LaKeith Stanfield has an evolved stance on friendship.
It’s a hopeful counterpoint to a recent YouGov poll showing that 18 percent of British men don’t have a best friend — and an even bleaker 32 percent say they have no one they consider a close friend.
Stanfield finds those numbers strange. As he’s gotten older, he says, his circle has only grown. He points to the Pasadena fires, which brought him closer to his neighbors, as proof.
“I learned how valuable it was to be around my neighbors in community,” he says. “And now I talk to ’em twice a year — where it used to be zero. So, growth [laughs].”
The 34-year-old actor stars opposite Channing Tatum in Roofman, the true story of a criminal with a big heart who escapes prison and hides out in a Toys “R” Us. (The real-life figure also spent time in Burger King and McDonald’s locations — entering through the roof.) Stanfield plays Steve, a straight shooter with no patience for nonsense. He’s a loyal friend to Tatum’s character, Manchester, but he’s hardly warm.
“A lot of people would say that he’s a mean dude,” Stanfield says of his character. “But I think he’s just direct and honest. Sometimes, in a world where there’s not that much honesty, people mistake that for being mean. But if that’s mean, I don’t really want to live in a nice world.”
A week before Roofman’s release, Stanfield sat down with LEVEL for a candid conversation about friendship — what it means, what it requires, and why being friends with Atlanta’s Darius would be a problematic.
LEVEL: How would you describe your character Steven and Jeffrey Manchester’s relationship?
LaKeith Stanfield: One thing that I think we don't really give enough energy and credence to is the aspect of brotherhood and community amongst men. This importance of friendship and what that means—real, honest and genuine friendship. Here I saw an opportunity to explore that. It reminded me of somebody who I loved very much until I was 23 when he got killed. We grew up together and he was my boy and I loved him. Sometimes you realize that the best friendships you can forge are those that will hold your feet to the fire and hold you to your word. This relationship dynamic here [between Steve and Jeffrey] reminded me of how our friendship was.
Your character is curt. Was it difficult for you to play a friend with that personality?
It was an opportunity to challenge myself as a performer. Typically, I'm very gracious and kind and I give people space and I'm inclined to engage in a disposition of compassion, where here I had to find a new way, which was, yeah, you're still being compassionate and you care, but it's in a way that is more direct and stern. And that's a way I hadn't really shown up in a while on screen, so I wanted to do that here.
As men grow older, we find it harder to make new relationships. Why do you think that that is?
As we get older, we often develop more stakes. We get family, we get a lot of things which we stand to lose as a result of forging relationships that could cause our life to derail. I mean, that might be one reason, right? It's like the more elements that you have that can be a distraction from your family, which can take up a lot of real estate as you get older, the more difficult it is to manage. And also I think through time you learn to be a little bit more untrusting of humans. That causes us to be like, “what really are your intentions?”
Do you have difficulty making friends as you get older?
Personally for me, it has been easier to get friends than it ever has been because now I have a sense of self that's more crystallized and defined. If I know that somebody's not my kind of person, that's fine. We just operate from a distance. And if there is someone that I connect to, then I have a good enough sense of self now where I'm not afraid to extend and be like, “Hey, you want to hang out? Hey, you want to come over to this thing or watch the game? I love fights. Let's go watch the fight.” So I just find it easier.
Would you rather be friends with Steve or Atlanta’s Darius?
That's a hard one for different reasons. I'd say Steve. I love Darius, but he's too much adventure for me. It is just too wild. I ain't got no time. I don't need more drama in my life. Steve seemed like he got his head on his shoulders, but at the same time, Steve does things that ain't really that damn flavorful either. But if I had to choose one**,** at least Steve seems to be grounded. That is something I find valuable at the moment.
Director Derek Cianfrance talked about putting the actors in a situation where they didn't have a script. He would let them riff and see what came out of a scene. Did you find yourself in situations where you had to improv?
We did improv some. The scenes where [Channing Tatum] has the wig on, we're just sort of riffing. Darius [from Atlanta] was damn near all improv. But doing that, I worked that muscle and I learned how to be in the moment. But there were moments in this where I had a lot of granular verbiage and lines that I needed to know specifically in order to move the story forward. So there were some things where I had to be almost pitch perfect on script.
What did you discover about Channing Tatum that you didn’t expect while filming?
I didn't realize how funny Channing is; he looks to crack jokes. He's really silly. One of the things I love about acting is you meet your co-stars and they're always just big kids — people who never grew the hell up. And it's like, “oh, no wonder we're all doing this.” We're pretending and playing because look at us. I mean, how would we survive in the regular world? He [also] had some cool dance moves. I said, damn, for a white boy, you got some rhythm.
You’re so committed to every single film you do. What is driving you for perfection in every role?
When I'm in a scene and something is real and it feels real, I feel like I'm flying. I feel like a bird that just jumped off the cliff and it's now flapping its wings. It never lasts long. You come back to the real world and it's back to the fakery. But when you're in those moments of authenticity, there's no feeling like it.
Roofman is in theaters now. Grab a ticket here.