Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Phylicia Rashad Talks Respect, The Rhythm Of Acting, Chadwick Boseman's Brilliance + More

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INTERVIEW: Phylicia Rashad Talks Respect, The Rhythm Of Acting, Chadwick Boseman's Brilliance + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning Breakfast Club.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, sister, one of the most dangerous morning show to
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club charlamagnea god, just hilarious. DJ Envy's not in,
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: but Laura le Rossa is filling in for him, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: we got Royalty in the building. Man, we have a
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: woman who has represented you know, black people, especially black
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: women correctly forever.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Miss Felicia Rashad is here. How are you, queen?
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: I am good. Good to see you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm a little star strugg too.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I mean to keep staring at you, but I cannot
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: believe I'm sitting here across from you and just and
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: like it's.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Because we've been watching you on TV.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: You always carry yourself in such a regal man, But
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: then when you walk in the room, you feel it
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: even more.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: It's like whoa.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I was telling him, all right, mama walking in the room,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: straightening up, okay, clean, make sure everything all right?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Do you have and I know you have this effect
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: everywhere you go. Are you used to people acting like this?
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Oh? You all?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Or what?
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Can I just say? We are as a people respectful
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: yeah to each other? Yes, yes, yes, ma'am, yes we are.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Yes we are, but not the others we are as
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: a people.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, yes, And you're here for I mean, we're
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: gonna talk to you about a lot of stuff.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You're making your Broadway directorial debut and purpose. Yes, how
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: did that feel?
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Well? It was wonderful. It's not the first time I've directed.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: This is the first time I'm directing in a Broadway theater.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: But this play and this cast, it's a real gift.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: You'll come and see. Yeah, yes, and I hope you'll
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: come to Brandon Jacobs Jenkins is the playwright. He received
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: the Tony Award last year for his play Appropriate And
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: This particular production originates in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and the Steppenwolf has a own ethos, its own legacy
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: for theater as it was formed by actors. So it's
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: ensemble work, and that's the best work. Absolutely ensemble work.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: But then that spirit I watched it move through the
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: cast into everybody, the designers, the production office and staff,
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: the theaters, we all, it's it's everybody. It's one. We
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: call it collective intention. Yeah.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: When I think about the thing that you and your
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: sister have done, Ms. Debbie Allen, you know, I just
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: wonder what did y'all dream of when y'all was kids,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: when y'all was just two little girls growing up? Like,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: what did y'all play about? What did y'all think about?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: What did y'all imagine?
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: We We grew up in Houston, Texas. Our father, doctor
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Andrew Allen's a dentist. Our mother, Vivianaires, is a poet.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: We grew up with a poet. We grew up with
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: a visionary And it was about freedom. It was about
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: pardon me. It was about realizing your full potential as
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: a human being. Can you imagine things like this? Teaching
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: dual children like this. She would teach us things like
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: she'd have aphorisms and she'd give them to us to say,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: the universe bears no ill to me, I bear no
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: ill to it. And we repeat that the universe fair
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: is no ill to me. I bear no ill to it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: If we just go around, the universe fairs no ill
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: to me. I bet when you teach a child like this,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: when you teach a child, be true, be beautiful, be free.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: She would say things like this to us, and she'd
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: say things like thinking requires thought, Thinking requires thought, would
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: say it, but these seeds were planted by the time
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: I was eleven years old. Yes, oh, Debbie. Debbie was
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: nine years old, and she said to my mother, I
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: did dance classes and you're not doing a thing about it.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: And you're not doing a thing about it. Wow, well,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: you know legal segregation at that time. My mother took
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: the railing off the side of the stairs going upstairs.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: She took the handrail and had it attached to a
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: wall in what was supposed to have been the dining room.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: And she hired this teacher who had come from the
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: New York City Ballet, a Caucasian man, to come and
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: teach Debbie in the house. Her ballet classes were there.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: This is this is how we grew. We grew like this.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: And he gave Debrah a book about ballet with photographs
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: of all the famous dancers, and we would look at
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: that book all day. Every day. My mother would take
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: us to exhibitions, to lectures things we couldn't understand. She
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: knew we couldn't understand it. She told us later, I
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: knew you wouldn't understand what was being said, but you
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: were present, and the seeds were being planted when we
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: were growing up. She didn't want us scarred by the
