RZA on His New Film One Spoon of Chocolate, His Future as a Director

Before making his fourth feature film, the action revenge thriller One Spoon of Chocolate, legendary rapper and music producer RZA was still, he confesses, unsure of himself as a filmmaker, feeling that he hadn’t yet mastered the process, the “rhythms” as he calls it, of being a director, at least not to the same comfort level he had with music.

After scaling the heights of hip hop as the de facto head of the Wu-Tang Clan, arguably the most influential rap group in history, RZA has found increasing success in film and television, firstly as an actor — he has starred in films like American Gangster (2007), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) and Nobody (2021) and series like Californication — and more significantly with writing and directing. His directorial debut, 2012’s The Man With the Iron Fists, starred Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, Dave Bautista and Lucy Lu. RZA followed that with Love Beats Rhymes, a musical drama starring Azelia Banks, in 2017 and the heist film Cut Throat City in 2020.

RZA also served as an executive producer on Hulu’s biographical series Wu-Tang: An American Saga, which documented the rise of his Staton Island rap crew, that gave the world the singular talents of himself, Raekwon, Method Man, GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killah, U-God and Inspectah Deck.

Now comes RZA’s fourth film as a director, One Spoon of Chocolate, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, and will, according to the filmmaker, have a theatrical release at a still to be confirmed date.

One Spoon of Chocolate tells the story of Unique, a military veteran and former convict who is trying to get his life back together and travels to the small town of Karensville to live with his cousin Ramsey, only for both to be hounded by a gang of racists with connections to the town’s corrupt cops. After a fatal incident, Unique seeks out the gang to exact brutal justice.

The film stars Shameik Moore (Dope, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-verse) as Unique and RJ Cyler (The Book of Clarence, The Harder They Fall) as Ramsey. The cast also includes Paris Jackson, Harry Goodwins, Johnell Young, Michael Harney, Rockmond Dunbar, E’myri Crutchfield, Blair Underwood, Jason Isbell and Isaiah Hill.

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with the RZA over Zoom recently to discuss the making of One Spoon of Chocolate, how writing scripts mirrors his method for writing lyrics, his growth as a filmmaker and his future plans.

Let’s start with the film’s title. Could you explain what One Spoon of Chocolate means? Is there a deeper significance?

With the title, there’s a deeper meaning in the sense of our character has to learn the way things need to be, the way things change. One spoon of chocolate can change a whole glass of milk, you know what I mean? That’s the idea. A character has to realize that, first of all, he represents change and he has to make a change within himself. There’s a scene in the film [where the character Unique is trying to make chocolate milk] and he’s complaining that it’s only one spoon of chocolate powder left. But an OG tells him ‘one spoon could change the whole glass.’

I know One Spoon of Chocolate is something you have been working on for a number of years, in terms of the story of the film, how did that come about? What inspired you to come up with the overarching themes?

It came to me like, man, over the years. I mean, it was 13 years of getting to a point of finally having a screenplay that we could film. To be quite frank with you, the movie is like 100 pages of a 200 page story, and it came to me almost like how my lyrics come, not forced out of me, just flowed out of me. It was something that [I needed time] for me as an artist to create. When I tried to create it before, I was getting stuck. I got inspired to make it, [but then got stuck again]. But then doing the New York State of Mind Tour, traveling on a tour bus and traveling through the country during the writer’s strike, I was like, ‘I’m gonna write something.’ I started writing something new and it just kept freezing and then I went back and started reading some of my old stuff and [One Spoon of Chocolate], I said, ‘wow, this was the one!’ I had about 40 pages. I said ‘this one was gonna be good.’ I had got to part in [Karensville, a fictional town in the film], basically, in the early draft, and then it just started flowing.

I read that originally you were going to do a period piece, that it was going to be set earlier, like in the 70s or around that period, but actually you moved it forward to, I guess, it’s the 90s, right?

Well, actually, I made the time ambiguous. It was always going to be ambiguous, but for the audience it was going feel like you were in the 90s or the 70s and all that. The whole Blaxploitation vibe, the whole genre mixing was what I was aiming at, but my goal and my intention was to remove the time aspect. This could be happening right now, even though Karensville is a fictional place, the idea of what our hero is going to go through, that could happen tomorrow, in all reality. When I started getting deeper into the draft, [when we were on tour] I was just conscious there are places that you [could be in], in our country, and you will definitely think you took a step backwards in time. That’s how when you’re on tour, you get a chance to see that. You end up stopping somewhere in a small town and you’ll go ‘wow, this place, they’re 20 years behind us, 30 years behind us.’

