Speaker 1: Look at Tiffany. There are some allegations that were made
Speaker 1: that since been dropped. You feel comfortable you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to go to a studio and says, look, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this movie. I need I need the original cast.
Speaker 1: I do. I do girls Trip too. I can't make
Speaker 1: it without her. Yeah, all my life, the grinding, all
Speaker 1: my life, sacrifice, hustle back pricing, one a slice, got
Speaker 1: the broll dice, swathing all my life. I've been grinding
Speaker 1: all my life, all my life. Then grinding all my life, sacrifice,
Speaker 1: hustle bag pricing, one slice, got the Brolan dice to
Speaker 1: sware all my life. I've been grinding all my life. Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome to another edition of Club Sha Shay. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the product Club Sha Shay.
Speaker 1: And the guy that's stopping by today is one of
Speaker 1: Hollywood blockbuster hit makers. He's grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.
Speaker 1: Ten of his films have debuted at number one at
Speaker 1: the box office. Executive producer, entrepreneur, Hollywood record breaking filmmaker,
Speaker 1: Will Packer, Guy we all, I'm in the club. What
Speaker 1: you're talking about? You talk to you about your security
Speaker 1: had to show my I d like twice. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: over there. I'm like, hey, man, but I know shit,
Speaker 1: And they said everybody know sh Yeah, but you can't.
Speaker 1: You can never be too cautious, you know. I see
Speaker 1: getting crazy after dark out here to get in here club.
Speaker 1: We were bear We got similar rules. You live in
Speaker 1: a I still have a home and a how aben
Speaker 1: hu fam you absolutely absolutely how they treat you. I
Speaker 1: like it, man, I like, you know, I shoot probably
Speaker 1: half of my stuff in Atlanta, other half literally around
Speaker 1: the world, right, So I shoot in Atlanta every chance
Speaker 1: I get. I was a part of the group that
Speaker 1: actually lobby to get the tax credit there, Like people
Speaker 1: don't know. That's why so much production is happening in
Speaker 1: Atlanta doing crazy. Georgia's Crag, Georgia's number one. Yeah, we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't pass CATLIS. They don't pass catlid for on
Speaker 1: location filming in past Kali in New York, meaning like
Speaker 1: if you're shooting out in the world, now, LA still
Speaker 1: got the stages, right, so more people shooting stage in
Speaker 1: LA New York. But in terms of being out in
Speaker 1: the world, it's Georgia. So you know, like myself and Tyler,
Speaker 1: Perry and Turner. We all were part of a group
Speaker 1: to lobby to get the tax credit and it has
Speaker 1: gone crazy. So I love it. Man, What made you
Speaker 1: decide to go to LA? You originally excuse me to
Speaker 1: go to atlantat your Florida guy born in Florida? What
Speaker 1: made you decide to say, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: set up roots in Atlanta Because I was graduating from
Speaker 1: fam you right, Me and my partner at the time,
Speaker 1: guy named Rob Hardy, had made our first little movie.
Speaker 1: It was called Chocolate City. Okay. It was a movie
Speaker 1: about black college life. Okay, And we said, okay, we
Speaker 1: got this little movie right. We had an audience that
Speaker 1: cared about it at our school. Hollywood didn't care. Kay,
Speaker 1: people watching this, don't think you're just gonna make a movie.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, you know, the chairman of
Speaker 1: Paramount and Universe are gonna be calling you. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work like that, right, You gotta hustle your way into
Speaker 1: the game. So we had this movie and we said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we can move to New York, we
Speaker 1: can move to LA. We're gonna be another fish in
Speaker 1: a big pond, right or we looked at Atlanta. The
Speaker 1: music industry was popping. We came in. This is back
Speaker 1: when you're talking about La Face records or Rowdy records,
Speaker 1: so so deaf. Yeah, organizing, no us all that was
Speaker 1: really starting. Atlanta scene was really starting to burst to burst.
Speaker 1: And so we moved to Atlanta thinking, you know what,
Speaker 1: while we're trying to get our film hustle on, we'll
Speaker 1: shoot music video right and we'll have like a symbiotic
Speaker 1: relationship with the music industry. Right. We couldn't get one
Speaker 1: music video broh. We could't get nobody high because everybody
Speaker 1: knew each other. We were the new guy, right, so
Speaker 1: we were kind of not in the in the clissa.
Speaker 1: But you know what that did for us, It forced
Speaker 1: us to independently shoot our own stuff, right, And so
Speaker 1: we moved to Atlanta and shot our first independent movie
Speaker 1: outside of college. It was called Ta, starring Kenyan Moore's
Speaker 1: erotic thriller, and it did well, man pop for us.
Speaker 1: What made you decide? You know? And I tell people
Speaker 1: all the time, I think everybody that goes to a PWI,
Speaker 1: yeah predominantly white institution, should have to spend a quarter
Speaker 1: or semester at a historically back institution. To get that
Speaker 1: to see what homecoming is like, that experience, to see
Speaker 1: the step shows in the park and you're in the
Speaker 1: student center and you you playing dominoes and you're playing
Speaker 1: spades or whatever the case may be, playing in the
Speaker 1: background of fraternities and sororities coming through the set stepping.
Speaker 1: You got to feel that it's different. Is that? Is
Speaker 1: that what you wanted when you shot the movie Chocolate City?
Speaker 1: Is that what you wanted to portray on film? You
Speaker 1: wanted to give people a SIPs of what it's like
Speaker 1: to be at a historically black institution percent because we
Speaker 1: were there I shot at while we were still students, Okay, family.
Speaker 1: We wanted to get people to feel that culture exact
Speaker 1: same thing you're talking about, because they really are. You know,
Speaker 1: colleges are community. Yes, so imagine, especially if you're African American,
Speaker 1: the safest space, the most competitive space in an area
Speaker 1: where you can really feel at home, challenge, love, and
Speaker 1: push to be the best year you can be. Right,
Speaker 1: that's my experience on the HBCU campus. We wanted to
Speaker 1: showcase that, and Chocolate City to this day is still
Speaker 1: the first historically black first movie shot on an HBCU
Speaker 1: campus by its students, right right. It also was a
Speaker 1: precursor for my first number one movie, which was Stomp
Speaker 1: the Yard. Oh yeah. I made Chocolate City, then went
Speaker 1: off and made some other movies, and I always wanted
Speaker 1: to go back and set another movie at HBCU. So
Speaker 1: my first kind of big mainstream hit was Stomp the Yard,
Speaker 1: which took me back to my HBCU. Use you made
Speaker 1: it in engineering, got a degree in engineering. How the
Speaker 1: hell do you go from engineering the shooting film. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's different. Yeah, yeah, Like I'm gonna build a bridge,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna build a building on your road. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: i'mna get behind the camera and shoot. I did a
Speaker 1: lot of math and science is external dynamics. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting on set right now, like, why where am I
Speaker 1: using this? What was the point with all those late hours? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Here's the thing I'll tell you though. It actually helped
Speaker 1: me to hone my analytical mind. Okay, And you kind
Speaker 1: of can't overstate how important that is even in a
Speaker 1: creative industry, right. I think that it gives me a
Speaker 1: leg up on my peers, the fact that I use
Speaker 1: my analyt litical skill set that I got from that
Speaker 1: engineering degree. Now I ended up majoring in engineering because
Speaker 1: I got a scholarship. Coming out of high school. I
Speaker 1: was strong in math and science, right, and there was
Speaker 1: a push to get more African Americans in the STEM
Speaker 1: program science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and so I got a
Speaker 1: scholarship to go there. I didn't want to go to family.
Speaker 1: You wanted to go to an IVY league. I was
Speaker 1: accepted into an IVA. Shannon Sharpe, I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: I got the grades. Yes, I got accepted. It's not
Speaker 1: going to fam. You kids trying to go to family
Speaker 1: was cheating off me in high school. I'm not going
Speaker 1: over here with y'all. What happened was we had a
Speaker 1: president who was a visionary of family at the time.
Speaker 1: His name was doctor Frederick assume Free's God blessed him.
Speaker 1: He's passed on. But he said, I want the top
Speaker 1: black students in the country to come to the school.
Speaker 1: And you know how you do that. Money. He went
Speaker 1: out and he went to corporations and he got major scholarships. Right.
Speaker 1: He came and sat in my living room at my
Speaker 1: house like I was a d one athlete and recruited
Speaker 1: me to go to FAM you. He said, listen, I
Speaker 1: know you want to go to Penn. I know you
Speaker 1: got accepted to you. I know you want to go
Speaker 1: to these other schools. But let me tell you what
Speaker 1: we do at FAM. You. We're gonna make you excellence.
Speaker 1: We're gonna care about it, and you are gonna do
Speaker 1: things that you could never do with those other schools
Speaker 1: because we're gonna care about you as a person, not
Speaker 1: just the number, not just a student. I still didn't
Speaker 1: want to go. Now here's what happened. A funny thing
Speaker 1: happened on my way to the Ivy League. Doctor Humphreys
Speaker 1: came and dropped a bag of cash in that living room,
Speaker 1: I mean literally, but with the scholarship right, scholarship stipe
Speaker 1: in full room and board everything. My parents said, oh
Speaker 1: that's nice. Hey, what they're giving you over at that
Speaker 1: o Ivy League that you want to go to. How
Speaker 1: much they give you? I said, well, you know they're not.
Speaker 1: They're not giving me there, not giving me nothing. But
Speaker 1: they let me in. They said, guess where your little
Speaker 1: black stuff is gonna go to the top. Best decision
Speaker 1: that was ever made for me, And it really is
Speaker 1: about that cycle of excellence. You know he has somebody
Speaker 1: that said, listen, we can do as as well as
Speaker 1: anybody else, and we can get the top students in
Speaker 1: the country. And I happened to be one of those
Speaker 1: students at the time, got recruited to go there and
Speaker 1: and did it because it we did have that financial
Speaker 1: and center, but I didn't have that elsewhere. My parents said, listen,
Speaker 1: you can go to an ivy lator and get your
Speaker 1: NBA if you want, but this is where you're gonna start. Right.
