To ‘Greenleaf,’ Sheds Some Light On His Infamous ‘They Live!’ Fight Scene With Roddy Piper

Keith David has a voice that’s as memorable as his filmography is diverse, and if you aren’t certain whether or not this comparison holds up, go take a gander at the work he’s done over the course of his 40+ years as an actor, and we’ll wait here for your apology.

Okay, now that that’s settled, the final episode of David’s most recent series, Greenleaf, is airing this evening on OWN, and it’s been quite a journey for his character, Bishop James Greenleaf, over the run of its five seasons. David was kind enough to hop on the phone with Decider to discuss his run on the show, as well as a few other projects in his back catalog, including his work with both Mr. Rogers and John Carpenter. In regards to the latter, we must admit that while we didn’t necessarily expect the answer to a question about the epic fight scene in They Live to get quite so serious, the resulting conversation was an extremely illuminating one in light of the current racial climate in America.

DECIDER: It’s already been announced that this will be the final season of Greenleaf. Are you wistful that it’s coming to a close?

KEITH DAVID: Well, I’m excited that the season is finally here, so I can see how the people receive it. I think it’s a very exciting season, and I can’t wait to see what the reactions are.

Have you enjoyed the bishop’s arc over the show’s run?

More than I can tell you on one phone call. [Laughs.] I mean, just immensely. It’s been one of the most exciting rides of my life, and I deeply appreciate it. 

Is there any particular aspect of the character or any of his travails that’s surprised you?

I think, if anything, it’d be how truly and deeply the bishop’s faith goes. I say all the time that the bishop is just a man, and in the course of the nearly 50 years that he has been a preacher and wanting to preach the word of God and getting to know the word of God, his own human ambitions have come into play about being a leader, where he wanted the status in the community and all those things, and having all the trappings. I think he was susceptible to all those things. But once acquired and then having to examine how they were acquired, there comes a point in his life where it’s, like, “You know, God, sometimes I let my way get in the way of Your will.” 

And by the time we get to the first season, when his daughter comes back after 20 years, he is entering a season in his life where he is ready to accept whatever the consequences of his actions were. There are times, I think, when he wants to say, “Oh, Lord, does it have to be right now? Can’t we put it off for a little while?” [Laughs.] “Can we revisit this at another time?” But that’s also not how God works. God works in God’s time. So I think he’s ready and willing to accept that, no matter how painful it is. And as you see, it can be pretty painful at times. 

I’ve enjoyed a lot of the character actors they’ve brought in as recurring characters. It was great seeing Richard Gant pop up relatively recently.

Yeah, Richard’s a good friend, and it was wonderful to get to hang out with him. I’ve known Richard over 30 years, and it was a great pleasure to finally get to share some screen time with him. And the most wonderful thing – and this has been true for my whole cast – is that he’s such a wonderful artist that I didn’t have to act. I didn’t have to pretend anything. I just had to read the script and be true to the story. 

I was surprised to see Beau Bridges turn up. That was pretty awesome. 

That was pretty awesome. [Laughs.] I mean, I wasn’t surprised, given the nature of the character. It was quite a part. Not just anybody could take on that part. That takes an extraordinary human being…and when I say “extraordinary,” I mean great people who are out for the betterment of mankind, not necessarily just for the betterment of their own kind. 

I wanted to ask you about a few things in your back catalog, but I have to start with the fact that you spent some time on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. What was Fred Rogers like?

Fred Rogers was a phenomenal man. I didn’t know before I started working with him that he was a Presbyterian minister, and his ministry was to children, and I think children between, like, 6 and 8 was the target demographic of his ministry. And he did that quite well. I mean, when you examine it… I remember when I was young watching Mr. Rogers and going, like, “Okay, all right, all right…” [Laughs.] But there were other moments that I absolutely enjoyed, like some of the puppet shows. But as an adult, when I got to work on it, it was just extraordinary. 

Paul Lally was the director that I worked with over there, and it was extraordinary how they never condescended to children. They talked to them about real things, real subjects, in an incredibly human way that was… Well, it was kind of adult. It didn’t play down to them. It took in the innocence of their sensibilities, but it didn’t play down to them as if they couldn’t understand or didn’t understand. One of my favorite episodes that I participated in was called “War and Peace,” and that was how arguments and disputes and wars happen due to misunderstandings and fear. I thought that that was an extraordinary way to explain adult behavior in those situations. If you overhear some of these summit meetings, and as you watch the fear creep in and how, as people on either side get more afraid, they get more angry, they get more vitriolic, and they start shutting down. They think that their point is not going to be made or that they’re somehow being compromised in a way they don’t want to be. I mean, I have great, great respect for Mr. Rogers. 