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: ignorance of racism, and it was all around us. It
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: was legal at that time, but as little little children,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: if there was somewhere we wanted to go and we
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: were restricted, she'd explain it like this. She'd say, oh, well,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: that's a private club for members only, and we're not
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: members of that club. And then she'd do something else.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: She'd invite all our friends into the living room. She'd
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: teach us music. She'd teach us to tumble, she'd teach
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: us things like this, she'd teach us chorl speech. And
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: that's how we grew. And at that time, music education.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: This is very interesting. In a time of legal segregation,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: music education was free and in the schools, and the
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: schools had instruments that students could use. I studied viola.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Debbie played the bass violin, if you can believe it,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: the littlest thing in the school. They had to sit
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: her up on a stool, had to sit that child
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: up on a stool, and her little fingers, her little hands.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Couldn't you know a bass player usually had big hands. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: you should have seen Debbie up there. She never missed
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: a beat and she never played a sour note. She
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: played that thing like she had created in herself. This
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: is how we grew We grew up in surrounded by
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: a community that cared for its children. And I mean
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: we were safe. Yeah, we were safe. We felt safe.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: We didn't I didn't feel fear as a child. Our
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: mother was a great example of that too. One night,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: somebody tried to break in the house, and my mother
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: was awake and she heard the clamor. She went out
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: the back door and walked her way around to where
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: this man was trying to come through the window. And
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: she stood right there and she said, you could get
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: arrested for that. You know, we scared. Jesus read we
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: grew up to be fearless, but not to be stupid.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Expound on that, fearless but not stupid.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look, if you see a rattlesnake in
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: front of you, come on, that's right, that's right. Don't
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: be stupid. If you see a car come in your way,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: don't be stupid.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, I love that.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I love the story you just told, because as you
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: were talking about it, I'm like, man, how do you
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: teach freedom the black kids in the country that wasn't
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: providing you that freedom?
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: At the time.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how. A poet,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: a visionary hmm. You have to look inside, and you
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: have to teach young people to look inside. There's nothing
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: but freedom. So much distraction today, one thing and then
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: another to make anybody, not just African American children, but
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: anybody feel separate from its creation, separate from the one
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: who created everything that is separate from one's own self.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: In the midst of majesty nature, in the midst of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: presence distraction, pay attention to that.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: You're gonna be stealing your quotes.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: But the rest of the month, every day there is
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: depositive note, and the Charlemagne is over there writing down
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: everything in his mind.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Going to be quoting you.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: For the rest of them month.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: I know it. Yeah, so you don't you know you
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: we knew history. You teach history, but you don't identify
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: with the Middle Passage. It's who you are. That's not
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: who you are, that's not who anyone is. That is
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: what happened. But people survive that because of who we
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: are as human beings. Right now, I'm just saying it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Right now, we need all the people. Yeah, all the people.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's since the community you're talking about growing up
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: in Houston.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: You need that.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: You need to be able to teach kids freedom. You
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: need to be able to instill security and safety in kids.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And that can only come from come.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: From it comes from home and in teaching. You know,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: it's shared with others. You know, children are not born
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: into this world fearful. No human being is born into
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: this world fearful or filled with hate. Nobody's born like.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: You have to learn that stuff. You know, there's a
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: song from a Broadway show. You have to be carefully taught,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: carefully talked. Well, you can be carefully taught the right
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: way too.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: What was your mother's upbringing like? Because she seems like
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: she was so still and so short of herself, and
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: I'm sure she had, you know, experienced a lot.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: My mother grew up in Chester, South Carolina, from Calina.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I was born in Charleston Rayther, then a small town
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: called monst Corn.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Oh you the people, okay?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: You the people?
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Okay. So it was a small mill town, right. Her
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: father was a blacksmith, one of his brothers was a mortician,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and the other brother was a barber. And these businesses
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: had been owned by her grandfather. It was an agricultural community, right.
