They've Got Next

In a west Hollywood photo studio, Don Cheadle interrupts lunch to play a little show and tell. Cheadle, 34, is the sinuous actor whose supporting performances lit up "Out of Sight" and "Devil in a Blue Dress." Around him, casually networking, are three of his most promising peers: Omar Epps, Mekhi Phifer and Hill Harper. Without warning, Cheadle whips out his Golden Globe award, which he earned for his portrayal of Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO's "The Rat Pack." The others stop eating, awed. Actually, it isn't even the trophy, just a gold sticker with his name on it. "They don't give you the s--- when you win," Cheadle riffs. "They take away the one you see on TV and give you this sticker to stick on the real one when it comes." But as Cheadle laughs, the others handle the artifact with reverence. "Man, you're really coming up," says Epps, now costarring in the ill-conceived "Mod Squad." After the year black Hollywood just went through, any recognition is precious.

Chris Rock summed up the moment best. Looking out over the crowd at the Oscars last week, the comedian observed, "It's like the Million White-Man March out there." Though the 71st annual Academy Awards ceremony featured a black host and choreographer, testimony to blacks' growing clout in the industry, no African-American was nominated for a major award. (Even Colleen Atwood, nominated for her costume design for "Beloved," is white.) Just a few years after breakthrough films like "Boyz N the Hood" and "House Party" promised a richer, more diverse future for the entertainment industry, black film in 1998 foundered both commercially and critically.

For the young actors in the photo studio--and for peers like Isaiah Washington, Larenz Tate and Taye Diggs--the slump is especially threatening. They are the generation launched by the boom of the early 1990s, building reputations with arresting, edgy performances in support roles or modest-budget films. Now they are ready to follow Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes to leading roles. But as up-and-comers, they cannot afford to repeat the failures of 1998.

The next eight months will be a critical test. Between now and the end of the year, 15 movies with black male leads or predominantly black casts are scheduled for release. "It's gotten a little better in the last few years for us getting the roles that make people take notice," says Epps, whose roles in "Scream 2" and "The Mod Squad" exposed him to a mainstream audience. "The rest of it is on us to make things happen." Phifer, a Harlem native who got his start in Spike Lee's "Clockers," downplays any undue pressure to succeed. "The world needs all of us to work, and that can't be ignored," he says. Besides, "White films flop, too, and they keep making them."

The actors concede that in many ways, they are uniquely fortunate. African-Americans, just 13 percent of the population, account for 25 percent of the ticket-buying public, a market Hollywood has belatedly come to recognize. But after a promising start, Hollywood stands baffled about what kinds of black films or roles sell tickets. At the high end, Oprah Winfrey's ambitious, $53 million "Beloved" earned back less than half its budget. Lower on the food chain, Hype Williams's 'hoodsploitation shoot-'em-up "Belly" also flopped, despite enough rap stars and gunplay to satisfy any adolescent filmgoer. After the failure of the star-studded "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," featuring Halle Berry and Vivica A. Fox, studio DreamWorks dropped plans for a film version of the musical "Dream Girls," to star Lauryn Hill. "It's truly amazing that black films have such a tough time when black culture is the most popular culture in the world," says Stacy Spikes, who founded the Urban World Film Festival. "Black music like Lauryn Hill has crossed every cultural divide. Why that doesn't transfer to the big screen is truly a mystery."

Cinque Henderson, a former executive at DreamWorks, attributes today's blues to bad decisions--and bad movies--made after the first flush of success. White audiences, he says, loved the early movies by Spike Lee or John Singleton, whose "Poetic Justice" had the richest opening weekend of any black movie. "At $18 million, a lot of black and white people went to see it. But it wasn't good, and that turned a lot of people off." The politically charged movies that followed, he argues--citing "Amistad," "Beloved" and Singleton's "Rosewood"--added to the damage. "That's not what white people want to hear, and, truth be told, black people, either."

The young actors, who are not yet proven at the box office, often still find themselves at odds in Hollywood. "I'm told I don't smile enough," complains Washington, who smolders opposite Clint Eastwood in "True Crime." Many scripts offer only stereotypes, or no black roles at all. The VP of development at one studio, who is white, concedes, "When I'm in a meeting about a big film, if the script doesn't call for a black or minority character, it really doesn't cross our minds to put somebody black in it. It's not racism, though I'm sure that's what everyone wants to call it. But all-white movies sell. There's no blacks in 'Saving Private Ryan' or 'There's Something About Mary,' and they sold at the box office. So there's not a lot of incentive to make changes. It's wrong, but that's the reality."

Frozen out of period movies like "Shakespeare in Love," the actors have to compete for contemporary roles with rap stars like Ice Cube and Master P, who bring a built-in audience. "We're the only group of artists that Hollywood doesn't see as true artists," says Hill Harper, with a touch of grandiosity. "You'd never see De Niro audition for a role against the Goo Goo Dolls."

Harper's recent movie, "The Nephew," illustrates the conceptual constraints often applied to black films. The story of a bi-racial young New Yorker who goes to Ireland to meet his white relatives, the movie has rung up respectable box-office figures and good reviews in Ireland, but hasn't found a distributor here. "I heard a number of times from studios that the film is great, but can't the lead be white?" says its director, Eugene Brady, who is white. Miramax has shown interest in the movie, but its future remains uncertain.

Against these challenges, Epps has started to work with screenwriter friends, "trying to make something happen." But Cheadle, the most established of the group, counsels the others to reconsider their measures of success. If not the megastardom of Will Smith, then at least a quality body of work. "For us," says Cheadle, "you got to be in it for the love of acting, and not for the props [respect], because they probably won't come. We say our experience is different from theirs, but then we get mad when we can't get dressed in tuxes and win an Oscar. We need to get past that." As the others finish looking, he puts his Golden Globe sticker back in his pocket. The trophy itself will arrive shortly: a solid token of respect well deserved. And for these talented actors, they hope, the first of many.