Sidney Poitier: They Call Me Mister Tibbs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That of course, is the late Sidney Poitier in one of his most iconic roles from 1967s In the Heat of the Night. Though we lost Mr. Poitier earlier this year at the age of 94, he left behind an unmatched body of work as both a filmmaker and an actor. He was the first Black man to win an Oscar for his performance in 1963's Lilies of the Field.

Sidney Poitier: I build the chapel.

Kids: I build the chapel.

Sidney Poitier: You build the chapel.

Kids: You build the chapel.

Sidney Poitier: Oh, we build the chapel.

Kids: We build the chapel.

Sidney Poitier: Amen.

Melissa Harris-Perry: A new feature documentary Sidney is now available on Apple TV plus, and it chronicles his life, work, and legacy.

Derik Murray: There was a habit in Hollywood of utilizing Blacks in the most disrespectful ways, and I said, I cannot play that.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Derik Murray is one of the film's producers, and he joined me to talk about the film and what it was like to work with co-producer Oprah Winfrey and Director Reginald Hudlin.

Derik Murray: I had produced a film working very closely with Muhammad Ali and his wife Lonnie, many years ago now. It was entitled Facing Ali, and it was shortlisted for an Academy Award. It was a beautiful film. I continued to create films on iconic individuals and was blessed to have an opportunity to meet with Sidney and his wife Joanna, at their home in Beverly Hills in 2018. I met with the two of them and other family members over the course of several months.

Fortunately for me, my Facing Ali film was something that both Joanna and Sydney had seen and loved. That gave us a good starting point, conversation point to start talking about what if we were to produce a film on Sidney's extraordinary life. This project began the end of 2018.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you were naming some of the extraordinary individuals you had an opportunity to profile, to make these films about. Sidney Poitier, that voice, that face, that carriage, he was truly in a class by himself.

Derik Murray: Oh my goodness. Sidney Poitier is a force, was a force. It's interesting, in our film, we have such an incredible cast which we can certainly talk about. Lenny Kravitz who you'll discover in our film, his connectivity to Sidney and his life and family says this beautiful piece where he says that Sidney Poitier is an extremely powerful force, and the wonderful thing about energy, you can't kill energy. Energy never stops. Everything that Sydney has created is always here, and it'll always continue to grow, and what a beautiful life.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yet we lost him in this earthly realm earlier in this year. It is almost startling for the film to begin with him. Talk to me about that choice.

Derik Murray: You know what's interesting, Melissa, as I mentioned earlier, I had this opportunity to spend time with Sidney and his wife in 2018. It was such a powerful moment to be in their home and to have him walk into the room and shake my hand and there truly was this aura around him. It was amazing. He was so welcoming and warm and funny. It rarely happens to me, but I was honestly speechless for the first few moments. I really dreamed about the opportunity once we determined that we'd be doing this film. I really dreamed about the opportunity of him being there to see this film as a completed movie. That was not to be that we lost Sidney at the beginning of '22.

We were still finishing off interviews. We were still in the rough cut process. He never saw any of the movie whatsoever. The relationship of the film with his family and their participation and their support throughout this period of time that we're taking the movie out to the universe both in screenings and film festivals and with our partner Apple Plus, it feels like Sidney has been with us each step of the way. It truly does. I was just in New York for the Gotham Awards where he received the icon Tribute Gotham Awards and had three of his daughters there with us and felt like he was in the room when the entire room stood up, probably 1500 plus people, and gave the family a standing ovation.

It just gave me chills, absolutely chills running down both arms and back

Melissa Harris-Perry: That standing ovation from everyone. I'm wondering if there's a veritable who's who of everyone in this film talking about their love for Sidney, their experience of him, what he meant to them. It feels a bit like the film itself is a standing ovation. Talk to me about getting Spike Lee, Halle Berry, Denzel, all to sit down with you to talk about Sidney.

Derik Murray: Well, one of the things that we wanted to do from the very beginning was- his story, his journey is so incredible. One of the things that we did very early on was to start to look at archival content over the course of the last 50-plus years interviews that had been done with Sidney, whether radio interviews, television interviews, interviews onset offset. He wanted to compile as much as possible, including many of his audiobooks to really see if it was possible for the film to be led by Sidney. Could he take us on this journey which was one of our goals. Oprah brought forward a significant interview that had been done a decade ago for her masterclass.

This was an interview with Sidney that was approximately seven to eight hours long. Oprah had done the interview. Joe Bellinger had directed the masterclass session as he did with others. This interview, of course, a small part of it had been used for a masterclass special that had only aired once. That was by choice by Sidney, that if he did this, it would air once and the rest of the material would go into an archive.

