Latest / Dear Chelsea / Struggle Meals with David Oyelowo

Transcript

Struggle Meals with David Oyelowo · Dear Chelsea

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay for the high and mighty to our people. We
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: are rocket and rolling. These are the shows we have
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: coming up. Chicago April tenth. I start Chicago, then I
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: have Indianapolis on the eleventh, and then Louisville, Kentucky on
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: April twelfth. April sixteenth is Albuquerque. April seventeenth is Mesa, Arizona.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: April twenty third is Kansas City, Missouri. April twenty fourth
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: is Saint Louis, Missouri. April twenty fifth is Minneapolis. April
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: thirtieth Nashville. May first, Charlotte, North Carolina. May second is Durham,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. May sixth in Los Angeles at the Slabon
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Theater for Netflix as a joke. April fifteenth, I will
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: be in Saratoga. April sixteenth, Monterey, April seventeenth, Modesto. I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: will be in port Chester on June fourth. June fifth,
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  Speaker 1: I will be in Boston, Massachusetts. June twelfth, I will
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: be in Portland, Oregon. And June thirteenth, I will be
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: in Seattle, Washington. June twenty seventh is going to be Hyennas, Massachusetts.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: August sixth is red Bank, New Jersey. August seven I'm
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: coming home to Montclair, New Jersey, August fifteenth. Is Calgary, Alberta, Canada,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: September eighteenth, Santa Barbara September nineteenth, San Diego September twenty fifth.
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  Speaker 1: I will be at the Beacon in New York City
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  Speaker 1: September twenty sixth. I will be in Philadelphia September twenty seventh,
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  Speaker 1: New Haven, Connecticut. October second, Atlanta, Georgia, October third, Baltimore, Maryland,
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  Speaker 1: October fourth, Saginaw, Michigan, October ninth, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October tenth, Toronto, Canada,
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  Speaker 1: October sixteenth. I'm coming to Boise, Idaho, October seventeenth, Spokane, Washington,
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  Speaker 1: November seventh. I will be in San Francisco and November thirteenth,
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  Speaker 1: Salt Lake City November twentieth, Austin November twenty first, Houston, Texas,
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  Speaker 1: November twenty second, Irving, Texas. December fifth. I am adding
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a second show in Denver for those of you who
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: are going to get tickets to the first one. And
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: on December sixth, I will be coming to Vancouver, Canada. Okay,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: those are all my dates for the Hyde Mighty Door.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Go to Chelsea Handler dot com for tickets.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Hi Catherine, Hi Chelsea, how are you.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I'm coming to you from my brand new house.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: You know what your assistance said that you are loving it?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: And I was like, she's loving it?
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Who said that? Who said that? Karen? I am.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I am so happy about it's actually very quite. It's
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: quite peaceful. Considering all of the Hella blue, I guess
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: maybe I just needed to get out my last vomit.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Bath about it. But it's really beautiful. I mean it's.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Very It is gorgeous, serene and beautiful. And I spent
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the last two days because I've been on tour, as
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I spent the last two days sleeping. I
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: slept thirteen hours, two nights in a row, with the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: help of a little xanax and edible s.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I texted you at what six forty yesterday and I
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: was like, she's I know, she's gone.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: She's not funny yet.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, wait, I was done
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: with my day yesterday at two thirty and I was like,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: how long did do I have to wait before I
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: take my xanax. I watched the new season of I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: watched the new season of Euphoria.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: I watched three episodes of that amazing and I was like.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It's fucking awesome good and uh yeah, I'm just I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: was just having a great time. I'm having a great
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: time recuperating. I love Bet, I love Bet May and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: conta me comma. I just can't get enough. Like also
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the feeling when you wake up, like I wake up
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to peete around midnight and I'm like I look at
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the clock and I'm like, oh god, this is amazing.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I have like six more hours to go. That is
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: the best feeling.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: When you're like it's not almost done, like I have
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: so much more time.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: No, And i have shows this weekend.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Their tickets still available for the Indianapolis show on Saturday,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I'm at the Marat Theater, and then on Sunday, I'm
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: in Louisville, Kentucky at the Palace Theater and there are
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: tickets still available for that too. So Friday in Chicago
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: at the Chicago Theater that's sold out, thankfully.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: And I've got people coming to see you in Chicago.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: You know, my sister is going to be there, my
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: her girlfriends. Yeah, your Chelsea fan.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: So oh.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm also doing an owlsbrew event people on Thursday
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: afternoon in Chicago. So look that up for Owls brew
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: from my vodka lemonade. I'm gonna be in person, in store, in.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: Person, Chelsea. Were you playing this weekend? Is it the
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Chicago Theater?
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Chicago Theater? Yeah?
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: Nice?
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Do you know that The first time I asked Katherine
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: now was after a show there. I was playing and
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: there was an after party and I asked her out
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: for the first time there. So it's a really special
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: place too, it that's true.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: It was the IO twenty fifth anniversary that like will
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: go down in infamy. Like every famous person who went
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: through IO or Improv Olympic like came back to the
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: city and like none of the audio worked at this
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: five thousand seat theater. So people just like left and
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Brad was playing the show. I was seeing the show
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and then went to the.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Oh that's funny. That's funny man.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll be celebrating your love. Well, I'm there you guys,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Chelsea. Think of us.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Oh and also for those of you in Chicago, I'll
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: be at It's called the jew Osco is the liquor
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: store that I will be at for the event from
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: one thirty to three pm on April ten.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: They call it the Jewels. That's pretty fun.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: It's like the Albertsons of Illinois.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Okay, great, Oh, I'm glad. I'm I'm glad.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I'm getting to hit that spot.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: I love Joy.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: Well.
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  Speaker 2: I am thrilled for our guest today. He is I
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: think he's one of our great actors of our time.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's actually really yeah, he's He's definitely one of
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the great actors of our time. And our interview with
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: him was really I really loved speaking with him, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: he gave great advice. So I always love when a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: straight man could do that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: He gave really great and thoughtful advice, like really great.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very nice when people are thoughtful.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Our guest today is an actor and an executive producer
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of the new film Newborn.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Please welcome David. Oh Yellow Oh hi David. Hello, so
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: nice to see you.
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Nice to see you too. Again. I don't know remember
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: when at the Critics' Choice. I think that's the last
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: time I saw you.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, backstage that was right, Yeah, yeah, that was
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: like two years ago, right.
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: That's yeah, David. Happy birthday.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: First of all, thank you, thank you. It was yesterday.
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: I had an amazing time.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: What did you do to celebrate?