Speaker 1: It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Man,
Speaker 1: What is it about historically black institutions. It's like like
Speaker 1: homecoming is a big, giant, giant cookout with like five thousand,
Speaker 1: ten thousand of your closest friends. But they're the sense
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, the sense of community is that you
Speaker 1: know you're standing out. Everybody is suited and booted because
Speaker 1: I don't know how mean when I go to my
Speaker 1: when I would go to my brother, he was at
Speaker 1: the University of South Carolina, and I'm seeing people in
Speaker 1: sweats and they like pajamas. I was like, where they
Speaker 1: do that at? We suited and booted, We got on legs,
Speaker 1: we got on calber cloud, we got on as we
Speaker 1: got on Dark side of the Week till the nine
Speaker 1: the fashion Show. Yeah, come on, man, stop playing you
Speaker 1: know how we do. We had to absolutely, But it's
Speaker 1: like you said, everybody needs to experience that. Yeah, everybody.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of friends when the PWA, I
Speaker 1: got friends and played ball all of that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they all say, man, I wish I'd had just a
Speaker 1: little bit of that experience. Yeah. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It stays with you in a different way. That's taking
Speaker 1: nothing away from any other snow, but you know, like
Speaker 1: I know when you go to ANBCU, that is your
Speaker 1: fair monly for life life. What is it that you
Speaker 1: think that makes Atlanta so many black successful gravitate there?
Speaker 1: You mentioned yourself, You mentioned uh, Tyler Perry, Ye, Steve
Speaker 1: Harvey has a home bisop. So many of today's Hollywood
Speaker 1: and celebrities and entertainers migrate to Atlanta. Yeah, why success
Speaker 1: beget success? You see other people doing it there, and
Speaker 1: you go, you know what, I can do it too, right,
Speaker 1: I know that's what's happening in entertainment, right. You know
Speaker 1: I know that that that I was there very early.
Speaker 1: Tyler was there very early. Now you have other people
Speaker 1: you know, you name it from from you know, Ryan
Speaker 1: Cooler with Black Panthers to a lot of the big
Speaker 1: movies are shot there because people see what we've been
Speaker 1: able to do. There's a true community there. There's an environment,
Speaker 1: not just in entertainment, but you look at politics, you
Speaker 1: look at business. It is a place where you you
Speaker 1: have a lot of high achieving African Americans that are succeeded,
Speaker 1: and then they're bringing other people along to work with
Speaker 1: them and to help, and so it becomes a network
Speaker 1: and it becomes a positive cycle. Right. Cycles don't always
Speaker 1: have to be negative you talking about cyclical things. It
Speaker 1: can be positive as well. I think we're seeing that
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. You I mean, I'm looking at you your
Speaker 1: ta with in your movie takers. Bludicrists have a project
Speaker 1: dancing through the snow. Ye. How when you when you
Speaker 1: getting ready to shoot a movie, do you have an
Speaker 1: idea of who you like to start in the movie
Speaker 1: or do you how far along is the movie before
Speaker 1: you started to say, Okay, I think this guy would
Speaker 1: be perfect or I think she would be perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I mean you always know, you
Speaker 1: always have an idea who you want in the movie. Right,
Speaker 1: it is always you can get and always work out
Speaker 1: like that. I was gonna say, right, I made a
Speaker 1: movie girls trip right. I knew for a fact Regina
Speaker 1: Hall was the absolute first person we went okay, love
Speaker 1: Regina one of my most frequent collaborators. I knew we
Speaker 1: wanted her. Had a conversation with Latifa and Jada and
Speaker 1: they said, man, we have not worked together and so long,
Speaker 1: we would love to work together. Now I got my
Speaker 1: three right. We were not thinking about Tiffany Haddish for
Speaker 1: that final role, right, So I went in knew that
Speaker 1: I wanted actresses on a certain level. So I knew
Speaker 1: I wanted Regina. Had a great conversation with Latifa and
Speaker 1: Jada that worked out. Now I got to finish out
Speaker 1: that that final role, and then we went out and
Speaker 1: we cast it. She came in and killed the audition.
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, being a producers like being
Speaker 1: a project manager, right, you really have to know how
Speaker 1: to put all the pieces together. That's my job. I
Speaker 1: can say it was a producer due because people get confused.
Speaker 1: They think it's like a director yell action and cut.
Speaker 1: I always use the analogy that if you look at
Speaker 1: the Oscars. The final award of the night is Best Picture.
Speaker 1: Who gets Best Picture? That's the producer, right, That's after
Speaker 1: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best editing. All of that,
Speaker 1: the producer was responsible for hiring all those other people,
Speaker 1: putting all the elements together, and ultimately the final product
Speaker 1: is what the producers judged off. I didn't. We started
Speaker 1: off with girls Trip. We're gonna get to that later.
Speaker 1: You're thinking about doing a sequel, Yeah, man, original cast
Speaker 1: or a different direction. Now, I gotta have a cast,
Speaker 1: and then I gotta I gotta take them because they
Speaker 1: because because people love those ladies. Yes, they loved those characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my first time seeing Tiffany had It. I
Speaker 1: had no idea who she was really and she she
Speaker 1: she stole, actually she stole the show, to be honest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of them were great. Yeah. I love Latifah, loved
Speaker 1: Jada Regina Hall, She's one of my favorites. But Tiffany
Speaker 1: had It. It was her mannerisms and and everything was
Speaker 1: just like she was a breakout. I mean, because she
Speaker 1: was everybody else that came in an audition for that role.
Speaker 1: They were playing the character that read on the page.
Speaker 1: But that's her. Tiffany came the character. Yeah, she took
Speaker 1: what was on the page and took it to the
Speaker 1: next live. Every now and then you have an actor
Speaker 1: that's just made for a role. Kevin Hart. Kevin had
Speaker 1: been in the game for for years, right, he hadn't
Speaker 1: had that mainstream breakout success. And we did our movie
Speaker 1: Thing Like a Man, right, and he needed just that platform.
Speaker 1: And if you see Things Like a Man, he's kind
Speaker 1: of the maestro. He's in there, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: All the guys are around him. He's our narrator. Right.
Speaker 1: It was the perfect platform for his talent, his skill
Speaker 1: set it yourself. Another one of my freaking collaborators. His
Speaker 1: first movie after The Wire was a little movie I
Speaker 1: made called The Gospel, and it was a faith based
Speaker 1: film and it just came in and played a Southern preacher. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was just the platform at that time that
Speaker 1: helped introduce them to new audiences that didn't know them right. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's that's what it's about. As a producer, You're
Speaker 1: just trying to put the pieces together, right. It's like
Speaker 1: a puzzle man, and everything got a fit. If it doesn't,
Speaker 1: the movie doesn't work. You look at Regina. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: not Regina, but you look at Tiffany. There are some
Speaker 1: allegations that were made that since been dropped. You see
Speaker 1: the situation that happened with Jada and Will at the
Speaker 1: Oscars would talk touching that a little later, and Tiffany says,
Speaker 1: everything that I had is dried up. You feel comfortable
Speaker 1: that that she you're gonna be able to go to
Speaker 1: a studio and says, look, we're gonna do this movie.
Speaker 1: I need I need the original cast. I do, I do.
Speaker 1: I certainly hope. So I think that you know, we
Speaker 1: are in a time period where there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of there's not a lot of nuance. It's just black
Speaker 1: and white, and the reality is that we live in
Speaker 1: a gray world. And I think that, you know, she's
Speaker 1: very talented, obviously very remorsefulness, come out and apologize, and
Speaker 1: so I certainly hope so, and I certainly would advocate
Speaker 1: for her. You know, Girl's Trip too. I can't make
Speaker 1: it without her because I don't know who. I don't
Speaker 1: know who you can cast in that role. It would
Speaker 1: feel very obvious that you didn't have her, you know.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how these things go. But you know
Speaker 1: it is it is. I always tell people that it
Speaker 1: becomes a tricky conversation when you align the art with
Speaker 1: the artists so much, and you don't have a separation
Speaker 1: between art and artists. And that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: justify bad behavior, just means that sometimes I'm even talking
Speaker 1: about Tivit, I'm talking mine. In general, you have to
Speaker 1: look at at the art right and you have to
Speaker 1: judge the art, and then you can also judge the artist.
Speaker 1: And sometimes one doesn't work, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You can't enjoy the art art because you don't like
Speaker 1: the artist, That's fine, but you do have to have
Speaker 1: a separate conversation between art and arts when you talk
Speaker 1: about the art. Girl's Trip too, I would definitely want
Speaker 1: those four labors. Where are you on cancel culture? It
Speaker 1: seems that we're now that if somebody makes a mistake,
Speaker 1: it's an unforgiven no matter no matter how small it is.
Speaker 1: And now we're done with you. You can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: And and and like I said, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: the incident later, but I'm still going to buy If
Speaker 1: Will Smith does a movie, I'm gonna go see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if somebody does something. I'm gonna go see it, y'all.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not going to let that happen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to. It's like I said, Nuance, bruh. You know. Listen,
Speaker 1: you in the public eye. Yes, you are in media.
Speaker 1: You are every day yes, right, microphone in your face. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you got a whole bunch of people waiting for
Speaker 1: you to say just one little thing. Ye please? They wait?
Speaker 1: You got the Shannon drop haters. Yes, that's like, please
Speaker 1: say something. We have to jump on. Right, that's the
Speaker 1: world that we live in now. Unfortunately, I love what
Speaker 1: social media can be at its best, right, it's the
Speaker 1: democratization of power to the people. Everybody has a voice.
Speaker 1: Your voice can be heard. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: a Shandon Sharp, We don't have to be a Will Packer. Right.
Speaker 1: The other side of that is that you have a
Speaker 1: lot of people that weaponize it. Man, Yes, you have
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and there's no room for a
Speaker 1: conversation other than you did wrong. You have to be canceled.
Speaker 1: You're out of here. We don't deal with you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do everything we can to stop you from here
Speaker 1: on out. Right, Well, there's no room for growth or redemption.
Speaker 1: When you do that, there's no room for a conversation
Speaker 1: for people to learn. Also, my opinion, I think intentionality matters. YEA,
Speaker 1: what was your intention? What is your intent doesn't make
Speaker 1: it right. You can still do wrong while it's attending positive,
Speaker 1: but we have to take that into account in my opinion,
Speaker 1: So I think that it's a pendulum that swings. You
Speaker 1: talk about cancel culture. There's been a lot of things
Speaker 1: that you know, you look at African Americans and medium
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities we haven't had that we should
Speaker 1: have had. Right However, I think that you do have
Speaker 1: a pendulum that has swung so far that you do
Speaker 1: have a group of people that say, once there's anything
Speaker 1: that we can take issue with, that's it, that it's
Speaker 1: over for that person. And very frequently I don't agree. Now,
Speaker 1: I work in this industry. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: these imperfect people just like you do. Now. A lot
Speaker 1: of times they're intent is strong right in the right place.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a process, it really is. That pendulum
Speaker 1: is swung one way, it'll swing back the other way.