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  Speaker 3: But there was a school there that had been founded
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: by the presbytery. There was such a number of such schools,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: pardon me, that had been founded by the Presbytery for
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: the descendants of freed African people throughout the South. This
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: school was Brainerd Institute. And in this school there was
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: this classical education administered by black people. My mother was
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: always interested in music. Oh, she was quite the pianist.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: She's described herself to me once is saying she was
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: a little girl swinging high on the swing, looking up
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: at the sky and dreaming big dreams. That's how she grew.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Her mother passed away when she was When my mother
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: was nine, she lost her mother. And she said, as
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: she sat at her mother's funeral and listened to the
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: things that people were saying, she decided none of them
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: were intelligent enough to tell her anything to do. She
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: would chart her own course at nine, at nine at nine,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: and she did, and she did. It was not an
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: easy life, but there was this spirit in her, living
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: in her, burning in her, that carried her through. Her
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: first publication is by Collection of Porns. Her second publication Hawk.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: If you read Hawk, you will understand how I grew.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: This is an inner journey. This is an allegory of freedom,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: which parallels flight through space without a vehicle. It was
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: published eleven weeks before the launch of sputnk Ie.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Wow, what did you learn from your your father, because
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you said he was a dentist.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, my father. My father was born on the back
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: porch of a farm in Lovedale, Louisiana. He was one
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: of nine children. His father worked on the railroad. He
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: was a fireman on the South Pacific Railroad. And his mother,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: you know, was housekeeping. Right. My grandfather put great emphasis
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: on education, and he made sure that all of his
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: children went to college.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Imagine it, especially in that time.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Imagine it. So my father was a very kind and
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: generous man. He was what was called a man's man.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Men loved him and trusted him. He was always the
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: treasurer of the dental Association because they said, if text
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: takes care of the money, we're in good shape. He
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: was organized, he was very clean. He loved music, he
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: loved theater, he loved the arts. He came to see
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: any and everything we did, whatever it was. He was
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: very supportive. He was he was so handsome, he was
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: so handsome, and he was so good. He did things
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: that people didn't know he did. He was like that.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: And in his office he dealt with people's pain and
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: anxiety every day, and they came to him and trusted him.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: And when they couldn't pay, he'd work out a payment
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: plan for them that was convenient for them. They didn't
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: have to go anywhere and incur interest rates. He would
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: work that out for him. When my father passed away,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: at his viewing, the line stretched out of the mortuary, wow,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: all the way down the street, all the way round
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: the block. And when the last person came, he said,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: he looked at it and me, he said, you don't understand.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: You don't understand. That's my dentist mmm. And that motiicaide as.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I remember.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: That moticaid on the way to the cemetery, stretched as
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: far as the eye could see. He was so beloved.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe, thank you.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: So that's why I asked, just because you know when
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: you look like I said, you know you we look
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: at Felicia, a shot at Wie Allen.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Two strong queens. Somebody had to raise them, somebody had
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: them steal that in them. And as a father raising
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: four beautiful black girls.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just always thinking about you know what
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: should me and my wife be in stealing in them
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: all the time just so they grow up to be.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Strong black women. Love them, my mom says, all the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: time when you.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Love them, that's all you know. My father, if I
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: can remember one great instruction, my father gave me two
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: great instructions. He said, and I was a little girl,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: he said, never let anybody run over you. Who was
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: five years old, and he told me that, never let
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: anyone run over you. And then later on in life,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: he said, always know the balance of your bank account
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: and keep your own money.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, what can you tell us about to start without
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: spoiling it?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: You know the Broadway?
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: But what can you tell us about the story of
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: purpose without giving it all the way?
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I know you don't want to. Oh, this is wonderful
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: family family drama, and there's humor in it. A young
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: man is recalling a visit to his home and on
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: this night of nights, so much happens in one night,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: and so much is revealed in one night, and some
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: things are resolved. It's uh, That's all I'm gonna tell you,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: except to tell you that cast Harry Lennox mm hmmmmkay,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: the Tanya Richardson Jackson mm hmm Okay, Glynn Glenn Davis
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: mm hmmm, Alana Arenas and John Michael Hill. It's the
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: most it's the most incredible ensemble that I've ever witnessed.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Each one is a master, each one and the inimitable
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Carry Young, who was Louty Bell in Pearly Victorious last season,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: that's her cast. People come at the end of the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: play and have various reactions. One woman said, ooh, that
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: scene at the dining room table. Who that was my
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: family's thanksgiving for the past time?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Relatable? Right?
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: And she was not an African American woman. People see
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: themselves and that's when we know we are really doing
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: our best work. When you see yourself.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: I was gonna say, speaking of doing your best work,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: I think you know, for a lot of us and
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: watching you on television, the iconic role of Claire Huxtable
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: and just what that image of you know, having a
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: mom that was just so graceful and so like everything
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: that you were in that show. Do you like in
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: real life? Is there ever, per sure was there at
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: the time for you to like upkeep like a certain
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: like I don't know, like an image or like just
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: anything that people try to house. No, like so not
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: in your house, but like in real life, like in
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Hollywood and other roles you were taking in, like you
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like, did you ever feel like
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: because I think for us like you are like the
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: perfect like image of like a black woman. Like so
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: I always wondered if you felt that pressure.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: No, light is not heavy, m carry light, share light.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Light is not heavy.