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: So I've been shooting a show in the Canary Islands
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: and I've been there since January. I love my home,
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: I love my kids, I love my wife, and I've
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: missed them all terribly. My wife and I actually have
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: a two week rule. We're never apart more than two weeks.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: So she's been doing and throwing from the Canary Islands.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: But I haven't seen my kids for a while, so
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: just being here to celebrate with them. And then we
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: had this extraordinary circumstance where by my eldest son got
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: engaged three days ago. Wow, this happened while I was
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: on the plane from Tenor Reef to La. My wife
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: sent me a text saying she said, yes, she sends
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: me the video. I couldn't download it on the plane.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: It was infuriating, I know, I know, I know. So
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: the glow of all of that was in the party yesterday.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: It was it was a phenomenal time.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's so exciting. Congratulations on all fronts.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: I know, it's really great.
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  Speaker 1: I'm very happy and having a family that likes to
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: spend time with their parents also, congrats on.
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  Speaker 5: That, I know. Yeah, it's it's actually something happened with
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: our family. We were always close, but during the pandemic,
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: even though that was such a devastating time for so
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: many people, for us, we just kind of coalesced as
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: a family. We just you know, everyone's going to school
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: and I'm going off doing jobs, and my wife and
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: I run a company, and we had this year and
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: a half two years where we just kind of went together,
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: you know, in this in this really amazing way that
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: hasn't abated. And so yeah, we really love each other's company.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: That's so sweet.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: And you and your wife have been together since you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: were teenagers.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: Correct, We met when we were seventeen and eighteen doing
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: youth theater and we've been we've known each other. We
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: worked out for nearly thirty two years now, we've been
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: married for twenty.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Seven twenty seven years, thirty two years together, four children.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, nice, this is all nice.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, yeah, I'm very blessed.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And she's also a member of MENSA, which I think
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: is worth mentioning.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: Can we just take a moment to my wife some
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: props my wife, some props on that. Yeah. So she
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: very late diagnosis for ADHD and went in for the
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: testing for it, and the person doing the testing was like,
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: by the way, this testing we're doing on you signifies
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: very high IQ, have you ever tested that siungement? No,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: and so incredibly a byproduct of what could be perceived
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: as some kind of deficiency in terms of ADHD, is
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: what illustrated that she has this off the charts IQ.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: First of all, we were just talking, Me and my
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: friend were talking two nights ago about getting tested because
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: we couldn't.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Decide which disorder we had add or ADHD.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I believe I just am add I don't have the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: hyperactive part, but.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: He was saying that I do.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Anyway, this is a great incentive for everybody listening, since
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: we all have some form of this, because you could
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: find out that you're a member of.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: MENSA exactly exactly, such great bragging rights.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: By the way, be a real feather in my cap.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Quite frankly, so, speaking of your wife, she's also a
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: producer on this movie.
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: No, so we run a production company together, and so
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: our production company produced this. She's not a producer on it,
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: but she is a producer and we've produced stuff together.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: In fact, this is how much love is in the air. Chelsea.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: So upstairs, this is my office building. We are preparing
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: for my assistant who fell in love with our art
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: director on a show that my wife and I produced
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: called Bass Reeves, and I'm officiating their wedding on Saturday.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, you around town like it's nobody's business.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: Watch out. I know. I know there's not enough of
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: it in the world. So I feel like when you
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: when you find it, you got to talk about it.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: We got to double down on all sorts of love
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and all kindness, especially to strangers. Everybody listening, be kind
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to strangers. People need love.
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: Right now, I couldn't agree more.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about your movie, which is called Newborn. It's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: out now in AMC theaters. So this is a story
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: about a man who was in the solitary confinement for
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: seven years.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: And I know you're a method You're a method guy.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Is that accurate?
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Well, it's I would say, I whatever the the part requires,
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: I feel like I'm in service of So you know,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: I definitely would not apply what I guess people call
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: the method to, you know, a comedy or something that
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: doesn't require that level of as I say, giving yourself
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: over to something sometimes you're playing something that's closer to yourself,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: sometimes very far from yourself, And so yes to your point.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: In playing Chris Newborn, a guy who had endured seven
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: years of solitary confinement, which is something I simply cannot
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: personally get my head around, given my own very blessed
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: circumstances and experience. I read a lot about it. But
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: you know, I read a book called Solitary by a
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: guy called Albert wood Fox, who had endured believe it
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: or not, over forty years of solitary confinement for something
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: he didn't a crime he didn't commit. But I also
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: shadowed a guy called Richard Rosario who was wrongfully convicted
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: of a crime. He saved twenty of the twenty five
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: five years he was convicted for, seven of those were
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: in solitary, and in talking to him, I started to
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: get a sense of what the role requires, and so yes,
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: to a certain extent, I had to sort of give
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: myself over to that in order to come close to
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: telling the truth of that awful situation.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: So what did you learn from these guys?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, fill us in, like, how does someone move
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: on from I mean, as you can see in the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: movie which is really beautiful. And Denzel Washington's daughters in
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the movie, who is absolutely fantastic. She's gorgeous, a gorgeous actor.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And you guys are great together. And as you depict
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in the movie, you could see what did you pick
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: up from.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Them in like researching this role.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: That really helped inform you that you were maybe surprised
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to learn.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: So many things. I mean that there are so many
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: things that we don't know that we should know. One
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: of them being that there are eighty thousand people in
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: solitary confinement today in America, men, women, and children, so
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: it is widespread as a practice. You know, in talking
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: to Richard and in studying up on this, after thirteen days,
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: studies have shown you're never the same again. There is
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: a psychic break that happens that you will just never
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: fully recover from. Because it's twenty three hours a day
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: every day, fluorescent lights are on all the time. Almost
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: everyone in those wings are dealing with mental illness, so
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: there's screaming and you know, it's just sensory overload with
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: complete isolation. So let alone seven years of that and
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: what I learned from Richard specifically outside of generally what
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: happens to people is that our connection to humanity is
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: literally what defines us as human. So it is the
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: ultimate for of dehumanization to not have connection with other
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: human beings. And the only thing that kept him remotely
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: saying was knowing his wife and two kids were out there.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: They loved him, and that was the only thing that
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: gave him any kind of modicum of hope. If you
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: don't have something to tether yourself to, it is being
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: alive but dead, so to speak. And you know, he
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: has now been free for ten years. He's still dealing with,
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: of course the effects of it, but he attributes his
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: ability to still function as a human being to the
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: love that he knew was out there for him from
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: his family.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, was it hard for you to get out of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: that character after filming such a demanding, kind of mentally
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: anguish filled movie.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: It was very intense for me because on the first
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: day of shooting, unfortunately, my dad, who had been dealing
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: with stage four oln cancer, passed away on the morning
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: of our first day of shooting, And so weirdly, even
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: though that was definitely not what you would want, it
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: instantaneously put me in this place of intense retrospection, intense
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: focus just to get through it, combined with you know,
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: the great scripts that Nate Parker had written and was directing.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: But honestly, it was about trying to be in service
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: of Richard and others who I had spoken to who
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: had dealt with this. I felt a real burden of responsibility,
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: and so you know, we just did everything we could
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: to tell the truth. I mean, the good thing is
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: I'm a father, i am a husband, I have brothers,
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: and Chris Newborn has a brother in this film, which
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: is also a key relationship for him, so I could
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: identify with all of those things. Obviously, the gap in
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: my knowledge was the extreme nature of dealing with solitary confinement.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is a It makes you really
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: think about why that's necessary in a prison system, Like
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: putting someone in a room alone without fluorescent lighting is
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: about it, Like why add all of these things that
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: turn a person crazier than they are. It makes it's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: just everything is so backwards. Speaking of your father, I'm
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: really sorry to hear that. I know that I read
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: that your father passed away on the first day of shooting.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Your father had some I know a lot of people
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: have trouble pronouncing your last name or yellow O Yeah,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: yellow got it.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well you've literally disproved I got it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: That means anybody to get it, Yes, exactly.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: Moving on your.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Dad, But your dad had problem pronouncing Oprah's name.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: He couldn't get that right.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: Literally, it's so hypocritical. He would get so upset about
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: the mispronouncing of our name, and then he would always
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: call it opera opera winned freyer Pa. But then he
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: met her and like, to her face opera, Oh my lord.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Well you can just contribute that to a Nigerian accent,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: can't you.
