Famed actor to receive career achievement award at Denver Film Festival screening of global phenomenon ‘Sinners‘

Celebrated actor Delroy Lindo remembers the grand opening of the Denver Center Theatre Company on New Year’s Eve 1979.

“It was cold as hell,” he says with a laugh. “The snow was up to our ears.”

He doesn’t much recall the hoopla surrounding it all. The three-day celebration that culminated in a Wednesday night gala for Denver’s history books, with celebrities in attendance ranging from Lucille Ball to Denver native Douglas Fairbanks Sr. to Jimmy Stewart to Leonard Nimoy. Most had been lured here by Denver Center founder Donald Seawell to see legendary actor Henry Fonda receive a prestigious national award.

“I remember there was a newspaperman who sunk a lot of Denver Post money into getting that theater off the ground,” Lindo said. “For some reason, I have the figure of $13 million in my head.”

For good reason. That newspaperman would be Seawell, the bon vivant Post publisher who singularly willed the, yes, $13 million Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex into existence. He christened it on Dec. 31, 1979, with three separate play openings on three successive nights. This after an aggressive marketing campaign trumpeting this as the start of no less than “The Denver Decade in the American Theatre.”

Lindo recalls that “it was a really, really big deal,” he said. But mostly, he remembers the work – and wanting more of it.

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The homegrown Denver Center Theatre Company began as a true repertory troupe, with a whopping 40 actors contracted to work that abbreviated first season. That means all 40 appeared in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” a Brechtian epic starring rising TV star Tyne Daly. Each additionally performed in either Orson Welles’ “Moby Dick Rehearsed” or Molière’s “The Learned Ladies.”

Lindo played three small roles in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” including The Prologue Peasant, and Queequeg in “Moby Dick Rehearsed.” His castmates included Daly, Tandy Cronyn, James Lawless and notable Denverites Jamie Newcomb, Jerry Webb and the intentionally lowercased donnie l. betts, who remembers “having some backstage fun with Delroy blowing the pipes on a Herbie Hancock tune.” What’s that? “The backstage had these open metal pipes that had great sounds,” betts said. “We would sing while drumming on the pipes.”

Future seasons would bring Mercedes Ruehl and Annette Bening.  

It was an exciting time for Lindo. Within weeks of graduating from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, the British-born actor of Jamaican descent landed an understudy role in a Ntozake Shange play at New York’s Public Theatre. He was 25, and the Denver Center would be his second professional gig. “Going to Denver was terrific, and I very much looked forward to being there,” Lindo said. “The artistic director – Edward Payson Call – was very enthusiastic about me as an actor, and it was the inaugural opening of this theater company and three beautiful new theaters.”

Regrettably, however … “it didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it to,” he said. For different reasons, Daly and Lindo both left the company before the end of that first season. Daly, a young mother of two and an actor on the rise, was offered a supporting role in a TV movie called “The Women’s Room” starring Lee Remick. And Lindo? Eight years later, Lindo earned a Tony Award nomination for his portrayal of Herald Loomis in August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”

“I was very frustrated creatively,” he said. “I had gone to Denver full of optimism and enthusiasm. I remember a gentleman there saying something to me like, ‘Oh, you should be doing more in this production.’ And I thought, ‘You know what? I agree.’”

To the artistic director’s credit, Lindo emphasized, ‘When I expressed my frustration to Ed Call, he made me a beautiful offer. He said to me, ‘Look, I understand the source of your frustration. I tell you what: You can direct anything you want in the (studio) theater. Just pick something, and you can do it there.’ That suggested to me that Ed was genuinely trying to demonstrate that he had some faith in me creatively.

“I don’t know why it didn’t happen. I really don’t.”

Lindo does remember being taken with the still unknown Daly’s performance in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle.”

“I’ve always considered Tyne Daly to be a very serious actor, and I mean that in the best sense of that term,” he said. “She’s very committed, and I remember the manner in which she applied herself to her work was always extremely intentional, and very much about the business of doing the best work possible.”

The two were professionally reunited 28 years later when, now stars, Daly played the king and his vengeful wife Clytemnestra in an open-air production of “Agamemnon” at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles.

Lindo will be back in Denver on Saturday to talk about this and more when he receives the Denver Film Festival’s Career Achievement Award at a special screening of the global phenomenon “Sinners,” which has grossed $367 million worldwide. There is Oscar buzz for Lindo and his portrayal of Delta Slim, the living repository of the Delta’s musical and historical memory in this deeply allegorical film.

Sonny Bunch, a columnist for The Bulwark, just posted an essay titled, “Delroy Lindo Deserves a Dang Oscar.” In it, he writes: “Don’t get me wrong: Lindo has deserved Oscar gold for some time. … But I would give him a lifetime achievement award simply for his pronunciation of ‘sesame cake’ in ‘Congo.’ The man’s a damn legend, and it’s about time the Academy gave him his due.”

Denver Film is giving him his due for “Congo.” And “Malcolm X.” And “Crooklyn.” And “Clockers.” And “Get Shorty.” “And “Da 5 Bloods.” And “Sinners.” And 50 other films. Lindo has been broadly praised for his powerful performances in iconic roles, his distinct voice and his commanding screen presence over decades.

When Lindo says he is genuinely humbled to be 72 and still a highly sought actor, he means it. He preaches it. 

