Subscribe
The Daily Grind Video
CLOSE

Make it a priority to go see Green Book starring Mahershala Ali. The movie tells the story of an unlikely friendship between Dr. Don Shirley a black classical pianist and Tony Lip Vallelonga an Italian bouncer who gets hired to drive Dr. Shirley through the Jim Crow south for a string of performances in a bunch of whites-only venues.

I sat down with Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, the stars of Green Book for an interview about the film where they open up about two of the best-acted roles of the year. You are likely to hear their names mentioned all throughout awards seasons. They chatted about working with one another, falling into these characters and we even got a laugh about how people mispronounce their names.

Mahershala who puts on an epic performance as Dr. Don Shirley reveals they started building their chemistry before they started filming, “There is no greater feeling in acting, or in this craft than to work with somebody you feel like you’re with every step of the way. We just really did the dance from before we started shooting. From sitting in the hotel in New Orleans going through the script and reading it through together and we locked into something really early and it just never left us.”

Green Book is one of the best movies of the year and right now it’s number 1 on my list. When I sit down and go back over all the movies I have seen this one will rank high on my list of movies. I’m sure you’ll see it in a bunch of top 10 list of other popular top ten list as well. There has been a lot of chatter about this movie and how it’s told from Tony’s perspective but in my opinion that doesn’t take away from the quality of the film.

While this is a feel-good movie, there isn’t anything wrong with that. America is a racist country that continues to this day to have deep roots in that flawed ideology and just because one movie decides to tell the story of two people coming together despite their differences doesn’t mean it’s implying that racism is over. It’s just a story. The more movies they make like this the closer we get to a place where we can all get along.

Green Book hits theaters everywhere Wednesday, go see with the family after Thanksgiving dinner.