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: I guess so. But you know, like literally one of
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: the most famous people on the planet. Let's be clear
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: that he had heard it enough to know that it
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: is not opera, so it slightly discounts his annoyance at
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: our name being mispronounced.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I know that Yourprah is like a very close friend
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to you, and you kind of used her as a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: gut check at different times in your career. Can you
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: talk about that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we have a very special relationship. I met her
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: doing a film called The Butler, which Lee Daniels directed,
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: and we played mother and son in that film, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: that dynamic just never quite changed. Something truly beautiful happened
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: even before we started shooting. We were at a party
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: at Lee Daniel's house that he had re shot it
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: in New Orleans and that he had rented a house,
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: and we were having this party and I was sort
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: of stood in the corner. I was a younger actor then,
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: still fairly new to Hollywood. My wife and I had
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: moved here from the UK, and in all honesty, I
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: felt quite a bit of isolation. There were other to
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: be perfectly frank, there were other black actors who I
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: felt there was resistance to me. There was this sort
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: of I don't know, this brick coming over here taking
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: our jobs kind of vibe that I was getting. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: I had gone into this role that was a significant one,
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: and in all honesty, I was kind of trepidacious about
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: is this going to continue to exacerbate this feeling of
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: isolation I have from our community that I really want
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: to be a part of and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: So slightly stood in the corner, and Oprah noticed this
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: came over to me and said a okay. I said, yeah,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm just just dealing with a little bit
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: of anxiety about these things, and of course she famously
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: has the ability to get the truth of your soul
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: out of you instantaneously. And so I started talking to
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: her about this, and then she was just so open
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: and honest about having had the same syndrome a coming
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: up as a black journalist in the South and at
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: that time feeling the same thing from other black women,
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: to be perfectly frank, and that feeling of isolation both
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: from her own community but also from an industry that
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: told her she was too fat, she was too ugly,
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: she was too black to you know, be anything in
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: that world. And then she happened to meet to Departier
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: who expressed also having the same thing, having come over
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: from the Caribbean and was starting to forge your head
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: back in the day, forged a path in Hollywood and
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: feeling the same sense of isolation. You know, people are
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: threatened by success, especially when you're from a marginalized community,
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: and you feel like the pie that you want a
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: slice of is very small, and so there's this sort
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: of crabs and a barrel thing that can happen. And
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: he had said to her, a Sydney Potier, this is
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: I know exactly what you're dealing with and I'm going
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: to walk you through it. And he became her mental
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: And this was like the first major interaction I had
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: had with Oprah, and she said what he did for me,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: I'm going to do for you, And that was I
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: don't know, fifteen years ago now, and that has just
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: never abated.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing. That's a really beautiful story. Thank you
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: for sharing that.
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Have there been times in your career where you've gone
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: to her at other times for advice when you're thinking
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: about choosing projects or just navigating Hollywood after.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: That, all the time, all the time, because one of
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: the things she said to me is basically she didn't
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: say it like this, but she basically was saying, you're
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: only allowed to make new mistakes, not old ones. I'll
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: tell you the old ones. I'll guide you through the
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: potholes that I stepped in so that you don't have
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: to basically, which is as extraordinary as an offering as
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: you can make to someone, as I think is possible.
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: And so, yeah, whether it's financial literacy, which I had,
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: I was very low in because my parents spent every
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: day sort of scrabbling to put the pennies together, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: you know, they were amazing parents, but really bad business people.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: You know, just constantly on the precipice of bankruptcy and
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: bailiffs at the door, and you know, just just never
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: could find enough financial oxygen to not be stressed by finances.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, I just that was the only
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: example I had, so I associated being a father, being
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: a husband, being a working man with that. And you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: one of the things she taught me is do everything
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: you can to get out of debt as quickly as
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: you can. Focus on that fastidiously, because the difference between
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: wealthy people and people who are not is that they
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: have somehow managed to get to the point whereby they
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: can look down on their issues and have the space
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: to strategize. When you are down on the ground, scrabbling
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: to make ends meet, that's when you just inevitably make
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: financial mistakes. You're caught in the rat race, you're caught
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: in all of the things that keep you in financial debt.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: To do everything and obviously it's not an easy thing
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: to do. But if she said she was just very
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: conscious early on, how do I get out of debt?
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: And I took correct her word and practice, and by golly,
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: she was right.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: You guys moved over from the UK. How do you
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Why why did you move over from the UK?
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: A myriad of reasons, the primary one being when I
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: was coming up. You know, I mentioned Sidney Poartier obviously earlier.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: You know, that was my hero. Denzel Washington was my hero,
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: but we literally had no equivalents of those in the UK.
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: With me growing up, there were no black actors I
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: could look at and go, that's my north star.
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: I truly believe you cannot be what you cannot see,
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: and I didn't see anything I could aspire to. And
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: it's also why my parents were very resistant to the
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: idea of me being in the arts, being an actor,
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: because I think for them it's like, you know, there's
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: no evidence to us that the hard work we're putting
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: in as immigrants here in the UK is good, that's
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: going to be a better life for you. And so
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: even though I defied my parents and I went to
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: drama school and I did all the things, that continued
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: to be the case. And so I got a few
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: roles that got me a bit of notoriety. I did
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: the Last King of Scotland with Forrest Whitaker. I did
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: a film of As You Like Here with Kenneth Branner.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: I had done a show called it was called Spooks
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: in the UK, it's called Mi I five Here. There
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: were things that sort of popped a little bit in
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: the States, so just gave me just enough juice to
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: turn up here and people had seen things I had done.