“I was having a conversation just last night with a young actor who I frankly didn’t know,” he said. “I sat next to his mother on a plane, and she said, ‘Oh my God, you’re one of my son’s favorite actors. Will you talk to him?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’

“So I ended up speaking with this young man, and one of the things I said to him is that I am first and foremost thrilled and blessed to continue to work, and to be working on important projects. I know it’s a really hackneyed, overused term, but it’s true for me: I am thrilled and blessed.”

Probably not as thrilled as that young actor on the plane probably feels right now.

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Lindo is just glad that Denver Film is mindfully titling this honor as “career achievement,” rather than “lifetime achievement.”

“Let me be clear: Getting a career achievement award, in my mind, doesn’t mean that I’m old,” Lindo said. “It means that there’s a recognition for my body of work, and I’m deeply appreciative of that.”

It also means that this lifetime is far from over. Lindo just completed filming on “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova” in Australia. There is not much he’s contractually allowed to say yet about that inevitable 2027 blockbuster, but “here’s something I can tell you that I am proud of:

“One of the producers came up to me when we were working on the set and he expressed an appreciation for the fact that I was applying myself to the work in the way that I was applying myself. That was a major compliment for me because it was a manifestation of what I tell all young actors. To state the obvious: You never look down on the material – ever. You take everything as seriously as you can, be it August Wilson, be it Lorraine Hansberry, be it Spike Lee, be it Ryan Coogler, whoever. And so, that producer saying that to me? I felt proud of that.”

Hitting the books

Another thing Lindo is proud of was going back to college at age 50. He had completed a two-year acting certification program from the American Theatre Conservatory back in 1979 without having completed a degree program. So, in 2003, he started taking correspondence classes through his hometown San Francisco State. The first time anyone knew the famous actor was a student there was when he walked across the stage to accept his degree.

By then, Lindo was an established film star – so why was it important for him to go back and secure that degree? Three reasons.

“My mom, my son, and my wife,” he said. “My mom, because I am of Jamaican extraction. And to her, education, education, education was of prime importance. When I told my mom, ‘No, I don’t want to go to college right now. I want to pursue an acting career,’ it probably broke her heart. So I went back in part to be able to share that as a gift to my mom.

“My son was very young at the time, but whenever I had a conversation with him about the importance of going to college, I wanted to be able to stand on substance and demonstrate that to him with confidence and authenticity.

“That, and the fact that my wife constantly said to me: ‘Hey, you might want to think about going and getting a degree.’”

Ten years after that, he earned a master’s from New York University.

One more thing he’s proud of was being asked to present a, yes, career achievement award to Spike Lee two weeks ago at the Mill Valley (Calif.) Film Festival, followed by a one-hour conversation between the two. Lindo has appeared in four films for Lee, and he credits him for his career. The two share a relationship, Lindo said, that goes way beyond words.

“Had I not done ‘Malcolm X,’ I would not have done ‘Crooklyn,’ I would not have done ‘Clockers,’ I would not have done ‘Get Shorty,’ and on and on and on,” Lindo said. “My introduction to Spike – our introduction to each other – unlocked a door for me creatively and culturally that I simply would not have had in the same way.”

That’s pretty much how Lindo has come to feel about Coogler, who has created powerful, resonant blockbusters like “Black Panther” and “Creed” that manage to explore race, identity and social justice while being wildly entertaining – and generating more than $2 billion at the box office.

Lindo is particularly pleased to be receiving his award in Denver alongside a screening of “Sinners,” a madly original film that manages to be a historical artifact, an homage to the Delta Blues, a supernatural horror flick and a commentary on colonialism and exploitation – all at once. As a writer, Lindo puts Coogler right up there in the pantheon alongside playwrights Lorraine Hansbury (“A Raisin in the Sun”) and August Wilson (“The Piano Lesson”).

“I am so proud of this film, and I am so proud of my participation in it,” Lindo said.  “From the moment I first read the script, I knew that the vampire aspect was just the conduit to tell a much larger story.

“To me, the enduring cultural significance of this film is that it is incredibly affirming, and it makes me joyous that that’s pretty much what audiences have picked up – White and Black, across the board.”

The Denver ambition

At this point, I asked Lindo if he recalled what he wrote as a 25-year-old in his 1979-80 Denver Center program biography. Not so much.

“Mr. Lindo’s ambition,” it reads, “is to be a part of a thriving, self-sufficient Black classical company.” He achieved that goal, he says in retrospect, by working in the companies of Spike Lee and Ryan Coogler.

“If I said it, I believed it, and I’m sure it had to do with my ambition to elevate myself and to be part of a system of work that elevated Black performers,” he said. “And, looking back, I have been part of this elevated work.

“When I think about my films with Spike, and then with Ryan, here I am at a point in my life and my career where I can look back and say: ‘My God, how fortunate am I to be part of that firmament, part of that creative environment?’”

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at john.moore@denvergazette.com.

‘SINNERS’/SPECIAL SCREENING

• What: Special screening of Sinners,’ with pre-film presentation of Career Achievement Award to Delroy Lindo

• When: 7 p.m. Nov. 5 at Sie FilmCenter

• Tickets: denverfilmfestival.org

2025 DENVER FILM FESTIVAL

• When: Oct. 31-Nov. 9

• What: Feature-length films, documentaries and shorts, as well as panel conversations, parties and more

• Where: Sie FilmCenter (2510 E. Colfax Ave.); Ellie Caulkins Opera House (Denver Performing Arts Complex), Denver Botanic Gardens (1007 York St.), MCA Denver at the Holiday (2644 W. 32nd Ave.

• Tickets and complete festival lineup: denverfilm.org