Latest / The Breakfast Club / Best Of Full Interview: Jaleel White On How Urkel Saved 'Family Matters', Black Hollywood Dynamic, Bullies, Bulges + More

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Best Of Full Interview: Jaleel White On How Urkel Saved 'Family Matters', Black Hollywood Dynamic, Bullies, Bulges + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club Morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Everybody is tj Envy, Jess, Hilarrys, Charlamagne the guy. We
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: are the Breakfast Club Laurna Rosa filling in for jests.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: And we got a special guest.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: In the building.
• 0:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, indeed we got Jalil White.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Welcome.
• 0:16
  Speaker 4: What's up Cat? How you feeling man, I'm doing great, man, Man,
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: good morning.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Good to see you, but we'll see you. Brother. You
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: got your new book, Growing Up ercle a memoir?
• 0:23
  Speaker 5: Why you do the eighties nineties R and B cover
• 0:25
  Speaker 5: on the front bro sevent take.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Early eighties, early eighties.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: That's the Mike jacksonsest widest post.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: You know. I did it because for anybody.
• 0:37
  Speaker 6: Who's a fan of the Stefan character, they know that
• 0:39
  Speaker 6: he was debuted in a white suit.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I said that when I first thought, I said, this
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: is the fund he.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: Was debuted in a white suit.
• 0:46
  Speaker 6: And then I love having fun on Instagram anyway, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 6: Instagram has that meme that has all four of the
• 0:52
  Speaker 6: of the greats.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: There was like Luther vandrus H Litt.
• 0:55
  Speaker 6: Of Ritchie, Teddy Pedagras, Michael they all. Michael actually hit
• 1:00
  Speaker 6: it last, but of course he hit it the biggest,
• 1:03
  Speaker 6: so for a black man in the eighties or born
• 1:05
  Speaker 6: around that period, when you put that picture on the front,
• 1:08
  Speaker 6: it just means, hey, the contents are fire, but nobody
• 1:10
  Speaker 6: even notices.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: On the back, I actually you jumping around.
• 1:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And on the back I give you the high
• 1:15
  Speaker 6: water pants and the aircle shoes and nobody even noticed
• 1:20
  Speaker 6: you don't.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: Got the glasses on, Rob, So you don't mind being
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: constafont you know, it's.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: Not even about mind.
• 1:26
  Speaker 6: It is Stefan saved my life. Like just black women
• 1:29
  Speaker 6: everywhere just choose to call me to it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: When when he.
• 1:34
  Speaker 7: Walked in out, I was like, oh my god lit
• 1:35
  Speaker 7: up when you walked in. Does that happen to you
• 1:36
  Speaker 7: all the time? And you were like yeah, because when
• 1:38
  Speaker 7: you walked in, I instantly remember you walking on the
• 1:40
  Speaker 7: screen and be like, oh shoot, like I heard the
• 1:42
  Speaker 7: music and everything that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: That is wat the music and ill you know, I
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: love it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 6: They with black women in particular, but on the twenty
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: four episodes out of two hundred and fifteen that I did,
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: they only keep it on Stepan and they would just
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: relieved that I wasn't really like that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: I've always loved your story though, because you know you
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: already epitted me of you know, taking advantage of a moment.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: He's an opportunity, right because you were so only supposed
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: to be on one episode?
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, how did that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Happen again, Charlamagne?
• 2:14
  Speaker 6: I was I was just a black kid in one
• 2:15
  Speaker 6: of the saga Jenzys. So it really wasn't that deep.
• 2:18
  Speaker 6: My dad told me that I could get one of
• 2:19
  Speaker 6: anything whenever I got a job, because I was resisting
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: going on auditions at this point.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: I was five foot four of me was ready to
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: play basketball.
• 2:27
  Speaker 6: We all get in basketball talks at some point, and
• 2:31
  Speaker 6: I really wasn't. I wasn't booking jobs at age twelve
• 2:34
  Speaker 6: too much because a lot of the stereotypical roles I
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: just wasn't fitting it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: My profile had.
• 2:39
  Speaker 6: Like I said at Braces, I'm five foot four and
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: I saw this audition come through and I was like,
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: I can get this job.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: What was it? What was it? What did it say?
• 2:48
  Speaker 6: The description I included in the book was just, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: nerdy character. As a matter of fact, I was described
• 2:54
  Speaker 6: as a Rick Moranis type. So that just shows you
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: what the writer's room was already doing. The cast of
• 3:00
  Speaker 6: a black kid and asking for Rick moranis type. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 6: I actually read that literally, and then I went and
• 3:06
  Speaker 6: got the Best of Saturday Night Live VHS tape that
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: we had in our house, and I found Ed Grimley
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: and I.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: Basically was doing a black kid's version of Ed Grimley.
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: And it wasn't really a good impersonation, quite frankly, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: because nobody thought that was my inspiration, it became it
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: became mine.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: You can't trade mark, uh.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: I don't want to say a character, because I'm sure
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: you can trade our character, but the mannerisms of a
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: character voice?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Did I do that? Do you know what I mean?
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: We only think about this stuff in America?
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Man, did you get the second genesis? I was just
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: always curious, did you.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Want to act?
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: Acting was just something that I just did naturally, been
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: doing this I was three, So you know, did you
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: want to do anything that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Your parents got?
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: You started when you were three? It was just it
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: just came naturally. I didn't resist it, and I enjoyed it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Of course. You always joined and enjoyed getting a day.
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: Off of school to go someplace and and yeah, exactly
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: and have some fun. But as I got to be
• 4:03
  Speaker 6: around the age of twelve, I didn't really want to
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: act and were I wanted to play play basketball. But
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: once I got the show, then I started getting reps
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: in at a different pace, right, And now, once you
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: get reps in, you prove yourself good at something proficient.
• 4:16
  Speaker 6: Like I remember the exact episode where I'm like, oh,
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: this is fun and this audience is my toy. And
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: the episode is called the Big Fix where I took
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: Lower on a date for the first time because Eddie
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: needed to pay off a bet and I leveled this
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: French restaurant.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Now, before we get.
• 4:33
  Speaker 6: To yeah, that's the first episode where I'm like, I
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: can hear the audience different. I can see it in
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: my eyes when I watched that episode.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Before we get into that part of it, Is it
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: true that you tried out for Rudy Huxtable that point?
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I did the root, that's what aint.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Rudy was poor boy.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, it was poor boy.
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: So there was a debate there, and you know, he
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: obviously went out over the network at the end and
• 4:54
  Speaker 6: h and.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Keisha got the role.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: And how did you get.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Oh, it came down to me and her.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: They auditioned us all day.
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: I actually never forget that audition because they brought in
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: They always bring in.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: Like two or three options for each role. But they
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: put us in one.
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: Room for like several hours and kept pairing us and
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: going in and out. And I talk about that book
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: as well, and and then at the end they said, hey, listen,
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: we are pressed for time, so we will take you. You, you,
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: and you and the rest of you. Thank you for
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: coming out. So you had all these crying kids just
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: pouring out of that building that had been there all day.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: And I remember my mom was like.
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: She just had a huge reaction to that. She was like,
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: do you ever react like that to losing an audition?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Again?
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: Every I mean, that's a cold way to lose a
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: job when you're seven years old. Did you really understand
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: it to be picked right in front? And I've been
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: right in front because generally it happened. You know, your
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: agent will call you or your agent didn't call you.
• 5:50
  Speaker 6: And my mom was never the type to call the
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: agent also and be like did we or did we
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: not get the job?
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: And a lot of parents do that.