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: And then I just, even though it hadn't happened yet,
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: I knew my career was going to plateau. I came
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: up with actors like Tom Hardy and Benededict Cumberbatch and
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: James McAvoy, and those were my peers. We were all
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: doing theater in the UK. We were all working together,
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: but we love period dramas in the UK, and that
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: tends to be the thing that will launch an actor
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: into the American consciousness. So, whether it be Atonement for
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: James McAvoy, or it's Pride and Prejudice a Matthew mcfadian
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: or Imitation Game for Bennett come about, I just knew
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: that wouldn't happen for me unless I planted myself somewhere else.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: And so we started the process of moving, and we
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: did move in two thousand and seven, so we've lived
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: here for nineteen years now, and it proved to be true.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Within about two months of landing in la this script
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: called Selma landed on my doormat. The film didn't get
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: made for another seven years after that, but at least
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: it validated the fact that, oh, this is the kind
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: of thing that I just knew wouldn't happen in the
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: UK and was possible here.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So the transition from the UK to America, things started
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: to open up for you career wise, and that was
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: your main motivation for moving over here. How was it
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: like culturally for you to come over here from the UK?
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: Oh, my goodness. The tricky thing and the thing that
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: no one really warns you about moving from England and
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: English speaking country obviously to America another English speaking country,
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: is the sheer amount of cultural differences. Like my wife
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: and I never had credit cards in the UK. We
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: couldn't do anything without a credit card. When we moved here,
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: it was just like, what's your credit score, what's your
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: credit credit? Credit? Credit? Credit? You know, we never said
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: that word as often as we did when we first
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: moved here, you know, seven and so that was something
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: that we were like, we're barely human beings without credit,
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: you know, and things like that, and to bank accounts
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: and all that kind of stuff. The schooling system was
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: so different from our kids. You know, our kids were
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: five and two when we moved, and you know, my
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: wife actually chose to homeschool our kids and ended up
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: doing it for five years because our kids just couldn't
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: adjust to the American schooling system. And you know, there
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: was so and the thing about it is the cultural
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: differences are so slight and small but huge because they
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: are literally the thing that derail you from your child
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: going to school, you being able to open a bank account,
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: you being able to drive. You know. So that was
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: that took us up a minute to adjust to. But
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: there are extraordinary things about moving to this country. You know.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: Literally in the UK, the attitude is can don't as
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: opposed to can do. And so that was life giving.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: You know. I love warm weather, and I had lived
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: pretty much all of my life, most of my life
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: in the UK and never made peace with it. And
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: suddenly here we were living in LA and every day
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: it felt like summer, which basically was at that time.
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: The weather's actually changed in LA by the way, these
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: rains we have that are so intense, and then the heat,
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: which is like unbearable. You know, it was a bit more,
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: you know, even before. But that's a whole other thing.
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: But the really tricky thing was we moved, you know, seven,
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: and then we had the economic crash of eight and
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: the writer strike of eight and oh my gosh, I
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: think if we had made the move after O wait, well,
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: I don't think we would have made the move, right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: It was so tough. My wife, we had two kids
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: and she was pregnant with our third and I didn't
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: work for fourteen months and that was rough.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, yeah, how did you guys get by?
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: Like?
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: How does that work?
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: Good question? It didn't. It was like, you know, we
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: were in this headspace, so did we make the right choice?
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: Like what? It's just? But the good thing I guess
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: is that it was everyone. Everyone was in the middle
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: of this crash. Everyone in the industry was dealing with
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: that circumstance. It was affecting not just America but the
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: UK as well because of how interlinked those industries are.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: And yeah, you know, we basically ran out of money.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: I remember being stood next to the kitchen counter with
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: my wife and we were down to three dollars in
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: my wallet, like literally three dollars. And the reason I
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: remember is I gave her two dollars and I held
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: on to one, and I went, this is us. You know.
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: We couldn't go to an ATM because that would have
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: just barked at us because there was nothing in there.
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: But I will say I remember us sort of sitting
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: up in bed, full of all the anxiety, but then
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: just having this feeling of, well, at least we have
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: each other, you know, and that and I sort of
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: felt rich again because not everyone even has that. And
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: I'm going to tell you a story I don't think
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: I've told anyone under these kind of circumstances. Also, what happened?
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: Do you know the actress Kate Mara Bernicha? Yeah, So
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: Kate Mara was at the time dating a wonderful actor
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: called Charlie Cox, who now plays Daredevil on the TV show.
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: And they had become really good friends of ours, and
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: we were in the middle of this time where we
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: just had no money, and we invited them over for lunch,
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: and we clearly had given them the most hallaciously basic
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: of meals because it's all we could afford.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Seriously, I was just about to say, what are you
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: doing inviting people for lunch?
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: Well, we're thinking I think we were sort of trying
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: to pretend that our circumstances weren't our circumstances. But the
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: next day, without us having expressed anything of our financial situation,
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: they turned up at the door with a four hundred
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: dollars trader Joe's virture and just handed it to my
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: wife and I And so just just something we wanted
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: to do for you guys. And I could cry thinking
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: about it now, because it was just it was we
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: ran to training yourself do we got that fulture? And
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: that's how bad it was. And at the time I
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: had done a film with George Lucas and like a
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: film called Redtails that he had produced and was in
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: stuck in post for a long time. I was on
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: the precipice of what I thought was the Hollywood dream,
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: and then this crash happened, and it was just like
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: such a weird confluence of things. We were in La
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: in Hollywood. I just done this film with Cuba Gutting
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: Junior and Terrence Howard and George Lucas was producing it,
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: and my wife was pregnant with us and it was
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: just like, what is happening? But you know, between falling
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: even deeper in love with my wife because it's all
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: we had, and then having friends like that who showed
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: up like that, you kind of go, oh, I think,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: I think we're going to be okay and we want.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: That must have been some lunch that you prepared them,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: by the.
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: Way, I know how bad.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: The next day with a four hundred relatives together, they
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: must have been like, listen, we don't know what's going
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: on with you people, but that is not it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: Wow, I know how bad. I can't even begin to
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: I think you may have just been like pasta with
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: butter or something.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: That's a really sweet story.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: Though.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you one more question about I
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: know that John Lewis, our former congressman who's in a
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: now deceased, but one of the all time heroes of
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: our country was on the set one day for Selma
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: when you were playing MKA Junior. So can you talk
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to us about that? What was that experience? Like have
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: you ever seen the video of him dancing? You know, yes,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I watched that video like once a month whenever I
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: need to put me up.
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, if you if you want a dose of joy.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: You just watched that.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: You know, what is the song he's dancing to?
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: What song? Is it?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Happy?
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. And he's got he has got some
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: serious fucking moves. Yeah, tell us what it was like
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: meeting him and having him on set watching.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: You do that?
