Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Delroy Lindo & Kerry Washington Talk UnPrisoned Season 2, Therapy, Trump, Aaliyah, DMX + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Delroy Lindo & Kerry Washington Talk UnPrisoned Season 2, Therapy, Trump, Aaliyah, DMX + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that answer up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: are the Breakfast Club. He got some special guest joining
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: us this morning.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 0:13
  Speaker 4: We have Kerrie Washington and Delroy Lindo.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Welcome, Thank you, Good morning to you both.
• 0:20
  Speaker 5: Carrie, first and foremost, How are you you still catching
• 0:22
  Speaker 5: COVID like a twenty twenty right?
• 0:27
  Speaker 6: I am, I'm back in the twenty twenty era. God
• 0:29
  Speaker 6: help us. I'm doing okay. I'm getting better one day
• 0:33
  Speaker 6: at a time. But thank you for being able to
• 0:36
  Speaker 6: do this virtually because I love our show and I
• 0:38
  Speaker 6: want to be able to talk about our show and
• 0:40
  Speaker 6: not get anybody else sick.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: That's Delroy.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: How you doing, brother, I'm doing well. I'm doing very well.
• 0:46
  Speaker 5: Thank you, go well man s Luthor You Delroy the
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: legend you've been. You've been acting for almost fifty years.
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: I haven't been fifty.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Uh I lose track, but somewhere around there. Yeah, what
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: does that mean to you? What does it mean to me?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm really I feel fortunate that I'm
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: still working to be honest man knock on wood and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: still doing work that people seem interested in that feels
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: real good, and this feels good being involved with a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: project like this, isn't that right?
• 1:15
  Speaker 6: In his Washington I was just thinking, we're the lucky ones,
• 1:20
  Speaker 6: you know that he's still working because he is. To me,
• 1:24
  Speaker 6: Delwar is one of our national treasures. He's like, he's
• 1:27
  Speaker 6: an og He's on my mount rushmore of acting. So
• 1:31
  Speaker 6: that he's still doing it is so generous really, because
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: he could be like, I'm good, I've brought my a game.
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: Everybody knows how good I am. But he's still like
• 1:41
  Speaker 6: invested in everything he does. He makes better because he's
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: in it. So we're blessed that he's.
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: Still working and he just brings us joy, not because
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: of his you know craft. You know, whenever we get
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: a glimpse of that meme where he's dancing in the
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: club in Five Bloods, that didn't look like acting to
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: me though, like he was just having a good time.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I like the energy, So you know what, that's that's
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a that's a good example of something having caught on.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I had that I had no idea about, you know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: but it's it's it's a terrific kind of example of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the work kind of reaching a broader audience. The fact
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: that it gets on to social media like that becomes
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: like a thing in itself, which is which is an
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: added an added bonus to UH to being an actor
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and working because you know, when we're doing that scene,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. I didn't think that it
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: was going to be on social media like that. So
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: it's it's good.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: How many times you had to do that take?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: You know what? We did it maybe twice because Spike
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: thought about it in the moment. It was literally, we're
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: going to do no no, no. Yeah, that was not
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: that was not scripted, right. Wow, we were in the club.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: We were doing another scene in the club. He said,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: let's just do this, and I think we did it twice. Wow.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, who before we will get in the un prison
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: but before who, lets you know that that was going
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: so viral and still goes viral.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: My son okay, my son and I started getting you know,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: look at this, look at this, look at this, but
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I I had no idea.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Season two of Unprisoned is out now on Hulu. For
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: people who've never seen, break down what Unprisoned is about.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: Start from season one.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Carrie, you want to take that. I mean, I'm I'm
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: not only because I'm happy to talk about it, but
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I want Carry to talk about it just because my
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: involvement with this. The reason I want Carry to talk
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: about it is because Carrie is the one who who
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: brought me into this project. And as I said last night,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you heard this Carrie, but her leadership,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: her relationship to this project, and because she has a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: particular relationship to the project, she has a relationship to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: everybody involved in the project. And she was the one
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: who reached out to me initially to say will you
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: come do this? So you know, it sits in her
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: heart in a way that I mean, I want her
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to talk about it because she's partially responsible for getting
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the thing off the ground. So you take it, Miss Washington, sir.
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: I mean, one of the things I love about being
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: a producer is that I get to be a part
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: of work like this with people that I so admire
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: and telling stories that I think matter. So this show
• 4:35
  Speaker 6: is inspired by the life of a woman named Tracy
• 4:39
  Speaker 6: McMillan whose dad was in and out of prison her
• 4:42
  Speaker 6: whole life, and it's really about this kind of intergenerational
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: relationship between a dad, his daughter, and his grandson, and
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: when the dad comes out of prison, he comes to
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: live with them and kind of how the three of
• 4:58
  Speaker 6: them figure out how to coexist. So it's about what
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: it's like to be a returning citizen, you know, when
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: you're leaving the system and trying to re enter into
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: the world. But it's also about what it means to
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: love a returning citizen and be in a family that's
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: grappling with how we are impacted by this so called
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: justice system. And it's so meaningful to me because there's
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: so many of us who have been impacted by the system,
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: who have family members who've been incarcerated or been incarcerated ourselves.