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: Even in even in interviews. But I understand what you're saying.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: Even in interviews back then, you would still have the
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: same deposition, the same grace when you know outside of
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: that role. I'm gonna tell you the one that sticks
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: with me when you told uh Saundra's boyfriend Elvin that
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: is iconic. And then when Vanessa wanted to go to Baltimore,
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: I'm friend to see the wretchet. Oh my god, when
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: I tell you those are my two like key episodes. Right, Well, yeah,
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: because I'm from Baltimore. I done snuck out the house,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: and you know i'd have done all that. You ain't
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: knocked Vanessa out. I got knocked out a few times.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: But.
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: Well yeah, right, that's it. Also, I also want to
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: bring up the movie bee Keeper. Oh my god, how
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: is that working with Jason Stathum.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Oh he's such a good person. Yeah, oh yeah, so generous,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: so kind, amazing to a fault. You know, that was
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: a great experience.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: That was a great movie because it also like talks
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: to what's going on these days. Like it's so I know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: y'all you probably didn't see it. So The bee Keeper
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: is a movie about an older woman who is robbed
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: of her her retirement funds, everything cleared, her bank accounts,
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: fraud a lot of frauds. She took a phone call
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: from this company that acted as if they were trying
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: to like help her with some type of banking information,
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: and she like kind of fell forward and ended up
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: now and Beekeeper did? Is this the question always have
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: Did the woman kill herself?
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Or did she killed herself? Not because she lost her money.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: It was other people's money she lost, Okay, And do
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: you know that maybe six months after that filming, I
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: read of such a thing in the newspaper. Wow, oh wow,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: this was a man. Yeah, and he was so embarrassed.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: His own Yeah.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: But the greater problem here is access, Yes, yeah, how
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: much access to people? Is all of that necessary. Is
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: it good?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: No, No it's not.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: No man, no it's not. And as we see it
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: moving towards more, think about that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how do how do you now a days like
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: because I mean you obviously pick and choose what you
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: want to do with your roles. Like I watched you
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: in the air from Detroit and I was like, the
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: one thing we all lay in the car and you
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: were talking about the temptations, all of them.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: Right now, I felt bad watching that. I'm like, I
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: don't think I was supposed to hear her.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: But it's so funny though.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: The first time I saw the clips, they didn't tell
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: me it was from a TV show.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he thought that you were really reflecting all your life.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I said, damn she slept.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, that was a character, Darling. That was
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: a character. As actors, we play these roles.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: When you choose a character like that, where it's like
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: it's a lot different than how we've seen you or
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: how I've seen you anyway, and different things that you've done.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: What's your thinking behind it? Is it because you want
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: to you want people to see you in the different
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: lights or is it just I just want to do
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: to see.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: What she was doing. Yes, that's why I chose the character,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: because of what she was doing. Yeah, people get all
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: caught up in funny stuff. Yeah, what was that woman doing.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: She was rescuing people.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: She was rescuing people. She was living with the deepest
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: hurt that a mother can have, that she lost her
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: child because she was not paying attention, and in her
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: heart she felt that her child was alive somewhere. And
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: this is years later, but just in the moment of
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: being too tired and too annoyed and too you distracted
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: and wanting to do something else, she turned away and
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: in that instant her child was taken from her. Yeah,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and so she said about saving people, She went on
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: saving people open one day somebody would save her son.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: M hm. So I choose people because I choose a
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: character because of what people are doing.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to go back to something just said.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: She brought up the Elvin scene, right, because that.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Was a role.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Well, when you schooled Elvin on I guess the marital,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: the marital, how much input did you have on that
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: scene and what were you trying to convey when you
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: saw it on paper? What did you say to yourself Oh,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I know what I can do in this scene to
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: convey a larger message.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't say anything. I just said I just
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: said the lines.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: It was just as it was there.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: It was there, but it was the way you deliver it,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: So it was like battle rapping.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: It was so good. I thought it was impriv you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: it was this is this is a part of your
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: training as an actor in language and how you use it,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: you know, And there's rhythm in this pace, and so
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: much is conveyed in that way. If you said it
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: another way, it wouldn't be as effective. If you tried
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: to say it like you were singing the lazy No,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: it wouldn't work.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't hit like a black mama.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: What would in writers' rooms like though, because it felt
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: like a black experience with black writers writers.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: The thing was to write a human story, to write
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: about human behavior, the truth of human behavior. That's what
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: makes comedy and theater real, the truth of human behavior.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: You don't have to make something up. If you're writing
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: about something that's real mm hmm, you can take a
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: different perspective on it, and your skills as a writer,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: you know, show up in your language or your you
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: know those things that writers do.