• 5:55
  Speaker 7: But did you really understand at seven years old, like,
• 5:57
  Speaker 7: oh my god, I'm losing this job? This is like
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: what this could be. You were just like a kid
• 6:02
  Speaker 7: and it was like no, So you cried, like what
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: did you think?
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: No, Well, we were supposed to move to New York,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: so they were.
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: They had already talked to my parents through our agent
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: and everything, and my dad was trying to figure out
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: because he was just graduating from dental school at the time.
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: My dad was trying to figure out how to do
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: this from New York. They had practically said the job is.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: Yours, and then a little girl came walking.
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: I mean, they do that kind of stuff all the
• 6:25
  Speaker 6: time now that I am adult and I know that,
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: but at the time, it was just it was just
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: very shocking. And then you've become a big fan of
• 6:30
  Speaker 6: the show, right, so you're looking at the.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: Show and it's like, oh man, that could have been me. Right,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: you're doing that, but that passes too.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Especially when you end up with your own iconic role
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: in the future.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:41
  Speaker 6: I didn't even look at it that way, seriously, I
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: just during that time, Sean. I mean, I'm telling you, man,
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: it's it's wild to watch fame now because everybody kind
• 6:48
  Speaker 6: of believes like they can have a famous moment and
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: it should come easy to them. But back then, like
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: you know, if you got a chance to meet Magic Johnson,
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: you got a chance to meet Chaddie Jackson in person.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: They were inaccessible. They were all talented, they were you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: they there was an aura. Literally.
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: I remember the time I met Michael Jordan for the
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: first time and he crept up behind me at the
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: Magic John's in Midsummer Nights Classic, and it's just like
• 7:12
  Speaker 6: he literally had like this little glow around him, this
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: black Jesus glow around him, and and it's different now,
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: it really is.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: So you didn't think you could be that, you see
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Now, I don't think that. I don't think there is
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: real celebrity now.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Oh now, no celebrity has completely been deluded.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: I'll disagree and say, there's still some people who have it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: I can you know, I can see it.
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: There's some people where they walk in and they have
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: that natural it factor where it's like, yeah, okay, you
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: just you affect the room, you know what I'm saying.
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: Like even when Will Smith used to come in for
• 7:39
  Speaker 6: the NBA All Star Games, Like when Will was in
• 7:42
  Speaker 6: the room, it.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Was just different.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: That's just aura though.
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's exactly so. But that's but that's traditional celebrity
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: this stuff. Now, like I said, it's just it can
• 7:50
  Speaker 6: feel real temporary and it's like you ain't got the
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: it factor, but.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: But you got the light on.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: You did the cast like you because you went from
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: just supposed to be one episode to taking over the
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: whole thing.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So did they like it?
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: There had to be some resentment a little bit. It's
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: like a kid nerdy kid coming in there.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: Like I said, it was, it was weird at first.
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: The kids and I we worked it out the easiest
• 8:13
  Speaker 6: because they had to hear a lot of things that
• 8:16
  Speaker 6: some of their parents are even saying. And you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: when you're a kid and you're hearing what your parents
• 8:19
  Speaker 6: are saying, you're just gonna follow suit with that.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: But Darius and Kelly and I and we became we
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: became like brothers and sisters. You know, it's that's our puberty.
• 8:29
  Speaker 6: So I just feel like the division really kind of
• 8:31
  Speaker 6: took place more along the lines of the adults were
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: the adults and the kids were the kids.
• 8:36
  Speaker 7: Do you think that it was weird during that time
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: like that you knew, like you were very well aware
• 8:42
  Speaker 7: as a kid that like you were becoming the star
• 8:44
  Speaker 7: of the show, but you had to do so much
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: stuff to kind of like not act like you knew that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 7: Like even in the book you talk about like how
• 8:51
  Speaker 7: the the introductions were on the show, and your agent
• 8:54
  Speaker 7: would always be like, we need to rearrange these introductions
• 8:56
  Speaker 7: because you're the star.
• 8:57
  Speaker 8: The world knows you're the start. And you'd be like, no,
• 8:59
  Speaker 8: let's not my mom.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: My mom didn't want to do that.
• 9:02
  Speaker 6: My mom wanted to keep a lot of things status quo.
• 9:04
  Speaker 6: When it came to the call sheet and just pecking order, it.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: Just it would have it would have just disrupted the
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: balance of the set to another degree. Why that we
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: didn't need.
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: It's it's almost kind of like, all right, you ever
• 9:18
  Speaker 6: noticed like Shack runs out last? You know what I'm saying,
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: When Shack and Kobe ridden their prime, but then towards
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: the end, Kobe starts running out last, and that's around
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: the time when they broke up too.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: It's just like there's there's ego, there's little ego.
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: Things that just can happen on the set that you
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: have to ask yourself, is that the sword I want
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: to die on?
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Is it worth it?
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: You would think that at some point in life, people
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: would understand that y'all are a team and it doesn't
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: matter who the star of the team is if the
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: team is winning.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but the magic words you say is you would
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: think yeah, yeah, but I would it.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, after all of these years, we haven't learned that.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Even when you use the Shaq and Kobe.
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: Example, like that's you know, you can't change the way
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: people are going to think when when they're coming from
• 9:57
  Speaker 6: a place of ego. You know, for me, I just
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: there was I did a lot to extend our run
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: because the reality was.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: She was about to get canceled.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: I know, but in fact.
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: I get it, I get it, but I'm like, I
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: don't you can say that I don't need to to
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: to lean in on that, you know, but you know,
• 10:15
  Speaker 6: whether if it was keeping my hair to cut the
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: same way, I mean, it got to the point where
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: I was sick of my own haircut, or staying out
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: of the gym, not working out, you know that sucked,
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: and playing basketball.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: And finally in my scene, they made you change the pants.
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they made me change in the final season, it
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: was like, no more jeans. He doesn't wear any jeans,
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: So I was doing things.
• 10:31
  Speaker 8: That was.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: I read that about to get mess.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: It was your bolgn't care.
• 10:49
  Speaker 8: I mean, he wants to talk about your bag. I
• 10:51
  Speaker 8: want to be I want to you said coming.
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: I was getting there. I was gonna let me finish
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: the statement. You jumped to the bulge, you.
• 10:59
  Speaker 8: Jumped on down.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: It's being work it out, come to the package. It's crazy, y'all.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: Don't get to sit here.
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: He gives it off.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: He's waiting for that.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: It's back to the bowl.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: They James.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Bottom line, they just said no jeans in the final season.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Oh they didn't tell you.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Why they said no jeans in the final The ball.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: The ball can tell you that.
• 11:27
  Speaker 7: They said it was getting a littlewkward to see the bult.
• 11:29
  Speaker 7: That's what the Coult said.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: Jesus, they said no jeans in the fun Do.
• 11:33
  Speaker 8: They come to your parents and say that or did
• 11:35
  Speaker 8: it come directly to you know?
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: At that point, I mean, come on, I'm on setting,
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: I'm taking I'm getting notes from producers, and you know.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: That that's a funny ass note to tell somebody.
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: That's an uncomfortable notetry. I feel like you said that
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: in private, like you pulled my family to the side.
• 11:51
  Speaker 7: And we have a very closed discussion.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Talking about your son's boat.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Wild.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: So so things changed on the set because you didn't
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: have a dressing room. Now, I'm sure you got the
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: biggest dressing room and all that. So how was that change?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Money? Money change?
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: Well, the thing about money, which was cool, is that
• 12:11
  Speaker 6: my mom was so petrified the show would get canceled
• 12:14
  Speaker 6: anyway that she never bought a new car for the first.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Four seasons of the show. You know, my mom was that.