We had access to this content, which allowed us to really accomplish that mission of having Sidney take us on this journey. However, to your point, we also felt it was absolutely imperative that the voice of many of those individuals that had been there throughout that journey or at certain points in time in Sidney's journey, they in turn would have an opportunity to speak forward about his impact culturally, politically on them individually, and share those stories in context to Sidney taking us on this journey.

I think that's the magic is that our cast, they each gave us their individual perspective of these certain moments in time where Sidney really did make a difference and in many cases inspired them which is, of course, one of the aspects of this movie that I love, is that people have continued to tell us how inspiring this film has been for them. There's nothing more gratifying than to hear that we affect an audience in that way.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Pausing for a moment, we'll be right back here on The Takeaway. Part of why Sidney Poitier is this north star, this bright light, this inspiration had to do with his willingness to make choices to only take some kinds of roles. Can you talk a little about that?

Derik Murray: I'm really glad you brought that up because I think this is in many ways for audiences and even ourselves during the research and the putting together of this movie and throughout the interviews that Reginald Hudlin and the more research and the more listening that we did, we truly discovered that it was integral. The charting of his course was the moral compass that was set for him at such a young age.

He attributes this directly in the film in more than one instance to his parents. He speaks about that moral compass being set as he observed how they operated in their community, in their lives on Cat Island, growing up as a small boy, having that freedom, but also having that direction and that governance and that setting of his moral compass. That happened at a very early age, and he would chart back to that moral compass on more than one occasion. You'll learn this and observe this within the film itself. There are some very specific examples where he would not take on roles. Regardless of potential economic hardship for him and his family, he would not take that role on specifically because that was not a role that spoke to who Sidney Poitier was as a man.

Melissa Harris-Perry: His family of origin helps him to set that moral, ethical, personal compass. Then here in the film, you also give us the family that he makes. We hear a lot from his daughters, from his ex-wife, from his wife. Can you talk to me about why it felt so critical to you to have the family in the film in addition to, again, all of these professional connections?

Derik Murray: I think when we started to chart the course of the film, we knew that we had the support of the family. By no means did the family have any creative control of the film, editorially whatsoever, but we knew we had the support of the family, and we knew that the opportunity to interview them was in front of us.

As we dove deeper into his story and had more conversations with the family members, we realized that they would add just such a strong beautiful authentic personal experience to whether it was Sidney as a husband, or Sidney as a father specifically. It's interesting, Melissa, because this project was undertaken during COVID and certainly during the real front-and-center toughness that we all experienced throughout COVID.

We were primarily doing research and getting ready to film and just diving deeper, deeper into the story. As it became somewhat of an environment that was safe for us to proceed, we started to roll cameras and travel into various cities and over to the UK. We also set the interviews originally in Los Angeles with Joanna, his widow, and Anika and Sidney.

His two daughters that lived in the West coast. We carried out these interviews. They were fantastic. They were so personal and authentic and wonderful. Then we started to look at how to execute the interviews that we wanted to do on the East Coast, which would be in Atlanta potentially Cat Island which is where one of his daughters, Pamela lives.

On the East coast, we had three daughters, Sherry, Beverly, and Pamela, and his first wife, Juanita. We desperately wanted to interview them, but because of COVID and timing, it was difficult. It was very, very difficult. We proceeded along the path and got into the place where we had an assembly of the movie getting close to a rough cut, and we all screened it and Oprah screened it with us.

She was, you mentioned north star, Oprah was a north star throughout this project from day one all the way through. We watched this together. She was very specific that we really missed the opportunity here if we could not bring forward interviews with his other three daughters and his first wife, Juanita. She just had this sense of, as good as this film was and heading that direction, we had to bring them forward.

With that inspired direction from Oprah, we proceeded to work closely with the family. I spoke to each and every one of them, and we managed to create an environment and a scenario and timing that worked, and off we were to Atlanta. Reginald did the interviews in Atlanta. It was magic.

Can you imagine this film without the contribution of Juanita, his first wife or Pamela or Beverly, or Sherry? It would not have been the same movie. We were so proud and excited that we were able to accomplish that. It's really provided a very full perspective on his life as a father and as a husband, and as a man.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Oh, that Oprah Winfrey, she does have a few good ideas.

Derik Murray: Oh my goodness.

Melissa Harris-Perry: She's a little bit talented.