Speaker 1: We just got to figure out we can all do
Speaker 1: better and be more progressive. As a society, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't always mean that we throw out every person that
Speaker 1: makes a mistake. Right. I'm looking at comedians because I
Speaker 1: think it's getting hard and harder for them to do
Speaker 1: their job. Now we know there are certain things that
Speaker 1: like Eddie Murpher, I don't know if Adie could have
Speaker 1: in today's time that he told them delirious and raw
Speaker 1: Bernie mack uh. Different time is a different time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you how do they walk this fine line
Speaker 1: because what they do they take actual true things that
Speaker 1: have happened and they make them money. Yeah. I watched
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle's monologue on Saturday Night Live. It might it
Speaker 1: was the greatest monologue the way he wore and hey,
Speaker 1: he's like they're laying, they're laying. I mean, it's fill
Speaker 1: a laying back so deft. Just step in app and
Speaker 1: get him one time. It matters how you say it,
Speaker 1: because you said some of the same types of things
Speaker 1: that others have said, but the way that he said it.
Speaker 1: He is an expert storyteller. Yes, and that's the answer
Speaker 1: to your question comedians. Right, And I've had this conversation
Speaker 1: with with Kevin Hard. I've had this conversation with rob
Speaker 1: it matters how you delivered and how you say it.
Speaker 1: You can say a lot of stuff right, right, but
Speaker 1: the way that you say it matters. Even if you
Speaker 1: look at the other side, somebody like a Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: I don't care where your politics are. He's not a comedian.
Speaker 1: He has says some things that nine percent of the
Speaker 1: people could not say, right, but the way he says it,
Speaker 1: in a charismatic way, which speaks to a certain segment
Speaker 1: of the population, allows him to get away with it.
Speaker 1: That is the reality. Right. So when people say, well,
Speaker 1: you just can't be a comedian these days, I disagree.
Speaker 1: I think you have to work very hard to get
Speaker 1: harder though you have to be careful, you have to
Speaker 1: be really good. But what doesn't that mean saying does
Speaker 1: that mean that the bar is higher? Like only like
Speaker 1: because the best you know, you got to get better,
Speaker 1: the creamal rides to the top, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's not like Chappelle hasn't gotten in a bunch of
Speaker 1: trouble with a certain you know, group of people. He has.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's the way that you say,
Speaker 1: and there's a deafness and and d d ft to
Speaker 1: the way that he handles controversial subjects and situations, and
Speaker 1: he's a master storytell right, you know it because it's
Speaker 1: sometimes that when you can make something funny and it
Speaker 1: takes the edge off of it for sure, because it's
Speaker 1: people are laughing. People like O. He kind of saying
Speaker 1: some of the same things that got the other guys
Speaker 1: in trouble. You do realize that he's saying this right,
Speaker 1: but the way he said it, it didn't feel like
Speaker 1: he was talking down to someone. And he pulled out
Speaker 1: a note. Yeah, apologized the real that's how you buy
Speaker 1: some time, That's how you had to buy some times.
Speaker 1: You mentioned your politics. You're very you're very political person.
Speaker 1: Obviously you care, we should. We're citizens, and people think.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people think if you're famous, you're an athlete,
Speaker 1: that you're unaffected, you're unimpacted by what's transpired. I care.
Speaker 1: I care about the economy, I care about inflation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I care about you know, pop, the hunger and things that,
Speaker 1: the homelessness. Yes, I care about those things. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Having money doesn't exempt you from world problems at all.
Speaker 1: Maybe give you a better avenue to be, but you're
Speaker 1: dealing with those, but it doesn't exempt you you're a
Speaker 1: big Stacey the Abrian proponent. Are you surprised, I mean,
Speaker 1: the last time she ran, she lost by eighty thousand boats.
Speaker 1: This time it wasn't even close. Are you surprised that
Speaker 1: it was such a blowout this time around. I wasn't
Speaker 1: because I think it just speaks to where Georgia is
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, I think that there was. First of all,
Speaker 1: Stacy's incredible. Yes, she ran an incredible campaign the first time,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people thought because in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and then twenty twenty one when we had to send
Speaker 1: the runoffs, we got two Democratic senators, a black man
Speaker 1: and a Jewish man correct the state of Georgia. Yes,
Speaker 1: but what people didn't really understand is that was a
Speaker 1: very unique confluence of events that allowed that to happen. Okay,
Speaker 1: you were coming off twenty twenty where you had Georgia
Speaker 1: Republicans and Republicans nationwide it just said I'm not going
Speaker 1: to vote for Trump. Okay, you said you had people
Speaker 1: that literally voted all the way down the ticket and
Speaker 1: did not vote for him. They said, I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: tired of ask Normally, for the most part, you vote
Speaker 1: down ballot. From that is correct. You had a lot
Speaker 1: of people that did not vote there. Then in that
Speaker 1: runoff you had him and a lot of other people saying,
Speaker 1: what the election is rid, it's fraud everywhere. So you
Speaker 1: had a lot of Republicans that stayed, they did not
Speaker 1: come and ass Off and Warnot benefited from that because
Speaker 1: those of us that work very hard to energize the
Speaker 1: Democratic base, we got our folks out right this time around.
Speaker 1: There was a big push amongst Republicans. You see that
Speaker 1: every midterm, the part it's not in power usually comes
Speaker 1: down and come strong, right, and so in Georgia, ultimately
Speaker 1: you still do have a lot more Republican registered voters
Speaker 1: and so their base is bigger than the Democratic base there.
Speaker 1: Stacey was up against that. Now it speaks to when
Speaker 1: you look at Senator Warnot, it speaks to the fact
Speaker 1: that he was up against a very flawed candidate. Because
Speaker 1: just about every other statewide race and Georgia the Republicans won,
Speaker 1: but that one they couldn't get it. There that a
Speaker 1: lot of people that said, I can't do that, right,
Speaker 1: I can't hold my nose and punch that Walker ticket, right,
Speaker 1: So what not? Obviously we're gonna have a runoff. I
Speaker 1: think it's December six. It is between a senator Warnot
Speaker 1: and herschel Walker. Ye, and look, I don't have anything.
Speaker 1: I don't want to come out here and speak bad
Speaker 1: about herschel But I think what is for me my
Speaker 1: problem else is that they've allowed he's allowed them to
Speaker 1: make him a caricature of the worst stereotype that's been
Speaker 1: portrayed on us, right for hundreds of years. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's embarrassing. Yeah, the way he's talk he's like he
Speaker 1: had I mean to hear him talk about certain things
Speaker 1: and I'm like, seriously, yeah, seriously, I'm like people seriously. Yeah, here, here,
Speaker 1: here's a challenge. And I'm saying this to you. Black
Speaker 1: man and black man, successful black man to successful black man,
Speaker 1: high profile media black man is somebody that also works
Speaker 1: in media. Right, here's the challenge, Shannam. It hurts us
Speaker 1: to see a black man in that position. Now, if
Speaker 1: herschel Walker was doing almost anything else, selling cars or
Speaker 1: hosting a late night show, anything, right, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: any issues. And I would have a problem with people,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, making fun or demonizing or characterizing him
Speaker 1: in a negative way. Right, But you're talking about running
Speaker 1: for one of the most powerful positions in the country. Yes,
Speaker 1: it has to matter. Yes, And we know for a
Speaker 1: fact that you've got people on the other side that said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna prop up somebody that is unqualiqualified. We are
Speaker 1: very intentionally going to put somebody in a position who
Speaker 1: does not have the qualifications. Right, qualifications have to matter
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the US Senate. Brother, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what's painful. I don't. I don't. I hate the fact
Speaker 1: that we have a black man running for Senate who
Speaker 1: is so severely unqualified, and it's so very clear, right,
Speaker 1: and he happens to be running against another black man, right,
Speaker 1: happens to be a pastor. And you have a lot
Speaker 1: of evangelicals in the South Jordia that are like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna vote for Walker. I'm not gonna vote for
Speaker 1: the past I'm gonna vote for the other guy. That's
Speaker 1: just about you being in your own echo chamber and
Speaker 1: just following along with the political divide. It's not about
Speaker 1: the most qualified candidates. You can't to nobody of any
Speaker 1: intelligence is going to argue that, right, But it just
Speaker 1: shows where we are, and so you feel we do
Speaker 1: and a lot of people. Actually we know they are
Speaker 1: using this brother, he's allowing himself to be used. But
Speaker 1: you know what, sometimes the hardest people to see that
Speaker 1: is the person that's being used. If you know, we've
Speaker 1: all seen that man. She's using him or he's using her. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: they don't see that. But you're on the outside, you're
Speaker 1: sometimes you're so close you don't feel or you can't
Speaker 1: sense what's actually going on. We're looking at this and
Speaker 1: like and we're watching all these the voters tie themselves
Speaker 1: up in prestles. They ask, you know, they're so this
Speaker 1: Republican base and soul against abortions, where herschel play for abortions.
Speaker 1: Well that's different. Hold on, what do you mean? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I thought you say killing a numbered child is murder.
Speaker 1: But if he's driving the lady to the to the
Speaker 1: place and pay it for, what is that? Well it
Speaker 1: all depends on what is God. That's between him and
Speaker 1: is God? Oh really? Yeah? So what about the woman
Speaker 1: and her God? Yeah? Yeah, you can justify it when
Speaker 1: you want to. You don't want to look at the truth.
Speaker 1: If you want to justify it, you can, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's what's happening there. I just and by the
Speaker 1: way you said it, if you think he is going
Speaker 1: to these rallies and looking at these people and thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm qualified, I got a chance to win, I might win,
Speaker 1: I should win. Right, that's how he's thinking of it.
