The Harder They Fall Director Jeymes Samuel On Black Cowboys, Working with Jay-Z, and the Audacity of Swag

The Harder They Fall—the new Netflix western whose cast includes Jonathan Majors, Regina King, Idris Elba, Lakeith Stanfield and Zazie Beetz, plus Jay-Z as a producer and a $90 million budget—is Jeymes Samuel’s first feature film, but after speaking with him it’s easy to see how so many heavy-hitters could put their trust in him. We were supposed to meet in person until his New York trip got delayed, but even a Zoom conversation can’t dull or contain Samuel’s energy. At any given moment, Samuel may seamlessly mimic the voice of one of his collaborators, or quote a specific Method Man or Robert De Niro line to underline the point he’s trying to make, or break into song, or break into song and sound effect, like when he does a rousing impression of the reggae singer Barrington Levy’s vocal runs while slamming a table to create the sensation of horses galloping, and explain how he matched the sound to the score.

Born in London and raised in KIlburn Lane’s Mozart Estate, Samuel—whose older brother is Henry Samuel, aka Seal—first established himself as a singer, songwriter and producer operating under the pseudonym, The Bullits, working with everyone from Jay Electronica, Talib Kweli and even Lucy Liu. It was his close collaboration with Electronica that led to him developing a relationship with Jay-Z, who broughtSamuel on to help with the soundtrack and score for his Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby in 2013. Samuel later directed the music video for 4:44 cut “Legacy,” which featured Ron Perlman, Susan Sarandon and Jesse Williams. In other words, corralling A-list talent is par for the course with Samuel. He got his feet wet in 2013 with They Die By Dawn, a short western starring Michael K Williams, Rosario Dawson, Jesse Williams, Harry Lennix Jr, and Erykah Badu, and the idea for The Harder They Fall gestated in his mind for at least 10 years. The result is a highly stylized revenge action-adventure with crackling dialog and an assortment of colorful characters who are all based on real Black people from the New West.

When it comes to inspiring powerful people to trust in his vision, even if it seems far-fetched, Samuel says nothing is impossible. For example, “If I say I want to go to the moon. Well, I know Jay-Z, and Jay must know someone that knows Jeff Bezos and so on and so forth until there you are. [Jay-Z, in fact, knows Jeff Bezos.] So the next time he goes to the moon and you see a Black guy with him, just know that guy is the Jeymes Samuel of space travel.” Now that The Harder They Fall is out to rousing critical acclaim, it seems likely that Samuel’s next pitch will be a much easier sell. Samuel talked to GQ about his obsession with westerns and what he wanted to correct within the genre, working with Jay-Z on the script and the soundtrack, and the genius of Regina King.

What is it about the western that fascinates you? It’s a very distinct genre to stake one’s first feature film on.

Well, when I was a kid, westerns were always on TV. My mom and dad were always watching them. And so I always loved Westerns, but they would always present a very narrow scope in those stories. They'd be very white male-centric. They wouldn't even show women with any power in those stories. So although I loved the movies, the horses, the world, the environment, it's just hard as hell. After a while, you're like, okay, where are the women? How come all the women are subservient? All of the people of color would be treated as less than human. Native Americans would be regarded as Indians, circling wagons with white, dainty women and their children. Mexicans were always like, small and wearing white. Chinese characters were always wearing blue and doing laundry. And if you were Black, need I say more? Even though, [in reality] one in four cowboys was black.

So I always wanted to, not necessarily make that movie, but see it. Ten years ago I shot a short film called They Die by Dawn. It's all black people—Michael K. Williams, Rosario Dawson, Erykah Badu, Jesse Williams, Isaiah Washington, Nate Parker, Bokeem Woodbine, Harry Lennix. I put all the gods in there. And that was just to show people that we existed. And I was making The Harder They Fall for maybe sixteen years and people were saying, "Why didn't you make the short film a feature?" But you know what, Frazier? That wasn't the story I wanted to give black people. Like, cinematically.

When we have our Western, we have to have bank robberies, train robberies, jailbreaks. I put a jailbreak and a train robbery in the exact same scene—none of this has been done before. This has never been done before in the history of jailbreaks. So, I wanted to give us everything. And also, The Harder They Fall being my debut film, it's just a dope statement to make. Like it’s a huge budget blockbuster. I don't think it would have made as much noise if I just made a [film about] where I grew up and all of that. I don't think I would have been talking to Frazier right now.

Looking at They Die By Dawn and The Harder They Fall, it reminds me of El Mariachi to Desperado. Robert Rodriguez essentially remaking his film on a bigger budget and grander scale.