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: I mean, we did. We were at a film festival
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: last year when the show first aired, and we did
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: four sit down interviews, and three out of four of
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: the journalists had a parent who had been incarcerated, and
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: they were all different races too. I mean, this story,
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: I'm very proud. The story is very much the story
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: of a black family and the particular challenges and joy
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: that we experience, but this is also an American story,
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: like we are all dealing with the tragedy that is
• 5:59
  Speaker 6: the justice system in this country and how it impacts
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: us and for generations. But what I love. One thing
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: I would say is that you wouldn't think, having said
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: all that, you would think it's like like a very
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: heavy show. But part of what made me fall in
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: love with this show is that it's a comedy. I mean,
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: it's a dramedy, but there's a lot of joy and
• 6:19
  Speaker 6: love and laughter because that's also who we are as
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: a people, Like we are resilient, we are survivors, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: and this character that Delaware plays, Edwin, is like such
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: a beautiful example of how we may have stereotypes about
• 6:38
  Speaker 6: who's in the system.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Or think we have stereotypes. We think we know who
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: those people are, and we do not. I gotta I
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: gotta jump in really quickly because at least Carrie, yes,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: we are a black family. But one of the strengths
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: of this work is that we are dealing with our humanity,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and humanity transcends race, right, And I've been thinking since
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Five Bloods. Actually I started articulating this in a lot
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of the interviews that I was doing around Five Bloods.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: If you think you guys know this one of the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: main problems that African descended people have had since time immemorial.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Is the rejection of our humanity. That's that's that's the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: that's the beginning, the middle, and the end of the
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: thing right there, that we are not considered to be
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: human now with a show like this, with work like this,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yes it's a black family, but I believe that one
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: of the strengths of this work has to do with
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the fact that we're first and foremost presenting human beings
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: who happen to be black, and because we're investigating the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: foibles of that, of the of those dynamics. I think,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: on what you think, Carrie, but I think it's resonated,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: transcended itself beyond this is an example domination of a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: black family, right and that's one of the strengths of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: this work. I will tell you that last night, Carrie
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: at the SOD he had the premiere screening last night,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And this has happened to me a lot in the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: in the two years we've been doing this. Sister came
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: up to me and said, mister Linnoy, I just want
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to thank you for the work. My daddy was incarcerated
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: for ten years when I was a little girl, and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the notes that you all are hitting in this work
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: really resonate for me personally, and that's another one of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the strengths of this work. As far as I'm concerned
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that it has, you know, peggybacking on what Carrie said,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it touches people in personal ways, and I'm not necessarily
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: surprised about that, but it's every time it happens, it's
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: an affirmation of the strength and the value of what
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: we're doing.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: You know, well, you talk about you know, I was
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: watching you talk about breaking generational curses, right, that seems
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: one of the things that was most important because you
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: touch things of family members going to jail and how
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of times when they come out people feel ashamed.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: You talk about biracial relationships, fathers trying to get back
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: into their daughter and do those things. So why was
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that all important? Because those are all topics in our community.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we don't necessarily talk about outside the house a man.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So as Carrie was speaking, she talked about the process
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that is that's a live in this work of these
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: three individuals, myself, my daughter, and my grand my grandson
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Carrie's son played by Folly. We're also and I hadn't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: thought about this in these terms until you said it, Carrie,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: we're also unpacking what it means to love, what does
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: love look like? Right? And when you talk about the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: intergenerational blockages to that and how well, for instance black
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Men as an example, how we are socialized to believe
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: we are supposed to be a certain way and our
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: general your generation, my gen we're all trying to interrupt that.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And this show is at the heart of that because
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out and you say it, Carrie
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in the in the first episode of season two, that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: we need to break this chain, we need to break
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: this process of this into generational pathology. We're repeating itself
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again. So there are all
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: kinds of aspects to this work that, yeah, speak to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the condition of being an African descented person and what
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: we deal with as families, as individuals. But it's human, man,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it's human love.
• 10:55
  Speaker 6: But I loved about your question was that you said
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: these are that we don't necessarily talk about outside the home,
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: and the reason we don't is because we think we're
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: the only ones. And so we have this shame, right,
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: we have shame that causes us to keep our secrets
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: and not air our dirty laundry. The power of a
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: show like this is that we get to we get
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: to provide people with an opportunity to see themselves reflected
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: on a larger scale. Right, So people get to be
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: in their homes, but they know that they're not alone
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: because we're all dealing with trauma of some sort. We're
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: all trying to figure out how to love our kids.
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: We're all trying to figure out how to love our parents.
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: We're all trying to figure out how to free ourselves,
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: whether it's free ourselves from prison bars or free ourselves
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: from the limitations that other people have placed on us.
• 11:45
  Speaker 6: We're all on these journeys ourselves. Yes, yes, So we
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: get to with joy and humor. We get to kind
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: of say to somebody, like, here's the dirty laundry. Every
• 11:58
  Speaker 6: every family has it. We're all navigating it. If we
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: can put it out there and talk about it more freely,
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: we can actually free ourselves. That's the joy of the show.
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: It's like this family is drama is out for you
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: all to consume and take in feel less alone, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: then we all move forward together.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: And it plays that in therapy too. I was going
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: to say it plays that in therapy.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Like you know, we've been talking about in the last
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: couple of years more and more about going to therapy,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: but it plays out in therapy, and one time that
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: was something that nobody ever talked about going therapy getting help.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So the fact that as a family I'll go together
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: is I thinks big as well.
