The playwright August Wilson is best known for the American century cycle, a series of ten plays that capture the Black American experience over every decade of the 20th century.

It is considered one of the crowning achievements of American theater, but genius is a process, and that process can take a few drafts.

So during the process of him writing the play,

I mean, that was one version that we started with.

And as we rehearsed, he changed speeches.

Samuel L. Jackson wasn't always Samuel L. Jackson.

Back then, he was an actor at the Yale Repertory Theater,

working really closely with August Wilson. In fact, SLJ originated the lead role of this film, Boy Willie.

You would learn a three-page speech, and the next day he would come in, you'd have a new three-page speech.

And he and Lloyd Richards were very close. The late great Lloyd Richards,

first black director on Broadway,

former dean of the Yale School of Drama,

and the place director.

Talking about the interactions between the cast members

and all these other things, so I talked to him a lot

about what he was writing, I talked to him a lot about why he wrote it, and I talked to him about things that he'd written already.

So it was very interesting being able to interact with him as he went through his process

and helped us with our process.

And as they learned how facile we were in terms of what we were able to absorb

or what we were able to do from day to day to day.

It became a little more intricate and difficult.

He wrote bigger and better speeches, and that's what he did.

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