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: Surreal? Fine, completely surreal And yes, yes, Catherine, terrifying because look,
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: you know, in playing Doctor King, I had I had
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: interviewed Andrew Young, I had interviewed his kids in Doctor
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: King's Kids. I had interviewed several of these giants of
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: the movement. I hadn't yet met John Lewis, and John
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: Lewis was featured heavily in our film. I was being
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: played by Stephan James. Of course, he's a busy guy.
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: I couldn't get to him in my build up to
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: playing the role, and I, as you had alluded to, Chelsea,
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: I I stayed in character. I just felt that's what
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: I had to do for that role. We were shooting
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: in Atlanta, we were often surrounded by people who had
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: heard him speak, who had worked with him, who had
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: been in his orbit. I'm obviously an English walking around
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: with this accent just felt like not the way to
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: elicit confidence or to sort of stay in the pocket,
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: so to speak. So you know, I was pretty much
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: in that zone all the time. And then I got
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: a knock on my trailer door and an ad said,
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: just to give your heads up, John Lewis is visiting
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: set today and would like to say hello. And I
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: just felt all the blood to kind of just leave
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: my body. What did that person just say? And then
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: they had literally warned me about a minute and a
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: half before he was at the door, and so I
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: was so in the zone of just staying as doctor King.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: I greeted him as the character, and within a few
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: minutes of our conversation, he just leaned into me and
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: said that the King, it is so good to see
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: you again. And I could see that he wasn't just
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: being cute. He went somewhere as he was looking me
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: in the eye, and I just thought, how many layers
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: can play in this role continue to afford me? It
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: was just so incredible. But what went on to happen
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: is that day I was supposed to be giving a
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: speech to four hundred people in a church and he
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: decided to stay from me getting this speech, and I
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: just thought, okay, great, to meet you, thank you for
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: being here. That's a layer of pressure. I just don't
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: know that I what and you will never believe what happened.
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: So I don't know if you know this, Chelsea and Catherine.
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: When you're shooting, if because of the generators and all
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: the electrics used for making a movie, the minute there's
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: a hint of a thunderstorm, you have to shut everything
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: down just in case lightning or all the thunder hits
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: the generator, and literally, Ava Duvenet, who directed the film,
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: went okay, everyone going for a take roll sound everything
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: went dark literally and I'm not exaggerating, and I have
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: photographs of this thing. Everything went dark, and this thunderstorm
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: just suddenly was over the church we were going to
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: be shooting in. And by the time the storm had passed,
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: he had had to leave. And I just was like,
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: there is a god and he loves me.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: You will that thunderstorm happened.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: You're like, that's the fuck before I have to.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: Believe exactly, no disrespect, but this doesn't help me.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: Get out of here. Oh he's such a legend.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: He is such a legend. John lewis just the most
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: awesome energy.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: So just the coolest.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're gonna take a break. We'll be right back
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: with David. Oh yellow, and we're back.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: We are getting into the advice portion of the show. David.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: So I want to know you.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Can give me good or bad if there's any Yeah,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: maybe bad. Since you've already shared some good advice that
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you've gotten from Oprah and others, can you remember some
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: of the worst advice that you've ever gotten.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: My dad gave me terrible advice over the two things
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: that I value most in my life. My dad was
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: my hero, my absolute hero, and he endured quite a
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: bit of racism in the UK when he first moved
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: there in the sixties and seventies. So when I met Jess,
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: who's white and who went on to be my wife,
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: and I went to him and talked about the fact
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: that I think, I think this is the person I
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: want to marry, he was so against it, and I
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: didn't think then it was to do with, you know,
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: all of the trauma of what he had faced from
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: other white people. But his advice was divid one day,
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: she's going to wake up and realize you are black.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, thank you for that. I think
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: she's aware and that doesn't help me one bit. What
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: on earth are you talking about? And he just was
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: like that they are they betray us, they leave us,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: they hurt us. That's what they're predisposed to do. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: that was his reality. And I had to defy him
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: on that. That was his advice. And he also didn't
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: get married till he was forty didn't have me till
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: he was forty two. And I can understand it now
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: that I'm a father myself, but I Jess and I
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: got engaged when she was nineteen and I was twenty one,
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: and he was just like, are you out of your mind?
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: That she's white and she's nineteen. And you know, that
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: was advice, which I can now understand having dealt with
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: my own interaction with racism, my own interaction with now
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: being a father who has children who are similar to
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: the age I was, but at the time I was
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: in complete defiance of that. And then you know, and
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: then me telling him I wanted to be an actor.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: You know, the first thing he said, why do you
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: want to go and be a jester? You want to
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: go and be a jester. It's like, okay, okay, that's
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: what you think of actors that, yeah, they are jesters, promiscuous,
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: justus Like, okay, I'm not listening to you on that either. Daddy,
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: did you.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Ever share what he said with Jess with your wife?
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: I didn't have to because he would say it to
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: her face. I mean it was so upsetting. Like he
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: met her, I introduced him to her, said, do you
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: know how many girls are calling David all the time? Eh?
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: You think you think? I was like, daddy, he said,
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: and what do you eat? Salad? Is salad? The only
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: thing you're eating salad? Salad, salad. Wow, you need to
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: put some some weights. Where's the meat? There's no meat?
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: And I was like, I stood right there, like Daddy,
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: please stop. But that that was my parents that would
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: just say whatever was on their mind all the time.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: That's pretty cute. Maybe not cute at the time, but
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: after the fact.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: The other thing. So he completely fell in love with
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: Jess with time and then ended up living with us.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: And you know, with time, my wife did become more voluptuous,
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: and that she would come in, she would come into
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: the right. Oh, yes, this is wonderful. Yes, I'm like daddy,
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: I stood right here. That is highly inappropriate. It's true.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: Now look, it is wonderful. I was like, goodness me,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: Oh that's it's tough.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, we have some callers and we have some we
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: give advice David on this podcast.
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: Okay, I'm ready.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: You're ready, let's go, Catherine, what do you got?