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: Before we get to the therapy aspect, I want to
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: go back to the intergenerational thing because you know, carries
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: that something just now we don't talk about it outside
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: of the house because we don't talk about it inside
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: of the house.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: And that's what I love that y'all doing the show.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: Y'all are having those intergenerational conversations within the house. So
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: just talk to people about how important it is to
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: have intergenerational conversations, to not be so segregated in the home.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Oh man, we're we're all talking this morning, and I'm
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: listening to carry and I'm listening to the questions you
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: guys are coming up with. What's occurring to me as
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: it relates to your question and as it relates to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: just my own life. There's a safety We get to
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: examine these dynamics within the construct of this television show,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: right frankly, and partially my answer to that question is
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that I get to investigate for myself, as a human
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: being on the planet, how these things, how intergenerational trauma
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: pathology has impacted me. And I get to use the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: conduit of Edwin, the character that I'm playing, to investigate
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: some things that are very personal to me. As a
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: result of that, I come on a show like this
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and we in this case, as black man, as black woman,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: get to discuss these things, right, And honestly, sometimes I
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: feel I can, and I've said this before, sometimes I
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: feel I can be more articulate in my work addressing
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: certain issues than I can as a regular human being.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: That's trippy, frankly, because because when I take a half
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: a step back and recognize that, acknowledge that, then I'm
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: faced with the challenge of Okay, man, you did this
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: in an acting job. Now address it for yourself outside
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of the process of acting.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Right, You open up the conversation. You open up the conversation.
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that's
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: powerful is that for me, when you watch the show,
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: if you watch it with loved ones, you have in
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: the same way that dol is saying, like he can
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: explore his is shoes through Edwin. You also, somebody watching
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: the show can explore their issues through Page my character, right,
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: Like you can have a conversation with your husband about
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: something that Page is going through, and it gives you
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: like space to kind of hide behind pages crazy because
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: she's a little bit neurotic and crazy, and that way
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: it makes it easier. I think when our store, when
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: the storytelling that we're exposed to is telling the truths
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: about all of us, then it makes everything easier to
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: talk about, whether it's in our home or outside our home.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: So hold on, go ahead, carry, go ahead, go ahead,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: go ahead. Okay. So another personal kind an anecdotal affirmation.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I'm in the Apple Store about I don't know, five
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: months ago getting a new phone. Sister comes up to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: me in the Apple Store and says, thank you for unprisoned,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and she goes on to talk about the fact that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: her daddy was was incarcerated. But then she said, I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: think I told you this carry. I'm not sure my
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Auntie is exactly what Kerry Washington is doing. That's my
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: aunt right there. Again, these personal, these personal anecdotal affirmations
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: that we're doing what we're doing has a particular kind
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of value, you know, And going back to your your
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: original question, what I call you man, I call you Charlemagne,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: call you Charlemage the God.
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: What do people call you Charlemagne? That's fine, charm.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Going back to your original question, I don't know that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: we saw all of the potential, Carrie, when you and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I had that very first zoom call, when you first
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: kind of pitched this to me, I don't know.
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: I begged you to come beyond the show.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna put you out there like that when
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: we first had the conversation, we didn't necessarily know it
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: would have this kind of resonance and impact. But there
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: was one critical and I do need to We need
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: to include Tracy in this, right, Tracy McMillan, whose life
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: journey has been the inspiration for this work. They said
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to me, little Tracy, and Carry said to me, they
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: wanted to break the stereotypical image that people have of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a formally incarcerated cat. Right. You think, oh, this cat's
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: been InCAR This cat's been in and out of prison
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: since his daughter was a little girl. His last bid
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: was seventeen year. He did a seventeen year bid But
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: then Tracy said to me, but if you might if
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: my father walked into this into a restaurant right now
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and just sat down and started to have a conversation,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you would not necessarily know that he had been that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: he's a formerly incarcerated. That piqued my interest, right because
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: then I said, well, what kind of what kind of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a cat is this? What's his personality? The charm when
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I met him? Absolutely? So to to what I'm getting
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: at is the fact that from the very beginning we
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: were about the business of attempting to break stereotypes.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: Let me ask you a question. Sure, you're in your seventies.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: I talk about that part. Man, I'm sorry, my back.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Look good, look very good. I'm looking at you like inspiration.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: But the reason I say that is my father is
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: he just turned eighty. My mother's in her seventies. God
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: bless thank Yeah. Absolutely so when I when I look
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: at them, their way of thinking and their way of
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: doing things is totally different from us. Right, So how
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: was that what you acting? Because things evolved? So you know,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: when my mom and dad it was like.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: A kid's place is a kid's place.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: They didn't talk about things. But my kids is a
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: lot different.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: And how was it for you evolving to a different
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: way of thinking, a different way of learning and seeing
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I have a I have a son. He's
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: just turned twenty three. And the joke that I tell
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and Karen and I as parents have had these kinds
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: of conversations as parents, our relationship to our kids. Right,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: what I always say about, for instance, my father who
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: did not raise me. What I took from the way
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that my dad did not raise me. He gave me
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a really good lesson in what not to do in
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: terms of raising my son. And that's valuable. That's really
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: valuable for me. I would say that because my son
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is twenty three and I've been raising him for you know,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: twenty plus years. My ethos, my philosophy, my way of
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: being with my son has evolved and developed way before
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I started doing on prison however, had is for you all.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: But likewise, I came up in a time when little
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: kids should be seen and not heard. Right. One of
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the first components of and I don't want to tell
