Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: David Oyelowo Talks 'Government Cheese,' British Vs. American Acting & Opportunities, Oprah + More

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INTERVIEW: David Oyelowo Talks 'Government Cheese,' British Vs. American Acting & Opportunities, Oprah + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You op, it's the world's most dangerous morning show.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: To Breakfast Club shall mean the God Lauren le Rossa
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: and Bey and Jess are out, but we got a
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: special guest, David o' Yellowwoe was here.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Did I say it?
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Did you did? Okay? I had to ask you beforehand.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: You know, I appreciate that you did.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I see it all the time, but I'm like,
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  Speaker 3: I don't want to hack it when I try to
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  Speaker 3: say it.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Now everyone everyone does. But yeah, you nailed that.
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  Speaker 2: How are you, sir?
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  Speaker 1: I'm very good, very good. It's great to be here.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Absolutely So.
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  Speaker 4: You got a government cheese happening right now on Apple TV.
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  Speaker 4: So and watching this but also some of the other
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  Speaker 4: things that I've seen you playing. Can you just first
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  Speaker 4: talk about your career and like the roles that you select,
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: all of the roles that I know you for are
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  Speaker 4: very powerful, very like you. You tell stories that are
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  Speaker 4: like so important to black people coming out the gate
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  Speaker 4: you are. Is that something you were like, Hey, this
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  Speaker 4: has to be it for me, this is what I
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  Speaker 4: want to do or did you just fall into these roles?
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  Speaker 5: Because how did it happen.
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  Speaker 6: No, thank you for saying that. It's very intentional. You know,
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  Speaker 6: I was incredibly influenced by film and television growing up,
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  Speaker 6: and I was aware quite early that the images I
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  Speaker 6: was taking in were in some ways informing me of
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  Speaker 6: what blackness means globally speaking. And then I had this
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  Speaker 6: incredible moment where, having been born and grown up in
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  Speaker 6: the UK, we moved back to Nigeria for six years
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  Speaker 6: from the age of six to thirteen, and I was
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  Speaker 6: suddenly in a country, in an environment where I was
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  Speaker 6: not a minority. Everything on offer in that society was
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  Speaker 6: mine for the taking, and I realized that these images
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  Speaker 6: that I was internalizing that often had black people on
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  Speaker 6: the periphery or playing what I deemed to be caricatures
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  Speaker 6: or stereotypes, were insidious, were detrimental to us as a people.
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  Speaker 6: And so, having moved back to the UK becoming an actor,
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  Speaker 6: I felt that if I'm not part of the solution,
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  Speaker 6: I'm part of the problem. And so I've definitely gravitated
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  Speaker 6: towards roles and projects that mean that I am trying
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  Speaker 6: to change what I saw growing up. I'm trying to
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  Speaker 6: widen the aperture and contextualize who and what we are
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  Speaker 6: as black people.
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  Speaker 2: That's interesting. I wonder how did you know that?
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  Speaker 3: You know, they were characatures and stereotypes if you've never
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  Speaker 3: if you hadn't been to America to see for yourself.
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  Speaker 6: Yet, because I was living in communities where black people
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  Speaker 6: were central to their own lives, and I knew that
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  Speaker 6: what I was saying, because it wasn't just America, it
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  Speaker 6: was in the UK as well. You know, if if
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  Speaker 6: every time you see a black person they are on
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  Speaker 6: the periphery of the narrative, if so often they are
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  Speaker 6: criminalized or marginalized, that was not my experience walking through
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  Speaker 6: the earth, and so I felt that's intentional, that's political,
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  Speaker 6: that's propaganda in a sense, and it's having a a
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  Speaker 6: detrimental effect on me because there is a disconnect between
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  Speaker 6: my lived experience and what I'm internalizing on screen. And
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  Speaker 6: so that's how I knew it was something to become batter.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's so interesting, right because I have that
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  Speaker 3: conversation often, because you know, when you watch film in
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  Speaker 3: television in the nineties, if everything had some type of
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  Speaker 3: socially redeeming value, right, you.
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  Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
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  Speaker 3: And I always wonder what the hell happened to it.
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  Speaker 3: It felt like it was intentional. Yeah, put them to
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  Speaker 3: stop showing us that and start giving us like the
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  Speaker 3: reality television.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I can tell you exactly what happened. So
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  Speaker 6: often why you got you had those films that were
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  Speaker 6: bringing context to who we are as black people is
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  Speaker 6: because it was largely being framed and made.
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  Speaker 1: By black people.
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  Speaker 6: What has happened a lot is that our stories, we
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  Speaker 6: craft them, we developed them. But at some point you've
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  Speaker 6: got to take it to people who have green light power,
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  Speaker 6: who are not from our demographic and so therefore you're
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  Speaker 6: having to push who we are through their perception of
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  Speaker 6: who we are, and it almost always gets eroded, watered down,
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  Speaker 6: or marginalized. And that's what's happening. For some reason in
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  Speaker 6: the nineties that there were there were producers, there were creatives,
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  Speaker 6: there were directors who were just doing it all themselves,
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  Speaker 6: and it was getting celebrated and it was less watered down.
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  Speaker 1: And that's why I think we had that golden era.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, how you go from The Cosby Show being the
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  Speaker 3: number one show on television, Different World being the number
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  Speaker 3: two show on television, and then all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 3: it's just like, Okay, that don't work no more.
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  Speaker 1: Right right.
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  Speaker 6: I think there's some intention behind it, you know, you
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  Speaker 6: look at what's happening in the education system. There's a
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  Speaker 6: reason why they're trying to reduce what we have access
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  Speaker 6: to by way of knowledge as to who we are.
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  Speaker 6: Because knowledge is power. So you take that power away,
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  Speaker 6: you can continue to subjugate people. So you know, in
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  Speaker 6: relation to what you said, I love what I get
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  Speaker 6: to do. I love being a storyteller, but I do
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  Speaker 6: often feel like it's also a politic act get our
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  Speaker 6: stories told.
