Derek Luke in 'Catch A Fire'

Derek Luke was an unknown working at the Sony Pictures gift shop when he was cast as the lead in the 2002 drama, Antwone Fisher. For his performance in the Denzel Washington-directed film, Luke won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead, Black Reel Awards for Best Actor and Best Breakthrough Performance, a National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and a Golden Satellite for Outstanding New Talent.

The New Jersey native also got a Breakthrough Male Performance nomination at the MTV Movie Awards and went on to make eight movies in the following four years. He's not an unknown any more.

Luke is back in theatres Friday in Catch A Fire, a film about South African hero Patrick Chamusso. Catch A Fire tells the story of Chamusso's life under Apartheid in South Africa, and his transformation from apolitical family man to African National Congress freedom fighter. Tim Robbins co-stars with Luke as Colonel Nic Vos of the Police Security Branch; Vos is the character who arranges Chamusso's arrest and torture in the film.

Luke, Patrick Chamusso and Catch A Fire director Phillip Noyce visited Toronto during the film festival. Noyce (Dead Calm, The Quiet American, Rabbit Proof Fence) says of Luke, "He gave himself over to the part. He had to travel the farthest, in a sense, as he came from New Jersey to South Africa -- an African-American who had never been to Africa. And he had very little knowledge of that country."

Luke says that his journey to making Catch A Fire was sometimes intimidating.

"When I got there it was a bit like finding roots, or a heritage, because I knew nothing of Africa. I went there ignorant of everything except the script I was doing. I didn't know what I would encounter. I didn't know if I would be living in the bush. Phillip (Noyce) said we'd be living as if on safari, and I got very excited. So I get out there, and Johannesburg looks like New York!" Luke went to South Africa six weeks before shooting started to get a feel for the country and for the man he would portray. He spent a lot of time with Patrick Chamusso, and visited the prison on Robben Island where Chamusso (and Nelson Mandela) were incarcerated.

The challenge of playing Patrick, he says, was a challenge of trying to understand the complete lack of freedom under Apartheid. "You know in the scenes where I keep saying, 'Yes, boss, yes, boss,' and just when I thought it was too much, they added more!" he says, shaking his head.

"I said, 'This is impossible!' and Philip said to me, 'Now you are beginning to understand what Apartheid was about -- how you had to answer, how you had to respond, how you were dehumanized. This is not just an actor's part. You get to a point where you are totally entering a new country, a new law, a new system. You have to erase everything you know to be good.' You know, you couldn't even look a white person in his face, and that was in 1988, 1989."

In 1988, Luke was 14 and growing up in Jersey City, New Jersey, the middle child of three boys. One of his brothers is a musician and the other is a graphic artist. Luke showed an intense interest in acting even as a child, and after a year at college, he moved to Los Angeles in 1995 to pursue his acting dreams. He and his wife Sophia live in Pasadena. Once his acting career took off with Antwone Fisher, he won roles in Pieces Of April (opposite Katie Holmes), in Biker Boyz with Laurence Fishburne, in David Mamet's Spartan and in Friday Night Lights and Glory Road.

Catch A Fire, meanwhile, was made with advisory help from many South Africans, black and white. One man who helped Tim Robbins prepare for his role had been a Security Branch policeman in the 1980s. Luke says this man tried to get everyone to see his side of Apartheid, and Luke says he had to concentrate on the concept of forgiveness, like the real Patrick Chamusso, to be around him.

One day, Luke confesses, "I just exploded. I just went off on him, because he again started to tell me his side of the story. I caught on fire. When I calmed down, the others were just staring at me and I almost started crying. I said, 'I'm sorry -- I know we're making a movie here, but this is my home. This is Africa. I felt a great responsibility to tell the story in truth. I think what was really hurting was the fact that I was totally absent of Apartheid and ignorant of its existence. And during Apartheid, I don't even know what I was doing. Maybe thinking about going to Magic Mountain for a ride, or something," he says, chagrined.

"It all really struck a chord in me as a man, never mind just as an actor."

More Artists