Speaker 1: He's not looking at it as there is a structure
Speaker 1: that is using your right to try to undermine something
Speaker 1: that's happening with another political party. Not because you are
Speaker 1: qualified or we want your ideals or we want your
Speaker 1: skill set. No, we just need a body. We need
Speaker 1: somebody that's popular. And you know, like I know in
Speaker 1: Georgia God football family and that that order switches depending
Speaker 1: on the day of the week. But still all absolutely
Speaker 1: people look at him and they say some of the
Speaker 1: most the fondest memories I have or with him running
Speaker 1: the ball, you know, taking Georgia across the end zone. Yea,
Speaker 1: I will always love him. I'll always have a fondness.
Speaker 1: That's the power of sports, right, Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: But when you blurt the lines and you talk about
Speaker 1: putting somebody in a position of real power, that's where
Speaker 1: it gets disturbed. That's what we got a responsibility to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Were you always a big sports
Speaker 1: pay Yeah, man, you play sports growing up? I did.
Speaker 1: I did play football. You know. I was the small,
Speaker 1: fast dude, you know what I'm saying. So you know
Speaker 1: I'm about chance, the sharpest. You know. I played in Florida,
Speaker 1: so we played you know, football is yeah, the football
Speaker 1: is it. Yeah, what you mean is I know you're
Speaker 1: Georgia boy, but you know we right there? Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: the South football is king and the spot is king
Speaker 1: in the South. Yeah, I played football, baseball. I was
Speaker 1: an athlete growing up. I got a son who played
Speaker 1: college ball at Harvard incidentally, so yeah, I got it.
Speaker 1: I got a little DNA and me, did did you
Speaker 1: want to did you want to play professionally? Or did
Speaker 1: you did you? I knew I didn't have that one
Speaker 1: in the cars. Okay, that was never I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if it was in the cards, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I would have I would have done it. But that
Speaker 1: was definitely not in the cause I didn't have a frame,
Speaker 1: the statue or the athletic ability. We're being honest, I mean,
Speaker 1: living things turned out. Okay, though you graduated magna cum laudy.
Speaker 1: I graduated thank you, Lordy. You know, I mean you
Speaker 1: I made you the eligibility. I didn't need to stay
Speaker 1: in for the football. How about two points? Got two?
Speaker 1: I mean bachelor's last degree in electrical engineers, Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: Did you when you're growing up, like, what did you
Speaker 1: want to be? What did Will Packer want to be
Speaker 1: when you're growing up? A boss? That's the truth. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a boss, Okay, I didn't know what kind.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I wanted to be in charge, right,
Speaker 1: you want to tell somebody else what to do? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have my own company, my own business. Right.
Speaker 1: So my parents explaining to me, well, that's an entrepreneurship, right,
Speaker 1: that's what you want to go out Okay, But it
Speaker 1: really was this ideal of I want to be the
Speaker 1: person that's calling the shots. I didn't know how. I
Speaker 1: didn't know exactly the industry or the field. But they said,
Speaker 1: all right, well, what you gotta do is bust your ass, right,
Speaker 1: you gotta work hard. That was instilled in me very early. Right,
Speaker 1: you gotta go out there, if you're putting your name
Speaker 1: on it, you better be given one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 1: And so that's why ultimately I made a grades in
Speaker 1: high school, went to college major in engineering. Didn't want
Speaker 1: to be that was not my dream, but that was
Speaker 1: where you know, I got the scholarship Magnicolard. As you said,
Speaker 1: bust my ass working very very hard in engineering, right.
Speaker 1: I still used that mindset, as I mentioned, an analytical
Speaker 1: mind said, even in making my movies today. A lot
Speaker 1: of people think you can just you know, decide to
Speaker 1: wake up and work hard. Nah, if you haven't been
Speaker 1: honing a work ethic, if you're not the person that's
Speaker 1: been working hard and learning how to work hard, you're
Speaker 1: not going to just all of a sudden be like,
Speaker 1: oh I want to do well. You'll work hard for
Speaker 1: a couple of days or a couple of months, and
Speaker 1: then you'll turn it back off. Because working hard is
Speaker 1: then you have to be in you, and you have
Speaker 1: to be doing that at a very young age. That's right.
Speaker 1: That's right, absolutely, And by the way, sometimes doing it
Speaker 1: in areas that you know may not be your passion. Correct.
Speaker 1: I tell people that all the time. You'll find your passion.
Speaker 1: But while you're in whatever you're in, bust your ass
Speaker 1: with that. Be the best whatever you can be. When
Speaker 1: I came out of family, the first movie I interned on.
Speaker 1: I was the lowest, lowest, lowest on the total pot right.
Speaker 1: I was at under the pas. I was an intern
Speaker 1: in the camera department. I was the absolute best camera
Speaker 1: intern that anybody that said had ever seen. I showed
Speaker 1: up early, I stayed late. I did everything they wanted
Speaker 1: me to do. I was around there wrangling the cables.
Speaker 1: Got him right. My cables never got twisted. I did
Speaker 1: whatever I needed to do right because my name on it.
Speaker 1: Now I looked and I said, well, I want to
Speaker 1: be the producer. I don't want to be doing this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be getting coffee this first in
Speaker 1: that person. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: Put in the time. Sometimes in this generation, with the
Speaker 1: instant gratification, you have a lot of people not willing
Speaker 1: to put in that work right. But I'm somebody that
Speaker 1: got to where I am by learning how to grind
Speaker 1: from an early age, and it's paid off on That's
Speaker 1: what I tell kids. I said, I think you should
Speaker 1: have It's kind of like you know in sports, people
Speaker 1: do guys do one thing now they just play football,
Speaker 1: and they just play basketball, and they just do one thing.
Speaker 1: And I applied this to life and jobs. I say,
Speaker 1: do a lot of things because they tell you what
Speaker 1: you don't want to do once you get older, because
Speaker 1: I can assure you if you don't want to do
Speaker 1: that as a kid, yeah you damn Su're not gonna
Speaker 1: want to do it as an adult. Things are easier
Speaker 1: as a kid. I mean I did a lot of jobs, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I ain't know. I don't want to catch chickens. I
Speaker 1: don't want to crop to back. I don't want to
Speaker 1: clip on you that. I don't want to pick up peacams.
Speaker 1: I want to lower watermelon a ball. Hey, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do feel labor. So that early on in
Speaker 1: my life, I like, I don't want to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I started playing sports. And then I found
Speaker 1: out you can make money you playing sports. Oh that's
Speaker 1: what I want to do. That's what I that's what
Speaker 1: I want to do. That's how that's how I want
Speaker 1: to get my family. But you also were extraordinarily gifted
Speaker 1: at Yes, yes, you found something that you like to
Speaker 1: do and that you could do really well. A lot
Speaker 1: of people I want to be shatter sharp, don't have
Speaker 1: the skill set or the work ethic. But sometimes you
Speaker 1: you're good at one thing, you don't want to do it,
Speaker 1: and you did not that gift, trying to go to
Speaker 1: a gift that's that you're not blessed with. That is
Speaker 1: very true. That is very true. I agree. So what
Speaker 1: you gotta do find the thing that you are good at. Okay,
Speaker 1: do that. Sometimes you'll find your passion along the way.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. You have people that are good at
Speaker 1: one thing and say, but I think I want to
Speaker 1: do something else. Is there a way for you to
Speaker 1: combine it? Is there a way for you to do
Speaker 1: this until you got enough resources, but then you can
Speaker 1: step out and chase something else. But don't give up
Speaker 1: what you're good at, right because if you're really good
Speaker 1: at something, I believe everybody has a talent, you're good
Speaker 1: at it, go for it and go hard. How do
Speaker 1: you go into an HBCD? You help you in your
Speaker 1: movie career. Gave me a perspective and a lot of
Speaker 1: my peers. Number one, it taught me who I'm making
Speaker 1: my movies for. Okay. When I made my first movie,
Speaker 1: Chocolate City, uh we it was starring other kids that
Speaker 1: went to school, but it was nobody in that movie.
Speaker 1: We barely you know, knew what we were doing. We
Speaker 1: were trying to keep the shots in focused it right,
Speaker 1: shot on cam quarter. We shot it simper sixteen million
Speaker 1: madd film. I see it gets a little matter. Stay
Speaker 1: shade in that brother. I didn't have a cam quarter. Okay,
Speaker 1: had some film, all right, y'all see him over here,
Speaker 1: club shade. I knew. I knew when I was at
Speaker 1: the line trying to get in here club shots. So
Speaker 1: I had this movie that we shot, and nobody in
Speaker 1: Hollywood could give a damn about Chocolate City. Right, but
Speaker 1: guess what we had our world premiere. We were in
Speaker 1: uh Lee Hall, which is our auditorium on campus. We
Speaker 1: had a formal premiere. We made everybody go out and
Speaker 1: rent Tuck. You know, these students, they barely got money
Speaker 1: that we may go to the seat on Son Richard
Speaker 1: with Tuck. You know what I'm saying, Ritchie a ball
Speaker 1: gown because we've taken this very seriously. Now. I invited everybody,
Speaker 1: all the big dogs in Hollywood, right, I invited everybody
Speaker 1: if you had a studio, the chairman of Fox, Universal paramounts,
Speaker 1: so I invited all of them. Okay, My mama was like,
Speaker 1: did you invite Oprah. I say, Mama, open. She said,
Speaker 1: you invite all the other people. Invite Oprah. I said, okay, MoMA,
Speaker 1: I'm invite Open. On the day of the premiere, I'm
Speaker 1: standing on stage getting ready to introduce my movie, and
Speaker 1: the whole front row is empty because I had saved
Speaker 1: seats for all these Hollywood people. Right now, none of
Speaker 1: them RSVP mind no, not one person had the decent
Speaker 1: seat to even say I'm not. They didn't let me
Speaker 1: know they got to invite right that front row? Was itpy?
Speaker 1: Because Shannon Sharp? What if the whole fleet of private
Speaker 1: jets that showed up at Talla has Regional Airport the
Speaker 1: day of my premier. I had to be ready for
Speaker 1: I had saved the seat for Oprah with a plus one,
Speaker 1: she could have brought Stambon or Gael. It didn't matter. Right,
Speaker 1: whole front row is empty, but guess what, every other
Speaker 1: seat in that auditorium was packed. Wow. And that's when
Speaker 1: I learned, I'm not making my movies for the front row.