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  Speaker 5: Is it ever heavy for you?
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  Speaker 4: Because I remember watching you and the story about doctor
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  Speaker 4: Martin Luther King and yeah, Selma, And like, I know
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  Speaker 4: there's a lot because you also have done theater. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: you're very serious about what you do, so I know
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  Speaker 4: that there's a lot of study and like deep study
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  Speaker 4: and things of that nature. So you're probably doing that
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  Speaker 4: for every single role. And there's a lot of like
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  Speaker 4: just trauma that you take on differently because you get
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  Speaker 4: so close to your characters. How does that stick with you,
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: like in that pressure from outside world too, of like
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  Speaker 4: these are characters and people that you know have shaped
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  Speaker 4: our world.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I try to stay away from the
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  Speaker 6: trauma component. What I mostly gravitate towards aspirational representations of us.
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  Speaker 6: So in playing Doctor King, the gift for me was
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: to see a leader, to see someone who was an icon,
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  Speaker 6: but who was a human being as well. And I
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  Speaker 6: am interested in stories where we get to be triumphant,
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  Speaker 6: where we get to someone you would aspire to be,
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  Speaker 6: no matter what demographic of person you are. More often
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  Speaker 6: than not, when you see black people in a historical context,
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  Speaker 6: we are browbeaten, we're broken down, and often we don't
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  Speaker 6: we're not allowed to ascend. You won't catch me in
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  Speaker 6: that narrative. For me personally, we have got to for
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  Speaker 6: me be on an upward trajectory in whatever we do,
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  Speaker 6: so it's less traumatic, it's more celebratory of who we
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  Speaker 6: are without shying away from the challenges we've faced.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they never want to show you the slave revolting right.
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  Speaker 6: Right exactly exactly. And for me, you know, that's why
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  Speaker 6: I resist slave narratives because it's very hard to find
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  Speaker 6: the triumphant in that. The closest I came to that
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  Speaker 6: was playing bass Reefs. In that this show Low Man
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  Speaker 6: bass Reefs, he starts enslaved. But the great thing about
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  Speaker 6: being a producer is that you can ensure or be
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  Speaker 6: a voice in where the narrative goes. I would not
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  Speaker 6: have taken that on if he didn't go from enslavement
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  Speaker 6: to empowerment. Staying in enslavement is not something that I
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  Speaker 6: want to project to our people, because there are people
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  Speaker 6: who enjoy that narrative as a means of.
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  Speaker 1: Keeping us down.
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  Speaker 4: You said something interesting, you said it being a producer
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  Speaker 4: you get to kind of like, you know, help to
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  Speaker 4: figure out where the character development goes and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 4: What part of your career did that become an option
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  Speaker 4: for you, because not all actors have the ability to
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  Speaker 4: be on a set and say, hey, I think that
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  Speaker 4: we should change this or empower differently because of how
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  Speaker 4: my people will see this.
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  Speaker 5: When did that happen first in your career?
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  Speaker 1: It happened by accident. It was on Selma.
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  Speaker 6: I got the script just as an actor in two
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  Speaker 6: thousand and seven, felt a real calling to play that role.
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  Speaker 6: But I auditioned for it and the first director said,
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  Speaker 6: David o'yelowo is not Doctor King. That was literally the feedback,
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  Speaker 6: And it took another seven years before the film came
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  Speaker 6: to fruition. But what I could never had anticipated was
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: that I would go from being an actor who was
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: rejected initially to three directors later because they just kept
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: on not wanting to make that movie because black doesn't travel,
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  Speaker 6: The audience is not going to gravitate towards it.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever the excuses are. Say that, well they did back then.
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  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, you think this is a
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  Speaker 6: film about doctor king Ala Perry.
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  Speaker 4: Because they said that, They told Tyler Perry black people
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  Speaker 4: would in lead the theater to go to the movies.
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  Speaker 5: They don't travel beyond the.
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  Speaker 2: Global you meant like global global box office, right.
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  Speaker 1: Globally, but here as well.
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  Speaker 6: Then the narrative was black people don't want to see
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  Speaker 6: black struggle. White people don't want to see, you know,
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: feel white guilt and things like that. But you know,
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  Speaker 6: it wasn't until twenty ten. Lee Daniels actually came along
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  Speaker 6: and was the one who actually cast me in it.
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  Speaker 6: Still couldn't get the film made. In the meantime, I
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  Speaker 6: did a small film with Averduvener called Middle of Nowhere,
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  Speaker 6: small two hundred thousand dollars movie, and I felt.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: She is a genius.
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  Speaker 6: Lee had moved on from the project because they wouldn't
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: give him enough money to make it, and I went
• 9:04
  Speaker 6: in and fought very hard for Ava to be the
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: one to direct it. She rewrote the script. It was
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: a brilliant rewrite of the script. Still couldn't get it made.
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: I'd done the Butler with Oprah at that time. I
• 9:18
  Speaker 6: invited Oprah on to be a producer on the film.
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  Speaker 6: Twelve Years a Slave came out and had done well,
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  Speaker 6: which had broken down this notion of our stories not traveling.
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  Speaker 6: And so the aggregation of all of those things is
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  Speaker 6: what went on to mean Selma got made well. I
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: didn't realize I was doing by bringing on Ava, bringing
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  Speaker 6: on Oprah, fighting daily to try and get the thing made,
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: was producing and so I thought, oh, okay, well I
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: can do that again for the things that I believe
• 9:47
  Speaker 6: in and I'm passionate about. And so you know, that
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  Speaker 6: was ten eleven years ago now and I haven't stopped since.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Why didn't it.