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: anybody how to raise their kids, but community, but communication
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is everything everything everything you got we have to talk
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to each other. We got to talk to our kids
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: because frankly, as you all know, those of us who
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: are parents, kids see everything, whether whether they articulate it
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to you or not. They are watching and they see
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: everything and they know bullshit, right, So I guess lesson
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: number one. Challenge Number one for me as a parent
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: is how can I be as And I'm not always successful,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: but how can one be as authentic as one can be?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And I know that's a very hackneyed and overused term,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: but to try to be as genuine and open with
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: my child as I can be. And that's one of
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the challenges. And by extension, by extension, how do we
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: do that with our friends? How do we do that
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: with our loved ones? Man? How do we do that?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And it's an ongoing process, but I got to say something.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I gotta say something. I'm really thankful for this conversation
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: right now, right that this whether it be the fact
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that this work has helped to engender this kind of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a conversation, but the fact of the matter is we're
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: having the conversation, and we're having the conversation. Yes, we're
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: having the conversation around the work, but we're having a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: conversation around the ideas the dynamics that this work has
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: produced and what we as human beings who happen to
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: be black, are challenged to negotiate, right And I come
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: back again, care that's sister who the young lady in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the in the Apple store who said, that's my auntie
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: right there and looking at you, guys have not seen
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the second season, I'm assuming right now. Okay, So I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: looked at the episodes from the second season a few
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, and I gotta tip my hat to the fact,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Carrie that you do not shy away from Page's neuro seas.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You don't shy away from that. You jump in both feet,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: now you do you do? You jump in both.
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: Finally found a character that's as crazy as I am.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Oh check that out, check that out. But you go there,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you go there, you do it. And as as an
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: actor working with that, working opposite that, as an actor,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: as a human being playing against that, it's admirable. It's admirable,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: and it all. Can you know what's.
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: Interesting, Delry, I want to tell you what's interesting for
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: me is there's something I think there's a little bit
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: more of that for me in this season. And I
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: don't I don't think it's unrelated to Actually the last
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: time that I was here at the breakfast club. I
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: don't think it's unrelated to my memoir because there was
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: something about me writing my book and being like as
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: fully vulnerable in the world that could possibly be that
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: allowed me to understand that Page also was ready to
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: be vulnerable at a different level. Like this season, she's
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: ready to be like more raw and because she really
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: wants to heal, Like so much of what this season
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: about is about, guys, is that my son is struggling.
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: And so even though my dad and I have been
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: like dancing around each other trying to coexist, when his grandson,
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: my son starts to struggle. That's the thing that gets
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: us in family therapy because we're like, whatever stuff we're
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: working out, whatever issues we have, it should stop with us.
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: We should not be passing this on to the next generation.
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: And the only way to do that is if we
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: show up and like unpack it. If we wrestle with
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: the stuff that is limiting us, that is preventing us
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: from being who we want to be. If we can
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: unpack that stuff, then we can prevent ourselves from passing
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: it on to him. So, you know, I think a
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: lot of it is like I was doing that work
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: in between season one and season two in my own
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: life so much that I really understand this like need
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: that Page has to do the work to really figure
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: out who she is so that she doesn't irresponsibly just
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: pass her issues on to the next generation.
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: I want to ask about that, Kara, because you know
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: Page is a therapist on the show.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Clearly she's a therapist who needs a therapist. So I
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: want to ask every.
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: All of them, do let me tell you that your
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: therapist doesn't have a therapist, get a new therapist.
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: Now that I'm going to ask, how do you believe
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: therapy is going to help pay? But in real life
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: we go to a therapist who didn't have a therapist.
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: I think one of the things I love about this
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: season is like some of the funniest episodes this season.
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: I don't know if you agree, Delaware, but I think
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: our therapy scenes are some of the funniest episodes this season.
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: Like last season, we.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Had a big.
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: Right last season, we had a big dance battle scene.
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: This season we have an episode where we're in family
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: therapy and it actually turns into a wrestling match like
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: a WWF wrestling match. It's so much fun, and it
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: really is this idea of like we have to wrestle
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: with it. We have to wrestle with this stuff. And
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: I think a therapist, nobody's perfect, So to me, I
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: always want to make sure that my therapist is in
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: therapy because nobody is perfect everybody. Therapy is not about
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: being wrong or bad or broken. It's about perspective and growth,
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: so everybody should be to me, if you're a therapist,
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: you should also be bouncing your ideas off of somebody
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: so that you are fully responsible for the time you're
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: with your clients and you're not projecting your stuff onto
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: your patients.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: One thing I did see that it's going to be,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: it's gonna a lot of people are gonna really take
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to it is when I guess there's a scene where
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: your son wants to talk to his dad.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: And you're like, no, it's not going to happen. I
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: don't like him, it's not going to happen.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And I know that happens in a lot of relationships
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: where women might not mess with their baby.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: That's not right, thought carry. But but you're like father.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And he's like, I want to tax my dad and
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: that's the rest of the mass that I've seen, so
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: talk about that a little.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Bit and how that scene came about.
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: It's so so again this is like inspired by Tracey
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: McMillan's life, but also we have this incredible room of writers,
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: also led by Ivette Lee Bowser, who is like a
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: comedic goddess, like she was behind and living single. Like
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: all the shows in the nineties that we love the most,
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: Yvette Bowser had her fingerprint on them, and so she's
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: part of why we're able to have this incredible comedic
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: tone in what we do. Also, Tracy's just hilarious too.
