Terrence Howard: actor Terrence Howard is known for creating fireworks onscreen and off—and he's lighting up a theater near you

There are actors for whom their job is a pedestal on which to display their own wonderfulness--and then there are "those who live according to the fourth wall," as Terrence Howard puts it. These actors live and breathe in that space between set and camera, actor and audience, so fervently they can make us forget that the fourth wall even exists. With over 40 film and TV appearances in just over a decade, Howard, 36, has steadily earned a reputation as a maverick, a guy who stands by what he thinks is best for each film he's in. It may not win him lots of friends, but this take-no-prisoners approach gets startling results. It's apparent in Paul Haggis's Crash, in which the dignity of Howard's character is agonizingly assaulted from every side, or in this month's Hustle & Flow, Craig Brewer's Sundance Audience Award winner in which Howard, as a pimp aspiring to stardom, is both hilarious and malicious. Even in this talk with Interview's Elvis Mitchell, Howard's mixture of eloquence and barracuda-like savvy both enthralls and threatens--he can blast holes in our complacency, even when talking into a tape recorder.

ELVIS MITCHELL: Let's start with your views on the business of acting.

TERRENCE HOWARD: I was talking with Don Cheadle, and he told me that if there was any other profession he could do, he would readily go ahead and do it. That's the way I feel also. I mean, nobody's in love with everything that goes on--but there are moments when magic happens inside the playground.

EM: How often do you see that magic?

TH: Anytime you get with a good director or get in a room with some schizophrenic cat--if you're schizophrenic too, and also paranoid, the delusions you can create ... and that's what happens, man, you're bouncing off the walls until somebody opens that door and says you can come out. And it can be great while you're in there. Most of the time, though, you're thrown into a padded room with someone who doesn't believe in dreams.

EM: It seems like in your case, it's been on you to make it happen the way you want.

TH: But that's true for every actor. We're all supposed to do that. We're all supposed to go crazy trying to open ourselves up to a realm where we can be crazy. But you've got a bunch of accountants and lawyers sitting there pretending to be creative. When you're swimming with a shark or swimming with a guppy, a part of you just wants to slaughter them so they'll never show up again. But you can't always do that--it's not nice--particularly with the baby sharks that haven't yet learned how to use their teeth. But the ones who know they have no business in there, you devour them.

EM: All the politics and game-playing that go on in this business must go against the very reason you went into acting in the first place.

TH: Yeah. But this is my world, my fourth wall, and it's worth protecting. So I fight for it, and when I see other people sitting there trying to tear at and knock down my fourth wall ... [laughs] How did we get to talking about this?

EM: Because you were talking about swimming with sharks, and I was just saying that a lot of that seems like it goes against the impulse of being an actor.

TH: Look, acting is a business like living in that ocean is a business. There's a way of maintaining your life, and if you make a mistake along the way, if you swim into a cave, and you don't know what's in there and have no way of protecting yourself, you'll never come out. And there are creatures--directors, producers, set designers, all sorts of people--swimming in these waters who have no business being there, and the fact that they're allowed to remain in this business is an evil thing, and those who live according to the fourth wall should immediately come down and expose them for what they are and what they aren't and get rid of them. If somebody is pretending to be a part of something that they're not, then why are you going to make like they are? There's the warrior part of me who can't walk away from a battle and can't allow somebody to get by with something that I know is just ugly and wrong. That's been a big part of the trouble I've had in this business. But when you find somebody who doesn't know his or her way yet, and you show them and then see them swim and sing and make life happen, then you're happy because you remember when you were that person. Like with Richard Dreyfuss--we were doing Mr. Holland's Opus [1995], and he pulled me aside and said, "I'm going to tell you something, and want you to always remember this: Don't you ever let anybody take a frame from you, and don't you ever give away a frame." Then he said, "I like you, but you will not take a frame from me." And then he was like, "So, you ready?" And I was like, "Okay, yeah, let's do this." From then on I've understood that this is a joust before the entire world, and you've got to be skilled at it. But that's why I'm in it, because I love that fight. I love that you don't have to work with somebody for more than three months--it means you've got an opportunity to be yourself in this war. It's like if you're working as a freelancer for a few months, you talk to the boss any way you need to within the realms of respect--you make sure you maintain your self-respect, whereas a lot of people are told to check their manhood at the gate.