With the film, you’ve brought in these ideas that seem quite nostalgic, throwback even, but you’re saying that they’re actually quite real and relavent to America even now?

Oh yeah. You know, some of the things that take place in our film, there’s been articles [written on them]. There exists the idea of, let’s just call it the the white supremacist mind, that our hero has to fight the political context of. You know, there’s a gag in my film where the villains have on those white polo shirts and khaki trousers that we saw in Charlottesville [during the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in August 2017]. Art is always going to somehow imitate life and pull from reality even though it’s putting you into a fiction world. [The film is] fiction, but it’s inspired by true events, whether they be events that I personally experienced, like the corruption in the film. I’m a lyricist type of artist. You hear [Wu Tang] lyrics like: “I grew up on the crime side, The New York Times side, staying alive was no jive,” there’s a lot of content in it and taking life and putting it into a story. This is what’s happened in this film. Our hero, who is looking to just live a normal life and get on his feet, he’s in a place where things are not normal.

Actually, it’s interesting to me that you’re saying that it’s not normal, as there was a hyperreal sense to the film. Some of the fighting was quite amusing but also quite serious at the same time.

It’s a movie, like it has to entertain you. To be quite frank, the first goal of this movie is to entertain you and to make you feel something. I hope I’ve achieved this. You’re going to not want to turn your head away. You’re going to root for this guy. You will want to say, ‘Well, how is he going to make it fucking through this,’ you know what I mean? I make this joke about bats, our villains got all these fucking baseball bats, but I had them all lined up like a SWAT team would have their guns lined up. To me as an artist, you got to have fun, even though some of the things happening to our characters is no joking matter.

What made you decide to avoid having as many guns in the film, because it’s obvious that the action is steered to more physical things like knives and bats?

It’s a deliberate style choice. I’m a kung fu movie lover, and if somebody got a gun, there’s no need for a fist fight, right? But guns exist [in this world], so I was conscious to pace the usage of the guns, not overdo it.

This is your second time working with Shameik?

My second time in features, but my third project with him, he also played Raekwon in my TV show, Wu-Tang: An American Saga.

What is it about him that you like working with him? What are the qualities of him as an actor?

He’s what I like to call a sponge. He’s able to absorb the material with a free spirit. When we did our first movie we did together, Cut Throat City, he told me he never held a gun before, he grew up as an artist. He dances, he sings and acts. He’s not a street guy, and so he didn’t even know how to hold the gun. And I was like, ‘well, this is how you hold the gun. This is how you load it.’ And the next take he held it, loaded it. It looked real. He shot it, it looked real. He’s a sponge and for me as a director, and a writer, you wanna have an instrument that allows the music to flow through unintruded and uninterrupted, and he’s that kind of kid.

You also worked with Paris Jackson on this film. I’ve not seen her in many things before acting wise, was it interesting to work with her as an actor?

Yeah, very interesting. I got to give a shout out to my casting director, she was able to put some good people in front of me. In our film, somebody says, ‘oh, this is a racist town’ [about Karensville] But it’s not a racist town, it’s a town with racist people. And then Darla [Jackson’s character] will give you an example of that, she represents the new way that people will love our country to be. There’s a scene in the movie when they both touch hands and it’s like black and white coming together. She represents the new. Her best friend is Black, the young people they’re looking to move culture and move life forward without all the systemic stuff of the past.

You’re well known for your love of Hong Kong action films and action films generally, but you’re also blending in lots of other genres into One Spoon of Chocolate, such as the blaxploitation stuff. Was it a challenge for you as a director to pull that all together?

The challenge was cost and time, but creatively, no. I feel like as a filmmaker, this is my fourth film, I honestly feel like I have arrived. When I was making this one, I just felt my rhythm, my use of my days, there was not a lot of overtime days. My planning was better. Everything about me as a filmmaker, I think has evolved. The challenging parts that we faced [in the movie], there’s also a spoonful of horror in this movie [when you watch it]. You think about the horror genre, you think about Eli Roth, that shit popped up in this movie. You go back [and see it] and then you think about the classic, 70s movies like Walking Tall. Then you think about the blaxploitation. I was able to use cinema as cinema, and put a spoonful of ingredients from the things I love.

There’s a shot in this movie, when [Moore’s character] walks [Jackson’s character] home and they’re on the porch, that’s an 80s romantic comedy [vibe]. I wanted to shoot it like that… I was just being conscious of all the things that I loved as a film watcher, all the things I love from the people who inspired me to make films, of course. John Wu, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, I always mentioned those three men as my first teachers in this world. I just wanted to put a spoonful of all of that into my story, but not overdo it. It’s not gumbo, but it is a stew.