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: But this issue of like you know, Page has issues
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: around control and she feels like her baby daddy hasn't
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: been present in the way that she's wanted him to be,
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: and so she has a block on their relationship, which
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: is so ironic, right because she knows the issues that
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: she deals with from her own dad being in and
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: out of her life, and yet she's repeating that pattern
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: with her son by preventing his dad. So I will
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: let you know that they work through it, and we
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: do get to meet his dad this season, which is
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: amazing and it's very humbling for Paige to have to,
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: you know, be open to that. And one of the
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: things I want to talk to you, Delroy, because this
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: is one of the ways you see where the intergenerational
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: village is so important, because there are ways in which
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: Page doesn't know how to walk her son through this journey,
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: but her father, as another man, can walk her son
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: through this journey with a different kind of wisdom and
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: a different kind of presence. And so you realize why
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: it's so important for us to be able to work
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: on our family connections and heal our family wounds, because
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: the more that we're able to be in community with
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: our family, the more growth we can have.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: He is my grandson. Finn is an extraordinary bridge between
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you and I on this journey.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Young act of Folly who's grown like exponentially in this work.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And I met his parents last night and I told
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: him and his mom started, I'm gonna start crying. But
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: it's it's brilliant that he is there functioning as this bridge.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, we're sitting here and we're having this
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: conversation and I didn't know it would be all this.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, Carrie, I mean, you know, We didn't know
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: it would it would resonate like this. We didn't know
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: that it would.
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: It's telling a story that that that needed to be
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: told in our communities. It's actually a new story for
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: our community. Over the last few years, we've been having
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: these conversations. So to see it in artists like Wow.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: And and and we Hm, we didn't know would have this.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I did not know it would have this impact necessarily.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: But what I did know, and this is what I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: tried to speak to last night, Carrie, was that there
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: was a real commit There seemed to be a real
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: commitment to we want to. We want to we want
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to try to climb up the this mountain, we want
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to try to traverse this mountain, and we want to
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: try to do this thing. And that was the and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: we want to try to do it like this, And
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I don't mean that it was kind of prepackaged, but
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: our objectives were we want to we want to flip
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the script on this thing if we can. And that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: was one of the things that uh got my attention
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and made me feel, Okay, yeah, I want I'd like
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: to be a part of this journey, you know.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: So I think the irony of miss Washington having COVID
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: right now, is that during COVID so many of us
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: were forced to sit down and be still. Yeah, for
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: the first time in a long time.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: So a lot of people.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: Had to look in that mirror, and that made a
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: lot of people start realizing, I don't really necessarily like
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: what I see.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I need to go do some work on myself. Yes,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: but I'll tell you a little secret. If you would
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: have asked me what did and I was like everybody else.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: First of all, I got the first round of COVID
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and it kicked me in my in my behind. I mean,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: it did a number on me. But if you would
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: say to me in that in that eight months that
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you were in the house with your family, how has it?
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: How did it change you? I know it did change me,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: but I'd be hard pressed to articulate it. HM. One
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: of the things that was, and this is gonna sound
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: so weird, but one of the things that was, I
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: didn't mind being in the house.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: I loved it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I loved it.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: The anxiety, parental paranoia was gone. I know everybody, yet
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: I loved it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I did too, And I was not aware of that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I was just in it, just doing it, and and
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and turning TV on, and and and watching things that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't ordinarily watch that part. I dug that part.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: So what does that say about me?
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: But when you're doing work with full cold because I
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: was in therapy full cold, oh you.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Were oh yeah, yeah, no, no, now see this, Well, you've.
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: Always been doing work on yourself, Joie, right. I think
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: through your through your craft, you are a very self
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: self aware person. I think you use the work to
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: do a lot of the kinds of self reflection that
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: other people do in therapy.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I want to believe that. No, that is true. It
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: is true because I have not had Yes, I've had
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: therapists over the years, but my journey. The journalist asked
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: me last night, She said, uh, something like, you know
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: what your what's your personal relationship to therapy? You know,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: have you have you been in therapy? How has therapy
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: helped you? And I looked at her and I said, uh,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: next question please, Because what that question did was it
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: challenged me to investigate my own relationship to therapy. Now
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I was not about to do that with this journalist
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: right right. But to your question, was I doing work before?
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: And to what Carrie said again, It sounds like a
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: real hackneyed cliche, but but my work has saved my life.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It's saved my life, has saved my sanity. My work,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: my work, my work, and my work has become has
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: has become even more important to me because I haven't
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: had a journey, a consistent journey with a therapist. I
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: didn't come out of the school it said, black man,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know therapy. I didn't come out of that school.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: But I had this thing, and I still have this
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: thing in my head. I wanted a black mail therapist.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I felt I wanted a black male therapist, and they're
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: hard to find. I mean, it may not be as
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: difficult now, but historically for myself, knowing years ago that
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I needed to be in therapy. When I started looking
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: and I was right here in New York City, living
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: in New York, I wanted a black therapist, and I
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: found one eventually who retired. Had he not retired, I
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: would have stayed with him. But it's hard. It's hard
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to find a therapist that one really vibes with, who
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: kind of gets it. And I felt that with all
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: of the other dynamics, I needed a black man.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: I felt like I needed a black somebody's culturally competent. Yes,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: you don't got to explain things.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Certain things too. Absolutely absolutely.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: You know another theme in this show.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: I love any conversation about dealing with your in a child,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: So so Kerry talk about the significance.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Of the interactions Page has with her in a child.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: That little girl is brilliant.