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: I think that's why I'm so passionate about the protective
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: job that my parents did.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: They did so much to try to keep me attached
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: to normal life. You know, they didn't get new cars themselves.
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: My mom demanded that I went to public school.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: I went to public school during.
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: The entire time, but we didn't but we didn't have
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: cell phones. We didn't have all we had cell phone
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: but they were big bricks at that time, but we
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: didn't have smartphones to invade the privacy to that degree
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: and let everybody know what school he goes to, at
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: least on a nationwide level. So you know, I would
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: pop into school like every two weeks to three weeks,
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: and you know, that was something actually enjoyed doing kind
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: of like a magic trick. And you know, I could
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: I could go in and I could take tests, I
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: could raise my hand, I could answer answer questions from
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: the teacher, and my peers are looking at me like,
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: how do you know this stuff?
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: It's like I study on set too.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: How was school? It was it a did you ever
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: get bullied? Because people look at you?
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: And now that's the whole there's a whole thing.
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: It was like the first school I was attending at
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: the time, I was the only black kid at the
• 13:23
  Speaker 6: entire school, which was awkward to it was it was
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: it was half Asian, it was half white, and now
• 13:27
  Speaker 6: it's sense taking over all Asian. When I'd go back
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: and past that school and uh, you know that's all,
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: you know, the usual stuff.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: Can I touch your hair?
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: And you know, not getting invited to Bob mitzvahs and
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: all that kind of stuff. And then that all changed
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: as soon as I got on the show. Hey, you
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: want to go to a Laker game with me? And
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: you know, my mom wants your agent number. She's thinking
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: about putting me in the business. And now I'm suddenly
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: so popular. Uh So I left that school and I
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: went to what I like to call like, you know,
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: the Joe Clark School, the lean on Me Light and
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: uh and in that in that case, I was just
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: I stood out a little too much and it also
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: raised hand too much. And I had a teacher that
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: liked me, and I liked miss Last of the too,
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: and you know at schools like that, they don't like
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: those kind of relationships.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: So ran into problems there. And then uh, my mom found.
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: The school that was the porch that was just warm
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: enough for me and in three bear story analogy and
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: and that was South Pasadena High School. And they kind
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: of had to sprinkle everybody. It was Asian, it was Mexican,
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: it was black, it was was wonderful. And I had
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: a great principal named Ben Ramirez may he rest in peace,
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: who just you know, kind of went out of his
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: way to make sure that I was always welcome on campus.
• 14:30
  Speaker 7: They didn't like the fact that your teacher was trying
• 14:31
  Speaker 7: to make sure you were okay. What do you mean,
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: like you said that the school you had a teacher
• 14:36
  Speaker 7: that no.
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: No, no, I'm saying at hood school, you can't you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: raising your hand a lot ins and having a great
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: relationship with the teacher the kid.
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: Yeah, okay, yeah, exactly.
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: Question like the last class you see again, you wasn't
• 14:55
  Speaker 7: too many.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: You know you're not gonna play me like that.
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: I wasn't asking the teacher to collect the home Okay,
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: I wasn't that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: I wasn't reminded if we had that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: But bottom mind is we had a good relationship and
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: she was teaching stuff I'd already learned at the other school, so.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: They were hella behind the other school. So I was
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: just like, this is easy.
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: I'm saying, come on, I'm in the eighth grade. You
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: know what I'm saying that that's.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: It's awkward exactly exactly.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: But did you wish you got that treatment? I remember?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time I met? No, you
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: don't remember.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: I don't remember.
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: That's when you have to remind me Cam Nicks Cam
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: now Nix. Haven't remember so much about.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Madison Square guard the Knicks camp. He was a Nicktam
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: and I was surprised because I don't remember. We were young, young,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: But I was surprised because I'm like, at the time,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: he's Steve Verkle, He's on the biggest I'm like his parents.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Put him here so why would he remember you.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you, well, I don't know.
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: I told you anybody could get it for nothing.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I was, I had the glasses the braceist to say,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: but you were actually enough?
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: Was I love saying this dynamic because I don't should
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: ever take this person.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: I was, you know.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: The classes and races I was. Let me have you out.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: Any black man who didn't even look like me is
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: if he wore glasses, he was called stever.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: They called me metal mouth and who bunch of things.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: But I'm not going to that trump. But the reason
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: I say that is during basketball cap you got into
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: a fight. Did scrabbed with out some Spanish dude?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Right? And I would remember.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I was like, damn, is this happened all the time
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: when you come to the hood because people think that
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: you're better than them.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if that always happened?
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: Well, when you hoop in like people try you. You
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. So it's like I took basketball seriously.
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: So in between those lines, that's why I'm like, I
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: don't even remember.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: I was there to play ball.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Fights did you get into if you don't remember.
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: On a basketball court, I didn't. I didn't have a
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: history of getting into a bunch of fights. But I'm
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: just saying, like, you know, on a basketball court, people
• 16:49
  Speaker 6: don't try you. I mean, do you remember every frankish
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: you gotta do on a basketball.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I kind of do.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh wow, I kind of remember.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: And that means I probably did pretty good. And whatever
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: we was.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: Doing, So what did you and all the others mans
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: kids do? And saw eating up like nobody can get.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Get a meeting?
• 17:12
  Speaker 8: He started seeing, he's going, I'm going with my people.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Which way was? Where was you? I was work right,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: all right?
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: You know anothering that you're talking, But you didn't tell
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: me how I played though, Now you was?
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: You was good.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: You were surprisingly good because everybody because everybody thought the
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: nerve was gonna come out, but she was good. We
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: could let you play boy, but I remember you.
• 17:31
  Speaker 8: Scrapping what point guard position you play?
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Point?
• 17:35
  Speaker 8: Okay?
• 17:35
  Speaker 7: So, because even in your book you talk about having
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: your dressing room kind of like set up like dress room.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: My dress room was cool, addressing you.
• 17:42
  Speaker 8: Really wanted to go to the NBA like that was like.
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: Really it was about going to nb I was a
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: huge me Listen, if you grew up in the nineties,
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: the NBA just this was different.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: It landed on your life. Man, it was it was
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: everything got you.
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: So I you know, once I started gaining some influence,
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: you know, you could do certain things. And the set
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: decorated for our show transformed the second room in my
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: dressing room into an actual NBA locker room. So I
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: had all the different lockers and you know that's where
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: I would change and get ready for the show.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Wow, you know, did you get paid? Did you make
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: money money back then?
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: You know you had, you made very good money back then.
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: But the numbers back then just they don't compare it
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: to numbers now inflation. It's one of my favorite things
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: I actually have. Is is my first time I ever
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: said on the court.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: I kept the ticket stub and I kept.
• 18:31
  Speaker 6: Them with magic shoes when he gave them to me
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: after the game, and every now and then I'll just
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: I'll still look at those of ticket stuff. Guess how
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: much In nineteen ninety one, the face value of a
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: Laker game on the court was versus San Antonio Spurs.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: Three fifty price maybe close to a thousand, maybe seven hundred,
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: eight hundred.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: This man knows basketball for twenty five twenty five. That's crazy, right,
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: and so yeah for a floor.
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: So that so when you put that in perspective, nineteen
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: ninety one, four hundred and twenty five dollars face value
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: on ticket to sit on the court, and you see
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: what inflation is now, it really is like I remember that,
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: teaching me about inflation was like WHOA, something's happening here
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: because there's two inflations. There's the one they talk about
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: to the country, and one they talk about is going
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: on with the people that's making all the money.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: I love how you described throughout the book. You describe
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: yourself as a dedicated people pleaser. You said it was
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: your mom who made you that way. Can you expound
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: on that a little bit?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: It can?