I shot They Die By Dawn in four days and I didn't do it for commercial release. That was just an introduction to us in the Old West. Black people are a blur in that aspect of the new frontier, right? After slavery, from the Emancipation Proclamation Act to really the Roaring 20's and the Harlem Renaissance. They just blurred us out from when we were actually on horseback with guns, all these outlaws and this and that and quite frankly, I want to see that history. The reason why people don't like westerns as much is because the stories that should have been told weren't being told. You see people queuing up to watch Regina King, Idris Elba [in this film]. I thought you all didn't like Westerns?

The film is incredibly stylized. There's a lot of swag in it, there's a lot of style in it, which is a new sensation for black characters in this genre. I watched Thomasine & Bushrod [Gordon Parks, Jr.’s blaxploitation-meets-western answer to Bonnie & Clyde] for the first time this summer, and Bushrod has so much swag, but that was so rare to actually see on film.

Here's the thing: those characters in real life were swagged out. And I think black people, no matter where we are, we are really image conscious, even in the 'hood where we have no bread. So just the look of us as a people and the way we speak and the way we carry ourselves, so for me I just made the western that's in my head, I make the movie that's in my head like Barrington Levy's cinematic score. I used to hear Barrington Levy's “Here I Come” as a kid: "I'm broad, I'm broad, I'm broader than Broadway. Yes I'm broad, I'm broad, I'm broader than Broadway." I used to hear horses galloping. It's only right when I make my movie that I can get Barrington Levy to come into the studio.

So, it is incredibly stylized but really, it's just incredibly Jeymes. If you look at music in Westerns, like Ennicio Morricone teaming up with Sergio Leone… that's not cowboy music, right? That was the music of the day when Hollywood made that particular movie. But we grew up thinking that's cowboy music. Cowboy's never heard of the electric guitar. So for me, musically, I want to put our own stamp on it, our own signature.

Let's dig into some of your touchstones growing up as you developed this relationship with film, some of your influences. What makes a film “incredibly Jeymes?”

My influence, I suppose, just came from life. I was taught to just hold on to everything you hold dear. As black people growing up in the hood, the most damaging thing is we start letting go of the things that built our character as children in the race to become an adult. So if we don't see something as 'cool' anymore, or it might be called nerdy or whatever. I always despise that trait. I hold onto all of the things that I loved as a kid, no matter how childish. My mother told us, obey your crazy and never grow up. So all the things that I would see and hear as a kid—listening to Kate Bush on TV, as I got older, I want to work with Kate Bush. I worked with Charlotte Gainsbourg. I'm producing Jay Electronica. I work with every single one of my childhood heroes. I watch everything from Luis Buñuel's Obscure Object of Desire to Omarion and Marques Houston's You Got Served. And I hold on with dear life to the things that I enjoy because they are all things that form the tapestry of who we are as artists.

I grew up in Mozart Estate, Kelvin Lane, Harrow Road. I'd leave the house and I'd be listening to Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Hov, everyone. But when I'm in the house, I'd be listening to Joni Mitchell. I grew up playing guitar, acoustic guitar and folk music. I'm a folk musician, as much as I am fluent on an MPC. I use all of those influences, which is why you hear opera in The Harder They Fall in the last scene. The opening scene when Nat Love’s parents are killed, there’s a folk song called “Three and Thirty Years.” I wrote this song. It appears again when Nat and Rufus meet again, and it’s sung in an Old Negro spiritual way. Then it appears again in the last scene when they have the face-off. Pretty Yende, this South African opera singer, sings it this time. Same song, three different scenes, three different genres. And it all stemmed from me growing up and hearing all these amalgamations of sounds, sonics and visuals, and holding onto them.

As you’re forming that artistic tapestry, are you noticing creative and stylistic touchstones that form your work? Even going back to something like the “Legacy” short film you made for Jay?

The way I use music, I think, is huge. It's as if I see music and I hear cinema. Take the “Legacy” short film, it's for a Jay-Z song. But it's not a music video, I just play it at the end. So when it's expected, I won't use it. In They Die By Dawn, I play Lobo and [another character] goes, Lobo, sing me something real sad as they ride into war And I use that song to merge all everyone's storylines. It's just something I naturally do. And so it'll be prevalent in basically all of the things that I direct. It won't just be a needle drop. It'll be like when Jonathan’s character is riding his horse and we hear a song, then when he gets off his horse and follow him into the saloon, the music merges and the same song that was the score is playing in the saloon. It's a seamless transition. I never got fed these types of things in movies before.