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, h what do you do to channel roles like
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: your role and fall from grace, like when you're the villain,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: What do you do to channel those roles?
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Everybody is a human being, right, yeah, okay, m she's
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: just a nasty human. This is a person who is sick.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Her whole perspective is warped. You've got to be sick
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: to mistreat another person. I'm sorry. You cannot be sane
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: and do hurtful things to people. You just the sane
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: person won't do that.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Do you agree that one of the four agreements is,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: you know, don't don't take offense to things, don't take
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: things personal because what you do, what somebody does to
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: you is not a reflection to you, is something that's
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: going on internally with them. It's hard, you know, to
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: put yourself in that position, but you really got to know.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: That sometimes you want to just clutch somebody, shake them
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: real good.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: My daddy used to say, you'll stop taking everything personal
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: personal once you realize that it's a bunch of people
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: out here on cocaine wos like, people out here doing
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: all types of stuff that you have no idea about.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Where was your father from.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Monk's Corner, South Carolina. All my family in South Carolina, Mama, daddy, everybody.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: It's the best because you know, it's like if you
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: ever been to the International African American Museum. Oh you
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: were there, i'mugging, yes, you were there for the grand opening.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't get to meet y'all. Want to meet y'all
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: was on the other side.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: But yes, it's right there on the port where, like
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: I think fifty percent of all enslaved Africans came through.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So that's like home for a lot of us.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: And don't know that's right, And don't.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Know another thing I want to ask you about when
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: you ran down on Vanessa, who are what were you
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: channeling in that moment, because I'm sure you, I'm sure
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: you and your sister snuck out the house a couple
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: of times and Mama had to get on you.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Never snuck out.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: I didn't have to sneak. Yeah, I didn't have to sneak. Okay,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: yeah it was good. I didn't have to. But it
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: was good not to have to do that. Yeah, you know,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: sometimes it might have stayed a little too long or
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: we didn't have to sneak. It was it was, it
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: was fun, it was you know, it was an actor
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: and you understand human behavior, you understand feelings. It's it's
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: the way you develop yourself. This is the craft. This
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: is what we do. And uh, I guess if you
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: do it in a certain way, people think it's you.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's why they can't see you playing a role
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: like in a fall from grades, like mister Shott is
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: a villain.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: No, she was.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: We have to detach the actress from the character. Oh yeah,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: you know. And as an artist, you don't want to
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: sing the same song or play the same tube. Yeah,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: you don't want to paint the same picture whatever. You've
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: got a paint box, you want to use those paints
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: and do a different scenes because we have range. Well yeah,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: and you want to express humanity in whatever you do
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: at least I do.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: You know you can't.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: I was going to say your time at at Howard,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: I'm a HBC. You graded went to Delaware State?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of it?
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Yes? Wow?
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: The police thing next exactly right. But the freedom that
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: you were talking about earlier, I remember, like I was
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: raised in a household where my mom was very much
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: like that. But going to an HBCU. I remember that
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: being the first time where I was like, oh, okay,
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: the world like really needs me. And it was because
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: of like teachers and counselors and stuff that kind of
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: had the same spirit that you have. I wonder, like
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: for you, what was like one of your favorite things
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: about walking on campus every day with those students as
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: a dean as.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: The dean ooh, walking on campus. Everywhere I looked, I
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: was reminded of my time there as a student, and
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: I was reminded of my friends, and I was reminded
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: of the things that we did in the time in
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: which we were living as students. It was an important time.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Doctor King was assassinated in my sophomore year.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I watched these things happen. So much unfolded on
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: that campus. I remember when Muhammad Ali came and spoke
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: on the steps of Frederick Douglas Hall mm hmm. And
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: I remember him standing there and he said, look at me.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Can't you see that I'm free? And you could. Oh.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: They were great people. There were great. Oh. The instructors.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: When I tell you about instructors I had at Howard.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: University, you know, yeah, they feeling they pour in like
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: you never forget that, like they pouring into you in
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: a different way.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: And they're so well developed. They are deep, they are deep.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: So there was a time, you know, I was just
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: referencing back to my father's area dentistry. There was a
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: time when African Americans were trained, could be trained at Harvard,
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: but they wouldn't hire them to teach. So these people
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: who were trained in these great quote great institutions went
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: to HBCUs to teach. You were receiving that education there,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: that discipline, those demands. They were serious about it. They