Speaker 1: I'm making them for everybody else. That's what I learned
Speaker 1: that an HBCU and I have been making movies for
Speaker 1: an audience and then expanding beyond that audience ever since
Speaker 1: Wow didn't make it didn't leave you a little like, damn,
Speaker 1: couldn't nobody show up? They couldn't send, They couldn't send
Speaker 1: like a golfer, they couldn't send. They couldn't send anybody
Speaker 1: a little bit because I thought, you know, we had
Speaker 1: gone through all this trouble and worked hard and made
Speaker 1: this movie, like, you know, Hollywood's gotta care, right, No,
Speaker 1: they don't. You know what made Hollywood care? After we
Speaker 1: made that movie and we sold T shirts, hats, soundtracks.
Speaker 1: We convinced the second run theater that was showing movies
Speaker 1: for like a dollar fifty after they would leave the
Speaker 1: main theaters that was a thing back in the day.
Speaker 1: We convinced them to show our movie over and over again.
Speaker 1: And for the kids in Tallahassee at family it was
Speaker 1: a big deal, right, and they would go see the
Speaker 1: movie every weekend. Right. We ended up taking that we
Speaker 1: had borrowed twenty grand to make that movie. We end
Speaker 1: up making about one hundred thousand dollars. Wow as broke
Speaker 1: college students. Right, That's when I realize, Oh, this is
Speaker 1: my Ivy League training, this is my NBA level education
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurship right here. And I also realize that there's
Speaker 1: power in understanding your niche and who you're making your
Speaker 1: movies for. Okay, that's what I learned at an HBCU.
Speaker 1: I learned that I need to make I need to
Speaker 1: know my audience, make my movies for a specific audience.
Speaker 1: And by the way, make money without Hollywood. That's the
Speaker 1: only reason Hollywood started returning my calls, because I was
Speaker 1: making money without them. They'll leave you out there on
Speaker 1: your own if you're not doing nothing and making no noise.
Speaker 1: But if you want to get Hollywoods attention, you go
Speaker 1: out there. You make money without them. Right then my
Speaker 1: phone started breaking. How did someone from an HBCU with
Speaker 1: no connections to Hollywood, no inner workings, right like, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they started taking you serious. It was
Speaker 1: that you made movies that made money without their help.
Speaker 1: That absolutely Hollywood is good for that. But now let
Speaker 1: me just break it, make it clean, make it clear.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just that we made we started making money.
Speaker 1: We were willing to do and out hustle other people.
Speaker 1: So even after that movie Chocolate City, that movie TWA
Speaker 1: that I made, right, we literally drove from city to
Speaker 1: city to city we rented a Ford Excursion. We'd print
Speaker 1: up a bunch of flyers. We would drive to a city,
Speaker 1: hand out flies, and say, our movie is premiering this
Speaker 1: weekend in your theater and your town. We would go.
Speaker 1: I would hand out flies at churches. I would hand
Speaker 1: out flies at strip club. I would go to the
Speaker 1: radio station and say, hey, can I just get on
Speaker 1: for thirty seconds after you come out of your next
Speaker 1: commercial break, just tell people about my movie. We hustle.
Speaker 1: We drove that Ford Discursion from Birmingham to Charlotte, to
Speaker 1: Memphis to Jacksonville, Tennessee, to Columbus, Georgia. Drove it all
Speaker 1: the way up to to Chicago. I know every city.
Speaker 1: I went to nineteen markets because I drove to every
Speaker 1: single one. Got a little room out of Motel six,
Speaker 1: Super eight wherever we could afford to stay in, and
Speaker 1: we drove city to city to city, and ultimately we
Speaker 1: were able to make a million dollars in the theaters
Speaker 1: with that movie. We were willing to do what others weren't.
Speaker 1: Now today you got YouTube, you can push your button,
Speaker 1: you can put it out there. Yeah, you gotta work harder,
Speaker 1: you gotta figure out another way. Because a lot of
Speaker 1: people can get views, but back then we had to
Speaker 1: go to every single city. So that's how we really
Speaker 1: got put on the map. What gave you the idea
Speaker 1: to do Stomp the Yard? You mentioned Chocolate City, with
Speaker 1: the first one shot exclusively on an HBCU campus by
Speaker 1: and then you came with Stop the Yard, Columbus Shore,
Speaker 1: unbelievable movie. Loved it. You remember that I remove it.
Speaker 1: I did? I did. Yeah, you know where I shot
Speaker 1: most of it. Morris Brown mob mobi was there, it
Speaker 1: was available, you know. Fortunately they were going through some challenges, right,
Speaker 1: and so their campus wasn't active, right. We shot Stomped
Speaker 1: the Yard right there at Morris Brown College in the
Speaker 1: AUC and it was inspired by my I'll tell you
Speaker 1: exactly what happen. I wanted to make a movie about
Speaker 1: black college, like okay, I had made our first one,
Speaker 1: Chocolate City. I went out to Hollywood and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got this movie. I want to make it about
Speaker 1: fraternities and step in and HBCUs. Then people looked at
Speaker 1: me like I was crazy, Shannon Shark. They didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about fraternities or stepping or HBCU. They said, y'all
Speaker 1: going to black college. They say, y'all know y'all can
Speaker 1: go to white colleges, right, we gotta we can accept
Speaker 1: y'all now, But they don't. They don't step I said live.
Speaker 1: First of all, they don't do a lot of things. Y'all.
Speaker 1: Y'all don't call it the yard, and they don't call
Speaker 1: home coming. Ain't home coming in different you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Love to my PWR folks, but y'all don't
Speaker 1: do it like y'all putting y'all putting raising in the
Speaker 1: potato salace. That's why we could ask why we can't
Speaker 1: do standing over here throwing shade club sha talking about
Speaker 1: that unseasoned chicken at the shark right there. So I
Speaker 1: had to go and convince them that this was not
Speaker 1: a movie about all that stuff. They didn't understand. I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's a dance one, right, it's a
Speaker 1: really good dance movie. Take us dollar dance you've never
Speaker 1: seen before. We're gonna combine two different styles of dance
Speaker 1: and make a movie around, right. That's how Stomped Yard
Speaker 1: got Greenland. And then I made it my movie around
Speaker 1: black college campus, Okay, around black college life. Right, do
Speaker 1: you have me? I'm looking at you, think like a man,
Speaker 1: Think like a man. Ride Along, obsaas take us No
Speaker 1: Good Deed, The Wedding, the Wedding Ringer, I mean you
Speaker 1: know girls trip, Yeah, I mean I'm looking at think
Speaker 1: like a man. Gross ninety six million worldwide, twelve million
Speaker 1: dollar budget, Ride Along one hundred and fifty million, twenty
Speaker 1: five million dollar budget, and you executive produced straight out
Speaker 1: of Compton, do you? I mean obviously probably the one
Speaker 1: that what movie do you say? Put will Packer on
Speaker 1: the map? Doctor Yard? Stop me Yard? Because I went
Speaker 1: out and I pitched it to every studio and they
Speaker 1: all passed on it, and then it came out of
Speaker 1: nowhere and open number one. And then everybody started calling
Speaker 1: me and saying, why you didn't bring us that movie?
Speaker 1: And I said, I did bring you that movie, right,
Speaker 1: She said, no, you know that's the one that made
Speaker 1: people say, oh, we have to take him serious, right,
Speaker 1: because that's what Hollywood reacts to, right. They follow the numbers.
Speaker 1: They don't care about like you can make dollars period. Period.
Speaker 1: It's a bottom line business. It's a bottom line business.
Speaker 1: And so once I was able to come out and
Speaker 1: I was the number one movie in the country for
Speaker 1: two two weeks in a row, and people said, who
Speaker 1: the hell is Will Packers? Right? What is this movie
Speaker 1: Stomp the Yard that we didn't know about? But I
Speaker 1: had an audience, I had a demographic that was gonna
Speaker 1: come out. Like I said, it wasn't the front row.
Speaker 1: I was making that movie forwards everybody else got people
Speaker 1: excited about it. That's how I got on the map.
Speaker 1: Be honest with you. The movie Thing Like a Man
Speaker 1: is from the book Steve Harvey. Yeah, what was it
Speaker 1: like working with Steve? And then you, like Steve bro
Speaker 1: you're giving all the secrets. A wait, broun, come on
Speaker 1: something we just gotta keep. We keep that amongst says
Speaker 1: A saying, I know you don't know about this. The
Speaker 1: game is to be sold, not told exactly. Steve sold
Speaker 1: the game, Steve Uncle Steve said, I was selling y'all y'all,
Speaker 1: whether y'all appreciate it or not. You know, I was
Speaker 1: one of the first people to call him about that book.
Speaker 1: I called him and this is what like you asked
Speaker 1: about me living in Atlanta versus living in La Right,
Speaker 1: I'm in La A lot work in Hollywood, but Atlanta's home.
Speaker 1: It puts me in a different circle of people. And
Speaker 1: what happened was I saw sisters in the hair salon
Speaker 1: and they would passing around copies of Steve's book, right,
Speaker 1: And you would have people like, hey, wait, bring my
Speaker 1: copy back. I didn't get to finish. It's my turn.
Speaker 1: I hand it to me and I started happening. I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, you're not seeing all the sales they're
Speaker 1: passing this around. So this book has a buzz and
Speaker 1: has a relevance that it's hard to quantify, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. The publisher may not even realize that
Speaker 1: you sold one copy of the book, but ten people
Speaker 1: read it. So I called Steve very early. I said, man,
Speaker 1: I want to turn your book into a movie. He said,
Speaker 1: it's not even a narrative. He said, I'd never imagine
Speaker 1: it as him. Right. Then it hit best selling. Then
Speaker 1: he went on all the morning shows. Then he went
Speaker 1: on Oprah twice. Now everybody in Hollywood started calling him.
Speaker 1: To Steve's credit, he remembered the first dude that called
Speaker 1: him about that book, and he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: everybody called me to turn into a movie because the
Speaker 1: books are hit. Now I'm going with Will Packer. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with the guy who called me first and
Speaker 1: said he wanted to turn this into a movie. I said, Steve,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let you down. I got you, and
Speaker 1: we opened number one with that movie too, put Kevin
Speaker 1: Hard on the map in a different way. Ninety six
Speaker 1: million dollars later, we did a sequel and and got
Speaker 1: other stuff in the works as well. Man sat grinding
Speaker 1: that hustle man. But you know what that that says
Speaker 1: something that Steve like all these other big movie studios, Yes,
Speaker 1: came in. Yes, and he could have been like, you
Speaker 1: know what, but the broad man came to me early on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did, because you didn't think it was gonna do
Speaker 1: anything until all of a sudden I had pique. Se
Speaker 1: y'all started going here, and now you want when I
Speaker 1: was here, you wan't hollering at yours that's right right
Speaker 1: back then, didn't want me, but he definitely was. That's
Speaker 1: that's who he is, you know what I mean. There
Speaker 1: was a loyalty there. He said, I'm gonna get his
Speaker 1: brother a chance. He was one of the first people
Speaker 1: to call, and then I went with his blessing. Now
Speaker 1: I was able to go get a major studio on board.