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: All right? Well, we're going to start with a caller,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: so we're like jumping into the deep end. Okay, great,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: and David, I know you've given dating advice. It seems
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: like it was successful to your children, so you know
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: we're going to jump into some dating advice. So okay, naishat,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: says dear Chelsea. My family immigrated to the US almost
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: forty years ago from a predominantly Muslim country. I was
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: born here a few years later. Overall, I described my
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: family as being quite liber and progressive. With time, they've
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: adjusted comfortably into American society. That being said, I'd still
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: describe our upbringing as being more sheltered than our peers.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: We were allowed to have friends and grew up consuming
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: American pop culture and media, but school was typically first
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: priority and dating wasn't allowed. I don't want to label
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: my mom and dad as helicopter parents, but I'd say
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: they had a tendency to be more overprotective than necessary
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: due to their hesitation and expectations. I feel like I
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: missed out on optimizing fun and exploration during my formative years.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: These reflections have now been having an impact on my
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: views about dating and relationships. The irony is that my
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: family would love for me to find a great partner
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: to share my life with, but my insecurities about my
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: inexperience are getting in the way, and I feel like
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: my upbringing is somewhat to blame. I'm embarrassed to admit
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: that I've never dated or been in a relationship before. Now,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: at thirty four, I feel anxious, frustrated, and scared about
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: navigating this world. I've been on and off a few
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: apps over the past few years, but they simply make
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: me feel bored and disposable, and I find the infinite
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: number of tales is overwhelming. There were a few flirtations
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: that I build on and never connected with in person,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: including one guy I matched with three times over the
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: course of four years. I finally struck up the courage
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: to send a message, but alas he never responded. I've
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: been harboring a crush ever since. I know everyone's complaining
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: about the state of dating in this modern age, but
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: I genuinely feel unfit to tread these waters. How am
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: I supposed to start playing the game when I barely
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: understand the rules?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Sincerely in the shot, Hi, thank you for calling in.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: This is our special guest, David o'yello.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: Oh hi, oh. Dating.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Dating is difficult.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you've been doing it for twenty
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: years or if you're just I would say it's great
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: that you haven't been.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Exposed too many men. I would say, check in your box.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: That's a bonus.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, and your desire a is also great. Like the
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: fact that you're interested and that you've taken steps to
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: make something happen is also positive.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Do you have a therapist that you talked to? No?
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: I do not.
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: I'm considered it, but I haven't really taking the step
• 44:00
  Speaker 7: in that direction now.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's important to have a therapist. I think,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: especially at your age, especially with everything that you're just.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't matter where you're from or what
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: your life experience is.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: We all need therapists.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: We all need a sounding board, and we all need
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: to unpack our childhoods in some way and there's all this,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: you know, trauma that some of us don't even know about,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and whether it's like huge traumas or like little, micro
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: little trauma traumas throughout your life, it's very important to
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: talk to somebody about what shaped you and how you've
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: come into this world to become the woman that you are,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: and also to just kind of help guide you along.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Like I think, as long as you're taking little steps
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: in the direction of where you want to go, then
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: that's a positive thing that you're doing. Being on the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: dating apps is fine. I know it's frustrating, believe me,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Like I hear it all the time. I'm a woman,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah, but there are great men out there.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: There are There's just there's a lot of idiots out there,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: so it kind of makes it look worse than it is.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: But you have to just be focused, I think, on
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: your intention, which is to be in a loving, happy relationship.
• 45:03
  Speaker 7: I'm assuming yeah, yeah, right, it's I mean, I'm hoping
• 45:08
  Speaker 7: that everybody on the apps has the same intention, but
• 45:10
  Speaker 7: unfortunately it's it's the wild West, so you just never
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: really know who's looking for something serious, who's looking for
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: something casual, and who's just kind of there for.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Fun, absolutely, and that's also but like you can't control
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: what somebody. All you can do is be as direct
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: as possible, and like, you know, that's one of the things.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I just kind of started something on my Instagram. It
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: was kind of at in jest, but it turned into
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: this whole dating thing of setting people up because I
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: was like, where are all the men out here?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: I know so many incredible women and there are where
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: are the men? So I think there's just like we're
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: in a.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Time in our culture where it's just like men aren't
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: working as hard to try to meet women or they've
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: forgotten how to connect with women. But there's definitely like
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I think, I think for you as a
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: woman to be intentional, to be to be upfront, to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: say I'm not looking for something casual, I'm looking at
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to get to know somebody and you know, to see
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: with without any pressure on it.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good way to take the pressure.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Get into the art of practicing communicating that way, and
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: get into the practice of trying to go on dates,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: you know, use those apps and and and use those
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: dates like do nice innocent daytime coffee meet up.
• 46:19
  Speaker 7: I'm open to those things absolutely not happening as often
• 46:22
  Speaker 7: as I would have preferred.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Right, do you have a good group of girlfriends and
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: a chat? Do I have a that's that's for a
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: couple one or two?
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: I have a couple. I don't like seeing it, but
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: I feel like the older I've gotten, the smaller that
• 46:40
  Speaker 7: group has also gotten, and people kind of get preoccupied with,
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: you know, their own changes in their life. They have
• 46:47
  Speaker 7: new priorities, and so we just don't really get to
• 46:50
  Speaker 7: keep in touch the same way we used to.
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: Totally.
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: It's pretty limited to like texting or phone calls. But
• 46:55
  Speaker 7: I do have one or two people I still keep
• 46:57
  Speaker 7: in touch with from school and from college.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like right now, what you
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: need as a cheerleader, and whether that's like reaching out
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: to girlfriends and getting back in touch with them on
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: a regular basis, or a therapist, like someone who can
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: walk through this with you and be cheering you on,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: because it's not just one step, right, it's like multiple
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: steps and getting to know someone and then maybe if
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: things get more serious, it's really important to have somebody
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: in your corner cheering you on.
• 47:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And I try to also learn from their experiences
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: because they've also kind of gone, you know, through the
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: whole process, and I've heard horror stories and so I
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: think that's kind of pushed me away from wanting to
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: engage in the experience. But you can only learn to
• 47:40
  Speaker 7: swim if you get in the water. Yeah, So I
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: keep telling myself so you know, it might take a while,
• 47:45
  Speaker 7: but been trying to stick through it to see what's
• 47:48
  Speaker 7: the outcome.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you don't have to feel embarrassed. Like I
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: have multiple friends who were in their thirties before they
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: really started dating and they're happily settled now. My one friend,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: I say like, I'm so you didn't make us meet
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: a ton of people. It was like the first person
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: she met that was her person and they're very happy now.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: So it can definitely happen.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: But also I just would say, like, don't give up,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: and if somebody doesn't respond to you or whatever, that's
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: not your problem. Every no is closer to the yes
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: that you're going to find, do you know what I mean?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: So get rid of who cares about that guy? If
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: he didn't respond, great, who's next. Let's and get into
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: that practice of going on really casual, innocent like coffee dates.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Just to get into the rhythm of it so that
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like such a big deal anytime you
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: do it, that you're not giving yourself away.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: It's just kind of like, oh, this is what.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I do now a couple times a week or once
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a week or whatever you want to set up, but
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: constantly making efforts in the direction you want to go,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: which is to be in a relationship. And I think
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: it's wonderful that you have like accepted that. A lot
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: of people don't even want to say that, you know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: They're like, no, I don't want them, it's too scary
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: out there. Like it's good that what part of the
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: country do you live in?
• 48:57
  Speaker 7: So I'm in New York City, you know, I'm just
• 48:59
  Speaker 7: outside of great in the suburbs.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And then I also think when summer coming up and
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: spring coming up, there's so many things you could sign
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: up for, so many like activities that are outdoors in
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: New York City where you can meet people that are
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: going to be geared for people who are trying to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: meet people.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: If you look up, like, you know, dating activities in
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: New York City, they'll be like, oh, singles like women
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and men men meeting women like they have all that
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: stuff available. So you're in the best city in the
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: world to do that, to make that happen.
