Question: What's it like being intimidated by Keanu Reeves? Was it hard to keep a straight face?

Cedric: Yeah, because you know you keep kind of going back to 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'. Keanu, even when he turns it up it's the same thing. He's like, 'I need to talk to you about something.' 'Alright, Keanu, you're really mad here.' 'I need to talk to you about something.' 'Got it. Got it. You scared me that time.' But he does have some small nuances that work. He's actually a pretty cool guy. He can be kind of quiet and aloof at times, kind of over to himself, but we found ourselves having some cool little conversations and talking. He opened up. I had a good time with him on the set.

Question: What's surprising about him because he's a huge movie star and everyone thinks they know what someone is like?

Cedric: I was pretty surprised that he was really very cool with the people. We went and shot the final scene where we go up to the two bad guys, we were actually in this neighborhood that was pretty thick with Latino gangs and stuff, but I was surprised that Keanu would actually go over to the people on his own. He didn't have to. I did it and you'd see Common do it, but it was on his own. He'd go and be up with folks. I was surprised by that and I didn't think that was his personality. One, it's because he can be very quiet and reserved. At any given time he'd be in his own little section doing his thing and you'd think, 'Okay, let him do his thing, that's his process –' or whatever. The kids would come up to him or they'd be outside of the perimeter and he'd go over and say what's up to them and hangout with them. I thought that was pretty cool and that surprised me about him. The fact that he'd do so many takes too. That's the other thing you get with big star actors. They're going to give you a few of them, but he was riding it out with whatever we had to do. If the shot had to be done over a couple of times he'd do it. I know we had to go over a flight of steps probably like ten times and it started to be a joke to us, between me, Chris Evans and Keanu. We had to keep going up this flight of steps. It got to be this running joke about us being trapped on the stairs and then we started doing it as a movie. 'The Stairway! The Sequel. Three men, stuck in a stairwell.' It was all day. I don't know why they couldn't get this shot right, but we had to do it like eleven times.

Question: Did it make the final cut?

Cedric: I don't even know. I don't even think so. After all of that you don't see us going up the steps. You probably see us going through the doorway. 'Thank you! That was great.'

Question: You're linked to doing a remake of 'Back to School'. Is that actually going to happen?

Cedric: No. That was a movie that was with the old MGM before they sold to Sony and then took it back and then decided whatever. So it was from that regime and we wanted to do it. There are a few producers that are still talking to me about trying to get the script and turning it into something, but we'd started developing a new script for it, but it was at MGM at the time. Once they decided to not make films and sell to Sony and now they've decided to make some films – I don't know what category it's fallen into. So right now it's just outside of the goal marks, so to speak. No one is really talking about it at this point, whether we're going to do it or not.

Question: What about this one where you're supposed to be Willie Dixon?

Cedric: I'm doing that right now. That's 'Cadillac Records'. That's great. We're shooting in New Jersey. It's got a great cast too. It's got Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters. Willie Dixon was a big blues writer. He wrote a lot of those big blues songs and he played the bass. So it's just been fun. I went and shot some scenes on it already. Mos Def is Chuck Berry. This is hot and Beyonce is doing Etta James. I'm not sure I'm supposed to say that. She has to do her own press.

Question: It's on IMDB.

Cedric: Good, good, as long as that's your source. Do not say that I said it.

Question: What kind of bass?

Cedric: The upright bass so I had to learn that. It was good because the great thing about Willie Dixon is that he only played with one finger. He can do a lot of stuff, but he did one finger and maybe two every now and then, but would rock everything with this one finger. He had huge hands though and that was the hardest thing, but it was kind of easier to learn the basic bass with this one finger.

Question: So you learned with one finger?

Cedric: I learned with one finger because that's how he played and you want it to look as authentic as possible. There were a few songs that I had to learn, but they were easier ones. He was pretty complex as a musician. He had an interesting style. Again, he had these huge hands and so he could hit these different chords really easily, but only used this to plug. So he'd go all the way across with one and maybe every now and then he'd use this one.

Question: And he sang too, right?

Cedric: Yeah, he sang.

Question: Are doing your own singing?

Cedric: I am doing my own singing. Everyone is doing their own singing. Jeffrey is singing. I only sing background in this movie. I don't sing one of my own songs, one of Willie's. I teach Jeffrey, 'Hoochi-Koochie Man', and so we sing there. Then it cuts to him singing it and it's more of the recorded version.

Question: Have you worked with Beyonce yet?

Cedric: No. That's unfortunate. That is unfortunate.

Question: What do you have after 'Cadillac Records'?

Cedric: After the movie I'm directing an independent movie. This is my first time directing. I'm doing this comedy called 'Chicago Pulaski Jones'. It's about a young dancer. I got Kel Mitchell from Nickelodeon. It's basically a young dancer who wants to avenge his uncle's death. So he wants to learn karate. He can't fight unless he hears music and so he basically invented this thing called Dance Fu. It's silly and fun. We're having a good time with it. It's a fight/dance movie. So it's 'Bring it On' or 'Step Up' meets Jackie Chan's 'Shanghai Noon' or something. But it's a good time. We financed that through my production company. We bared the burden on that and having a good time. I was producing it first and then decided to shoot it.