An Interview with the Director Reginald Baskerville on "Cappadonna's That's My Word! Incarceration: How to Stay Alive & Free"

Reginald Baskerville is an artist and educator. He learned his art while attending Morgan State University in Baltimore City. While there he laser focused on obtaining the prerequisite skills to create. He currently bills himself as an actor, producer, and director. His "survival job" has been Assistant Principal in a high school for the past decade, and Special Education teacher the decade prior. With more than thirty years honing his craft as an artist, and an additional twenty four years educating young people, Mr Baskerville (as he is affectionately called) continues to tell stories while in front of a camera, behind the camera, on stage, or just with a microphone and an audience waiting to learn. His most recent acting work can be seen on Amazon Prime in the feature film Fattenin' Frogs for Snakes, where he plays the tough John Otis. You can view his most recently produced documentary on Amazon Prime Video titled Branches of a Tree, which tells the story of the life of Baltimore City's 4 time state boys high school basketball champion coach Herman "Tree" Harried.

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Please tell us about yourself. How did you start your career, and how did you get into the world of cinema? What did you work on before making Cappadonna's That's My Word! Incarceration: How to Stay Alive & Free?

I got the bug for both acting and filmmaking while I was a student at Morgan State University.  My major in college was media studies and the learning opportunities that I was afforded there sparked my passion for working behind and in front of a camera.  I have acted professionally in multiple feature films for the past 9 years. Fattenin’ Frogs for Snakes and PlunderQuest are two of my most recent feature films that can be seen on Amazon Prime Video or Tubi.  The documentary film Branches of a Tree is one of my most recent works under the producer’s hat.  The film shares the story of a Baltimore City high school basketball coach, Herman “Tree” Harried, who won four consecutive state basketball championships in Maryland while simultaneously having one of his players earn valedictorian status at his high school each of those championship years. 

Reginald Baskerville

As an artist, who or what are your influences?  In other words, what made you fall in love with cinema? 

I am a true cinephile.  Since I was a really young guy I would watch old films, I would watch the same movies over and over again, and would memorize lines of the actors.  Guys like Robert Deniro, Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Spike Lee, Quinton Terrantino,  and others have all demonstrated how to use their acting or writer, producer, director skills to tell amazingly engaging stories. Once I got to the campus of Morgan State and was given equipment to play with, and a stage to stand on, a light in me came on.  I knew that my passion and purpose was to tell stories using television and film as the medium. 

What is your vision as an artist? I understand that you are also an educator. Have your experiences in that area helped you in approaching narratives and characters differently?

 Being an artist and educator works well for me.  I say that because as an educator in public schools I get the chance to “people watch” daily. These daily observations help me to find nuances in human behaviors that can be translated when developing a character. Being a teacher gave me a chance to earn some additional practical experience with producing content and storytelling because after college one of the first places that I was able to produce video shorts, write scripts, or showcase film work was while working in an after school program called Lights Camera Action.  As an artist I think that working in the world of public education can help you because there are always things happening, people engaging, and experiences to participate in with others.  These day to day interactions for me over the past two decades has given me a heightened insight into the motivations of human behavior, which helps me know how to develop story teller vessels with a level of specificity. 

Tell us about your experiences both behind and in front of the camera. Which one do you prefer and why? Do you have any advice to share with new artists who want to follow a similar path?

Passion wise I enjoy being in front of the camera because I get to play and to become someone who I am not.  Purpose wise I think directing and producing film has helped me to learn more of the technical and business side of telling stories.  I cannot really identify if I enjoy one over the other, because as long as I am doing the work on some level my cells are smiling and my heart is happy.  I always encourage artists, especially actors, to learn how to work on both sides of the camera or stage.  I recall being in a stage play in college called From the Heart of Hollis.  The show did well, and when the creator said she might take the show on the road, she told all the actors that she will be hiring actors instead of traveling with her current cast.  I knew from that experience that learning to be a creator is equally important as learning the lines in a play. 

What made you want to make Cappodonna’s That’s MY Word!? How did you come up with the concept, was it done collectively with Cappadonna himself? Please tell us about the process.

First, I am a guy who grew up on Staten Island.  Some of the members of the Wu were people I’d been around as a teenager.  Cappadonna, or OG, was one of the flyest dudes we knew back in the day on Staten Island before the rhymes.  In 2005 Cappadonna took me on tour with him to Europe as his camera guy.  We worked together to produce a DVD called The Struggle, which was a compilation of his tour radio interviews, live performances, and behind the scenes footage.  Twenty years later we came back together to produce something that can be used as a teaching tool.  You know it has been said that “Wu is for the children”.  That’s My Word! serves this purpose.  Incarceration is our first episode topic but there are three more episodes still in the oven.  

What is the most challenging aspect of making a film, especially a documentary? Since you have experienced working in different fields and roles, what were some of the challenges you faced?

With this project things have fallen into place, and most things that could have gone wrong while producing the film did not.  I think the only real challenge in making this film for me was the post production.  I had not participated in editing Branches of a Tree. That film about Coach Tree was edited so well by my fellow artist Adio Ash. I didn’t have the confidence initially that we would be able to put the Cappadonna story together with the same skill level.  After meeting with JV Torres, who helped to shoot the project, and getting a bit of a lift about the work after that meeting, I challenged myself to be intentional about being on the editing timeline to piece every sentence, note every clip cut to, and to make the choices for all corresponding sounds and music that would help move our story along. 

How was the film received at film festivals around the world? Please tell us about your festival runs.

I love this question because since September of 2024 Cappadonna’s That’s My Word! Incarceration: How to Stay Alive & Free has been officially selected in sixteen film festivals across the globe.  The film has either won awards, been identified as a finalist, or acknowledged as an honorable mention in India, West Virginia, Palermo, New York, Berlin, London, France, Indiana, Chicago, Dubai, Ottawa, Brazil, California, and Rome.  This reception and assessment of the film by other cinefiles and film professionals confirms that the story has been told well, and serves its purpose to teach others. 

What project(s) will you be working on next?

Cappadonna and our team are working to complete the other three episodes for That’s My Word!.  The episode topics include addiction, special education, and culture.  They will follow the same structure and recipe of episode one about incarceration.  Each of these episodes feature an expert who is also a doctorate in the subject being examined in the film.  For example, we enlisted Dr. Laura Leigh Kelly (author of Teaching with Hip Hop in the 7-12 Grade Classroom) for our episode on special education.  We have Dr. David Fakunle and Dr. Bertrand Tchoumi supporting the addiction and culture episodes.  Playing in front of the camera for me in 2025, I will be in character as a Dominican crime boss starring in the feature film Los Ones.

www.mrbaskerville.com