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: She's Jordan McIntosh, She's phenomenal. And you know, if you
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: haven't seen the show yet, for anybody who's listening, go
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: back and watch the first season also because we get
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: to meet Edwin's in Her Child as well, and it's
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: one of my favorite episodes of the series. But I
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: working with Jordan is so joyous for me. You know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: when we were casting this character of Little Page, there
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: were actually two actresses. It came down to these two
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: young actresses, and one of them looked more like me
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: than Jordan, Like she really looked like me, And we
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: were going back and forth between like is it her
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: is a Jordan and the difference between what they brought
• 35:39
  Speaker 6: to the roles both extraordinary young actresses. But the other
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: girl who looked more like me was had this kind
• 35:46
  Speaker 6: of sweet innocence of a child, and Jordan comes out
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: the box swinging right. She's like bold and she's so
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: spunky and bold and exciting, adventurous. And what we realized
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: in that process of casting, we had to ask ourselves, like,
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: what is the point of Little Page on the show?
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: And what we wanted Little Page to be was we
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: wanted her to be you know, that part of you
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: that exists before society tells you that you're not enough,
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: that part of you that is brave and bold and fearless.
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: And it's before a teacher tells you you move too slow,
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: or you're too loud, or you're not pretty enough, or
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: you're not like all the ways that society gets in
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: your head. And that's what Jordan was. Jordan was that
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: fierceness of Page, of me before the world told me
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: a lie that I was not enough. And so when
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: we hired her, it was such a gift to the
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: show because that's what the inner child work is, you know,
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: and if you've never heard of it from anybody who's listening,
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: sometimes in therapy, you'll you'll build a relationship with your
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: younger self, with your inner child, because you want to
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: go back and do the work to heal the spaces
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: in you that adults weren't able to take care of
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: because listen, the adults in our life are not perfect.
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: I know as a mom, I'm not perfect, right, Like,
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: we do the best we can. But part of being
• 37:13
  Speaker 6: an adult is saying like, Okay, maybe I didn't get
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: everything I needed as a child, but now it's my
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: job to go back and heal myself so that I
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: can move forward. I can't just sit around blaming my
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: mom and dad and whoever whatever teacher in third grade
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: for who I am today, Like who I am today
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: is somebody who can take responsibility and heal myself and
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: move forward. So the relationship with the little Page with
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: my inner child on the show is so important because
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: it's part of how Page is doing the work to
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: grow and move forward.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: What about you, Linda Well said Carrie Well said, Well said, Okay,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: something that everything the carriage just said, everything that Carriages
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: articulated makes me think about something that I actually suffer from,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: and that is hiding behind my work. Everything that much
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: of what you just said, you're articulating how you try
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: to fuse who you are, where you are in your
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: process as a human being, and how you apply all
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: of that into your work and specifically on prison. Yeah,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: but I would say more broadly, just who you are
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: on the planet, and that unprisoned is informing that it's
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: not the other way around, if that makes sense.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: For me.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned that little boy one episode we had him,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: that young man as my and a child in one
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: episode last in season one, that scene Carrie where he
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: came and held my hand.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And the beautiful thing about kids so often they're just
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: they're just being just being kids. They're just being kids,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: they're just being human beings. And there was this profound
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Oh god, there was this profound he came in here,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: openness and just thereness, and that connected me with who
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I might have been as a child. And it was,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: it was, it was, it was if you, it was.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: It was a really strong scene for all of us.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: To your question. My response to your question is, I
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: am not sure. Honestly, I'm really not sure what my
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: relationship is to In the work, one does one's job.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: The result of one doings one doing one's job, you
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: then share that with audiences and it lands, however, it
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: lands in a job like this and various other jobs
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: that I've done that have that have that have meant
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: something to people. I don't. Necessarily I do not unless
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I'm asked by a journalist tell me about X, tell
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: me about one. I don't deconstruct how or why. But
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of compelled to deconstruct when I'm asked for
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and questions when I'm engaging in certain conversations. So when
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: you say to me, what about you, mister Lindo, my
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: first response is.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: And on some level that's a that's a that's that's
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: that's a scary place to be. But it affirms that
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: throughout all of my foibles, all of my insecurities, all
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: of my neuroses as a as a human being, something
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: in the work centrally has some value to my fellow
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: human beings. And that's why one wants to be an
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: actor in the first place.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: Is it because the character Edwin is forcing Delroy lindo
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: to have to deal with some things that del Roy
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: Lindo's never dealt with. Because I was gonna ask, like,
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: even with the inner child thing, you know, you being
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: an elder, does your inner child.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Ever get the healing they deserve?
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: And because they say when you're eat questions, when you
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: get to your age now. It's like you go back
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: to great question. Great question. And I would say that
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: I'm navigating that. I don't know if it's my inner child.
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: I guess it is my inner child. I'm navigating that as.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: We speak, partially through the work, but I'm also running
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: a memoir right now, and in and in and and
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Carrie and I have talked about this somewhat, but then
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and in engaging in that process and engaging in stuff
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: that happened to me when I was four or five, six, seven,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: eight years old? Right right?
