Wesley Snipes Breaks His Silence

Image credit: Neil Leifer

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Since Blade: Trinity, Snipes has appeared in five consecutive movies that have gone directly to DVD. It's a fact he's not particularly thrilled about but nonetheless tries to see the bright side of. ''I actually didn't know these latest films were going straight to DVD,'' he insists. ''They don't tell you that!...There's a perceived stigma that these are lesser-quality films and that somehow the actor has devolved when the movie goes straight to DVD.'' But, Snipes says, his recent films have been successful overseas, where his popularity hasn't been affected by Stateside gossip columns. ''Internationally, I have as large of a fan base — if not larger — than I have domestically. So, on one hand, people go, 'Oh, he's doing DVDs! Too bad!' But on the other hand, it's constantly building up my foreign-market value.''

Be that as it may, there's no denying that Snipes is no longer at the top of his career. Perhaps the decade was cursed from the start. In the late '90s, the actor started a security firm called the Royal Guard of Amen-Ra (named after the Egyptian king of the gods) to provide VIPs with bodyguards trained in law enforcement, the military, and martial arts. But in 2000, this sideline business took center stage when wild reports surfaced about supposed ties between the Royal Guard and a Georgia-based religious cult, the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors.

At the time, the Nuwaubians were based on a 476-acre compound in rural Putnam County, Ga. And their precepts ranged from ancient Egyptian mythology to black nationalism to a belief in extraterrestrials. They were also armed to the teeth. Anyone driving past their property in Georgia might not have known about the gun-toting sentries guarding the compound, but they would've noticed a giant pyramid and sphinx visible from the road. Snipes and his brother (who's also named Wesley Snipes, albeit with a different middle name) tried to purchase some 200 acres of land a couple of miles down the road from the Nuwaubians for the Royal Guard's training academy.

Needless to say, the proximity of the two properties, both with ancient Egyptian motifs and members with gun permits, caught the attention of the Putnam County sheriff — and the imaginations of the tabloids. Snipes denies any connection to the Nuwaubians and chalks the whole thing up to an unlucky coincidence. ''It was interpreted as an attempt on my part to start a militia,'' he says. ''This is all false.... I had no idea they were down there. I didn't know who they were!'' Snipes begins to crack up. ''That's crazy. I'm making movies, man. Who the hell wants to start a militia when you're in the movies?''

Snipes and his brother ended up pulling their offer on the land. Their security company is now based in Florida and Antigua. As for the Nuwaubians, in 2002, 300 state and federal law-enforcement officers raided their compound. ''It was really something like what you would see in a Wesley Snipes movie,'' says Putnam County Det. Sgt. Tracey Bowen. In 2004, the Nuwaubians' leader, Dwight ''Malachi'' York, was convicted on 10 counts of child molestation and racketeering. He's now serving a 135-year sentence at a federal prison in Colorado.

If Snipes is as innocent in all of these legal battles as he insists he is, he may very well be the unluckiest man on the planet. Still, there's something about his coolness in the midst of this mess that's hard not to admire. Even as his federal tax trial approaches, he possesses an almost serene calmness — a Zen-like sense that this too shall pass. His friend and longtime costar Woody Harrelson isn't surprised by Snipes' confidence. Harrelson, who refers to Snipes as his ''brother,'' says he's spoken to the actor recently and that he seems ''optimistic...and for good reason.''

More than anything, Snipes says he just wants to get back to work. He's particularly excited by the prospect of playing James Brown in a biopic that Spike Lee has been developing. As is Lee: ''Wesley is my man to portray the Godfather of Soul,'' he says. But at this point, Snipes' future in Hollywood seems almost beside the point next to his legal woes. At the end of our conversation, he's asked how he can be so sure that the lawyers and advisers he has now — the ones who seem confident of victory — aren't also giving the kind of bad advice Kahn and Rosile may have given him. Especially when the possible outcome is so severe — again, 16 years in jail. Doesn't this terrify him? What would happen to his wife and his kids?

Snipes thinks this over for a long time. The expression on his face is deflated, wounded. ''I understand the risks that are involved,'' he says quietly. ''I don't take this cavalierly. But I am in a spiritual place where I may not react the same way that other people may. At the same time, I have to be prepared to fight tooth and nail.... That's not a black thing, that's not a white thing. That's an American thing.''