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: were so serious about it. There was there was an
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: instructor at Howard down in medical school, dtr Montague J. Cobb.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: They talked about this man. He was legendary. My father's
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: friend said, oh, no, you don't understand. If we failed
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: the test, he would say, meet me in the lab tonight,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: and they'd all show up in the lab and while
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: they were going around doing what they were supposed to
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: be doing, he would pull out his viola and play
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: as he walked up and down the aisle. And my
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: father's friend said, you wanted him to play that viola
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: because that meant that he was pleased with what you
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: would do. I mean it came, you know, people, we
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: came through in a time that we should remember.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's a level of village. I don't
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: know if we have anymore.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Well, we can have it if we want it, and
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: we can expand it. We can expand it to it
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: include our Hispanic family. We can expand it to include
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: our Asian family. We can expand it to include our
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: Caucasian family. We can expand it because we need all
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: the people. That's a line from August Wilson's play Jim
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: of the Ocean on Esther who on this It says,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: I'm going to show you what happened when all the
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: people call on God in the one voice. God got
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: beautiful splendors, and God got room for everybody.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: Were you when you when you decided not to return
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: back to Howard did you feel like you didn't return
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: because your work was done there? Or was it just
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: like a personal decision because like business reasons, Like I
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: just felt like people like you what we need? You
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: want campuses every day. But I know it's probably it's
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: a lot to do well at once. But like, what
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: was that like for you, that decision not to go back?
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Well, I will always be connected. I will always be
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: connected to Howard University. As a matter of fact, next
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: week I will be in Washington, D C. For the
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: one night only reading of Chadwick A. Boseman's Deep Azure.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: He wrote that. So he was one of my students
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: early early on, when Al Freeman Jr. Invited me to
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: come and teach for a semester. So we were in
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: the studio doing the show Monday through Thursday, and Friday morning,
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: I'd get up and fly down and I'd teach m
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And he was one of my students. Collecchi Susan Collecchi
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Watson was one of the students. Camilla Fors one of
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: the students. He was He was fearless, he was brave
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: South Carolina, and and he was also very respectful. That's
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: why I say, as a people, we are a respectful people.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: We are naturally, you know. So anyway, he kept in
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: contact with me, and after he had graduated, one day
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: I received this call, I'm sending you something, mister Shady,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: but always call me that I'm sending you something, mister.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: Even after he had attained fame and notoriety, he still
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: called me mister always. So said okay, and what he
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: sent was a copy of the script that he had
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: written hip Hop Theater. Hip Hop Theater was born on
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: the campus of Howard University, and he was one of
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: the progenitors. He was one of the innovators. And it's
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: how can I say hip hop language and rhythm through
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: the voice and experience of a class that.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: It is grand that's like the essence of HBCU. Like
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: when you're saying it, it's like, okay, that's what it's
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: like when you go to like the caf for like
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: you and the parties or it's literally like everybody is
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: so like astute, but like you. It's a vibe like
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: you can't describe it. You got to just be there.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: And it's real. It's real. And people are taking their
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: education seriously right but now with this AI business, I
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: don't know, trying not to write their own papers to
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: try to do this what do they call it? This
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: chet thing chat? And who excuse me for stammering, but
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: it puts me at a loss for words like darling,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: don't you understand why you're here now? If you wanted
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: to do that, you could stay home. You should stay
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: home because you're taking up room that somebody else could
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: be occupying. Who really wants to.
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: Do the work?
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, who really wants to develop? What about your intellect? Baby?
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: Do you have no care or thought for your intellect
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: for expanding that? What about that? What about your worldview?
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Darling?
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Do you not care for that? Oh? Okay, you're gonna
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: give that to the chap too. All right, Well let's
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: see where you lad, Let's see where you end up.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: So purpose the play. Yes, one of the things that
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: said in this play by the patriarch, he said, he
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: feels he feels that he has lost a communion with God.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: He said, ancestors were in such close communion with God
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: and his creation. They knew how to do things and
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: how to take care of things, he says, And I
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: think that I have I think that we all have
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: lost that. He says. Well, maybe it's old age. I
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: don't know, but he says, he's very interested in the
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: things we used to do back home down in the country,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: fishing and hunting and bee keeping and growing. You know,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: I was shocked, shocked to know that they are children
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: who don't understand that French fries come from potatoes that
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: are alone, and.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Those wasn't the children that how it was?