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  Speaker 4: I was just gonna say, that's so crazy, because twel
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  Speaker 4: Years a Slave came out in twenty thirteen, that was
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: even still a conversation then.
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  Speaker 6: It was the conversation back then. I mean, I had
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: done the last King of Scotland before that, and people
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: may not remember. But even though we think of Forest
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: Whitaker in that film, the lead of that film was
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: actually James McAvoy. They would not have made that film
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: unless there was the Scottish white doctor as the lead
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: of the role. It was the sheer force of Forest
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: Whitaker's performance that meant he went on to win Best Actor.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: I was in The Help. It was the character played
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: by Emma Stone who was the lead character of The Help,
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: not Viola Davis, not Octavius Spencer. It was the sheer
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: force of their performances that means that they are the
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: ones we think about. So when I first read Selma
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: in two thousand and seven, Lyndon Johnson was the lead character.
• 10:52
  Speaker 6: Doctor King was a supporting character. This is how these
• 10:55
  Speaker 6: films were getting made back there.
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  Speaker 1: Then.
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  Speaker 6: They were always fronted by by white characters and you
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: were sort of on the on the periphery. But it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: this year force of who we are as performers that
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: meant that you go, oh, that's you know the same.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Thing with Glory.
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  Speaker 6: You know, Matthew Broderick is the lead of that movie,
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: but we think of Denzel and Morgan Freeman, you know,
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: in that movie. So that's how these films always got
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: made until you know, twenty thirteen there was twelve Years
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: a Slave without Twelve Years a Slave. I don't think
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: Selma gets green lit in twenty fourteen.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Is there racism or business?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Is racism real? No? I mean it's that it's not business.
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: When the Butler, we couldn't get the film made because
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: no one would put money in. We had to go
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: to can to raise the funds. We sold seventeen maybe
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: eighteen foreign territories got the eighteen million dollars to make
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: the movie. The only reason the film got completed, because
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: that wasn't enough money to make it, is because a
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: hurricane hit the set. So we use the insurance money
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: to complete the movie.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So we made it.
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  Speaker 6: I think at the end of the day was a
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: twenty five million dollars we made that movie for it
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: made one hundred and seventy two million dollars. So it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: not business because you know, anytime we end up making
• 12:11
  Speaker 6: these shows or these films and they succeed, they then
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: get deemed that they have overperformed, which in my even
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: with the white lead, yes, but because because well in
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: The Butler, for as witzakers the lead and its centers
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: around a black family. So that's why there was resistance
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: to making it. But there's no way you're struggling to
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: raise twenty five million dollars to make a movie if
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: you knew it was going to make one hundred and
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: seventy two million dollars. The assumption is that it won't
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: make that money. So that's why I say it's not
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: a business decision, it's a yea.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: I just wonder what those assumptions are based off. Are
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: they based off box office success? I mean, you know
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: now in twenty twenty five, it would be much harder
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: to have those conversations because of the success of a
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: lot of black laid movies.
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: Then, you know, because we've eroded the lie we have
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: too many we have draw data. And that's the thing
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: that streaming has done as well, you know, streaming. For
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: I saw a clear uptick in my career when streaming
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: came along. Because the reason why it's racism is it's
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: tied to the opinion of a very small sample size
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: of people who are not our demographic, who make these
• 13:24
  Speaker 6: decisions purely based on opinion, not on raw data. Now, Netflix, Amazon, Apple.
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: You know there is data we see the you know
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: law men bass Reeves. I tried to get that show
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: made for ten years. It got rejected by Hollywood three times.
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: Went on to be the most successful widely viewed show
• 13:44
  Speaker 6: on Apple TV plus globally in twenty twenty three. There's
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: no way would that was the estimation of what it
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: would be, you know, in relation to how many times
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: it was rejected.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: So we have consistently.
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: Eroded them, but we still are being saddled with this
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: what I deem to be a pejorative, which is it overperformed. No,
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: didn't overperform, just performed. The audience gravitated towards it because
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: we're human beings telling great stories in a great way
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: and the global audience are rewarding us for it.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: I do get mad at uh.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I do get mad at us sometimes when we don't
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: show up for certain projects, right, because you have to, like,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, it's still I understand
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: everything you're saying, and you're right, but it is still
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: a business, yeah, at the end of the day, and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: we make it easy for them to say no when
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: we don't show up.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: Well, I guess it depends on when you deem us
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: not showing up. I've definitely had projects where I was like, oh,
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: come on, guys, show up. But you know, I think
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: we're fourteen percent of the population here, but black and
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: brown people.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: You know, we're trillion dollars in spending exactly here.
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, but we over index. It's like forty percent of
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: viewership on a on streaming. It's us, you know. So
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: we show up for the art form. We are the culture.
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: We are the drivers of the culture. And so to
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: constantly have the folks who are driving that culture on
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: the margins of it doesn't really make sense.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I wonder if it's the type of art too, though.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: That is either because they're quick to make a comedy, right,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: they'll make a right, you know what I mean, But
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: when it's actually something of some substance, Yeah, it's a
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: little harder to make.
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: Well, that's why, And to your point, that's why I
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: try to push the envelope with what I do. I'm
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: always trying to find something that is a fresh way
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: into telling a story. So, you know, Government Cheese is
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: a comedy, but it's a surrealist, parabolic, fantastical comedy that
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: has this sort of spiritual journey element, something you'd probably
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: expect more from Wes Anderson than from us. So it's
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: it's comedy, but I like to think it has more substance,
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: you know, artistically, that there's there's there's layers to it,
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: and so it's a little bit chicken and egg as well,
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: because if we get opportunities to do one thing and
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: that one thing is doing well, well, you're going to
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: keep feeding that machine. If it's harder for us to
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: color outside the lines, and then there's so much pressure
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: on whether that thing succeeds or not. That's really difficult
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: because you know, if I'm a white person and I'm
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: taking a big swing, the chances are I'm going to
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: have about four, five, six, maybe seven at bats, you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: with us one maybe two, and so that puts a
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: lot of pressure. So the temptation is to keep on
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: doing the safe thing. But that's the thing I've I've
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: told myself, I can't afford to be safe.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I want to ask real quick, why didn't they want you?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Why didn't the director want you to play Mlkay?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: His reason, well, he was he was entitled to his opinion.