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: You know, it can be good and bad to be
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: a people pleaser because you got to learn how to
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: say You got to know how to set boundaries, but
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: then you got to also learn how to say yes
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: enough to catch blessings that are coming out of nowhere.
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: But for me, it's always been about the audience. Experience
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: that jacked me up. You know, we take in front
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: of a live studio audience every Friday, and man, I
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: look forward to that audience like you wouldn't believe, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: they just become your toy after a while. So, you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: my mom will call me after a table reading, you know,
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: every Tuesday, and it's like, what do you think of
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: the script this week?
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: And was like, eang, it's okay, you know.
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: And then there would be certain weeks like the Bruce
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: Lee week where I'm like, oh, no, get your tickets now,
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: because sometimes she would have to play games to get
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: a certain number of seats, and especially with another opposite,
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: another executive producer's wife, who would hog a lot of
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: seats and I'm like, no, no, no, go ahead and get
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: your tickets for this one. I'm gonna melt this one down.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: So it was just always about just you know, everything
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: celebrity came from a different place than it was about
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: being excellent. It was about being on point.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: We would shoot our show and we'd be done with
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: the whole episode in like just over two hours, and
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: I was so proud of that because everybody else on
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: the lot, especially if they had kids on their show,
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: it would take you know, shows would take three and
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: four hours and people wouldn't even be able to see
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: the end of the show at times.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: But we were now two hours flat. We were done.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: So I'm just so proud of that that kind of stuff.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: What about Julia when he's not, you know, performing, are
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: you still dealing with being people pleasing?
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: No, not as much. You know, when you have a
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: we have a daughter. At least when you have a
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: kid and you enter the family dynamic.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: A lot of your values just changed. They shift overnight,
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: at least they did for me.
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: It was the biggest thing. They shifted for you overnight.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Oh man, I got a funny story on that one.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: No.
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: Actually, when you know, when single parents don't date, like
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: single parents prospect, they don't.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: They don't date. It's different.
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: And I remember my boy was he told me to
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: come out and meet him at the club. You know,
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: he had a he had a group. At this point,
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: I'm single to ad and and I hoped in my
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: car and at the time I drove asked to Martin Repeat,
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: which is at a four door, And so I pulled
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: up at the end and he comes walking over with
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: three girls and it's like, yo, what we're doing?
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: This is before Uber? All right, it is before Uber?
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: What were doing? Where we headed?
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: And then one of the girls just reached for the
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: back door, and the baby seat was in the back
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: and the way them girls just jumped back and all
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: this it just threw off the whole chemistry for the
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: rest of the night. And it was just like, ah, okay,
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: what matters More? As a dad, I knew, I'm like,
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: I'm not taking a baby seat out. It's a painting
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: the butt putting them down baby And any dad who
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: has a baby knows that.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: So it was like, well, that's just the way it's
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: gonna be.
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: But that was a moment where I had to accept
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: where I was just kind of like, she really comes
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: first in every aspect of my life now, and uh,
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: like it or not, even in times when I want
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: to be grown and sexy, it's going to affect it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: You know what I wanted to did the cast members
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: on Family Matters?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: What they was?
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: It a level of hate and jealousy and envyous vianus inbianus,
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: envenous are vious.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it was, you know what I mean, your chance
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: to get him.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Are in hindsight? Were you really difficult to work?
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: No?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not, you know because Reginald Johnson said that.
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: Okay, but okay, so let me make it easy for you. Then,
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: how come how come you never heard that from the kids?
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: Kelly speaks, There is everywhere everywhere.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: How come you never heard that?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Again?
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: You know it's it's you know, when you when you
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: leave a show.
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: First of all, the difference between movie starting and TV
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: start is when your movie start, you still a star,
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: even if you don't have a movie out. When you
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: a TV star, unless you're on TV, you're not a starting.
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: And that's just the way the business treats you. So
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: I think people go through a lot of personal traumas
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: sometimes after a show has gone off the air, divorces, investments,
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: maybe they go right, et cetera, et cetera, And it
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: causes people to look back on things with, you know,
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: kind of a jaded look.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: And it was like, man, we had fun.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: We did.
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: Even the pictures I picked out for the book. You know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: I wanted to show pictures of us chilling.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: You know, I wanted to.
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: Show me Reggie and Darius, you know, chilling in Paris
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: when we shot two episodes in Paris.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: We're the only black show to ever shoot in Europe.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: That was a big deal. You know, we had this.
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: I'll never forget we had this giant twelve thousand dollars
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: meal at the top of an Eiffel Tower.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: As a cast. Oh, I'm glad you asked.
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: My mom took that bill and handed the production because
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: she had the cloud to do that. But Joe Burry's there,
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: Reggie's there.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Well, we was balling at the top.
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: But again you balling, So you know, it's almost kind
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: of like when you hear Scotti Pittman talking.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: About the Bulls.
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: Now, it's like, Scotty, you can't say nothing nice about
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: the bulls, you nigga, he was rock stars.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: You and Mike didn't kick it at all. You should
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: That's how you remember it.
• 24:18
  Speaker 7: Have you recently talked to any of cats, because I
• 24:20
  Speaker 7: know Joe Marie pay and like she had come out
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: and said that you guys had a little whatever that
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: situation to each other. Yeah, Like, can you first of
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: all clarify that story because that's just a wow.
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: No, there's just there's nothing to clarify. Like I I'm
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: talking about a coworker of over thirty years ago and
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: I was a minor.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: You don't think if there was any validity of that,
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: they wouldn't have come out.
• 24:41
  Speaker 8: I'm like, Wow, so nothing happened.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, no, but I'm not I'm not getting in
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: it back and forth.
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry, I'm just doing too good getting it back
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: and forth, you know, with a woman who's over seventy
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: and I've been kind of like mentally ingrained to not
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: fight with my elders, Like, all right, if that's the
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: way you saw it, cool, it is what it is.
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: Well, she recently said on the stage I think where
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: I forget where they were at, but the cast was
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: there and you weren't there, and she said that, like,
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: you know, she wished that you were there, and if
• 25:07
  Speaker 7: you were there, she would hug you.
• 25:08
  Speaker 8: And she kind of you know that whole thing. So
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: have y'all talked or.
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: Why does what she have to say hold so much
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: more validity than what my other cast members have to say.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: I'm just curious.
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: I think, Oh, I think that the age thing does
• 25:20
  Speaker 7: play a factor, but what you say, you know what
• 25:23
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think that definitely plays a factor as well.
• 25:25
  Speaker 7: But I think she's one of the first people that alleged,
• 25:28
  Speaker 7: like the bad stuff that I saw come out and
• 25:31
  Speaker 7: be like, man, we should just hug it out. I
• 25:32
  Speaker 7: wanted to know it made me wonder like, have y'all talked,
• 25:35
  Speaker 7: like what changed?
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: So the people that I talked to regularly is Kelly
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: and Darius, And again I don't call them Laura Eddy,
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: So I you know, I called Kelly about this book.
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: You know, we spoke extensively, and you know, Kelly called
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: me two weeks ago. But it's weird for us, by
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: the way. Also when we go out and eat or
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: anything like that. You know, we like little back rooms
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: and stuff like exactly if people saw if people saw
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: me and Kelly just at Crustaceans in Beverly Hills, and
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: what it tends to turn into a big Hey, can
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: I get a selfie fest?
