Bill Duke needs few words to make us believe he knows what he is doing. Tough-guy parts have made use of that authority, but the thoughtful coach in High Flying Bird gives us more reason to care.
Fi1m perspective
In High Flying Bird (2019), Bill Duke's Spence runs a gym for children and insists on a spoken penance from anyone who compares the league to slavery. The rule gets a laugh once, then becomes uncomfortable. Duke sits still and says little, allowing the coach's rules to tell us what matters to him. Steven Soderbergh's film is sharp and a little cold, but these scenes give us someone to care about.
His film acting began with Car Wash (1976), before Commando (1985) and Predator (1987) established his place in action films. In John McTiernan's Predator, his Mac Eliot belongs to a platoon whose members seem accustomed to one another. Alongside Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura, Duke helps establish that familiarity without much biographical help from the script. We care where these men are even when the dialogue mistakes aggression for wit. The suspense works partly because the group feels worth worrying about.
Those tough men and authority figures have also been a limitation. Casting Duke to look formidable is an efficient choice, but it can leave the character unwritten. His career developed beyond those parts, taking in directing work such as A Rage in Harlem (1991) and supporting performances across genres. The later Soderbergh films find more specific uses for his quietness.
In No Sudden Move (2021), Aldrick Watkins says almost nothing, and Duke makes us believe all of it. Soderbergh's crime story becomes less interesting when it starts explaining what the papers mean. Duke does not need that sort of explanation to hold our attention. We would happily trade some of the plotting for longer in his company.
High Flying Bird gives that economy more to work with. Tarell Alvin McCraney's script is full of quick, dense talk, which makes Duke's stillness particularly welcome. We were moved by Spence's conversation with Ray about what the game has cost them, because Duke makes us attend to every word. Start there if the action films have persuaded you that his chief qualification is looking difficult to argue with.
Biography
Bill Duke is an American actor and director, also credited as William Henry Duke Jr. He was born on 26 February 1943 in Poughkeepsie, New York. He trained at Boston University and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts before beginning his career in theatre and making his film debut in Car Wash (1976).
Duke is known for supporting roles in action and crime films, including Cooke in Commando (1985), Mac Eliot in Predator (1987), and appearances in Menace II Society (1993), Payback (1999) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He has also acted in High Flying Bird (2019) as Spence and No Sudden Move (2021) as Aldrick Watkins. As a director his credits include A Rage in Harlem (1991) and Hoodlum (1997), as well as numerous television episodes.