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: I mean he was a white male director. Who I
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: think was more focused on the LBJ character and he
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: had another actor in mind, Like I say, his his
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: his his choice. But to be honest, when I think
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: about it now, that's not the version of the story
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: I would have ever truly been proud of. Or you know,
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: that's in line with those other movies I talked about.
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: You see it with The Constant Gardener or Blood Diamond
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: as well. You know, these these films that insist on
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: a white protagonist when we are central to the story,
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: and that's what that version of someone was going to be.
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: So I'm actually really glad that that version isn't isn't
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: the one that got made.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: What's success for you now?
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: Because when I think about the Semmer movie, I remember
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: the Ascar situation where you guys were up for these
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: wars like the movie itself within you and able to
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: do rene and you spoke out and said that you
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: feel like you guys were snub because you protested wearing
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: that I can't breath t shirts.
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: So it can't be a war shows for you at
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: this point, right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, I mean.
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: The the the opportunity that adversity has afforded is to
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: know that Ultimately, I don't know that those accolades are
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: necessarily designed with us in mind. Don't get me wrong,
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: happy to get them if and when they come along.
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: But the reward which I couldn't have for seeing with
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: Selma was Oscar so white. You know, the fact that
• 18:18
  Speaker 6: Selma started that movement and meant that our industry was
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: held to account from without the industry. The culture literally
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: said we do not agree with how you treated that
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: film or how you're treating us generally, and that pressure
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: really did change the face of Hollywood for a time anyway.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it definitely moved the needle.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Because that year all twenty act nominees were white.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: But so for you when you come in after that
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: year and you're you know what I mean, you do
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: your whole back. You're very vocal about how you feel
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: what you're experiencing on the business side of it as
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: a producer, someone that is directing and doing all these
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: things that you're doing. Are studios welcoming you with opening
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: arms like in an ideal world or do you feel
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: the resistance more after a moment like that.
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: It's complicated because you know, in that situation, it was
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: that first year and then the next year it was.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: The same thing.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: So you know what was helpful about that is that
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: you again, like I said earlier, data, it's I'm not
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: just playing the race card. I'm not just complaining you
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: have two years in a row where every nominee is
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: a white person and not a person of color. That
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: suggests there is something wrong with our industry when you
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: consider how much our communities support this industry, how prolific
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: we are within this industry, the work that we're producing,
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: which the audience is saying they value and are remunerating
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: at the box office, and so that becomes something you
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: can hold the industry accountable to. And that's something, like
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: you say, I've been vocal about. I've been very energized about,
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: and that has been a big driver for my work.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I love something you say.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: You said, an opportunity that adversity has afforded.
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you expound on it for well, you know, when
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: you're in the middle of it, it's no fun, you know,
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: when your film is being attacked, when it's being accused
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: of inaccuracy, when people are saying, actually, the Selmer March
• 20:11
  Speaker 6: was Lyndon Johnson's idea, not doctor King's idea, all of
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: which is completely true. Sorry, all of which is completely false.
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: But you can feel the reason you're being attacked is
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: because you're actually doing something worthwhile. Doesn't feel great, breaking
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: new ground doesn't feel great, but the ultimate reward is
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: there is nowhere in the world I go now where
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: you know black people in particular are not just hugely
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: supportive of me. Because that adversity that we face publicly,
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: people are facing in their lives privately and say they go,
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: I see you, I see what you're trying to do.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I'm with you.
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: I'm going to support you. And so that level of
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: support is something no one can take from me. And
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: since that adversity, I can feel it, and it's a
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: continuing ground swell because my contracts not just with black
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: people as an audience, but with the audience generally, is
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: I'm going to just consistently try to contextualize who we
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: are as black people. If you're down for that, come
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: on the ride with me. And that may have not
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: been something I was so focused on if I had
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: had all the accolades that you know could have been afforded.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about government cheese. So the name
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: itself of the series. Let's talk about that first, because
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: it's referring to the government Cheese program, which is a
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: kind of like an overarching conversation that you guys have
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: throughout the series without.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: Really having it all the way.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so talk about the you know, just the choice
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: to title it that, and you know what, you hope
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: the hope is that people get just from looking at
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: the title before they even see it.
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, government cheese for us was symbolic of
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: what we tend to do as black people. You know,
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: necessity being the mother of invention. We will take nothing
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: and make it into something. And government cheese, as people
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: may know, as government subsidized food. There was powdered eggs,
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: there was powdered milk as well, and with government cheese
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: in particular. You talk to people even now they have this,
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: you know, they go into this place in their heads
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: when they think about those grilled cheese sandwiches or the
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: mac and cheese, and they talk about it incredibly fondly
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: because it was, you know, a not particularly nutritious food
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: that people made into a delicacy. And what you have
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: with the Chambers family is that they are this black
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: family in the valley in the sixties, making something out
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: of nothing. This guy starts the show incarcerated, has this
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: epiphany about making a self sharpening drill. It's going to
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: be the means by which his family comes out of
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: the challenging situations they're in. So it's aspirational. You have
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: the character that Simone Misic plays. She's a receptionist, but
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: she wants to be an interior designer. You have our
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: son who's aspiring to be a pole vaulter. You have
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: this other son of ours who you know is completely
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: obsessed with Native American culture. Every One is looking beyond
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: where they are from an aspirational point of view, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: in many ways, government cheese is sort of symbolic of that.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: What's the equivalent of government cheese in the UK? I
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: don't as a british Man, did you understand what that was?