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: I keep being told level. I think another issue is
• 49:29
  Speaker 7: I'm a terrible flirt. I'm terrible, as in like zero.
• 49:35
  Speaker 7: I don't know how I would even navigate that kind
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: of a scenario. I look forward to those kind of exchanges,
• 49:40
  Speaker 7: but because I haven't had any experience, I wonder how
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: how would I even perform and how would it feel?
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: Like?
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: You know, So it's it's like constantly like big, big
• 49:50
  Speaker 7: butterflies in my stomach.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I really really encourage you to get a therapist
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: and really have somebody in your corner that you can
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: really bounce this stuff off of, because she's going to
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: help you.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: I'm saying a woman, because you should get a woman
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: and she's gonna help you navigate this.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: And I think it's great that you want to put
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: yourself out there and that is a big step.
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: Thank you, Thank you appreciate that, David.
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: You have fast Yeah, I do. You know. Everything I'm hearing,
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: which I agree with, is how can you be active
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: rather than reactive in a sense and also intentional, you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: in terms of your upbringing. Some of what I expressed
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: on here today is my own parents' perceptions that were
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: being transposed onto me, and I could either reject them
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: because I recognize that that's their experience and not mine,
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: or I could internalize them and then be pulled into
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: someone else's prejudices, preconceptions, fears, doubts, and before you know it,
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: you have this sort of generational psych that is a
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: downward spiral on the basis of information that may not
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: actually even be true anymore. That may have been your
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: experience coming over to this country in the sixties and
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: seventies or whatever, but the world has changed. I'm a
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: different person. I have different beliefs, values, aspirations, desires, and
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: so I think to actively recognize that you may still
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: be living or reacting to your parents' estimations of what
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: your life should be and who you are is one thing.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: And then to Chelsea's point about therapy, you know, what
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: are the things that you can intentionally do on the
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: basis of the revelation you've had about yourself and then
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: the putting of yourself out there in a sense, which
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: is terrifying for everyone. Of course, what I would also
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: say is to get rid of any shame tied to
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: the fact that you're in your thirties and you are
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: you and your experience is specific, you know, because of
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: how I was raised and my own belief system from
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: a faith standpoint, I was a virgin when I got married,
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: and I got teased mercilessly for that, but it was
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: my truth and it has proved to be something that
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: is wonderful for me. And there were times where when
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: I was being teased or mocked for it, that I
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: could have been drawn into someone else's perception of what
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: I should have been doing. And to be honest, for me,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: that I just know that wasn't the path I wanted
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: and the path that was going to lead to my
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: own specific brand of happiness. And so I agree with Chelsea.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: I have a lot of friends in their thirties and
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: forties who have dated a lot and are left with
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: real scars that mean that almost the idea of them
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: finding a partner is harder because it's that now they're
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: bringing so much baggage to those relationships. And again not
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: to say that that isn't something that you can also
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: still find love through, but please don't think that you
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: are now somehow damaged goods because of your age or
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: your parental thing or even being shy. You know, there's
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: going to be someone out there that's the very thing
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: about you that they love. Easier said than done. But
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: what are the intentional things you can do? What is
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: a team sport or a social situation that you can
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: put yourself in that isn't necessarily tied to dating, but
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: it's going to help with your confidence so that you're
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: going into situations whereby you know, you've just dealt with
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: some of your social anxiety that isn't in a setting
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: that is about dating, which is just like way too
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: many anxiety to induce. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, So
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: what is that thing?
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: Is it a board game thing, is it a book club?
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: Is it a whatever? You know, get outside of your
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: comfort zone and then get rid of the shame, you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: dispel you know, the projections of your parents, and then yeah,
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: and then just keep on keep on getting getting on
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: out there. I was just saying to these guys, I'm
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: literally officiating the wedding of my assistant on Saturday. She's
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: she's in her forties, her husband to be is in
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: his forties. They met on set. He was our art director,
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: and I just saw the most beautiful, appless, cute convergence
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: which is now leading to these two guys in their
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: forties getting married at my house is Saturday.
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: I love that it's appless.
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, it can still happen. It can still.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Happen, right, And also just let letting people know, you
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: know that in that are in your life and in
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: your work life, that you're interested in meeting someone. It's
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: good to keep putting that message out there and letting
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: people you never know where you're going to be introduced
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: to somebody.
• 54:51
  Speaker 7: Yep, true, true, Yeah, So I'm going to try to
• 54:53
  Speaker 7: stay open to those things.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, great, I can't wait for your first boyfriend let
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: us know.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: Will you follow up with us in a shot?
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: Absolutely definitely, I'll follow up with you. Guys.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much as much nice.
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: Likewise, thank you bye.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: That was such great advice.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I know that was great advice, David. I loved everything
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: you said. Now we have you on record giving dating advice.
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: This is awesome.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Happily happily, so, Evelyn says. Dear Chelsea. I'm writing because
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I can't seem to make the move to leave a
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: situation that isn't good for me. I've been with my
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: current partner for three years, and I think about leaving
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: almost every day. An overview he cheated one ye're into
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: our relationship with an ex and also slept with his
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: son's mother when we were broken up due to at
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: the aforementioned cheating, and lied until it was clear he
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: couldn't lie anymore.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: I thought I could.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Forgive and move on, but I think about it often
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: and obviously don't feel like I can trust him. He
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: has a terrible relationship with his son's mother, calls her names,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: argues and fights with her often crazy that they slept together.