A Netflix production having a crazy stacked cast is one thing. But even if we take it back to They Die by Dawn... I don't know if you realize most people don't usually get the likes of Erykah Badu, Rosario Dawson and Jesse Williams in their short. You have a crazy magnetic pull on some of the most star-studded, high-level people. How did that build up over the years?

I call it “The Audacity of Swag.” My brain goes, Who is the best person for this? And then I'll take planes—[to cast] The Harder They Fall, I took flights to all of their houses, drove all across America. I wanted to go to meet them in person so I can go, "Look, man, I'm doing this thing and you ain't got one of these in your collection. Here's what it is." When I break things down, I break it down. In the words of Method Man, "I breaks it down to the bone gristle."

Great artists just want to make great art. I always have a super fantastical idea. If me and you were walking on the street, I'd be like, "Frazier, I'm going to make a Western." "Huh?! Where?" "In America." "Who's going to be in it, Jeymes?" "Everyone."

It's all about the space in between. From the inception, to the creation, it's that space in between that turns people away. The majority of people don't achieve their "dreams" that they want because they're turned away by the amount of work that you have to do and the amount of belief that you have to have in the vision. Me, that's what turns me on. That's the adventure. It's why we're born. We're going to the moon. Someone must know someone that knows Jay-Z. Jay-Z must know someone that knows Jeff Bezos. Next time Jeff Bezos goes to the moon and you see a black guy with him, think, okay, he's the Jeymes Samuel of the going to the moon thing.

I call it noot. N-O-O-T. Natural Order of Things. It's the natural order of things. I like big casts. So, I want to meet all of these people. I [know I only have] 10 seconds to make an impression, so I go all out in those 10 seconds. [pantomimes meeting someone] “Hey, peace to the God, what's cracking? All right, here's what we're going to do. [mimics machine gun rattling off rapid fire] You in?”

You have Jay-Z backing this, as a producer. I’ve always felt like his relationship to film was kind of underrated by people, like he has a really deep appreciation for it, which you can see in his visuals and his references—

You're the first journalist that has said that to me. The first one. Everyone always goes, "Oh, what was it like working with Jay-Z on the music?" Why the music? Have you listened to Reasonable Doubt? Filled with Carlito’s Way references.

I remember reading a quote from him about True Romance being his favorite film, which was interesting and a little unexpected. What input, if any, did he have on The Harder They Fall’s story?

Me and Hov are always cooking music. But most of the stuff we go back and forth on is film. And it has always been that way. We have big debates over Scarface. I go, "wasn't the nicest guy." But Jay-Z and James Lassiter will break it down like “Jeymes, he was cool. He told guys, no women, no kids.” Jay is the proper cinephile. [raps the first line to Jay-Z’s “Heart of the City”] “First the Fat Boys break up, now everyday I wake up…” That comes from Boomerang, Chris Rock in the mailroom. It's a thing that has run through his entire career, film.

I [was working] on a scene, [trying to justify], why doesn't this guy shoot this other guy, straight away? I call Hov: “They're in a gun fight. so take me back to Brooklyn.” And he would literally take me back to Marcy Projects and give me the inner workings of a gunslinger. What goes through a person's brain and why a person would draw a gun in panic. All of those things I'll utilize in the story. I was debating with another producer why Nat Love doesn't draw straight away. Jay says, “Savor the moment.” Jay was like [mimics cool and collected Jay-Z voice] "It's cool. Have the guy nursing a drink. He's got his guns down. And [someone says] ‘Pick up your guns and turn around.’" That's actually one of the more powerful moments and choices in the movie, why Nat doesn't just bust off immediately. Because the guy's guns are down and he’s nursing a drink [which would mean shooting him dishonorably].

I saw him say elsewhere that you guys weren't setting out to make the great Black western. You were setting out to make a great western.

Yeah, it's not a Black Western at all.

That mindset—putting the burden of representation in the foreground—is something that can hamper Black creatives right now even as we’re seeing this boom in Black art — some of the classics from when I was coming up, when you were coming up, they were Black and they were great. They weren’t great because they were Black.

Exactly. If Rio Bravo is not a “white western” and Unforgiven is not a “white western,” then The Harder They Fall is not a “Black western.” The Harder They Fall is just a western with Black people in it. If we go to Brooklyn, we don't go to a Black world. So, we set out to make a great movie. Not even a western. A western just depicts the time and the place the movie is set in. If me and you had this exact same conversation 140 years ago and it was released. They'll go, "Frazier Tharpe and Jeymes Samuel star in The Old West Conversation." Because of the time. Really, there's no such thing. It's just that within a western there's all these genres.