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: Yes, I mean we don't have exactly the same thing,
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: but I remember, you know, you got bottles of milk
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: that everyone got, you know, that would get dropped at
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: your house every morning, and that was something that was
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: across the nation. Super rich people were not getting that necessarily,
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: but it was you know, lower income families. So that's
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: the closest that we got in terms of that situation.
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: But the thing I know from living in the UK,
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: living in Nigeria and Africa, living here is that wherever
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: you go, the resilience of black people in terms of
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: you know, making something out of nothing is just something
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: that feels pretty universe.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You've had other roles that have highlighted black life in
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: the sixties. What about Government Cheese felt different from those
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: other projects.
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: This is the amount of joy on display and just
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: the relatability.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: You know, our experience is very specific, especially in the
• 24:07
  Speaker 6: sixties as it pertains to civil rights and black struggle.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: But you know, with this family, they are dealing not.
• 24:15
  Speaker 6: Only with economic challenges but marital challenges, and they're raising
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: kids and you know, just just trying to make ends meet,
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: and I think all of those things are what make
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: it fresh and familiar. At the same time, you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: you've seen black people in the sixties, but never quite
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: like this, never quite in this place, and never this family.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: You know, they're kind of out there.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: But you know, I have a four kids myself, and
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: you know it's weird. It's not until you go to
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: a restaurant and you see people looking at you. Finally
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: you realize how weird and quirky your own family is
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: because you're just being super loud and people are king
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: into your conversation. So I think we're probably a little
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: bit more quick and with than we can to admit.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Well, this this series is definitely a lot more like
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: light and fun and you know, even though it takes
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: on like some serious undertones. But I was reading this
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: article that you did with a mentalth magazine and you
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: were talking about going out into Wyoming on a ranch
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: with your kids. Oh yeah, And I when I saw
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: the article, I was like, this is like a random
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: interview for him to have right now. And then I
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: was reading and I was like, I get it because
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: you put yourself in the light of like a person
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: who has had to learn again to just like relax
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: and just be fun and just be a person.
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: Because you know, you're studying your acting, you're working.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Then there's clauses where you can't go out and do
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: but those moments with your kids where you're just they're
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: seeing you as like a human or as like Dad
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: is fun, dad can do these things. How does that
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: reignite you when you get back on these sets, you know,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: and you take on these characters like the one in
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: a government cheese.
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: I'm so glad you brought that up, because you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: everything I'm saying is hard work. And you know, when
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: I make a show, probably in the past, to an
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: unhealthy degree, I feel like it's a political act. I
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: feel like it's not just about me going to work
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: and taking on a story. I'm bringing my paper with me,
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: and you could argue that there are elements of that
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: that are unhealthy. And so to smell the roses while
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: you're on the journey, to continue to intentionally enjoy your family,
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: enjoy your marriage, enjoy your home has been something that
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: I've tried to afford myself more and more as I've
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: got deeper into my career, especially as there are now
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: more wins on the board. You know, there are really
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: significant things I've done that are absolutely in line with
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: what I set out to do, and the temptation is
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: to just be like, Okay, what's next, what's next, What's next?
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: And you know, I have four kids, three boys and
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: a girl. I have a wife who I deeply love,
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: and you know that is just as important and a
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: life well lived is not really about what you did.
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: It's how you made people feel. And the thing, well,
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: there you go, and you're right, and and I want
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: the people closest to me to feel like I was present,
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: to feel like I didn't just say I loved them,
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: but my actions demonstrated that as well. And I think
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: that's time. That's just constantly demonstrating to the people you
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: love that you value being in their presence. And so
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: that is That's what I'm working on it. I'm not
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: going to tell you that you know, I'm all the
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: way there, but that's definitely an intention. I'm trying to
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: bring more into my life.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Is that what you meant when you said in the
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: article that you came back a different dad.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: From which in that yeah, I came back a different Wow.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: You guys really do your research. You really read that article.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Whoever whoever was that pitched that that was so smart
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: because in looking you up everything else. Okay, okay, I've knowed, Well,
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: you don't just end up in mental magazine.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Oh I thought.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: I would have ran it up too, but no, when
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: I saw that, I was like, it was so genius
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: because I think your reputation as an actor is so
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: like it. It's very like stern and you know, silent
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: and serious. And then I said this article about you
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: doing all this stuff with my ooman with your kids,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: I'm like, wait, hold on, what maybe having fun?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: So it made that's what I guess.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when you said you came back a different dad,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: I guess you just realized, like, I can't just be
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: so much into my work.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I still got to be pops.
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: But but also, you know, I was a really rambunctious kid.
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: I would throw myself all over the place. I was
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: one of three boys. And then I had my own
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: kids and I got super like wrapping them in cotton wool,
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: like careful, careful, don't do that, you know. And then
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: we went on this trip where we're horse riding and
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: the ATVing and we're you're shooting arrows and bike riding,
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: and I just really just let myself go, probably a
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: bit too much because I went flying over the handlebars
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: of the ATV at one point. But you know, I
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: do that when I'm playing a role, because it's like
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: throw yourself into the role, do whatever the role requires.
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: But for my kids to see me having fun in
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: that way was an eye opener for them, and I
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: came back differently because I was like, you know what,
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: I am almost playing a role for my kids in
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: order for them to be safe, but they also need
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: to see dad sort of letting loose and having fun,
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: because then they'll hopefully take the right kind of risks,
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: not just you know, careless risks. And it was a
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: shift in the dynamic, and it was something I actually
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: didn't want to go on. Particularly my wife won it
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: in a raffle, this trip to this dude runch and
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: then sent us all out. And you know, I'm so
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: grateful that we did it, and we've done so many
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: more things like that since.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Then because it was a hugely beneficial for our family.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Want a trip at a raffle? Yeah, I get you
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: more money for a movie?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, hell yeah yeah. I know. I know that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: made it sound bad.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Did you have any reservations about playing MLK because you
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: are a British actor and you know there's always that
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: thing or why are all the British actors playing the
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: roles of American icons?