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: So you know, damn work on one. Gotta So you.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: Know, we we keep it private. But I have a
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: very good relationship with all the cast members who've ever
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: wanted a relationship with me beyond the show.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: And I don't have anything negative to say about Reggie.
• 26:19
  Speaker 6: When people ask me who is your favorite scene partner,
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: I'm like the chemistry I had with Reginald vel Johnson.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: I remember the episode where it clicked for us.
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: It's called box Car Blues, when we were stuck in
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: the train together with all these cows and Steve is
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: just getting on his nerves. And you know, Reggie just
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: couldn't look at me without breaking up, without you know,
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: without breaking character. And we just we developed this amazing chemistry.
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: But adults are adults.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: And they're going through adult things too. And also I'm
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: a kid.
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: So you know what, I'll tell you one way, maybe
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: I could have been annoying. I dribbled my basketball everywhere everywhere.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: If I was in school, did you let me? We
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: need you all? Said Boomo boom basketball basketball basketball.
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: Adults get annoyed when a kid is just dribbling and
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: bouncing the ball all over the place. Is that difficult?
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: How old you that talk about thirteen? Fourteen years old?
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I would feel like adults
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: would have a little bit more Greace.
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: I'm approaching it from a very self self aware, you
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: know standpoint.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: So I'm like, okay, yeah, no, that's and I.
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: Remember Joyce Web, one of our script supervisors, be like,
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: oh here it comes with a basketball, just like okay,
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: you know, Like, but if that's that that translates twenty
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: five years later to being difficult, I'll take it.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about your first kiss.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Talk about your first kiss, because everybody would be getting
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: arrested and nowadays if that.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: Was so because he's a guy, Oh and only they
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: don't do that to guy exactly.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So break down your first kiss sixteen years old on set.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: He's ahead of me on this one.
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: No, we had a we had a scene man, where
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: you know, Steve and Eddie get hot at the dice
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: table and they're rolling the dice and uh, this woman,
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: you know, he's supposed to give me a kiss, just
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: playing one on me before my last dice roll, and uh,
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: during rehearsals all week, she had just pretty much given
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: me a pack. It was just a pack, yeah, because
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: you just go through the motions. But with that hot
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: live studio audience there, man, she just yo, she gave
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: me the whole she bang.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: And so when.
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: I pulled back and this was your first time because
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: you look, yeah, I had never kissed.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: The girl, I said, how did you know what to do?
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: No?
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: I didn't. I wasn't. First of all, I wasn't even
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: planning for that.
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: I know you're supposed to put your lips together, but
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: I didn't know that anything else was really supposed to
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: happen to that I wasn't I wasn't seasoned, it was,
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: and so she does it, and my whole my thinking
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: at the time was, do not break character, do not
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: ruin a good take.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: You know, that's what you just kind of.
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: Taught as as a comedic actor and as a kid.
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: And so when I went to my dressing room, I
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: just kind of involuntarily tears start coming down my face
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: because I was just like, that was weird. And then
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: my dad corners me and he's like, what's wrong. Exact
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: the producer comes back, like what's wrong? And I was
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: just like, you know, like she put her tongue in
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: my mouth, surprised your mother and one, you know, so funny.
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: Everybody says that, but it was like my father was
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: present and was dealing with the issue, so there was
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: no reason to inject. And once it was revealed what happened,
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: they all started laughing.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: Moment my dad's my dad left.
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: No, do not find this woman, do not troll this
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: woman at all. No, I'm serious, because it's like, that's
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: one of the things that I'm very protective of is,
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: you know, we have to embrace what double standards were,
• 29:25
  Speaker 6: leave them in the past.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: But it's okay, like I can laugh at it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: I'm saying, like from the time that it happened to
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: my dad and the executive producer coming in to me
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: walking back out on stage to do now the next scenes,
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: even the hot the crew high five, she put it
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: on you, young fella. You hung in there, you did
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: your thing, and it was like, it was very clear
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: to me. All the signals that I was getting was
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: that might have been yucky the way it went down,
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: but apparently I'm going to get a lot more of that.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: So Cheesemo says, yeah, okay, all right, go with the flow.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: What about the trauma you went through, because it was
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: immediately after that scene they told you that you can't
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: wear pants anymore?
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: You know what I see, I see how you do it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: I see how you can be here.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: You know what else I want to know? Was Black
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Hollywood more of a community back then?
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Ah?
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: Could you tell a story in the book about you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: connecting with Malcolm Jamal warning and putting you in the
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: afternoth commercial and you know your mom being.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Your mom being a fan of Malcolm. So I don't
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: know if he.
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: Was the extent the extent to which Black Hollywood was
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: putting each other on. I won't say was more of
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: a community. Uh, they are specific people who put a
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: lot of people on, Like Ice.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: Q put a lot of people on, absolutely.
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: Like that dude, Just like John Singleton put a lot
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: of people on, like he identified talent. That's really the
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: dream I kind of have for myself because I picked
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: that up back then, of being able to recognize other
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: talent and be like you got it, you got it,
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: and that that's a pay it forward joy that's separated
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: apart from from actually being the focus. But but back then,
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: because there was just a lack of you know, cell
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: phone communication and social media wasn't what it was. The
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: connections were made more organically.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: You you wrote a number down, you gave it to somebody,
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: you know, and.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I will say that, I will say it
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: was just I don't know, it was different.
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: I'd helped me out on this because I feel like
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: we connected the community.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: It definitely was.
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: But I'm saying to the extent that I could count
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: on somebody having the power to give me a job, No, no,
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: not not that at all, But to the extent of
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: walking in the room and seeing to Sheena Arnold and
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: Tisha Campbell and they're.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: Like, jeh, yeah. It was like okay, yes, yes, absolutely,
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: And and there was also a sense of like like
• 31:47
  Speaker 6: being a part of an exclusive club, you know what
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: I'm saying. It was like you didn't walk into a
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: room and see another black TV star and just sit
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: at your table and just be like, oh, he's over there.
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: You typically were gonna get up and you were gonna
• 31:57
  Speaker 6: you know, you were gonna greet each other, address each other,
• 32:00
  Speaker 6: probably exchange information.
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: Was that because there wasn't a lot of people, like
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: it was just like you guys with a cream and
• 32:05
  Speaker 7: the crop.
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: It wasn't a lot.
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: It wasn't even like there was you know what we're
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: missing now is everything is niche program, so.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: Very few people are always talking about the same thing
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: at the same time.
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: Like today, all anybody's talking about from a cultural standpoint
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: is Mike Tyson's ass cheeks because we all saw that
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: at the same time, so you know exactly. So it
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: was like even the step Fan moment where it was
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: just like a lot of black families saw that at
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: the same time when it airs, so they calling each
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: other on each other. The girl you got to see
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: him in his white suit. So it's a different connection back.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: There, man. And I'm like, yeah, special.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Do you get tired of the Steve Rkle character, because
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: I'm sure people have to come with you all the
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: time and be like the same line.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Well in the book, you say nothing makes you happier,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: and when somebody recognized you as Julil.
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: Well, that makes me happy, you know when that happens.
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: And I kind of got saved by millennials. You know,
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: the Google A has helped me, It really has. I
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: can hear tone and I try to talk about that
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: in books. So you know, if a Southern grandmother comes
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: up to me and and she's you know, referencing a character,
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: that doesn't bother me as much as compared to some
• 33:08
  Speaker 6: guys in a bar who you know, they're having a
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: sausage fest in the corner and we're doing well over here,
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: and they want to bring light to that, and okay,
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: I see what you're doing now. That's Those are two
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: completely different things in terms of being tired of the.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: Characters that we're doing well over here.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: Basically, we got all the ladies, every single lady in us,
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: all right, you know what.