Were there any particular things that you felt were like a challenge in terms of the filmmaking process, something that’s stuck out for you?

We shot this movie in 29 days. I probably could have used 35, 36 days, that would have been more healthier for us. But I had a great crew, the Atlanta crews are well oiled. My stunt coordinator, Marrese Crump. [Actually Crump] worked as my stunt man on The Man With Iron Fists and then he became like a trainer for [Chadwick Boseman] for the Black Panther movies. He’s got a team of guys out there that does martial arts. [Crump] is a student of [Panna Rittikrai] who is in Tony Jaa’s camp, the guys that made [Ong-Bak and The Protector]. Marrese studied over there for 10 years and he was available, we brought him in and if you watch the action in this film, it doesn’t look like kung fu, it has a few of those moves, but it’s more visceral. It’s more like our hero, there is something natural about [his fighting style], and that’s what we wanted, and, [Marrese] was able help design those ideas for me.

The reason why I think I was able to pull the action scenes off, and I hope you like the end result, is because with the action I had a chance to start practicing early. That’s what saved us. I gave Marrese the script, I gave him the scenes, and that was like two months before we started shooting, before we started prepping. So he had time to help get the energy ready. I thought I was going to get lucky with [David Leitch’s company 87North Productions]. I sent the script to Marrese, but I also was wishing that 87North would come on board, but they had their hands full with The Fall Guy and Nobody. But they took a look at some of the previous stuff that Marrese had done and they said ‘you’re going to be in good hands, this guy is good.’

One Spoon of Chocolate premiered at Tribeca and it will get a theatrical release, right?

Yes, that’s the goal, you know, nothing is certain in our world, but the answer is yes.

Do you feel like you got robbed a little bit with COVID with your last film Cut Throat City not getting a much delayed theatrical release? [A hit with critics, Cut Throat City was released in theaters on Aug. 21, 2020, when cinema attendances were decimated by the pandemic].

Yeah, yeah I love Cutthroat City, but with this one, I got to honestly say, with this one I personally feel like I have arrived. Like I look at it myself and smile like. If this was a song, I would be saying I made a great song this time. This is a good song, not because I like it, because it actually has structure, it’s been structured to be a good song.

What was the reaction to the film like at Tribeca?

At the Tribeca Festival, bro, this shit played exactly how it should have played. People were laughing, we got some tears. We got a big fucking cheer at the end. People were yelling at the at the screen. A lot of films sometimes you’re not getting that visceral response. This film makes you react, and that’s what I think all of us as filmmakers, that’s a joy for us. That’s our task. How can we get a reaction out of this? It’s why the horror movies and the horror drama is so big now. They get reactions. We were able to do that with the action thriller.

Sorry, I’m running my mouth, but I showed the film to Quentin Tarantino, and that was like a kid showing his essay to the teacher. And I sat like three rows behind him while the film played, and he laughed every time he was supposed to, screamed at the [right] scenes, and at the end of it, he said, ‘man, great fucking job.’ He was asking me ‘how the fuck did you get a fucking car chase like that? How did you do that? How many fucking days for that car chase?’ He thought the car chase would have taken us five days, and I had to pull that shit off in two days. That’s great praise.

I was so happy Quentin and David Fincher were watching the film with me, it felt like I had arrived as a filmmaker. I feel like I’ve been through a great process. I had great chances. I’ve been lucky, of course. I had my first film, The Man with the Iron Fists, star Russell Crowe, Lucy Lu. I mean, how many people get that kind of luck and blessings? But I kept going, kept striving to develop myself as a serious filmmaker. I feel good now. I’m not nervous of it. It’s like, give me the mic, I’m gonna sing.

So the premier at Tribeca, where would you rank that in terms of your career achievements? Because you’ve done a lot of amazing things, had a lot of great success in music.

It’s different. As a hip hop artist, as a record producer it was almost destiny that I was going be there because I’ve been into hip hop since I was 7 years old. I wrote my first song at 9, so that seemed like, obvious in a way. If you knew me, [you would have said] yeah he’s gonna be a rapper. But a film director, nobody saw that, not even myself. And then when it started happening, it was a blessing, it was an epiphany that I can use my art and talent to be that too, to write it and direct it. We played One Spoon of Chocolate at Tribeca, in New York City, my hometown, at a full packed house of people yelling and screaming at the screen and covering their eyes and, and cheering at the end. I was like, OK, this is what I would call a a gravy moment in life. It was unpredicted moment, but so satisfying. I’ve got the bug, I want to make films, if I’m blessed, this is what I want to do. I want to finish this last Wu-Tang tour, and I want to dedicate my time to using my art and talent to tell stories through cinema and I want to do it better than AI!