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: It? Okay? But I'm shocked. But I'm shocked to know.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: I'm shocked to know from two pediatricians in two different cities. Right,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: they have books, you know, in their waiting rooms for
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: the young children. Young children come in and pick up
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: a book and try to scan it.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: M m.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Because the parents aren't giving them books, They're giving them
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: these little things. Have these these things. Yeah, it's like,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: so here we go back to parenting. You'll leave that
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: in the hands of somebody else and think it's gonna
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: come out right. I don't think so.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: The dramatic pause, I don't know. This is a dramatic pause.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: You'll be stopping. That's why i'd be just like, speaking
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: of dramatic pause, you call it a dramatic I'm.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Trying to figure out sometimes it's dramatic, Paul, but then
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes you really are done.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to figure it out.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: She's speak. We're in conversation.
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: The I had a question about the deep as you're
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: so the proceeds from the One night Only are going
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: back to the College of Finding Arts at Howard. Yes,
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: what like today if Chadwood could see kind of like,
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: you know, how the final product has come along and
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: everybody that's involved, Like what would his sentiments be?
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: How happy would he b two see all of this
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: coming to fruition from that first phone call that you
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: guys had about I'll.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Tell you his wife is very and he's producing partner
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: who was his best friend in college. They're very happy,
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: and I'm very happy because it's happening, and it's happening
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: with a great cast of actors. I don't know if
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: you have that list.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: I can look it up.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you have the list you want
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: to look it up?
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: I got it. Oh, you should look at it.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: It's it's Isaiah Johnson, Yes, Amber Emmon, who plays as
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: your Greg. Alvarez Reed plays Tone, Joshua Boone plays Rod.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Lauren Banks the Street Knowledge good. Yeah, I'm a mess
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: this one up. At a Sola isa col Aska, Looming.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: She said, what what you say?
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Oknew, I was gonna mess it up. I'm sorry. Is
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: the Street Knowledge evil? Jess Washington? Uh is stage directions?
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: These are all professionals, yes, and uh god, we're so honored.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, We're so honored and our and our our
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Honorary Host Committee. H I mean you know who's on
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: that mm hmm. You can look it up. Look it
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: up and see. I mean, these are people supporting this.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: So the Honorary Host Committee. Ryan Coogler is the honorary chair,
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Common Susan Khalichi Watson, don Cheto uh Tony see Coats,
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Tannahisee Coats, Camilla Forbes, Reginald Hudlington, Kenny Leon
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: and Terrell, Alvin McCraney. Yes, universe, ye.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: All too supporseeah to support his legacy. Chadwick was He
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: was really amazing. Chadwick was an actor. Yes, Chadwick was
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: a writer. Chadwick was a director. Chadwick was a scholar.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: He studied many things. The etymology of words, oh, he
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: was deep into that, into names and the meanings of them.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: He studied the Bible, not to Bible thump, but to
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: understand its origins really and its deeper meanings. And then
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: he combined all of that with you know, I hate
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: to say it like this, but I'll say it like this,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: with African cosmology. Why do I hate to say it
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: like that, Because Africa is a huge continent and it
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: is not a monolithic proposition, but there is a certain
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: ethos that runs through all. He was brilliant. He was brilliant.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: There was nobody else to play back Black Panther.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: But mm hmm, Chadwick, see I big. We got him
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: on the door. Oh yeah.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: And you know what he really cared about. He called
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: me one day and this was after graduation. He was
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: living in New York and he was so excited and
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: he wanted me to know what he was doing and
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: to come and see. And I was thinking, Okay, now,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: let's see what premiere is this, what film is this?
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: What play is this? It was none of that. He
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: was working with young people in the Schomberg Library and
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: he was so excited about that. M wow, yes he was.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: You know, you came up in an Arab mister Shad,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: where dignity and grace were everything. So do you have
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: a look at how wild Hollywood is now? Think to yourself, boy,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: y'all got it easy. Y'all wouldn't have got away with
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: dad my day.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah, you have to look at Hollywood. I
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: could look at the way young ladies dress. Pan I'm
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: not talking about I'm talking about you know, the young
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: ladies are so beautiful. They're so beautiful, and something has
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: happened in popular culture, you know. And I don't mean
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: to be critical, and I hope young ladies listening don't
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: take this as personal criticism because I don't mean it
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: that way. But you're young, Queen's beautiful and smart and
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: brilliant and bright, and it really I know I'm taken
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: aback when I see on a college campus young women
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: dressed in strips of clothing. I mean, male instructors don't
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: like it. But more importantly than that, and you correct
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: me if I'm wrong, sir, No man wants his woman
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: to be out like that right now.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I grew up on method man saying wearing three fourths
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: of cloth and that was showing your stuff off boo.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like there's today's designers. I mean, there's ways,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: you know, there's there are other things and I.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Just leave something to the imagination. It would be nice
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: somethings for my eyes only, you know.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: And like you said, there are ways of being sexy
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: without showing so.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Much, please, and that's really not sexy.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of the most sexy is most beautiful
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: is you. I forgot what year it was. But you
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: got on like a basketball jersey, like and some popcorn.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: That is.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: That white jersey?