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: I'm saying, So that that that that that that part
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: is obvious, what the dichotomy is there. But people come
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: up to me for a variety of different reasons. Man
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: like your man outside, he was just like, yo, I
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: know about the ericle stuff, but I'm here for Sonic.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: He's a I did the voice of Sound of the Hedgehog.
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: For one hundred episodes and that lands hugely with a
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: lot of people. I did two episodes of Psych that
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: people just love those two episodes of Psych. So for me,
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: it's a conveyor belt of people acknowledging me for different things.
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: And as you get older, like I said, well, my
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: focus being on my daughter, I'm a game show host.
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: Now I'm just like, look as long as you pleasant
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: and you chill, and you respectful of my family and
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: my environment. I just love being known for a good reason,
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: because in this day and age, you could be known
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: for a real sucker reason any day.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Like it's wild the sucker reason you could be known for.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: You know, it's interesting what you said, even about being
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: a black people all can coming down on one moment
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: because I think about that even with you as a star, right,
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: like you have to be a certain caliber star for
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: us to know your real name, right, You know what
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: I'm saying, like like for you, for you to play
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: earcle so well that we know who Jalil White is.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: That sys a lot.
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: I appreciate you know What's crazy though, For a long time,
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: maybe because I was so young, I didn't know that
• 34:40
  Speaker 7: Jelil White was your real name.
• 34:41
  Speaker 8: I thought that that was another person I did, but
• 34:45
  Speaker 8: I was so young.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I consed, I thought, and.
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: Then I knew the ste fine, And when I started
• 34:53
  Speaker 7: hearing your little White, I'm like, oh, maybe this is
• 34:55
  Speaker 7: another persona that he's taken off.
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: And then I got old.
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: Enough to really understand like characters and like not being
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: really you and like all that, and I was.
• 35:01
  Speaker 8: Like, oh, okay, that was just like a me moment.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I'm just glad the light went on, thank you.
• 35:07
  Speaker 8: But speaking of.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Right, you got the n.
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: My al dollar that was back and I'm dad okay.
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: Speaking of though, I know in the book you talk
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: about the meeting that you had with the exact about
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: the remaker, the spin off, the reboot, your version that
• 35:27
  Speaker 7: you wanted to happen, in my opinion, was way better.
• 35:30
  Speaker 8: I don't know if you want to say it. We
• 35:31
  Speaker 8: want people to read the.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Book, but it was way better than what they had.
• 35:34
  Speaker 8: Pitched to you.
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: We are I mean, I guess we have to talk
• 35:38
  Speaker 7: about it because I want to know that.
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: Will we ever get that?
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: And can you?
• 35:41
  Speaker 8: Could you do that on your own?
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: Listen, First of all, you can't do it on your own.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: That's the thing about television that people have to respect.
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: It's you know, it's the it's the only art form
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: I feel that still has gatekeeping, still very much in place,
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: and you can either be bitter about it or you
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: can fight the good fight and look for the person
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: that's gonna be your champion.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: That's just it is what it is. I was never
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: offered a reboot.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: I always want to make that very clear, and even
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: my vision for the show that I have, it's not
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: about me. It's about three dimensional characters that would actually
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: resonate and translate.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: In twenty twenty four.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: Because I worked for the producers who coined the phrase
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: jump the shark. Fonsie jumped the shark.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: He jumped over a shark.
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: Right, those are my producers, the exact same producers. So
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: you're not going to invite me to jump the shark again.
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: I was offered a blind contract and half my pay
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: of what I got for the last episode, and there
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: was no consideration.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, there was no consideration given to the.
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: Adults that actually, you know, have such a large opinion
• 36:44
  Speaker 6: over what terms they would return to.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: I'm like the way they were being.
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: Discussed was, well, you know, Harrod and Carl will come
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: by and they'll visit the new family every now and then,
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: Like Hollywood doesn't really they engage talent when they need talent.
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: They pay talent, and they need talent. And this isn't
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: even a black thing. I don't want this to turn
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: into a black thing. I'll hear guys like Chris Pine
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: or whatever, who's you know, He's like, I don't know
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: what they're gonna do next with Star Trek, Like I
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: love playing the character. But when they called me, they
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: called me so I'd love the opportunity to make the
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: show that that I envisioned. That was never turned down,
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: It was never pitched. I was just offered a blind
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: contract and around that they were going to develop the reboots.
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: There were two versions, though, correct me if I'm wrong, right,
• 37:29
  Speaker 7: because you said one of them you wanted to do,
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: like what's the Netflix show with the kid, the little
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: kid that we followly super smart, Yes, young Sheldon.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 37:39
  Speaker 7: There was one version that was kind of going to
• 37:40
  Speaker 7: be like the young Sheldan from like a different perspective.
• 37:43
  Speaker 7: And then there was another version where it would be
• 37:44
  Speaker 7: you and now you're an adult and you are in
• 37:47
  Speaker 7: a relationship, but then Myra is still around at that
• 37:49
  Speaker 7: point or something was there.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: I'll simplify it. You know.
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: I really feel like it could be like a young
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: rock to be quite honest. The only difference is, you know,
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: imagine if they're young Rockets started off famous and then
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: gets into reality. You know, you still want to keep
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: it light, you know what I'm saying. But I just
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: I just if you do a half hour comedy, where
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: are the story's gonna come from?
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: You know what? You they literally just choose to make
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: it up back in the day, you know.
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: And they would take stories too, from old sitcoms and
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: Happy Days whatever. They dust them off and they just
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: you know, update them a little bit. You can't do
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: that in twenty twenty four. You're gonna watch for one
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: episode and you're gonna turn that off. I asked a
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: reporter recently. I said, well, in the traditional reboot that
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: everybody thinks that they want where Steve and Laura get
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: married and have a kid that's just like hercle.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Would you watch that? And he said yeah.
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: For about four minutes, I said, Okay, thank you for
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: being honest with me. If I do anything, I am
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: an advocate of kids. I see exactly how young performers
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: get derailed. I want to push the agenda. I want
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: to push the legend for a kid to come play
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: a future version of me, whatever that turns out to be.
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: That kid's got to be able to get invited to
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: the Golden Globes. That kids got to be able to
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: get invited to the Emmys. And he can't look back
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: as me and looking back at me, and I'm a
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: stain on his career.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: It's like I will point this out, but I won't
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: say names because I don't want to even make them
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: feel bad. But like the kids on Fuller House, they
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: don't work Fuller House, the reboots, they don't work. The
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: adults that put them in that role, they knew they
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: wouldn't work in prestige television, in prestige film, because now
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: casting directors will say, oh, all those are the kids
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: from Fuller House. We want somebody, a fresh face, etcetera, etcetera.
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: And I promise you, as parents and as kids, they
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: didn't go into that project thinking that that was going
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: to be a blight on their career as soon as
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: the show was over.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: They didn't go into that.
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: I want to make sure anybody that I work with, no,
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: they go in with open eyes.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: This is what we stand to achieve. And it was
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: so awesome watching Will Smith give it up to Quincy
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: Jones after all all these years when Quincy.
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: Passed, because Quincy touched his life in a positive way
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: with The Fresh Prince, he never had to look back
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: on The Fresh Prince like it was this show.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: He needed to get away from. So I don't know.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: That's my take on what I feel about reboots and opportunity.