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: No, because of the way it came in. You know,
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: when I read the script in two thousand and seven,
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: I had never been thinking of myself as doctor King,
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: you know, but I'm a Christian. I was in a
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: time of praying and fasting and I felt God, tell
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: me you were going to play this role. And then
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: the way it came about eventually, which is that, you know,
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: I can safely say pretty much no one worked as
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: hard to get that.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Film made as I did.
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: And I would probably say no one else was quite
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: as influential in getting that film made, between bringing on Ava,
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: between bringing on Oprah, between all the work done behind
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: the scenes to try and get the film. So for me,
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: I just found it unacceptable that the only American who
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: had a holiday named after him in the twentieth century,
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: who happens to be a black man, had not had
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: a film made about him. Yet I wasn't feeling like
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: I have to be the one to make it. But
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: this was already fifty years after his assassination. Why do
• 31:19
  Speaker 6: we not have the movie? And I'm a big believer
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: in if not me, then who, And so I was
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: never really thinking I'm British, it should be someone else.
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: And the reality is that when Lee Daniels was casting
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: for it, he met everyone I met. I saw the
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: list of some of the people he met, I was like,
• 31:39
  Speaker 6: oh my lord, I cannot believe I'm going up against
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: my heroes to even dare think I'm going to be
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: the one to play this. But I eventually got the role,
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: and so for me it's a question of Okay, now
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: I've been given the opportunity, It's less about whether or
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: not I should play it. It's more about how well
• 31:57
  Speaker 6: I do it, and that is going to be, at
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: the end of the day, the thing that I want
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: people to judge. And so I never really thought about
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: it in that way, because at the end of the day,
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: I have no interest in playing.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Myself on Spain.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: I'm always going to be gravitating towards the most extreme
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: challenge in terms of playing someone who's not necessarily me.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, you answer that question when people say why do
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: British actors often portray Americans in movies and on TV,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: but American actors rarely play British.
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: Character I would say that the question comes from a
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: place of scarcity as opposed to the artistry of what
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: we do. Daniel day Lewis is never having to feel
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: that question when he plays Lincoln. You know, white British
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: actors who play a myriad of American roles Christian Bale,
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: Kate Winslet you know, they just not ask that question.
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: We don't ask that question when Meryl Streep goes and
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: plays Margaret Thatcher.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Really we'd actually don't really ask that question.
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: When Forrest Whitaker goes and plays idiomein an African character,
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: or Morgan Freeman goes and plays Nelson Mandela, or the
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: Great and late Chadwick Boseman plays an African character in
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: Black Panther. I think it's to do with scarcity here
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: as it pertains to the work we have. And so
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: if there's scarcity, there are less opportunities, who gets the
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: opportunity is more scrutinized, and I think it's a function
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: of that, and so I'm less concerned with that debate.
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: I'm more engaged with let's create more opportunity and let's
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: actually realize there's more pie than we care to realize
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: or admit. And if you don't know that, create that,
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: you know, because Morgan Freeman tried to get Bassries made
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: for thirty years. I just don't understand how Morgan Freeman
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: couldn't get that made. You know, I came along one
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: hundred and fifty years after Bassrides was walking the earth,
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: and you know, I feel very blessed that I managed
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: to get it made. My question becomes, would you rather
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: didn't get made or that just wait another one hundred
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: and fifty years. You know, I can't speak to why
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: I've been the one afoord of the opportunity, but I
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: will tell you that it's pretty tough to outwork me
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: when it comes to getting these stories right.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And I welcome, you know.
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: A situation whereby Biola Davis gets to play an African
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: warrior in Woman King. You know, that's that's what we
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: should be doing because we are all from that place.
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: And so you know, like I say, all those African
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: Americans playing African characters is beautiful. I don't see why
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: it is so contested when the flow is the other way.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot who we were talking to.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: It was an American actor, I can't remember, and they
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: were just simply they simply said, because British actors are
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: better and they take the craft more serious.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I challenge that.
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: I challenged that because I think it's also to do
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: with opportunity. Look, the tradition in the UK is you
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: go to Drama school for three years. It's an expensive education.
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: My son is at Lambda, the same school I went
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: to right now, it's expensive. I managed to get a
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: scholarship to go there. Here there are great actors who
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: have trained. There's Andre Holland, There's Coleman Domingo, There's Grantham Coleman,
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: there are there are these extraordinary actors who have trained
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: and are getting those opportunities. Chad Chad, Chad Boseman was
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: trained as well, and so I wouldn't say that it's
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: a question of better. There's just a tradition in the
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: UK where it's almost an apprenticeship. You do those three years,
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: then I went I was at the Royal Shakespeare Company
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: for another three years, so that's six year training, you know.
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: So when I then eventually turn up to Hollywood ten
• 35:46
  Speaker 6: years after I've graduated, I'm coming in with a wealth
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: of opportunity and training that I had.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: In the UK.
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: And that's a tougher thing to get here economically speaking,
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: the great schools that provide that kind of education. But
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: I'm working with African American actors who are just extraordinary.
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, it was one of the things
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: I was very focused on when we did Bass Reefs.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: You have Lauren E.
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: Banks who went to Howard and Yale. You have Jorquina
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: Kalakango who was at Juilliard. You have Granthan Coleman who trained,
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: You have these extraordinary actors. It's just that they're not
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: getting the opportunities to advance at the rate that their
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: white counterparts will, and so we don't get It's why
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: we don't get to know who Denzel is or Morgan
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: Freeman is or Don Chiedo is they're in their thirties
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: their forties, because it's all tied to opportunity.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I saw a quote when you were talking about just
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: African stories that are being told right now. Yeah, because
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: you mentioned us being able to play roles for those
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: type of movies and you said that you don't feel
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: like there's enough stories out of Africa that don't involve
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: a white savior.