Speaker 1: We made that with Sony put An amazing casting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at Kevin Hard to Roger p Hempson, Gabrielle Union,
Speaker 1: Chris Brown. When the wait, like I said, when you
Speaker 1: when you're like, okay, I want to do this movie.
Speaker 1: Got Steve's Harvey's blessing. Studios have signed on. Now, how
Speaker 1: do you start to go about the cast? He gotta
Speaker 1: get a good script, right, We had a script, and
Speaker 1: then it was who can be in it? Who can
Speaker 1: bring this to life? First person I wanted was Kevin Hard. Okay,
Speaker 1: I knew similarly, Hollywood wasn't checking for Kevin at that time,
Speaker 1: but similarly to the way I knew about Steve's book,
Speaker 1: in places like in Atlanta, right off the Hollywood grid,
Speaker 1: all people were talking about was Kevin Hard. They were
Speaker 1: bootlegging his DVDs like crazy, right watching him. That's when
Speaker 1: YouTube was just starting to really pop, watching his videos
Speaker 1: and his stuff over and now when I watch my
Speaker 1: kids watching Kevin, I was like, this dude is having
Speaker 1: a moment. But it's not like he's selling so many
Speaker 1: you know, units of his comedy special, right, So Hollywood
Speaker 1: doesn't really know how hot he is right now, He
Speaker 1: was one of the first people I went after. Ran
Speaker 1: into him at the airport. I said, brother, I'm making
Speaker 1: the same thing. Say man, this thing. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: making a movie. He knew a couple of my movies before,
Speaker 1: but we didn't really know each other. I said, give
Speaker 1: me a shot. Let me work with you to make
Speaker 1: this movie. I want you to start in my new
Speaker 1: movie that I'm making based on Steve Harvey's book. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm in. I'm in, and he gave me that chance,
Speaker 1: right because at that time, Hollywood wasn't coming after him,
Speaker 1: but he was hot in the streets. So I made
Speaker 1: that movie. I said, I got you put him in
Speaker 1: the middle. And then it was about how do we
Speaker 1: put a great ensemble casting around. I'm so proud of
Speaker 1: that cast. Man. You talk about Gabby, and you talk
Speaker 1: about Taraji, you talk about Regina Hall. You know, talk
Speaker 1: about Michael Eely and Rominey Malco and Terrence j. Terence
Speaker 1: Jay got that role. He wasn't even supposed to be
Speaker 1: in the movie. He showed up at the table read.
Speaker 1: I didn't have anybody cast for that role. We were
Speaker 1: reading it, right, you do a table read, everybody sitting
Speaker 1: around and actually acts out the script while you're reading it.
Speaker 1: And Terrence Jay came in. I said, listen, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I can get you in this movie, but
Speaker 1: sit in for this part of Regina Hall's love interest
Speaker 1: in the table read. He was so prepared, he had
Speaker 1: studied so hard. He came in. Everybody else was reading
Speaker 1: their scripts. Terence Jay didn't need a script because he
Speaker 1: had memorized the whole thing. He knew all his lines.
Speaker 1: He was completely off book we call it. And he
Speaker 1: was acting his ass off in that table read. And
Speaker 1: that's how he got the row. Wow. He was willing
Speaker 1: to do what it took. You also worked with Oprah.
Speaker 1: How did it work with Oprah? Because it's Oprah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Oprah. It's like yeah, like there's certain people like
Speaker 1: when you gotta go by one name Oprah, Yeah, Denzel, Yeah,
Speaker 1: say yes and you know what I'm saying. Period And
Speaker 1: I read here she said, Hey, don't have me looking crazy.
Speaker 1: She did? She did. I went u. I went. I
Speaker 1: went to Promised Land, that's Oprah's estates. Yeah, okay, and
Speaker 1: I got invited. I got called up to the estate.
Speaker 1: I went to Promised Land and I pitched her. You
Speaker 1: know my show I did for her network, her own network,
Speaker 1: and one of the ones I pitched was this dating
Speaker 1: show called Ready Love, and she liked it. I said, listen, Oprah,
Speaker 1: one of the things that dating reality scene as mine
Speaker 1: is a show where you have grown folks adults, right,
Speaker 1: who are not in their twenties and your twenties. You
Speaker 1: don't really know what you're looking for anyway, right, I said,
Speaker 1: let's do a show where people in their thirties and
Speaker 1: forties who have experienced some things, lived some life, maybe
Speaker 1: they were divorced, maybe they have kids. And also, by
Speaker 1: the way, African Americans, that's not a viewpoint that you
Speaker 1: typically see. She loved it, but she definitely said listen. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, I ain't done a lot of this reality TV.
Speaker 1: Will it's my name all over, don't have me looking crazy?
Speaker 1: Told me that right there, promisingly. I said, oh, queen, oh,
Speaker 1: I got you. Yeah. She said she didn't want black people.
Speaker 1: She wanted black people done right. Yeah, you didn't want
Speaker 1: the true no mass, no negative stereota. That it's correct.
Speaker 1: She's serious about that because her name is on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also who she is, right, Tyler Perry, Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: he was one of the first. I mean, he started
Speaker 1: out with these these DVDs, but deal plan unbelievable. And
Speaker 1: I think I've got all every last one of the DVDs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, man, I remember bringing them home and
Speaker 1: showed them to my sister, My sister laughing, my mom,
Speaker 1: My mom was laughed at. My grandmother thought they were
Speaker 1: were hilarious. And he takes a deal and turns it
Speaker 1: into what it became. And we see what he has becomes.
Speaker 1: What's it like, I mean, you shoot at his studio, right, yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've shot at his studio. I've had officers studio. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he's my brother and my friend. You know, what
Speaker 1: he has done has really changed the game because before Tyler,
Speaker 1: there was not a filmmaker that owned a studio outside
Speaker 1: of Hollywood, and Hollywood had to take seriously right, black, white,
Speaker 1: or other and for him to create and in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: he has a studio that is on part with any
Speaker 1: of the Hollywood studios. Big, I'm talking hundreds of acres. Right,
Speaker 1: if you ain't been there, we gotta get you down
Speaker 1: in a check out. I gotta check it out. Because
Speaker 1: he's on the old militarist that's right. It was an
Speaker 1: army base that was not being used, and he took
Speaker 1: over the army bases, like four hundred plus acres. He
Speaker 1: has three hundred of them as his studio. He builded.
Speaker 1: Everything is top notch, top of the lot. And he
Speaker 1: did that, as you said, off of media, your aunts
Speaker 1: and family's sister, because y'all they weren't only one laughing.
Speaker 1: He touched the nerves within the black community. People saw
Speaker 1: themselves and the family members. They knew everybody had him.
Speaker 1: Adia and uncle are crazy and that's how they talked
Speaker 1: to and they understand. I'm not sure, but straight you
Speaker 1: said something, and I heard you said, you know, I
Speaker 1: realized that I wasn't making moving for the front row.
Speaker 1: I was making it moving for back there. Yes, he's
Speaker 1: learned that early on. Yes that blacks, Okay, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm I'm making a movie for them. Yeah, they go,
Speaker 1: they love this I'm making and everybody, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Hollywood at the time didn't take him serious.
Speaker 1: Feel like, I ain't nobody to go a six foot
Speaker 1: four man dressing up, dressing up and nobody's gonna buy it. Yes,
Speaker 1: And then before they knew it Yes, he was wildfire.
Speaker 1: He had caught fire, yes, and the blaze was too
Speaker 1: big to put out. So now they got to take
Speaker 1: him sus. Now they want to do business with it. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: That's how, like I said, Hollywood calls when you make
Speaker 1: money without him. He did something that that I admire
Speaker 1: and that I've done also in my career, which is
Speaker 1: put people in positions that they haven't seen themselves, right.
Speaker 1: Call it underserved audiences and underserved experiences, and people saw
Speaker 1: themselves and people they knew on screen in a different
Speaker 1: way with Tyler's movies and and some of my movies
Speaker 1: as well. And that's an opportunity that traditional Hollywood did
Speaker 1: not care about until it became profitable. They weren't making movies,
Speaker 1: you know, the thing like A Man's and Girls Trips
Speaker 1: and Tyler's stuff and some of these other they weren't.
Speaker 1: That wasn't something Hollywood had done frequently, right, because they
Speaker 1: didn't see the value in right. But you had big
Speaker 1: audiences that said, we want to see ourselves right, want
Speaker 1: to laugh, cry, and everything in between. And so it's
Speaker 1: up to filmmakers like myself to go out there and
Speaker 1: make force Hollywood to pay attention. By showing that there's
Speaker 1: an economic viability to that audience, that our audience is
Speaker 1: one of the most persuasive, loud, influential you audiences, and
Speaker 1: especially black women, Right, That's what they do, and other
Speaker 1: people follow them because they have to, because they're so loud.
Speaker 1: They're like, what they're talking about over there? I got
Speaker 1: to go I find it? You know, girls, trip wouldn't
Speaker 1: have made the money made offer just black people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talking in the movie to the will whoa, Wow, you're
Speaker 1: not in the bottom shop now. You can't be doing that.