Switching to the soundtrack though, I do have to salute you for getting an original song from Hov. That's always welcome, and rare these days.

Two originals. Wait until you hear “King Kong Rhythm.” It’s the hardest joint. Let's put it this way— I’ve reunited Jadakiss and Jay-Z.

Oh wow.

That's how hard it goes, Frazier.

Was this made before Jadakiss had already had his insane summer?

Oh, let's just say it was part of the insane summer. Let's call it serendipitous. Jay, we've always collaborated. We go back to collaborating with Jay Electronica. And Jay and I did the Great Gatsby together. So working with Jay is literally like breathing.

You were sitting on this idea for 10 to 15 years. During that time, when you see something like Django Unchained come out that may have elements of the story you’re planning, was that inspiring you to go harder or is it a moment of, damn, they’re beating me to it?

While Quentin [Tarantino] shot Django Unchained, at the exact same time I was shooting They Die By Dawn. So there was no influence from Django [on me]. Literally we shot at the same time, I’m talking about per week. I'd go into a location, leave the location, then he'll move in there. The studio where Christoph Waltz shoots the sheriff in the middle of the south town… we were shooting literally at the exact same time. But for me, Django is not a Western, I suppose you can call it a Western, but it hasn't got any Black cowboys. There's a slave turned bounty hunter, but it isn't like he slings his gun.

It's interesting because people would think that I don't regard Django favorably because I've made The Harder They Fall, when such isn't the case. Django Unchained is just the movie that utilizes slavery as a device to push the plot forward. The Harder They Fall is something intrinsically different, I don't touch on slavery or utilize it in any shape or form. There's no slaves in it, so they’re just two different movies.

It's hard picking a favorite out of this cast, but one of the immediate standouts to me was Regina King, she just goes crazy. And her character evokes what you were saying before about it being ridiculous that westerns only featured subservient women, because she kind of overpowers the men around her, in a way. And it feels like a counterpart to Watchmen, which showed us a different side of Regina—and also incorporated Bass Reeves—in displaying her action bonafides. This feels like an extension of that.

Yeah, we’re seeing her in action again. Working with Regina is like a dream. She's one of my favorite actors of all time. She always goes in a movie and just eats, in the words of Mike Tyson on “Second Round Knockout” by Cannibus, Regina King goes in a movie and just eats, eats, eats and eats.

There's not anything known about the real Getrude Smith, so Regina kind of built out this cinematic history for her and gave her this accent, which is rooted in New Orleans. And also she had just directed her own debut feature. She was in post [production] for One Night in Miami. So she was giving me a lot of tips when I was directing. Just things to look out for later in post production and all that stuff. So not only did I have one of the best actors of all time, I had, like one of the dopest new directors also cooking with me while I direct. She’d be like [mimics Regina King’s voice] “Okay Jeymes, look, this is going to happen. If you do this scene this week then that might happen, then it might have a later effect on blah blah, so make sure your AD department is tight when it comes time to…” She's like a savant.

I don't know where the world places me as a director. I just know I'm a floor to the ceiling storyteller. So when I'm working with people like Idris Elba, Lakeith Stanfield, Jonathan Majors, it's just a beyond joy to be cooking with people that are equally efficient in the kitchen.

You've come to the end of this experience now. In music they say the debut album is the album that you've been making your whole life. Is it fair to say that correlates here? Was there something new that you learned about yourself, now that it’s said and done, whether artistically or personally?

I come away from it not with anything new but I do come away with one piece of information about myself: The Harder They Fall is my ability to not crack, not break and not even feel stressed out under the most immense pressure imaginable. We shot that movie in the eye of the tornado called COVID. I did not flinch not for a second. I was like, you will not get in my way, Coronavirus.

In the words of Robert De Niro in Heat [mimics De Niro] "I'm making my movie and I will not hesitate. Not for a second.” I'm like, man, I've been through worse. Whatever happened, I've been through worse. I come from the hood. But for me, from the minute I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, I'm creating. So I already know what I'm doing next.

Can we say that yet?

If people think I'm trouble now, wait till you see what I'm doing next. And there's an Easter egg in The Harder They Fall that alludes to it. We won't talk about that now, I spent my whole life making all these stories. I got another one in the chamber. Wait until I unload this other one. I'm always like, “and for my next trick,” you know what I mean?