One of our readers was curious if you had any specific recollections of the bass violin festival episode.

I remember the song. [Singing.] “Bass violin / Bass violin / We love you / Yes, we do / We love you…” [Laughs.]

That’s pretty specific! Okay, onward to less kid-friendly topics: how did you first cross paths with John Carpenter?

It was at the audition [for The Thing]. But what I remember most about that whole period is that I was living in New York, and I’d go up to auditions with mostly the same group of New York actors. So we’d be in the producer’s office, reading a scene where an argument breaks out, and one of the guys… I think he pulls out a gun or something. And this particular actor just sort of cleared that producer’s desk. He just swept everything off his desk. And I was, like, “Holy crap!” [Laughs.] And I was so engrossed in what was going on in the room and what was transpiring between the actors that, when he cleared that desk, there was a moment of silence…and the moment continued. And pretty soon everybody in the room was on the same bus, wondering, “What’s next?” And that’s when I looked down…and it was my line! I, uh, had a two-word response when I realized it. It was very funny. 

So let me ask you: do you think Childs was The Thing?

I think it’s so if you think it’s so. But I don’t think so. [Laughs.] And, of course, if you follow the track of the movie, I wouldn’t know if I was until I was attacked, right?

Fair enough. Okay, time to dispel another theory was the epic-length fight scene in They Live improvised?

[Long pause.] Let me ask you something: what do you think?

I think it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t choreographed.

Any fight scene you see in any movie is choreographed.

Look, not every reader question is going to be a winner…

[Laughs.] Yeah, well, it’s my job to make it look spontaneous. But it’s choreographed. If you’ve ever been in a fight, you know there’s stuff that happens… In fact, most fights that you see in the street – that are very real – last all of three minutes, if that long. Somebody gets hurt, and then it stops. A fight like we did in They Live, which lasted seven minutes… And there was some pretty dangerous slugging going on! If one of us had cut the other with that bottle, or if that 2×4 had gone into somebody’s leg or across somebody’s leg, the fight is over!

Now, what I like about the question… I mean, obviously, there was something in and about it that rang true enough for them to believe that it could be that spontaneous. And that’s the goal. That’s what we want. We want to bring that level of reality to it that you go, “Oh, my God, these guys are really fighting!” But at the same time, we didn’t want to take you out of the moment of the story and think, “These are actors…” You want to believe that these characters are settling something. And that’s a wonderful thing. 

I can’t say that I’ve witnessed it myself, but I’ve heard tell that there have been moments onstage where two actors get into it for real, and suddenly the action is really happening. Now, depending on how they come out of that moment, the audience can tend to think that that was just part of the show, unless and except when there’s nothing said about why these two characters enter into some kind of brawl. But it happens! And suddenly the reality that you’ve been led to believe up to that moment shifts into something else.

One of the reasons why fight scenes have to be choreographed is that at no point in the moment do you ever want the audience to become so fearful for one of the characters that it takes them out of the experience. You want to keep them engrossed and involved in the story. If they think that one of the guys is going to really get hurt, suddenly you’re out of the moment, and you’re watching two guys fight, and…that’s not fun.

Not so much. 

It’s one thing if you see teenagers fighting in a school yard and it remains fisticuffs, and no sticks, guns, or knives come out. That’s one thing. But it’s a whole other thing when you see two grown men fight. Just think about when adults get carried away at their kids’ games. If you see two guys duking it out on the hockey field, you want it stopped because anybody gets hurt, but when you see two fathers go at it because of some bad call the ref made, that’s a whole other thing. People get killed that way. And nobody wants to be the witness to a murder. It’s one thing to watch it on TV, when you know the other guy’s gonna get up once the camera’s off. But if you were actually watch the life being snuffed out of someone in person, your reality changes. It has to. As we are experiencing right now. 

I was just going to say that. The videos that are emerging, hearing the people in the background, the witnesses, making very loud and understandably horrified exclamations… Real life is very, very different.