Speaker 1: I can't say nothing. My wife is one of the
Speaker 1: worst offenders. How to producer's wife go be in the
Speaker 1: movie that took her the scene. There was a movie called, uh,
Speaker 1: be Quiet? What's the movie? Quiet Place? Quiet Place? The
Speaker 1: whole point of the movie, Shannon Sharp, is you have
Speaker 1: to be quiet or the aliens will hear you and
Speaker 1: kill you. So we're in the movie and everybody's nervous
Speaker 1: on the edge to day seats. You can barely hear
Speaker 1: the popcorn cut to missus pack. Oh no, don't get
Speaker 1: get out of there. Don't go in there, baby Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: some fair babies. H what do you think? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: did you see that. It's a quiet movie. My wife
Speaker 1: is a stereotypical black woman in the movie. I can't
Speaker 1: take it. I just I'd be like, we're gonna watch
Speaker 1: it on streaming. Eat your sail. Yeah, man, he was
Speaker 1: in a movie The Beast with beast yep the lion
Speaker 1: shot in the South Africa. Check it out. I can't
Speaker 1: say that was terrible. I wouldn't. But see they killed
Speaker 1: they killed the lie brother. They killed his brother. Well
Speaker 1: they did, so you know he was gonna get that
Speaker 1: get back. He wanted to get back. And by the way,
Speaker 1: he got a lot of get back eate like ten
Speaker 1: people and what did you want? You wanted the line
Speaker 1: to eat interest That wouldn't get But he could have
Speaker 1: got one of the kids, though, said it, shark, you
Speaker 1: know what this is. But we do our packer sharp productions.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to have a lot of meat because
Speaker 1: your movie is gonna go dark trying to get the
Speaker 1: kids you want to eat. One of the kids was
Speaker 1: two girls. It was a father and two do you
Speaker 1: want Okay? You know we would have to have a meet.
Speaker 1: But for me and you're going to just producing together,
Speaker 1: we would have to have a talk about how dark
Speaker 1: your movie is gonna be. Brother. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: well somebody got I mean like Denzel and training date. Ye,
Speaker 1: Denzel got killed off in the ear Beautiful. He deserted
Speaker 1: to get killed. Denzel was the antagonist. Okay, the antagonist
Speaker 1: in this movie was the lion, not Interest. He was
Speaker 1: just trying to defend his family. At what time is
Speaker 1: a production meeting for Factor Sharp Productions? Because we need
Speaker 1: to we need to have a meeting over here at
Speaker 1: the end of the club. His daughter, yes, actually interview
Speaker 1: for the role. How difficult was it to say, sorry,
Speaker 1: you didn't get it? It was, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was not easy. East sign Is her name is
Speaker 1: sign El, but she's an amazing young actress and you're
Speaker 1: gonna be hearing more about her. Right, here's what I'll say.
Speaker 1: He didn't really true that he really didn't want her
Speaker 1: to to be in it. Yeah, no, that's not true. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's not true. That's not true. I can tell you
Speaker 1: for a fact. To Interest his credit, he said, I
Speaker 1: want the best person for the role. Right. He wasn't like,
Speaker 1: you got it, you know, have my daughter, And he
Speaker 1: wasn't like, I'm not going to have her because she's
Speaker 1: my daughter. She went through the same process as everybody else.
Speaker 1: Came out, auditioned, did callbacks, the whole thing, and ultimately
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, there was somebody else
Speaker 1: for that role that was better. It just accepted it.
Speaker 1: I called her myself because I've known east Son for
Speaker 1: years and it just go back, right. So I've known
Speaker 1: her and as I said, she's a talent young actor. R.
Speaker 1: She's very mature about it. She was disappointed, obviously, but
Speaker 1: she worked and earned that. I will tell you it
Speaker 1: is somebody else who's like that as Ice Cube. A
Speaker 1: lot of people think that O'sheay just got the role
Speaker 1: and straight out of competent because he was Cube sun
Speaker 1: Ye had audition, callbacks, had to beat out people like
Speaker 1: had to work hard. One thing I will say is
Speaker 1: that those are two people interesting Cube who they're not
Speaker 1: giving anything today because they want him to be stronger. Right.
Speaker 1: You know some of that's cultural too, right. Our parents
Speaker 1: say you gotta work for it, right, I want you
Speaker 1: to have it, but you're gonna be stronger if you
Speaker 1: have to work for it. And that's what happened with
Speaker 1: with with with Interest. But I don't know who else
Speaker 1: could have played a Q because your dad you put
Speaker 1: that curl loader. Yeah, yeah, you produce obsessed with Beyonce
Speaker 1: and Angels. Yeah, would you like to do another movie?
Speaker 1: For sure? Absolutely? You know she did the Oscars. She
Speaker 1: she doesn't. She doesn't do the Oscars. She that's not
Speaker 1: that's not her thing, right, And it was really only
Speaker 1: because of the relationship that I have with her herself,
Speaker 1: my producing partner, Sheyla Cowen. We called her and you know,
Speaker 1: and and Be made it very clear, the only reason
Speaker 1: I'm opening in the Oscars is because of you. So
Speaker 1: it's that relationship. She is. I would work with her
Speaker 1: in a heartbeat. You wanna talk about work ethics, You're
Speaker 1: not gonna out work beat. You are not gonna outwork Beyonce.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is she's doing, she goes a thousand percent.
Speaker 1: She has earned her position rightfully, so because she outworks everybody.
Speaker 1: She's extremely talented. She has all the good she has,
Speaker 1: the skill set, she has to look, the sound, she
Speaker 1: has all of that, but none of that would matter
Speaker 1: if she didn't work as hard as she did. So
Speaker 1: she has a lot of fans. I don't mean fandom,
Speaker 1: I mean people like me that are advocates for her
Speaker 1: within the industry because we know how hard she works
Speaker 1: and she always delivers. You work with Neil Long and
Speaker 1: Uncle Buck. Yeah, and obviously we know what transpired her relationship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you have you spoken to to Neil? I said her. No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven't spoken with her. I wanted to, definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, give her, give her some time. She and
Speaker 1: are good, were close. You know, I've known her for
Speaker 1: years obviously, you know, No, he made through her, and
Speaker 1: you know, just you just you just you just keep
Speaker 1: somebody like that in your prayers. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You let that be a personal thing. I think he
Speaker 1: will ultimately, you know, land on his feet and they'll
Speaker 1: they'll figure out what they're gonna do, right, uh. Is
Speaker 1: there's somebody that you haven't worked with that you like
Speaker 1: to work with a lot. I haven't worked with Denn's
Speaker 1: You mentioned Zelay, you know, put Sam Jackson. Yeah, put
Speaker 1: it out there. We're gonna make it manifest that Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. And by the way, big supporters like it's
Speaker 1: all love. Like when I see them, they like, hey, brother,
Speaker 1: we see you, Yeah, we see you doing your thing.
Speaker 1: Keep going, you know, very encouraging. So Sam and I
Speaker 1: got close a couple of times. It just hadn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: So it'll happen when us, right. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like I look at like Denzel and
Speaker 1: I've met him. His son used to work out when
Speaker 1: Savannah used to mean Atlanta. He trained with out training
Speaker 1: We worked out together. But Denzel seems mythical. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that that voice and the annunciation and the cadence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he don't miss he don't miss no. It ain't a
Speaker 1: bad Denzel. Wrong. You may not like the movie, but
Speaker 1: you Denzel did his thing yet in that movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever it is from Glory. They film Glory in Savannah.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of people that went out there
Speaker 1: and was extra in Glory and then cry Freedom. Yeah
Speaker 1: to Stephen be Co, absolutely unbelievable. You know one of
Speaker 1: the movies that I like that don't get a whole
Speaker 1: lot of credit. I like Devil and Blue Dress. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like mostly Book. Yeah, Harlem Blues. I mean, but
Speaker 1: didn't like you said, Denzel came miss no. Hey he
Speaker 1: got me from Malcolm min like the whole school. I see. Yeah, Man,
Speaker 1: training day with Training Day was great. But by John
Speaker 1: Q Man, I look like I said, I mean, what
Speaker 1: what I mean? What movie they would say, O, Man
Speaker 1: Denzel was whether what movie can't we say, Man Denzel
Speaker 1: was bad in that movie? Not gonna see it. He
Speaker 1: takes it very seriously, but he'd be on it. He
Speaker 1: gonna come yep, absolutely, no, he's a legend. Let's just
Speaker 1: give it to him. I mean, that's that's the goat,
Speaker 1: if there's such a thing. You know what I mean
Speaker 1: when you talk about acting, you know, black or white
Speaker 1: right on any Martin Luther stand on tintoes. But I
Speaker 1: think Blue Devil and Blue Dress is probably the only
Speaker 1: movie Man on Fire on the Pride, the Fire on
Speaker 1: the Pride, you know, Hurricane. I mean, it's like I
Speaker 1: think for me, Malcolm Malcolm X was the movie because
Speaker 1: he looked like him, He spoke like him, the annunciation,
Speaker 1: the phonetic, and the cadence in which he spoke, yes, man,
Speaker 1: he played that part. How he not winning, How you're
Speaker 1: not winning the Academy Award for that? Well you know
Speaker 1: back then, but we already know. But anyway, we're gonna move.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I think you want to get
Speaker 1: into that Academy and what should and shouldn't have happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm looking looking at Girls Trip Girls Trip too. You
Speaker 1: shot the first one for about about twelve nineteen million dollars.
Speaker 1: Obviously the budget will be a lot bigger this time.
Speaker 1: What how I mean? So where are they going now?
Speaker 1: They went to New Orleans? So what are you going now?
Speaker 1: Were trying to figure it out? Man, I'm hoping to suggestion.
Speaker 1: What you what you think with this blacker sharp? First
Speaker 1: of all, you probably want to kill everybody. Don't killout? No,
Speaker 1: you know, girls they go to Miami, they go to
Speaker 1: the Dominican, they go to uh Jamaica. Yes, uh it's Dominican.
Speaker 1: Really that popular with the ladies though, that wasn't I know,
Speaker 1: the fellas go to Dominican all the time. Why do
Speaker 1: you think they going well? Golf? Okay, let you tell it.
Speaker 1: I never heard of now golf course, republic battle boarding?
Speaker 1: You know? Would I would keep shading sharp with an eye?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean That's what I'm thinking of me.
Speaker 1: Yet I go somewhere. Yeah, but I could do better
Speaker 1: than that. You don't think you gotta be we don't
Speaker 1: want to go exotic. I'm telling were having a little concession, right,
Speaker 1: Dominican is good. I just don't know if that's like
Speaker 1: when you talk about girlfriends and they say, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a girlfriend's trip, where do we most want
Speaker 1: to go? Is DR on that list? Maybe it is? Yeah, Okay, Jamaica. Okay,
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of time in DR. No, No,
Speaker 1: you broke your voice, got real high on that answer. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm not. No, I've never been to I've never been
Speaker 1: to Why are you stuttering? No? I haven't You've never
Speaker 1: been to Dominican? I have not, seriously, no, really never
Speaker 1: been to Jamaica. What we got to get you in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean? Come on? What you're doing? What's what's wrong
Speaker 1: with the Caribbean. I'm trying got great, I'm trying a
Speaker 1: lot of im. I'm trying to get and stay in
Speaker 1: a relationship. That's what I'm trying to do. And the
Speaker 1: Dominican is not going to help that. I see you're
Speaker 1: not trying to help. You produced the oscars did and
Speaker 1: that moment happened. When did you did you think, like
Speaker 1: when Chris Rock said the joke and then as Will
Speaker 1: got up, did you think it would go the way
Speaker 1: it went? And when it happened, what went through your mind?
