'Iron Man' Actor Terrence Howard Explains How Fellow Actors Lose Their Souls When They Trade In Their Integrity
Terrence Howard, who played James Rhodes in the first Iron Man film, had an in-depth discussion about how actors lose their souls in Hollywood by trading away their integrity.
In an interview with Patrick Bet-David, Howard was asked why there is a short life in the acting world after he shared that only 3 of the 5 nominees for Best Actor in 2006 are still alive.
Howard answered, “Well, because losing out money. You’ve got take drugs. You’re going through so much to try and deal with life. You are literally — it’s an unhealthy space. And so eventually you’re going to go too far. Who knows what happened to Philip [Seymour Hoffman] , who knows what Heath [Ledger] had to do in order to get to where he was at. There’s a lot of things that people do that end up sitting and they can’t get over it. And they got to keep getting high hoping to get it out of their head.”
“When you lose your man card,” he continued. “That’s the only thing I can think of. You lose your damn man card.”
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When asked to elaborate on what he means by man card, Howard replied, “You give up your ability, your right to being a man. A man don’t take it. A man gives it. So when you give up that man card you don’t get that back.”
“I’m saying what I’m saying. You don’t get that back,” he continued. “You come into this world as a man one time. You give up that right for anything, for fear of being hurt, fear of somebody doing something, for wanting to gain something. When you give up that man card right you lose some spiritual energy that has always been pushing through.”
Next, Howard compared losing a man card to a woman losing her ability to be a mother. He said, “Like if a woman gives up her womanly right of being a mother and taking care of her family. When you give up those things.”
Returning to losing one’s man card or manhood, Terrence said, “But when you give up your manhood, I’ve never seen somebody recover from it. That was all the people that went to the Puffy parties. That was all the people that did all those things thinking there was never going to be a consequence for what they were doing. Get punked out and pimped out by some over greater desire. You shouldn’t have a greater desire than being a man. So I believe that’s a big problem with a lot of the actors out there because they get fluid and next thing, you know, once you go fluid it’s gone. You don’t have any foundation to pull yourself back from. So maintain your man card no matter what.”
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Howard elaborated, “They can’t get it out of their head. They can’t get it out of their head. The things that they did. No matter how they did it whether they were drunk or high or whatever you gave up your man card. You need therapy. And that’s the thing that hurts them the most. And so they end up on drugs. End up every way to try and get rid of any principles there are.”
“And the women that trade their bodies to go and get the role, they get to the point where they have their Oscar, they have their money, but they don’t have their dream. They don’t have the soul that they started with. So it’s like achieving don’t mean anything. If I get all the Nobel prizes from doing all of this, but in the process I have to trade out all of my integrity so that they can stay can in place, what benefit is that if I lose my integrity. You’ve got to go in as a principal. We were brought in here as men. We produce 1500 sperm per heartbeat for a reason because the aggression is necessary. You don’t trade that in. No matter what,” he declared.
Howard then detailed an experience he had where he was invited to trade in his integrity. He shared, “Puffy invited me for weeks, asking me to come and teach him how to, you know, wanted me to be his acting coach for awhile. Go there, sit around, and he’s just looking.”
“I’m like, ‘Okay, what’s the material you want to work on? He’s just looking at me,” he shared. “Then next thing you know, ‘Okay, hey, will you help me? I want to hear your music.’ So I come over there and play the music. And he’s sitting there just looking at me like waiting.”
“So then my assistant was like, ‘He wants to hang out with you next week.’ I was like, ‘For what?’ He’s like, ‘I think he’s trying to f**k you.’ That’s what my assistant said. … So now no more communication. Now, you know to be hands off with somebody,” he said. “A number of producers come in and make the approach. And you threaten to punch them in the mouth, threaten to knock their head off if they’re talking to you like or looking at you like you’re a woman. When you approach a real man about his masculinity, you’re going to get a real reaction back. It’s a difference when a guy walks in a room and when a man walks into a room. And man don’t take the same things that a guy will accept. So always be the man in the room. And that’s always been my whole thing. And I have lost businesses because I don’t bend over in that way. I don’t compromise. I don’t play gay roles. I don’t kiss a man. I don’t do that s**t because the man card means everything.”
While Howard claims that he’s never seen anybody recover from losing their man card or manhood, Jesus Christ offers healing. One of the ways he does this is through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the Sacrament penitents receive absolution and “God grants the penitent ‘pardon and peace.’
And while “absolution takes away sin … it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must ‘make satisfaction for’ or ‘expiate’ his sins. This satisfaction is also called ‘penance.’”
What do you make of Howard’s comments?
One of the things that took Iron Man down from great to not so great was replacing this actor with Cheadle. Iron Man one was great, and a large part of it was this guy.
Wow powerful words! And he’s clearly alluding to some dark stuff.