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: Let me.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: I was going to ask, was that a stain on
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: your career where you had to lose racle because people
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: always looked at you when.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: You did roles?
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: Again, I don't look at it as I've never stopped working.
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: It's a tough business just to work in, you know.
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: Is it easier for some with better reps and different imaging?
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: When I think of Harry Potter or Al Bundy. I
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: think about those guys in those characters, but they had
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: better reps in different images and it hasn't slowed them
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: down at all as far as the Tgif people are concerned,
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: I like where I've landed. You know, I've I've never
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: stopped working. Have I have always gotten the dream job
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: that I wanted? No, But I talk about it in
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: the book. A couple of jobs want in particular that
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: I wanted. They went on to become the worst fel
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: on that year.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: It's like, WHOA, be careful what you want? So I
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: just I don't know it.
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: Like I said, when my daughter got here, man, a
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: lot of stuff just crystallized for me that it was like, Yo,
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: let's go out here, let's be a working dad, and
• 41:13
  Speaker 6: it's a beautiful thing to come home with a check
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: to take care of your kid, and you're doing it
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: in a way where you don't have to give up
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: your damn dignity.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: That's right. You mentioned though, Will Smith.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: Will Smith, you said, was the first influential black person
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: to hire you to do something outside of family matter.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, break that down.
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: How did you have a relationship I had seen will
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: you know I would always cross paths with it, with
• 41:32
  Speaker 6: NBA stuff, and you know, Will will invite me to
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: the office everything. When he was in his offices on
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: Third Street, I saw Will coming a mile away, just
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: like I could identify, you know, just like I talked
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: about ICEQB identifying talent and stuff like that. And I
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: will actually just share the story as a matter of
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: fact that I'm like, oh, I never would have shared that,
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: not to violate your privacy. But I remember Charlie Mack
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: having me over to his dressing room when he was shooting,
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: and I was just a curious dude.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: I love reading scripts. I loved just devouring film.
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: And I was in his dressing room and he had
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: a script on the table and I asked to go.
• 42:08
  Speaker 6: I was checking it out, and he said, oh, that's
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: just another sci fi movie. And I'm I'm not gonna
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: do another sci fi movie after this one. And I
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: went to visit him again after that, and like a
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: couple of weeks later, and when I got to the set,
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: he wasn't there, and Charlie was like, I'm sorry, Yeah,
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: Will was supposed to be here, but you know, Steven
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: Spielberg sent a helicopter fo and I'm like, oh, okay,
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: well that's.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: A good reason for him to not be here to
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: receive me.
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: And then months and months later after that, Will was
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: coming out with Men in Black, and then it clicked
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: that was the script for but he said he wasn't
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: doing another sci fi movie. So I guess the helicopter
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: ride was to change some opinions. So I just had
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: this really cool relationship with Will. He was always open
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: doors back then to me, and when he called me
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: on the set, he called me to be on a
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: Fresh Prince bel Air. It just meant a lot to
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: me because he made it his personal business to put
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: me on the show.
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: I got two more questions. One, when did Family Matters
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: jump the Shark?
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: Oh man, we probably jumped the shark somewhere around the
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: six or seventh season.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: You remember, No, I don't remember the episode he had.
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: It.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: Just it happens gradually.
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: You know, you start going, you just start going into
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: port the party and coming out as too many characters.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: You know, before you know what I was, Elvis, I was.
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: You know, we we sending Pole families to Paris and
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: come back by standing on a teleportation device.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: I think when you moved in with them.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: I never moved in with them.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I never moved in with them. I thought you more,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: I thought your parents.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: You ain't got to lie to kick it.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I never moved I thought your parents went away.
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: And nah, I never moved in with him though, Oh
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: I never did. It was about like I said, it
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: was probably around about about the sixth season, just.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: To was living.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: I was always next to your neighbor, I was. They
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: never that was the thing again.
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: Back they never showed Steve's parents. They always kept the
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: parents this big mission.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Your parents moved to Russia or something.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they never.
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: They would always reference my parents. My parents were treated
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: the same way. You remember they were follow cheers. Remember
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: Norm's wife Vera. They they they never showed Vera, so
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: he they would always talk about his wife at home.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: And that was the way you treated it back then.
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: They never talked. They never showed the gooch on on
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: different strokes. They always talked about the good. So they
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: treated family matters, the character my parents the exact same way.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: You couldn't do that in this day and AA.
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: This day and age wouldn't take that kind of just
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: constant referencing mistique. They'd be like, no, no, no, bring in
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: the parents and make sense of this.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: I really thought you.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Now you never did.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: I was watching an interview you did, and you said
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: you never got invited to none of the Hollywood parties.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: Nah. Nah, I mean I didn't.
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: I would do a lot of nice parties, but not
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: none of the like the stuff that started gaining a
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: lot of steam on on on social media, like you know,
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: the rob Nation Brunch or or obviously you know you're
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: talking about my man, you know you're the Diddy parties
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: or whatever. Like, Noah, nothing organically not.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Did you used to get invited?
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: You got a you got you gotta go.
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: You gotta calm down, You just them around.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: We just we're gonna slow it down for a second,
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying.
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: Sometimes you can just be driving too fast and you're
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: not paying attention.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: To the to to you know, speed speed exactly. We're
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: in a thirty five zone right now.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: What happened to Judy?
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: Man?
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: How Judy just walked up talking about it? I know
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: you don't give nothing to the listeners right now.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, listen, listen. How do you think I covered
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: in the book? Was I fair?
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Was I fair?
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, yeah, because because you I mean, but.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: What you laughing about?
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: I guess because she didn't really have a roll. So
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: it's like you get you know what I mean, I
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: get what you're trying to say.
• 45:54
  Speaker 7: I didn't get to that part in the book, but
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: I'm inferring and reading between the lines. Or was it
• 45:58
  Speaker 7: that they didn't think she was good to stay on
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: the show?
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: She didn't have a role.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: Really that part of the family didn't matter Jesus.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: So in the book, how do you get up?
• 46:15
  Speaker 8: I'm only a.
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: Couple of chapters in, but not to give it all away,
• 46:18
  Speaker 7: but just some of it. How do you cover when
• 46:20
  Speaker 7: you ask were you fair? Did someone tell you weren't fair?
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: And wasn't thank you?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: I just like I've said a fan kind of through all,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: he wasn't wrong.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Okay, all right?
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: You know, there were a multitude of factors that went
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: into her departure from the show that I blame all
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: on her mother, but there were. But as a performer,
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: they weren't giving her storylines, and she wasn't the best
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: at delivering a joke, and so you know, sometimes they
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: would give her material and it would just fall flat.
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: And if you fall flat and run through.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: They're gonna rewrite you.
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: And you know we're kids back then, so you know, kids,
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: that's the thing. You can't roast each other nowadays, at
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: least not in public. But trust me, kids are still
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: roasted each other. That's never going to go away. So
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: you know, we'd be sitting in the background and they're like.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: And she blows the layup.
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: You know it was, you know, and it's just like,
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: you know, you can only mess up so much and
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: be arrogant about it in the first code, and the
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: Mercedes too before somebody says, enough of this, and don't
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: forget my producers. You know, this is a story that
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: precedes my show. They famously fired a woman named Valerie Harper.
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: We had a show called Valerie, and the show became
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: the Hogan Family and Tom Miller may he Rest in peace,
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: walked onto the set and said you are done, and
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: in one file swoop change the name of the show
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: from Valerie to the Hogan Family and put the focus
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: on Jason Bateman.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: And people forget those kinds of history.