Speaker 1: So when you do a big live show like that, yes,
Speaker 1: you have many rehearsals, Okay, you do the whole show, Yes,
Speaker 1: and you run it through multiple times. Yes, I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I You want very little room for error, so
Speaker 1: you rehearse every aspect of the show. So we had
Speaker 1: done Chris's part of the show right in there on
Speaker 1: the stage. He had done his monologue, his little you know,
Speaker 1: his jokes, He had a section already worked out, and
Speaker 1: when he got up, almost immediately he was off book
Speaker 1: from the monologue that we had rehearsed, right, And so
Speaker 1: I didn't think much of it at all, because it's
Speaker 1: rock right. So if it's anybody you want to go
Speaker 1: off book's Rob he got this. He gonna play to
Speaker 1: the crowd. When he made the joke. The first thing
Speaker 1: that the director did was was pan to Jada, no question,
Speaker 1: And when Jada made that face that clearly said I
Speaker 1: am not amusing. This is not funny to me, I cringed.
Speaker 1: I immediately went because if she had kind of laughed
Speaker 1: at it, it still would have been kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, okay rocky going there. But if she laughed
Speaker 1: at it. We would have just kept it moved right
Speaker 1: when she made that face, I said, okay, I said,
Speaker 1: a right, Rock, bring it back. This is me. I'm
Speaker 1: in it back, but I'm not in his ear. He's
Speaker 1: not even you don't have to. I'm in my director's
Speaker 1: ear right, and we're talking to our camera people because
Speaker 1: we're trying to decide where to go, meaning with a
Speaker 1: camera right right, So I said, oh, bring it back,
Speaker 1: Come on, Rock, bring it back, all right? You know?
Speaker 1: Then you see Will starting to come towards the state
Speaker 1: right when I tell you, nobody in that room knew
Speaker 1: what was about to happen other than Will, And I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure Will know about that, but he stood
Speaker 1: up right, so no, I did not know. And when
Speaker 1: he got up, I wasn't sure that it had actually
Speaker 1: been a slap, right. I thought this was some kind
Speaker 1: of her bad joke that the two of them, but
Speaker 1: wasn't that funny? So I said, okay, well, you got
Speaker 1: to clean this up, right, you gotta y'all gotta bring
Speaker 1: it back or make a joke or something. And it
Speaker 1: wuntil Will got back in the seat and he started
Speaker 1: yelling what he yelled to the stage yet we all knew, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just real. We got problem. Did you ever think
Speaker 1: about fade the black? Here's the thing, that question, I've
Speaker 1: been asked that, right, So here's what happened. When you
Speaker 1: do a live television Yes, you are literally it's like
Speaker 1: a tennis match. You're following the balls. Yep. So he
Speaker 1: made the joke. We cut to Jada because it was
Speaker 1: about Jada. We had cameras all through the audience. Will
Speaker 1: went on stage. We still did not know it was
Speaker 1: serious until Will started yelling what he was yelling, Right,
Speaker 1: we're covering him because that's what you do. You're following it.
Speaker 1: You don't want to miss the joke if it's some
Speaker 1: kind of a joke. Once we realized that he was
Speaker 1: dead serious about it, we had nowhere to cut to. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of presenting the award for documentary
Speaker 1: which quest Love in the winning I didn't have anywhere
Speaker 1: to go but to follow the action in that room, right,
Speaker 1: And it happened so fast that we didn't know, Okay,
Speaker 1: we need to fade the black, go to commercials. No,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, how do we get out of this? Right?
Speaker 1: All we could do at that point was followed action.
Speaker 1: I didn't have Some people ask why didn't you cut
Speaker 1: to somebody else in the room? Get off of Will.
Speaker 1: I'd have a person in that room I could cut you.
Speaker 1: Because everybody's faces was right, shock a gas right right?
Speaker 1: So did they know? Did they know it was for real?
Speaker 1: Because you said you thought it was a joke. None
Speaker 1: of us knew us for real until Will got back
Speaker 1: to the seat and started saying, so yelling, I told
Speaker 1: you to leave my that is correct. At that point,
Speaker 1: it was clear this ain't a joke. He's serious. We
Speaker 1: could tell by chris reaction, by the way Chris saved
Speaker 1: the rest of the show. I know, I know, I
Speaker 1: already know what you about to because this you know
Speaker 1: what y'all about to get right now in club sha shape,
Speaker 1: y'all about to get up. You better be glad it
Speaker 1: wasn't me. That's you're about to get up? What would
Speaker 1: happen if you was up there? Chris is the ultimate
Speaker 1: first of all, Will you and I both know and
Speaker 1: nobody running up he'd never done that. I don't want
Speaker 1: Will Smith cancel, but I felt that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that's made jokes about Jada. I didn't think.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was such an egregious joke that
Speaker 1: wanted that type of reaction. That's not my wife, so
Speaker 1: I can't maybe somebody to say if I'm married and
Speaker 1: somebody said something. But I think this was a build up.
Speaker 1: That wasn't that that joke wasn't what caused that. There's
Speaker 1: a build up that people have been taken to saying
Speaker 1: things about Will how he the first guy to win
Speaker 1: a Grammar for rap? How he the first guy to
Speaker 1: do and it's it kept building, it kept building, and
Speaker 1: it reached that crescendo that night. I hate that it
Speaker 1: reached that crescendo that night because that was his night,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately his Knight's gonna be overshadow for perpetuity for
Speaker 1: that incident. That is correct, That is correct. It will
Speaker 1: always be remembered by that. I also hate it because
Speaker 1: it was a good show. It was great. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna tell you, and yeah, you know I did it,
Speaker 1: mean Sayla, we made it. You know, we made the show.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. But even if I didn't, we
Speaker 1: had more people watched that show than had in years.
Speaker 1: My goal was to reverse the trend of the ratings
Speaker 1: going right, we did outside of the slap, I ain't
Speaker 1: a lot. I'm gonna watch it. I just tuned in
Speaker 1: and it just until happened. I tuned in that. However,
Speaker 1: you're tuned in for the slap, you were supposed to
Speaker 1: what I had, Beyonce, I had megan it. Stallion, come on,
Speaker 1: I had a good show for you. I know why
Speaker 1: did you not watch the watch the whole show? But
Speaker 1: then after he did that, I get back. You know,
Speaker 1: we gotta get baby, we gotta steal me. I gotta
Speaker 1: stack left. PRIs left immediately. He didn't want to parts
Speaker 1: of he got off stage. I went back talked to
Speaker 1: him at a conversation. I can't believe that, you know
Speaker 1: what did? He said, Man, I'm out of here. He said,
Speaker 1: this is stupid. He said, I'm out. I said, you
Speaker 1: sure you're good? What you want me to do? He
Speaker 1: was like, man, I'm I'm He was on his way
Speaker 1: to Guy Fierre's after part. He said, I'm about to
Speaker 1: go get me a drink. I'm this is stupid. He was.
Speaker 1: He was so kind of disgusted with it all. He
Speaker 1: just wanted to get out, right. Did you talk to
Speaker 1: Will after the show? Did you talk to I talked
Speaker 1: to everybody. I talked to everybody. He was very remorseful,
Speaker 1: still is very remorseful. Yeah, yeah, and he felt very bad.
Speaker 1: He had a personal conversation with me because this was
Speaker 1: the first Oscars that was produced by an all black produce. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is the first time in Oscar's history. Yes, everything
Speaker 1: everything was black. Cater service were black cat and Bachie everything. Everything.
Speaker 1: We had black conductor. Yeah, people that were bringing out
Speaker 1: the Oscar HBC. I had d night spinning. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have some flavor now, you know what I'm saying. It
Speaker 1: was a good show. I'm proud of the show. I
Speaker 1: wanted to have representation you don't normally see on night
Speaker 1: on that stage. I hate that. Ultimately that night when
Speaker 1: we had so much black excellent, yes, and just diverse excellent. Right,
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're talking about blacks, latinos uh, deaf,
Speaker 1: the first deaf actor to win a winn an Oscar,
Speaker 1: all of that. I'm very, very proud of first first
Speaker 1: non binary queer actress, Ariana de bos. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I think the show, you know, of course,
Speaker 1: that is something that will be remembered by but I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of the substance of the show, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people tuned in even though you didn't help.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You watched too late. No no, if you
Speaker 1: tune in with the slap, the ratings are already in.
Speaker 1: It was too late. What I'm telling you, the ray
Speaker 1: I went up sixty percent before the slap by the
Speaker 1: time you get there. That was in the third hour
Speaker 1: of the show. But but what were you watching on
Speaker 1: Sunday night? Other than then the oscars in Factory Football
Speaker 1: went on? What was you doing? I don't remember. Huh,
Speaker 1: I don't remember right playing that trip to dr stick
Speaker 1: with me? But I got it. Oh yeah, now I
Speaker 1: got to stay. I leave. He was gonna You know. Look,
Speaker 1: you know how people watch television. They watched television. Okay,
Speaker 1: I watched a little bit. I flipped with something else.
Speaker 1: I come back. I flipped. But once I saw that
Speaker 1: I couldn't see. I had to see what was don't
Speaker 1: cut the break, because they cut the break, I might
Speaker 1: miss up they will. I appreciate my brother's much love.
Speaker 1: I appreciate everything you do. Give me a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: Come on, man, anytime, brother, Thank you all my life
Speaker 1: grounding all my life. Sack fights, Hustle back, Chris. One slice,
Speaker 1: got the bro the dice to swap all my life.
Speaker 1: I've been grinding all my life, all my life, running
Speaker 1: all my life, Sacrifice, hustle Bay. The prices want a slice,
Speaker 1: not the brawling dice as wall all my life, I've
Speaker 1: been running all my life