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Like, can you.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Expand more on that and like the feeling around that,
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: And I know you have your production company and your
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: wife and some of the things that you're doing to
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: kind of count that.
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean tradition speaking like I said before, for
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: a narrative to come out of Africa and be deemed global.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: There tends to be a mindset that it needs to
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: be fronted by a white person to make it palatable,
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: to make it so that the West is going to
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: in some ways embrace it.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: The weird thing about that is that the.
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: Global majority is black and brown people, not white people,
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: and that's over a billion Africans who now you know,
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: the piracy issue is becoming solved by streaming, and you know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: the diaspora is huge.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So some of this.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: Thinking, in my opinion, is antiquated and comes from a
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: time where it was still twelve people in Hollywood dictating
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: what should be made and how it's going to be
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: seen and whether or not it's going to be successful.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: When you have.
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: Squid Gain being one of the biggest shows on Netflix
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: and it's not even English speaking, that shows that globally speaking,
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: we've been being told lies about what an audience is
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: going to gravitate towards on the basis of who's fronting
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: it or not. And some of that mindset still exists
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: because a lot of the gatekeepers still retain that mindset
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: because they are still the gatekeepers in power, being able
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: to say what gets made or not. So my point
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: is that We need more African stories. We just need
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: more stories. And I think a huge untapped source of
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: amazing global storytelling is Africa, absolutely and so, and for
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: those stories to be authentic, they need to be made
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: by people who are integrated in that culture, because I
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: truly believe the universal is found in the specific. The
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: more authentic those stories are, I actually think the more
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: potent they become.
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: Do you ever, could you have your production companies Euroba Saxon,
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Eorba Saxon, So I know that you and your wife
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: co run that production company, and I'm sure a lot
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: of the stories that you guys tell are very close
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: to the heart as far as like black stories just
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: by your passion here do you get backlasher all because
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: you're not married to a black woman doing that?
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: And how do you deal with that?
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: If sol not to my face, I'm sure there are
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: plenty of people who feel some kind of way about that.
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: But we called it Yuba Saxon because you know, I'm
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: from the Yuoba tribe in Nigeria. She's Anglo Saxon, and
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: so you know, our company is a demonstration of the
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: fact that we are more alike than we are different
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: as human beings. Generally speaking, you know, in making government cheese. Yes,
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: it's a black family. But my hope and my bet
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: is that everyone is going to see their family in
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: that family because of the relatable themes and components that
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: we've woven into it. And so, you know, I'm incredibly
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: proud of my family. I fell in love with my
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: wife when Gusha. We met when we were teenagers. We
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: got married with she was twenty, I was twenty two.
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: And everything we have we built together. So you know,
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: for me, sometimes the accusation, you know, in marrying a
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: white woman is you know, they say things like there's
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: self loathing in there, or what's the other one, or
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: that she's a trophy or something like that we she
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: we were so poor when we started out, they couldn't
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: be less trophy or if it tried. But you know,
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: I am an incredibly proud black man, African Christian husband, father.
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: There are so many things that I am on top
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: of my demographic and who I'm married to, and those
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: are all reflected in the work that I and we do.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: And it's been twenty five years which are together.
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: Twenty six years married, thirty years next month that we've
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: known each other.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: What have y'all learned, just as like co producers and
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: working partners on projects like race or just like.
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: Oh god, I mean work life balance. That's a real
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: thing to try and find. We have a two week
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: rule whenever apart for more than two weeks. We managed
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: that for twenty six years. Yeah, because you know, to
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: be in a relationship, you have to be in proximity
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: to be able to relate. Ours is a very tough
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: business on marriages, and so you know, we we we
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: made that choice because we didn't want to be another
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: statistic in our in our business. We learned that, you know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: the marriage is the center. The kids are a welcome addition.
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: Do not let the kids be the glue between you,
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: you know, always keep stay invested in in that relationship.
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: And those things have all stood us in good stead
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: as business partners, you know, respect, never taking each other
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: for granted, you know the thing, those are the things
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: that have kept us strong.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: You and your wife should be thinking about producing a
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: biopic on a great man named doctor Umar Johnson.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: He's an activist here in America. Scholar.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, think about that.
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: Just look look at look into it. Listen here, listen
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: I'm going to keep looking at you. He's about to
• 42:07
  Speaker 7: get in trouble. Was that about to become a mean?
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Just then?
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: That was about me?
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: A mean?
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: There's a whole change.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Trust me, they'll love you for that role.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: That you will pitch that you morally said to yourself,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I can't do this.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: What tends to happen is the minute you play a
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: civil rights leader, you get every civil rights leader who's
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: ever lived, which so I definitely definitely said though to those.
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: The minute you play a groundbreaking character, there's a whole
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: genre called the first black man who. You know, I
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: get a lot of first black man who, which I'm
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: not interested in.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: What's the craziest thing? You was like, you don't even
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: know a black man? Didn't it?
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: I mean, I want to say that there have been one.
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: There have been like windscreen wipers, the guy who invented
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: the paper clip, the guy like like it's it's it's ridiculous.
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: It gets as ridiculous as that, and people will come
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: to you like full of passion. The other one you
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: want to really avoid is when someone goes, man, I
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: got this script, it's a boy, my dad and h
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: he the first person who had a car wash in
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: Alabama and all that kind of stuff, and it's just like,
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: I don't know how.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: To tell you that that is not a movie.
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: I'm just I'm just so sorry, but that's not going
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: to be my next but I got your.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Next project, go in and out.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: It is crazy.
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: Because it happens a lot of a lot to me.
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: So so yeah, those are the ones to avoid as well.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: Oh you mentioned so casually multiple times, Oprah, but.