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: How does one understand that? How does one get to
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: a place of understanding with that stuff? And I'm I'm
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I'm unpacking all of that right now. So I would
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: say I would say that this I know more now
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: than I knew four five years ago. I know more
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: now than I did ten years ago. For sure, your question,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: how is that for you, mister Lindo, It's it's it's
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: it's an unfolding and evolving process as we speak.
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: Because but even that, I'm sorry, I don't want to
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: interrupt you. Go ahead carry even that as I sit
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: here watching you as one of our greatest, as one
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: of our wisest as one of our best. It's for
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: you to have the courage to sit at a table
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: and say, I don't know, I'm in process, I'm unpacking,
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: I'm unfolding. That gives so many of us permission to
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: be in process. And to me, that's so much of
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: what we need is just the permission to not have
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: to like walk out the door and be perfect and
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: have all the answers, but to say, like, it's okay
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: that I have days where I'm not sure. It's okay
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: that I have days when I need help. And I
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: think I think that's one of the things that I
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: love about our show is that we're so in process.
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: We are a family that is so in processed, but
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: there's so much joy. Like we're not pulling our guts
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: out to suffer. We're doing the work because you get
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: to see all through the season every time we do
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: the work. On the other side is more love, is
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: more joy, is more acceptance, more belonging, even.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: When the love is flawed, Even when the love is flawed.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, it.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Is flawed all day long. Right, And we're we're what's this,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: We're in the We're in the mud man and we're
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: trying to see it and and mold it and fit
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: all that. And that's profoundly human. You said something, it's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: profoundly human. You said something that's connected to what we're
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: discussing right now. You said, I'm going on Stephen Colbert tonight.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Did you say that given the events of the last
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: what day is this Tuesday?
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: Wednesday?
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Thursday? When it is okay? All right? So given the
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: events of uh since last Friday and Saturday and Sunday,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and you're going onto a You're going into a a
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: sphere where I don't know if you're going to talk
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: But we are because it's live after the convention to.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Night, okay, And I'm wondering, and this is too, This
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: is this speaks to how how we connect with ourselves
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and how we communicate in the world. How much realness
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: do you bring to that.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: All of it? Because this is a moment that's way
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: bigger than us right now.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: It's way bigger than that in us, And I'm scared
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: We're at a very pivotal point in our society.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Right now, but it's more pivotal than the pivotal than
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: how pivotal it was last week.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: Yes, of course, yes, of course, Sharper.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Now because the way this has come down in the
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: last four or five days absolutely scary. Oh, it's terrified
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: about what.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: The Supreme Court is doing, what I don't even think
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: is in a legitimate court anymore.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: On top of on the way there's a yeah.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: It's a lot, it's a lot, and and and what
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: we're what we've been talking about in this, in this,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: in this, in this conversation has to do with a
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: certain kind of truth that we as actors are trying
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to get to. Truth for ourselves as human beings, truth
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: for ourselves as as as creative workers. And we're trying
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: to bring all of that together, and we're and we're
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: we're putting it out there and now we the next
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: another dimension of having messed around with that truth is
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: now dealing with how that truth has impacted our actors,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, our audiences.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Which is crazy as is. You know, Carrie, A lot
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: of this seems like scandal. A lot of it seems
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: like we've seen it before on your show. Can you
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: talk about that, how this seems like it's like it's
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: reliving again and.
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: It was a whole episode of Scandal that this happened, yes, life, Yes,
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: because people were saying people were saying, it's stage, but
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: we know it's not stage.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: But the episode of Scandal when he did stage it.
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you know. One of the things that
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: that I want us to be talking about more is
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: that too many of us are not participating in the process.
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: Are not are thinking that it's okay to not vote,
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: our feeling like there's no point in participating.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: They set up like that, Carrie, the process is set
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: up like that.
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: I know, I know, but let me let me just say.
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: What concerns me is that so much of it stems
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: from this belief that we have internalized that we don't matter.
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: And that's part of why this work that we do
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: matters to me, is because we tell these stories so
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: that people see themselves, so that they know that they matter.
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: And I want people to participate in our democratic process
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: because I want you to know that you matter. Like
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: this word democracy is getting thrown around, what I want
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: to remind people is that what it means is a
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: government for the people. By now, we don't do that
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: perfectly in this country. I know that we all know that,
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: but we don't fix it by stepping out of the process.
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: And I know that that's hard, because life is very
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: hard for a lot of us, and we feel like
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: we want to step out of the process because the
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: process isn't made for us, and the process isn't isn't
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: working for us, and the process doesn't include us. We
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: have to force ourselves into the process because the alternative
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: is not a government by the people for the people,
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: but an autocrat, which means like a president who does
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: whatever he wants, he wants however he wants, and accountability.
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: They're not being coy about it, like they have a
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: very clear point by point this project twenty five it
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: will have a catastrophic impact on education, on healthcare, on
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: the economy, and they're not being shy about it. They
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: are telling us that they want to change the government
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: so that it is no longer a government by the
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: people for the people, that it doesn't even have that
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: dream that it's going to be a government for the
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: president and his friends, and we are not his friends.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: I'm wondering, if you know, the way the Supreme Court
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: is set up beca not even a legitimate institution anymore.
