LaKeith Stanfield on The Book of Clarence and how Jesus envy likely inspired imposters

For The Book of Clarence, LaKeith Stanfield has re-teamed with his The Harder They Fall director Jeymes Samuel for another subversive take on a classic cinematic genre. Whereas their first film together was a Revisionist Western drawing on the exploits of real-life Black cowboys and cowgirls, The Book of Clarence takes your standard Biblical epic and injects it with a heavy dose of melanin, mischief, mirth, and myrrh. 

Stanfield was initially drawn to the script because he felt the protagonist Clarence, a streetwise hustler with dreams of a better life, had a journey that mirrored his own. But he was also excited to “show Black skin in a time and space in history that we don't often see Black skin represented, if really at all.”

“And I know we were there,” the Oscar-nominated actor tells EW. “Black people are the oldest people on the planet. We were everywhere, but we're not always represented that way. I wanted to show that. And I thought, I would want to see a movie like this.”

Here, Stanfield discusses what it must have felt like seeing Jesus performing all those miracles — “There definitely were people who wanted to do that.” — and why audiences should check their preconceived notions at the door when seeing The Book of Clarence. 

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This movie feels like a mix of Ben-Hur, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Friday. There’s so much weed-smoking. How would you describe this movie and the idea behind it?

LaKEITH STANFIELD: I would describe it as a story about a young man that perhaps lived down the street or around the corner from Jesus, who is watching all the miracles that Jesus is performing and is inspired by it. And he looks at it as a way to take his family from rags to riches. And perhaps, actually, more poignant is the idea that he wants to make himself a somebody instead of a nobody. And he'll do that by any means necessary. 

So he figures, "Well, Jesus is doing all these miracles. Why don't I just do 'em? I'm a nonbeliever anyway. So I'll do some miracles. I'll be able to get my family to a better place. Everything will be fine." And he learns throughout that journey, that probably wasn't the right tool to bring about the self-esteem that he was looking to bring about. 

So he's humbled and finds some redemption at the end of the story. It's a story of coming to understand one's knowing rather than one's belief. He had to know who he was and what he was capable of in order to see his full potential and therefore unlock it.

I am not a religious person, but I don't think you need to be religious to enjoy this film or relate to it. It seems to me it's less about Christianity and more about finding your purpose and reason for being.

I would agree with that, yeah. I don't view it as a religious film at all. I think it just uses some of those themes and it seats itself in a time and space that's realized in the Bible. But it's not religious. In fact, Clarence, the lead character, isn't religious at all. He doesn't even believe [Jesus' miracles] in the beginning. And he sort of comes to find his faith and it's somewhat ambiguous to what that faith actually is. Whether or not it's rooted in the literal belief or rooted in himself might be open to interpretation, which I think is a beautiful thing.

Believing in yourself, knowing yourself is an important lesson for us all in this life. We try to understand the world as what human beings do. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out this phenomenon, what's going on around us. So I would say maintaining a cynical perspective is necessary. And I would say also, it's a good thing to have going into this film.

Most people think when they see this film, hear this film, there's a bunch of preconceived notions that might pop up. But I'd say suspend your belief, for lack of a better word, until you see the movie and you'll realize that there are different layers to it. So yeah, I encourage people to not let their belief systems inhibit them from seeing something that might be quite different than what you thought it was. 

What it's definitely not is a movie that is seated in the mockery of any religion or any person in the religion — that wouldn't be useful, that wouldn't be fun, that wouldn't be funny, it wouldn't be insightful. I see no reason to be a part of things like that. But this is a story that is about a guy, a character, and every man who probably lived around the corner from Jesus and saw all those things and was like, “Yo, I want to do that.” And you can't tell me that there was nobody around who was like, “I want to be like that dude.” There definitely were people who wanted to do that. 

Jesus was like the first celebrity. Literally, "Jesus Christ Superstar."

Exactly. I mean, there were probably more people who wanted to do that than anything. How many people were trying to act like they were Jesus around that time? It was probably crazy. So we're taking one of those dudes in an imaginary sense and bringing his story to life for very real lessons that I think appeal to — definitely appeal to me — but hopefully it can appeal to everyone.

This movie looks like it was a really fun to work on. What was your favorite scene to shoot?

Most of my scenes with RJ [Cyler], they're quite fun because he's just such a fun dude. He's funny, he's so light on his feet. Also with James [McAvoy], he's just a fun actor to work around with and play with. Everybody was really amazing. It's hard to pick one, but I think it might be the scenes with RJ.

I thought you were going to say the dance sequence…

Oh, no, that was probably the least fun for me. I mean, it was just that day I got the dance moves, it was like 12 moves or something, and I'm like, “Really? We're about to shoot in an hour and you could give me all of these dance moves?” I'm like, “This is crazy.” So I was super nervous, but we got through it by the grace of God. When I freeform dance, I'm much better than this! Guys, don't think that I can't dance! It's just that, goddamn it, I just got this. Anyway. I probably shouldn't say goddamn it because...well anyway, henceforth.

Have you and Jeymes talked about maybe doing another project?

[maniacal laugh] If we did, I shan’t release that information! Um…maybe. I'd like to keep that on a cliffhanger.

The Book of Clarence is in theaters now.

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