Derik Murray: It's really interesting because once I'd met with the family, and we started to put together what was our plan going forward, how would we create the movie, quite frankly that Sidney deserved, what was the team going to look like that we would assemble. Reginald Huddling was a director that I was very familiar with his work.

I knew Reginald. I knew that he could take on this responsibility because this is a big responsibility to be the director of a feature documentary on Sidney Poitier. This is a massive responsibility. He was up for it from day one. That was important. We surrounded him with our entire team, researchers and writers, and editors. We all embarked on this journey. There was one piece that we wanted to put in place. That was to essentially, give this film also that producing executive level direction input.

We knew, as we dug into Sidney's story, we knew more and more and more about the connection and the relationship that Oprah had with Sidney. That was top of the mountain. We had to bring Oprah on this project. We were blessed to have a Zoom with Oprah in the summer of 2020. It was 15 minutes in. She loved our approach, our story, our vision, and of course, Sidney meant everything to her. She was in, and we were off and running.

She provided that guidance and that perspective and an understanding of Sidney's moral compass throughout, which was so beneficial in crafting the film. She's been a very active producer and such a great partner. It's really made a huge difference throughout this journey.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Part of what impressed me is you've got the family in the broadest sense, and as you point out this sort of rich textured fullness, and you choose not to back away from what some might think of as the messier part. We hear about his love affair with Diane Carol through the lens of her nephew, Lenny Kravitz. Was anyone reluctant to include that?

Derik Murray: No because this is what's really important. Sidney Poitier is inspiring to all of us. He lived this rich full life. He stumbled, he had that moral compass, but he stumbled and he made choices that maybe were not the right choices at the moment, but he was human. I think this is something that I think is very valuable in the telling of his story.

We understand he's just a man. How he had spoken about this particular point in time in his life in the past, and the fact that there was no reluctance from the family whatsoever was critical in the telling of this story. We need to know that he's like us. He's not perfect, and he makes some choices that at times seem the right choices, but as time went on, not so much. They affected people and they hurt some people.

These are things that we all face in our lives. I think it's important when you're telling the story and diving into an individual's path and journey that you don't shy away from those moments. You need to paint that full, authentic picture.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Perhaps no relationship was more important, was more critical, was more available than that great friendship with Belafonte. Tell us about that piece. It had its own ups and downs, but what was it like to hear from Harry Belafonte to include those reflections on his dear friend in this film?

Derik Murray: This is something interestingly enough that Reginald Hudlin, our director, brought up very, very early as we started to put the sketch down on paper, so to speak, of what the film might be. He spoke about that relationship. He had several moments in his career that he'd observed it firsthand. He spoke about that magic and these two geniuses, these icons of their times.

He spoke about that relationship and right from the very beginning, a path that we wanted to go down. One of the things that became very evident was that you could hear about that relationship and you could see them in films together like Buck and the Preacher, but we wanted to bring that magic forward to find content of the two of them together where you can feel that love and you can feel that energy and you can just feel these two individuals that were tied together.

In fact, they were so tied together that you'll see and hear in the film folks that reflect on this, including Morgan Freeman and including his family. In fact, Sidney's daughter, comments directly to say that Sidney and Belafonte were effectively like an old married couple. They'd have moments where they were in complete joy and rapture and close and doing things together and talking every day. Then they'd have times where they'd turned their back on one another and weren't speaking. It moved away, and then they'd circle back.

This went on for their entire lives. That was important for us to capture that and share that. Have samples of interviews and stories that they would tell together to really show how important that relationship was to Sidney and how important that relationship was to Harry. I think that's a very important river that runs throughout the film.

Melissa Harris-Perry: What is the key takeaway you hope audiences will take from this film?

Derik Murray: It's really interesting. I've been in many, many screenings now, and I've had incredible responses from folks at these screenings or communications or notes that have been sent my way afterwards. I think for me, I feel like we live in a time where everything seems to be at siege politically and culturally within our universe. I feel that this is a moment where if we can spend some time with Sidney Poitier, and we can for a couple of hours, take ourselves out of our universe, spend time with this man, I think we're going to come out of that experience inspired. Boy, I search for inspiration every day.

In the conversations with folks that I've had, this is the takeaway. This is what they're coming away. They're coming away inspired by this film for so many different reasons. That to me is the best gift of all. That is something I know that Sidney would be very proud if the audiences around this globe came out feeling that way and looked at their own life. What might I do next to affect this world in a positive way?

Melissa Harris-Perry: Derik Murray, producer of the film, Sidney, thank you for joining us today.

Derik Murray: Thank you, Melissa.

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