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: So why they didn't just I'm vim Judy then, so
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: didn't just bring somebody else?
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: Because they didn't they didn't feel like they needed the character,
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: Like they we didn't have social media, so they were like,
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: she's already only in one seat, you know that we've
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: written her down as much as we possibly can.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: There reaches a point where the corporation does the corporation thing.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: It was like, well, how much are we banned? Right, Okay,
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: we'll just save the money and you don't have to
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: answer to social media either.
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: And the thing that I do like where I like
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: to address it with sensitivity is you know, and I
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: talk about that, I say, look, the first miracle we
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: have in our lives is who you born to.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: You know, some people were born on third base, you know.
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: And in this situation, I really felt like, you know,
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: Jamie was born to a mother who put herself before
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: her daughter, and she had ideas of grandeur that weren't
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: necessarily very realistic. And it sucks for Jamie that she
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: has to wear that scarlet letter for the rest of
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: her life.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: And I hope that Jamie finds peace outside of show business.
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: To be quite honest, you know, this show business can
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: time to make you think that this is the only
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: way to make money, this is the only way to live,
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: Like if it didn't I talk about that with Jonathan
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: Brandis because he passed away and he took his life,
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: and I just I was very close to him at
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: that particular time, and I saw signs of someone that
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: was really putting too much emphasis on what this business
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: meant to his existence on Earth.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I got one last question. I know you got to go.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Are you heavy?
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: And I have to go, I'm being class now?
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Did you jump into cannabis early?
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: Man, I'm listen.
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: Cannabis is just something I'm really passionate about because it
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: landed on me.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: That's my plymouth rock. It just landed on me. You know.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: The I've been trying to get at the cannabis game
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: for probably about shoot eight or nine years now, to
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: be quite honest, and it's just it's been very challenging
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: to meet the right people that are placed where they
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: need to be placed. They care about quality, they care
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: about diversity, because they're they're gonna change these laws and
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: play with these laws in such a way that the
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: big guys are gonna come in and they're gonna scoop
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: it all up.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: And just the way they just played us with bitcoin,
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: it's gonna go down all the same way.
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: So I'm lucky to do a mess some really cool cats.
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: We're not nationwide, but but my Guida Woolf group, they
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: gona we're gonna have some fun.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: You got no.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: They named the streets.
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: Then back in two thousand and three, named a strain
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: after my uh, after my old character. I don't even
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: know if it was after my old character. Maybe somebody
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: was just inspired.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: They were watching an episode of Family Matter, so they
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: call the strain purple Arcle. I've been name checked everywhere.
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: Rap songs, TV shows have been named that purplecle has
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: been name checked everywhere, and people think that I made
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: money off of it. So my brand name is it's purple.
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: I always like to let people know. And that actually
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: came from a joke where it was like when people
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: see me, they think they're being discreet sometimes where they go, oh,
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: it's Oracle, and I always just wanted to have something
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: to say back, like, no, it's purple.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: So that's what.
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So that's what it's. So that's what it's purple.
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: The brand even stands for. But we are the House
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: of purple Arcle. We make the best damn purple arcle
• 50:43
  Speaker 6: that anybody makes out there.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: Did you bring something I got what I tell you.
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: What I tell you, I left it at the damn hotel.
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: But I'm telling you I will find you.
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: Do the.
• 50:59
  Speaker 7: Jump in Mara Michelle Thomas. Yes, every time, I'm careful.
• 51:02
  Speaker 7: Now that's my girl.
• 51:03
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: I was going to say, every time you talk about her,
• 51:05
  Speaker 7: it's very emotional for you and like I feel that
• 51:07
  Speaker 7: that's your girl, right? Or was I want to know
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: off off camera when you guys developed your relationship that
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: we didn't saw on camera because it was so believable.
• 51:16
  Speaker 8: What was that off camera relationship?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 51:18
  Speaker 7: And like building that for the characters on camera? Like,
• 51:20
  Speaker 7: how did you guys cause you were so young?
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Dad?
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: No, just you know, Michelle started off playing Malcolm Jamal
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: Warner's girlfriend on The Cosby Show, and so.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: She was always older than me.
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: So even though she was so small and bubbly and
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: you know, big, but she was I looked at her
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: like a little sister. I'm like a big sister. Yeah,
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: And we just had this amazing chemistry. My mama loved
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: her too, so that always that that made things easy.
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: And she just made it her business to always want
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: to always want to hook me up with somebody, and
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: she introduced me to Martha's Vineyard and and and you know,
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: spending summers there and we just had an amazing chemistry.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: She was just and she was just down.
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: Like everybody knew Michelle. Everybody knew Michelle in the music business,
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: everybody music. It just everywhere we went, people loved Michelle.
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: And unfortunately she passed away to summit cancer. And that
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: was just a very emotional time because we just knew
• 52:13
  Speaker 6: what she was going through as an actress. And that's
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: why I always like to remind people too. You know,
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: they always try to apply this type casting narrative to me.
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: I said, man, listen, this is a tough business. If
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: you really want me to make you a list of
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: people who are, you know, trying to get to their
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: next opportunity, I can, and you'll see it doesn't have
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: as much to do with type casting as you think.
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: So during the time when she went out, I just
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: I wish that there have been some better opportunities for her,
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying, Like Carl Weather's just passed away,
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: and you know, Mandalorian was a nice thing for him
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: man to have on.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: The way out.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: So we want people to buy the book Growing Up Oracle.
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: But you know it is it is interesting to see
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: how much of the love y'all created off camera.
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, yeah, no it was. It was real love, man,
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: like you know, I get it. Yes, it was bumpy
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: in the beginning, especially with the adults and uh and the.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: Parents to some of the kids. But that's my puberty.
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: You know. Darius is out here while in the times
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: and you know, we he and I we slide each
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: other's dms. But that's my brother.
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, we've all had, you know, brothers or whatever,
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: frat brothers or college friends that you know, bugging out
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: or whatnot. But you don't abandon that cat. You still
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: taking this call, and y'all just laugh it off. And
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: that's what my relationship is with with Kelly and Darius.
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: It's very brotherly and sister lye and you know, I'll
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: always defend our entire cast actually for the work that
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: we did.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: Well, Jalil White, ladies and gentlemen, growing a pleasure right now,
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: make you pick.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: It up and thank you for joining us. There's been
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: a long time you supposed to come in.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: Here, like years ago, but I would run to you
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: all the airports and stuff.
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: You know, I always give credit to a brother though,
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: Who'll see me at you know who's famous, and he'll
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: see me at the airport and like, okay, how you
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: gonna act?
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: He was cool. Well, you know I've had other people
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: would be Howard Stern.
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: You know, I remember what Howard Stern was sitting in
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: coach behind me flying in New York.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: I was flying New York to do his show, and
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: and then.
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: I got up and I actually took him some dessert
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: and uh on the flight and.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: He's like, oh, I can't believe you came back here
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: and uh.
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: And then when I did the show, he was like, Okay,
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: I knew you were a cool dude because you came
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: back to say what's up to me and coach?
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: And I was like, yeah, what was Howard?
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: And coach?
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: Might just need to get exactly And that's so that'll
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: happen the famous folks tours, like yo, somebody you get stuck.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I figured how it makes so much money.
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: You gotta get on this is before this is like
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: before this is before private party.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just gotta get it.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: Before private park.
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: So he had looke, but he didn't have the bag
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: right now. He's like, you better get your hands back
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: to work.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: He helicoptered, I think from building the building.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: Now, well, ladies and gentlemen, it's to little white cloud now,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: good morning.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club