Melonie Diaz Video Interview On ‘Fruitvale Station,’ Michael B. Jordan, Trayvon Martin

No I didn'€™t, I got the script Ryan'€™s agent sent it to me, and I read it and I thought it was a narrative because it was like this well structured script and all these weird coincidences of it being his mother's birthday and the day he died, and I couldn'€™t believe this happened. I had no idea about it -€” weâ€'re such a media obsessed country and I wasn'€™t sure why this didn'€™t come in front of me.

I think it says that there’s an obvious issue with our judicial system, and I think it goes further back it’s like you want to talk about Emmett Till you know wanna talk about Rodney King. I think there’s a problem with how we choose to judge each other and the issue of like racial profiling you know a couple weeks ago Forest Whittaker was in a store and somebody thought he was stealing something. I think there’s a lot of kind of hatred and unkindness in the ways we choose to think about it each other. There’s a theme, and I’m not sure if it’s the that way we choose to raise our children or it’s the people we’re choosing to be our jurors. I don’t have the answer to that but I’m obviously incredibly furious about it.

I mean this is like - this is kind of like a joke. And I mean this isn't a funny movie but with all this depressing stuff there has to be some kind of fun [laughs]. Well there was this scene when obviously he was upstairs and I was downstairs and so I told Mike that day I said, '€˜Mike like you can't be around me. You need to respect me!’ because he makes me laugh obviously and we have a great time with each other. And so I told him,€” I said, '€˜Just don'€™t look at me just be on the gurney and leave me alone because I have to be in a head space.'€™ And so like I see him and he'€™s in like the ambulance and he like does like this [makes gesture] and waves at me and I’m like '€˜God----- it Michael! Why would you do that?' [laughs] and completely broke my conversation. But I just think that'€™s a testament to the fact that he's obviously like this incredibly talented actor but he'€™s just a really good person, and he'€™s great to work with and I see a really big future ahead of him.

It feels like it -€” the fact that I get to work with people like Octavia, and Michael and [director] Ryan [Coogler] and you know working on such a project that'€™s so socially aware, its very rare for me as an actress where I get to be a part of something that says something and it's kind of topical and for me too this is the most dramatic thing I've ever done and I think I really personally felt like I dug deep for it, and I’m really proud of my work, and I rarely say that.