To Berry, the Arthur Kober play Having a Wonderful Time caught the high end of the Catskills experience. However, it was a more flamboyant theatrical rebel, Orson Welles, who gave Berry the experience that landed him on his first Broadway marquee. As part of the Mercury Theater troupe, Berry did everything from work on the stage crew to act in featured roles. He took over the role of Bigger Thomas' lawyer in Richard Wright's Native Son and ended up directing the road company and the show's return to Broadway. Berry says that his political awakening grew out of the despair and class warfare of the Depression era.
Berry savors the variety and breadth of America's democratic vision.
But he concedes that the U.S. doesn't do as well as France or England at honoring visionary artists like Welles. He was as big as Bogart, and he dared to go independent. Both the movie and Garfield's performance have an urgency that feels right for Garfield's final work before his death of a heart attack and Berry's last before his blacklisting. It was after we finished the movie that the witch-hunters put the pressure on, digging up a membership he had at 15 in the Young Pioneers. Ideological interpretations may be foisted on the film retrospectively, but Berry insists that the intensity of He Ran All the Way simply grew out of an honest exploration of the story.