It’s very different in real life. That’s something… [Takes a deep breath.] You don’t forget that. You can’t dismiss that as an episode of The Twilight Zone or something. It’s sad, because it was a lesson learned in sacrifice. It was abominable. But if his death serves as a wake-up call to America, to the world… This stuff has got to stop. And it’s not okay in anybody’s book to watch the senseless, brutal murder of another human being. Especially unnecessarily, if you’re not defending your life, or the life of a loved one. But even then it can be questionable if you can stop it in some other way. Cops are supposed to be trained to wound before they kill. But such is not the case, especially when it comes to black men and people of color. And the cops in this country have been given license to do that. That has never been okay, but it’s certainly no longer okay.

And never should’ve been. 

And never should’ve been. 

And now I’ve got to find something really lighthearted to change up this tone.

[At this, David bursts out laughing.] 

But having said that, every conversation goes this way now. As it should. That’s what supposed to happen. 

That is what’s supposed to happen! Because for far too long, we have been looking to lighten up the conversation when you start talking about this. We’re talking about the brutal murder of a human being. We’re talking about the inequity in the way people of color in this country are dealt with. Now, it’s been going on so long that there’s a kind of status quo that goes along with it, that even when you feel bad – especially as a white person – you don’t say anything about it because, well, what can you say? And very few people have the balls to say, “That’s not right!” And we have to stop that. We have to stop that. Not you have to stop that. We have to stop that! 

I agree 100%.

White-on-white crime is just as heinous as white-on-black crime, but white-on-black crime is even more heinous because it has become acceptable on some level. It is no longer acceptable. And as long as we can all agree upon that, then changes can be made. They have to be. 

And I hope they are, sooner than later.

Amen.

Well, I do want to ask you about one of your earlier series, and it’s more lighthearted, certainly, but Enlisted does actually tackle something serious, albeit within the confines of a comedy. I always thought it was an underrated sitcom.

You and me both! [Laughs.] Yeah, I mean, first of all, it was really the first show of its kind, that talked about this other aspect of serving this country. M*A*S*H was about people off of American soil, dealing with whatever has to be dealt with, but perhaps the only other comedy that dealt with people at home who don’t go to war was Gomer Pyle…and that was an altogether different kind of comedy! Enlisted was really about the guys who serve our country, taking care of the families of the men and women who serve. It’s very important that we don’t forget them and their value, because the men and women who go out there and serve can’t do their job if they’re worried about their loved ones at home. Somebody has to take care of them, and they have to be taken care of well, so you can concentrate on whatever it is that you need to do. So that’s what Enlisted was about, and what distinguishes it from Gomer Pyle, or from M*A*S*H or Combat! or any of those other war series.

How did you enjoy the experience of doing New York Undercover?

What was that, 25 years ago? [Laughs.] I had a great time. As I remember, I had a five-episode arc as a priest. Actually, it was kind of a civil-activist part. There was some civil unrest going on in my community which had to be dealt with. So I enjoyed that. I like double-edged swords. Comedies that have a little bit of drama in them, drama that you can find a little bit of humor in. Because life is not maudlin all the time, and in the midst of deepest sorrow, you can have a big belly laugh. There may not necessarily be anything happy going on around you, but there’s a joy in life to be found in any circumstance. 

I just want to say that – although perhaps it’s more relevant now – I recently rewatched Community, and I think my favorite bit from your stint on the show was when you were encouraging white people. 

[Cackles long and loud.] I was compelled to encourage white people! I recently saw a clip of it online, and it was pretty funny. I enjoyed doing Community. In fact, I just did an episode of the podcast Joel [McHale] and Ken [Jeong] are doing. It was fun. It was great being with those guys. 

Lastly, with your voiceover work, was there any job that you found difficult to get through, whether it was because of the vocabulary or just because it was ridiculous?

Sometimes. I mean, yeah, I’ve done some things that have medical terms. I’ve done a couple of World War II documentaries where some of the German words or other foreign words had to be dealt with. And when I did The War, some of the imagery, talking about people being buried in mass graves, some of that was hard to get through. I can’t be totally devoid of what that feels like. It doesn’t have to be my immediate family, my brother-in-law, or my cousin for me to feel the loss of life. 

Again, going back to what we were talking about, if you have any humanity within you at all, you can’t see life snuffed out… Even if they’re the most heinous criminal, there’s something in you that’s diminished when you see a man’s life ended. I mean, when it comes down to it, even a serial killer, your Jeffrey Dahmer or whoever, if you were to see them get shot down in the street….  [Long exhale.] There’s something in me that gets wounded. I was watching a speech by Dr. King recently, and he quoted John Donne: “No man is an island. No man stands alone. Each man’s joy is joy to me. Each man’s grief is his own.” I believe that to be profoundly true.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)

Watch the Greenleaf series finale on OWN