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: I'm wondering, right now, are we do we even have
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: a healthy enough democracy to have a free and fair
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: election in November.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, totally legitimate question. One thing carry for all of
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: us because this is this is this is it's beyond
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: critically important. It's existential. It's existential. I don't think that
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the people who are not participating are necessarily doing it
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: consciously internalized. They've internalized this narrative that says, as you said,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: you don't matter, it doesn't matter, you don't count, it
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, and you internalize that and then it becomes
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: w t F. That's right, that's what we have.
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: That's what we have to address when sorry.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: No, no, that's what has to be addressed. That's that's
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: what has to be on some level, the process in
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: which folk have internalized just what you said, it doesn't matter.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: How do we unpack that, How do we deconstruct that
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and say, yeah, it matters, And how do we articulate
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: that in a way that turns them on, flips the
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: switch for them.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know when.
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: I don't know, but I do, But I do know
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: that all the concerns we have will not be fixed
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: by stepping out of the process, by deciding that there's
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: nothing we can do that will not for sure be
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: that will not move us toward a solution. So don't don't.
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: I don't know what each person wants to do, but
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: there's so much that we can do right now. We
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: can check our own voter registration. We can reach out
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: to five friends who we know aren't planning to vote
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: and beg them, try to help them to understand. Because
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: the best person to communicate somebody to the importance of
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: voting as somebody's friend or family member, not a celebrity,
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: not a politician, not anything. We can all support grassroots organizations.
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: There are grassroots organizations all over the country who are
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: doing the heavy work of democracy building. We can support
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: those organizations. We can focus on local races. We can volunteer,
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: we can make phone calls. We can if we have
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: the money to donate, we can do it. There's there
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: is so much that we can do. And I find
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: that when I am feeling hopeless and afraid, the more
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: that I click into community and try to do something,
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: the better I feel. So, even if it's just like
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: a part of your own mental health strategy, because I
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: believe that that participating in politics is part of how
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: I exercise self care and self love like I express
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: my love for my community by showing up in my
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: democratic process because I know that it matters.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: This is the Black Dinner table. You think about all
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: the issues we.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: Come biracial, coming from jail.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Everything.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: God, I mean, we appreciate you guys for joining us
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: so much.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: We need you guys.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: We need you guys back and especially uh, you know, individually,
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: so we can talk about your both of your careers anniversary.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: We got to discuss almost die. Oh, I know, I got,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: I know, y'all got to go.
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: I do have to ask the Romeo on the die
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: question because mister Lindo, you worked with a Lea, you
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: played a Leah's father. Does it make you appreciate life
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: more because you're still here at seventy one and those
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: two beautiful individuals have.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And that I
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: didn't know DMX as well, uh because we didn't work together.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: But that young lady was such a beautiful spirit man
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: and I don't know she had this, I didn't know
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: who she was before we did the film. Extraordinarily beautiful spirit.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: She was like a spune. She just wanted she wanted
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: to learn. She wanted to she wanted to move herself
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: forward in terms of whatever her public, what, what her
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: image was. The young lady that I knew, that I
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: interacted with was a profoundly beautiful spirit. You know, it
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: broke my heart when we lost her.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: Man, you remember where you were.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I know exactly where I was. I was in the
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: e r with my son. I was in the room
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: with my son. My son had developed this breathing thing,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: and we took him to the hospital. It is being
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: seen by a doctor. And I stepped outside. I stepped
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: outside to the parking lot and I started getting all
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: these texts, so sorry to hear, so sorry to hear.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: And I said what what what? What? And I and
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: then a friend of mine said, oh my god, we
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: lost a Leah. And I screamed out and I didn't know.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I screamed that there were two sisters in the parking
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: lot and they said, sir, are you all right? And
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: that's where I was. I was in the I was
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: in the Oakland Children's Hospital in the parking lot when
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I found out about a Leah. Wow. So to your question, man,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: and one doesn't always think about these things in these
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: kinds of terms. I'm so I'm so fortunate to still
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: be here. But man, yeah, and then DMX, we didn't
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: have any scenes together. I was walking down Canal Street.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: I was walking on Canal and Houston Street and this
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: car pulls up, a big black SUV and the window
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: rolls down. It's d MX. Yo yo yo yo yo. Man,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: keep doing what you're doing now, bet that that that
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: was it. But the respect, the connection, you know what
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: I mean. So the fact that they are no longer
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: here and I am I'm I'm being a parent, I'm working,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I'm doing im important, I'm having important communications with important people.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: And when I say important, I'm talking about people who
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: are culturally plugged in and committed to moving our culture forward.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: But it's not just it's not just this cultural thing.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: It's the fact that we happen to be human beings,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: African descented human beings, and we're trying to move this
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: thing forward for all of us. And I got to
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: say this, it ain't just about black people. It's about
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the condition of being a human being on the planet,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: of what we contribute, what we continue to contribute, what
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: we contributed historically, and the fact that all the stuff
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: we bring to the table right in this process of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: living that constantly gets downplayed and undervalued. And it's our jobs,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: going back to what we talked about originally in the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: beginning of this conversation, to interrupt that process and say, uh,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: we're here, we're important, this is what we do, and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: y'all have to listen to us. And it's critical to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: tell those met to tell those stories to our children
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: because they will then take it that step further.
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: All right, well, there you have it Season two.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you, God, bless y'all.
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: We thank you for joining us. Kerry Washington, Delroy Lindo,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: thank you so much.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Feel better, feel better, Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club.