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: Just just very casually.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: I read another story about when you invite her to
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Odello opening night and she had to sit on the
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: hard benches and she never let you let that down.
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: She just never stopped talking about child those benches. But
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: she came to Coriolanus, which I just did in London,
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: and they had cushionsy, yes, so you know we are
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: beyond the bad benches now. But yeah, and they were
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: very tough benches towards three hours of Shakespeare.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: So she fair point. But I'm glad that we've broken
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the deadlock.
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: She show up a lot for you, though.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: It sounds like just in what I'm hearing you say,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: like what's that relationship? And like, because you know, Oprain,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: come at the house for everybody.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: She she is not, She's not. Yeah, you know.
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: We met doing The Butler together, and I remember being
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: stood at a party at Lee Daniel's house that he
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: was renting in New Orleans when we were shooting that film,
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: and it was at a time when I just felt
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: I felt very isolated.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I felt very alone.
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: I'd moved here with my family, If I'm totally honest,
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: I felt like there were other actors who saw me
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: as a threat in a way that confused me, because
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: I was like, I'm just you know, I'd come out
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: of theater in the UK. It's an environment where it's
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: all about, you know, about the work and working together,
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: and there are people who are like, you know, that
• 45:06
  Speaker 6: coming here to take our jobs thing was a real
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: thing I was feeling. And I just remember still being
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: stood in a corner at this party, and Oprah came
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: up to me and said, you okay, I said, you
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: know what, you know, I'm really glad to have gotten
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: this movie.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: But it's just I don't know if you've ever felt this, just.
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: Like like your own community is is resisting you, which
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: is what I'm feeling.
• 45:33
  Speaker 7: She's the first, whatever you said earlier, the first ever
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: I know, and so exactly your reaction.
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: There was her reaction. She was like baby, and she
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: talked about how Sidney Poitier was the one who took
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: her under his wing and said, no, you're not crazy.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: This is a real thing.
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: It's something that is unfortunately part of ascending in our community.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: And he mentored her and she literally said to me,
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: I am going to do for you what he did
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: for me. And she has never abated on that. You know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: summer doesn't happen without her, My directorial debut doesn't acting
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: happen without her. So much of the advice, so much
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: that of the financial literacy I have came from her
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: because I didn't come from means. My parents were not
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: particularly good business people, even though they had a business.
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: And so yeah, she has really really made good on
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: that promise and it's been absolutely life changing.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: People definitely hate you now, just pop outside.
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: I know, I know, I know, I made a rod
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: for my back. I should have shut up. Would you
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: can pass? Would you consider that a moment of divine intervention? Absolutely?
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: So many moments in my life have been divine intervention.
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: And when I when I look at how indisputably my
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: life changed for having met her. But you look at
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: the journey towards even playing Doctor King in Selma. You know,
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: like I said when I first read that script in seven,
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: the reason I ever even met Ava Duverna.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Is because I sat down next to.
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: A guy on a plane who was watching a TV
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: show I had done in the UK on his iPad.
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: He looks to me and says, is this you I'm
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: watching on my iPad? I said yes. He pauses it says, oh, okay,
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: you're an actor. Give me some advice. Someone just asked
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: me to put fifty thousand dollars into this film called
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: Middle of Nowhere. It's been directed by this lady, Ava DuVernay.
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: You know what do you think? I was like, well,
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: send me the script. I'll give you my opinion. I
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: read it, blew my head off, And on the script
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: was the title, her name and her number, and I
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: called her asked her if I could be in her movie.
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: That's how I met Abra Wow. That was in twoenty eleven,
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: and that's how Ava came to direct Selma. If i'd
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: literally been sat in the rob I'm that guy. I
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: don't know that I'm meeting abad Vine. So you know,
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: to your point about divine intervention. That has been a
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: big part of my life. So this Hampton character is
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: kind of a little bit of type there you go,
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: a little bit, there you go. I love how you
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: want that back in because that is one of the
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: things I just loved about Hampton Chambers. Paul Hunter approached
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: me six years ago with a short film called Government Cheese,
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: based on his youth growing up in the Valley in
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: the sixties and seventies. And I'm playing a version of
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: his dad this in this show. And Paul has has
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: his own relationship with God. I have my very clear
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: relationship with God, and when I read that script, I
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: just related so deeply to a complicated relationship with God.
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: Mine is I like to think, very functional, but it
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: is a back and forth. There are moments where I'm confused.
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: There are moments where I'm like, what are you doing?
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: And That's what my character is doing throughout these ten episodes.
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: It's like he's trying to be a better man. He's
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: trying to be guided by God, but he is very,
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: very challenged at seeding control to God. And the tension
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: in the show is you take the wheel, no, I'll
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: take the whill. No.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: You take the wheel.
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: No, I'll take the wheel, which I think is some
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: something that no matter where you are on the religious spectrum,
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: we can all relate absolutely.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: David, thank you for joining us, brother, Thank you. Government
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Cheese is on Apple TV right now and it was
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: a pleasure talking to you. Man, don't be a stranger.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: It's David Oh yellow yellow yeah, Yellow, Yes, David O Yellow.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Definitely not making that film. He was recommended.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Now, I'm telling you, doctor Umar johnthan Biden.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: I mean it depends on when you want to live.
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: You want to go. Drew Ski sto, he is it?
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Please?
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: Please please let us like something.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: We got to see it first, Okay, Okay.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: Go look up doctor Umar and let us know how
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: you feel.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's the Breakfast Reading to see what you love it.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Man, okay a just google doctor Lumar Johnson.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Nobody's never.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: See what comes happened, just happened this joy.
• 50:15
  Speaker 7: When you do me like that, Oh my gosh, nobody's watching.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: It's okay, it's I'm so glad you're here. Wake that
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: ass up in the morning.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club