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: Huh.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: We don't have anything in common. Our conversations are pointless,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: and he has a short fuse. But he's also a
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: great provider. He loves our daughter and great with kids.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: I'm close with his family, so he has a good
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: side too. That's where I get wrapped up in guilt,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: but I know that I deserve better. Oh and he
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: proposed on a trip recently, so guilt is at amax
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: even writing this. I'm like, girl, obviously you need to leave.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: The problem is I'm a mom to our fifteen month
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: old daughter. I don't work, so I'm apprehensive to leave.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: I'm scared he'll be awful to me like he is
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: with his son's mom. I just don't know where to start,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: or how to leave, or if I should do. I
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: leave and bite the bullet, put my daughter in daycare.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of anxiety about leaving her in
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: daycare and start to rebuild. I know what you're going
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: to say, and my gut is saying the same, but
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm stuck in quicksand please help. I
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: look up to you so much. I dream of one
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: day being able to make moves within my own life
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: that are aligned with my beliefs the way you do.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Evelyn.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Hi, Evelyn, Hi, Hi, this is our special guest, David.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: He's here today.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Hi, hell Hi, I'm really sorry about how what you're
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: going through.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I can feel the pain in your letter.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I understand that you're in a really difficult spot. But
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I think you obviously know the answer to your question
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: because you do and you have a knowing. We all
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: have a knowing within us, whether you're a man or
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: a woman or anything in between. We all have an
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: instinct and a gut. And the longer you put off
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: listening to that gut. It just feel like the higher
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: of a price you're going to pay.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: Do you have.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Any family, Do you have anyone you can go to
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: if you were to move out or to leave that
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: can help you.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: I think I would. Yeah, Like, I think I could
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: make it work.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well that's that's something, so like I think you
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: also something to know is like the people in your
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: life that love you, they already know what the situation
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: is and they're going to be very help more helpful
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: than you know. When you reach out and ask for help.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: People really want to help you, that really love you,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: they do. So I think it's a time for you
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: to think about who those people are in your life
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and ask for help. You're not going to need it forever,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: but you're going to need it for the transition, and
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: you really have to take care of yourself.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: And I also just.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Want to say, like, this is about not just you.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: This is about the health and happiness of your child.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: So sometimes when we can't defend ourselves like the way
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: that we would for a child, a daughter, a sister,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: a mother, you have to think of this is her future.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: So you're doing the most loving thing for the future
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of her and the future that you have together. There's
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: a whole world out there where you're going to feel
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: loved and cherished and not in this situation. But it's
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: going to take a couple It's going to take some
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: big moves on your part.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Right, David, can you speak to I know you've talked
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: about listening to your knowing and can you speak a
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: little bit to that and how you experience that.
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, firstly, Evelyn, I can see the pain
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: in your eyes. I can see the conflict. I can
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: see that what you're going through is very difficult and
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: just not easy in any way. And as Chelsea has
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: already alluded to, it's your child is part of a component.
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: So you know, I don't want to be glib in
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: relation to that. This is tough stuff. Again, I think
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: you know the answer to your own question, but I
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: think it's worth giving it context, which is that you
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: have tried and tested this person and they are not
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: to be trusted, and so you've already done the thing
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: that is where love emanates from. I personally believe love
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: is sacrifice, and that sacrifice sometimes manifests in let me
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: meet this person where they're at let me give them
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: the benefit of the doubt, and if they have consistently
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: not met that level of generosity and sacrifice to what
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: they may be able to offer, then at some point
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: the ability to trust them has gone. And that's you
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: having done your part. If it was gossip or hearsay
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: and you didn't know it for a fact, then we
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: would be here saying, well, have the conversation, you know,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: have couple's therapy or whatever. But it feels like that
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: rubicon has been crossed over, so to speak. And so
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: it's about self love. It's about how are you going
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: to now love yourself and your child through to the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: other side of this, because I've personally witnessed people recently
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: a friend of mine who stayed and everyone around them
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: are just like you, just know, this is not going
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: to be good. It's only going to continue to deteriorate.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: You're only putting off the inevitable because there's something that
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: is broken, whether it's in the relationship or the individual.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: And it sounds to me that this person there is
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: a brokenness in them that means that they are constantly
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: looking for, whether it's self esteem, affirmation, whatever it is,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: that you are not providing them and cannot provide them.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: And that is something that you must not beat yourself
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: over because I'm sure you have feelings of insecurity, feelings
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: of shame, feelings of why wasn't I enough? Well, you
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: will be enough for someone, but you will only get
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: to that someone once you have cleared this slate. And
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: so you know, my hope for you is that you
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: do make this step that you know you need to make,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: and that the sooner you make it, the sooner you
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: will get through what will be a period of mourning,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: a period of pain, a period of maybe even some doubt,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: but you will come out the other side into something
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: better because hopefully you'll take the experience of that, you'll
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: know what the red flags are. There'll be more self
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: love for you because you've made an act and a
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: step that is based on loving yourself over your insecurity
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: that makes you stay in a bad situation and that
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: hopefully will be what will inform your next choices and
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: your next relationship.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Evelyn, I just want to encourage you, like
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: this is big scary stuff. These are huge changes that
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: you would be making in your life and in your
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: daughter's life, But you are brave enough for this. You
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: are brave even just taking these first steps of like
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: is this the right choice? Reaching out? That is brave
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: and I believe that you're brave enough to handle this.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: Thank you. And I think my biggest fear is like
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: losing time with her, because right now I'm one hundred
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: percent of the time with her, and if I made
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: this move, it would be working all the time and
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: then fifty to fifty split And then I think, I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: go back and forth in my mind. Is it better
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: for me to hang on now to be with her
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 6: all the time or is that just me being selfish?
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: I think the time that you're going to gain more
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: time with her by making a healthier decision for both
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: of you in the future, like this period that you're
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: about to enter, maybe you won't be spending as much
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: time with her as you want, but in the long
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: run it will pay off, Like you're going to get
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the quality of time is going to be better than
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the quality of time you have now because now you're
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: kind of shielding protecting her in a sense, and you're
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: in this state, but your happiness is going to permeate
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: her life, and your peace of mind is going to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: have a huge impact on your daughter, So we want
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: you to be happy and healthy for the sake of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: your daughter.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: Also not just for the sake of you.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: That is hugely important, but it's both of you that
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: you're thinking about.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: So like, yes, like this is all going to be.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: It will be the right.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: Decision down the road, it'll it won't feel like it
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: when you're going through these difficult things, but you do
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: have the strength and you do have the courage to
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: do it, and you're going to get Your relationship with
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: her is going to show it in spades when you're
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: in a different situation. So please keep us posted about
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: what happens. Okay, let us know, Okay, okay, okay, take care,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: Bless you.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: Okay, thank you.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: Wow, that was pretty serious.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, I thank you for your time today, David. You
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: were so wonderful.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: Look listen to you talk all day long.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: Oh, thank you. Well. Likewise, I loved this conversation. I've
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: listened to your podcast. What I love, love, love about
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: it is the combination of lightness but also how you
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: just go straight for the guts of something and you
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: know people you've talked to, people who you know like
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: you are funny people, people who you have this perception
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: of who they are. But whether it's therapy or relationships,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: religion or sex, so you know, addiction or it's just
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: I just love that you get into the guts of it.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: So this is I feel honored to have been there,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: been on the show.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you, and I can't wait
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to come over to your house for Lunch's newest movie
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: is called Newborn and it is out in playing at
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: AMC theaters right now.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: So go see it. I watched it. It's fucking great.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: And David, I will see you soon.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: Yes, see you on Thursday at my house.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: I'll be there, Bye bye bye.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much. Bless you.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: If you want advice from Chelsea, right into Dear Chelsea
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: podcast at gmail dot com. Dear Chelsea is a production
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: of iHeartMedia. Follow Chelsea on All socials at Chelsea Handler,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: and find Catherine on TikTok at flash Cadabra. Dear Chelsea
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert executive producer Catherine Law.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Find full video episodes and minisos now on Netflix and
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: get tickets to see Chelsea Live at Chelseah Hammler dot
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: com