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: That was Yeah, that was a beautiful picture.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: That's like that is the epitome of sexy.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Oh well, it's it's I think it has to do
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: with I think it has a lot to do with
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: what they're what they see, what they're emulating what they see. See.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: We we grew up in a time where you know,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: the the singers, these ladies were dressed down, these women
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: who they were wearing robes and gowns and dew right.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Well it's a little different today. Yeah, so they're really
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: just emulating what they said. Hmm.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: I thought it was from nineteen eighty seven. Madison Square
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: Garden was jery, it was, Yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about yes, yes, remember what you were doing.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: I was there with Malcolm Jamal Warner.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Be here before you got here.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, congratulations.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: You know, try to give your icons they flowers and
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: celebrate them while they're still here.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, whoa got her balloon.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Flowers?
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: We don't never do that. Nobody here.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: You've you've been so gracious with your time. So I
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: just got a couple more questions. What's the lesson you
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: learned way too late in life that you wish you
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: figured out sooner and you would teach the next generation.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Now, this is gonna sound weird to you after everything
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: I've told you. The lesson that I learned later in
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: life was that I'm enough as a young girl growing up,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: you know, and young girls go through this. You'll know,
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: you go through a period where you feel like because
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: and it's because you're looking outside yourself. You compare yourself
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: to everyone else you see, and you're not enough because
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: you don't dressed like that one, or you don't have
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: hair like that one, or you don't have legs like
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: that one. You can think of any number of things.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: Young girls go through. This kind of thing usually happens
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: around adolescence, where you feel like you're not enough. Part
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: of that had to do with my mother being so beautiful,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: my father being so handsome, and my sister being so cute,
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: my brother being so whatever, And I just thought, well,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: when I was born, the Lord was doing something else.
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: I'm serious, what age was this that you felt like that?
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: And I was when I was young, when I was
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: oh ten, eleven, twelve. And that's a subtle thing that
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: you'll carry with you until you look inside yourself, and
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: you start looking inside yourself, and that thinking vanishes and
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: goes away. This is only when we look inside ourselves
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: that we see what beauty really is.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: So when did you get to that place of worthy?
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: When did I get to this? Please?
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: I think I was about thirty I want to say
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I was about thirty four, thirty five years old.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: And now I look back at those pictures of myself
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: and I say, what'd you feel like that? Yeah? The mind? Oh, yeah,
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: the mind. That's why it's important to teach young people
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: to look inside the mind, the state of mind. And
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: there's too much going on right now that's so distracting
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: for them. I don't know how young people feel. If
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: they listen to news reports today, they can't feel empowered.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: It's not meant to do that for us, for anybody.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: But it never has though.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: I mean they always say if it bleeds, it leads,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: like they especially for black people, it never would telling
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: us anything to make us feel uplifted and empowered.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: All of humanity is in the same boat, my friend,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: nobody feels empowered by that. None, really. I was taught
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: a very great thing. I heard a very great thing
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: from a great being some years ago. Make yourself great
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: by making others greater. Mmm mmm, and that's what I
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: would teach a young.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Person, make yourself great by making others greater.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: M yes.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: Man, Well, thank you, not just for the interview, but
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: for your career things.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for being you. Like you know,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: it is not every day you get to meet people
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: that you you know, you grew up on and watched
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: and you know said to yourself, Man, that person right
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: there is a pillar of our community and what we
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: need to be as a people.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: And then you meet them and you're just as gracious
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and regal in person.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Just thank you.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you to your mother and your father for raising
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: such a beautiful, strong woman, and I hope I can
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: do the same for my daughters.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: I think you are I think when they look at you,
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: they know that they're loved and they're protected. That's all
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: they need.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely make sure y'all go check out Purposes running
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: through on Broadway through July sixth.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: It is Queen Felicia Rashad. Thank you for joining us.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Wake that answer up in the morning. Breakfast Club