Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Work in Progress. Friends. We are joined today
Speaker 1: by a guest who's been here before, who absolutely moved me,
Speaker 1: inspired me, got me so fired up about everything from
Speaker 1: art to existence, and he's back today to do it again.
Speaker 1: We are joined by none other than David o'yelowo. He's
Speaker 1: here to talk to us today about his new Apple
Speaker 1: show Government Cheese, which is set in nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: in the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles. The
Speaker 1: series follows the Chambers family, an African American family living
Speaker 1: here in the valley, and the chaos that arises after
Speaker 1: burglar turned inventor Hampton Chambers, laid by mister o Yellowo
Speaker 1: return from prison. David is an exceptional human and an
Speaker 1: exceptional artist who you know from winning I mean so
Speaker 1: many awards it would take me too long to list
Speaker 1: them all, but who you also know from coming on
Speaker 1: the show to share about his upbringing in London and Nigeria,
Speaker 1: his path to artistry, fatherhood and faith. And today we're
Speaker 1: going to dive into what it really means to be
Speaker 1: creating and to trust in where we're going as a
Speaker 1: society any year.
Speaker 2: Like this one.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in with David. Hi, David, I'm so happy.
Speaker 2: To see you in person this time. I know.
Speaker 1: It's so nice to be off of zoom and sharing
Speaker 1: a couch and also not on strike anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we can talk freely this time. I know
Speaker 3: I was having to be very cady about it. I
Speaker 3: think it was Bass Reeves back then.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was an interesting time to interview you about
Speaker 1: this beautiful project you'd made because we were technically also
Speaker 1: not allowed to promote things. Yeah, and I remember feeling
Speaker 1: a bit like we were playing mad libs, yeah, being like,
Speaker 1: so the thing I know on the box looks cool,
Speaker 1: but I don't know.
Speaker 3: I know we had to dance around it a bit.
Speaker 3: But I you know, the reason I was so keen
Speaker 3: to kind of talk to you again is actually, weirdly,
Speaker 3: not being able to promote a project. Man, we got
Speaker 3: to talk about such far reaching subjects and it was
Speaker 3: it was actually cool to have just a really good conversation.
Speaker 1: It was so nice. It was fun when the team,
Speaker 1: you know, we do the overviews every couple months of
Speaker 1: Who's coming, and I was like, David's coming back. Yes,
Speaker 1: and my whole team was like, we really feel like
Speaker 1: the two of you bonded, I said, we did.
Speaker 2: I just love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, likewise, yeah is
Speaker 2: your wonderful spirit?
Speaker 1: Oh you too, my friend. So, as you know, normally,
Speaker 1: when when we sit down with people, I really like
Speaker 1: to go back and you know, talk about your childhood.
Speaker 1: And you've shared those stories with us, you know, our
Speaker 1: work in progress. Audience knows many beautiful details about your background.
Speaker 1: But you shared something with me just before we started recording,
Speaker 1: which kind of feels like a I don't know, a
Speaker 1: little energetic connection to that. You were talking about how
Speaker 1: since we've last seen each other, now you've got two
Speaker 1: kids out of the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is it sort of surreal as a father, you know,
Speaker 1: to look at these young people that you've raised and
Speaker 1: see them kind of out in the world beginning to
Speaker 1: figure out their own life and education and journey when
Speaker 1: they're not coming home and you know, you don't get
Speaker 1: to make sure they're safe and tucked into bed anymore.
Speaker 3: Not only does it feel surreal, it feels both very
Speaker 3: natural and also really unnatural all at the same time,
Speaker 3: which is a very discombobulating feeling. You know, the pandemic,
Speaker 3: as we all know, was an incredibly challenging time for
Speaker 3: the world globally speaking, but there were some really beautiful
Speaker 3: things that came out of that. I think for a
Speaker 3: lot of people. Certainly that was the case for my family.
Speaker 3: We were suddenly in the house together for a very
Speaker 3: long period of time, and the thing we came to
Speaker 3: discover is we really like each other. And it was
Speaker 3: the kind of proximity to each other that we never
Speaker 3: would have had without that kind of generational event. And
Speaker 3: you know, my wife and I have four kids, three
Speaker 3: boys and a girl, and we just became even closer
Speaker 3: than we already were. And the extraordinary thing was, even
Speaker 3: though community and friendships and family is a big thing
Speaker 3: in our lives, it was a moment where we kind
Speaker 3: of went, gosh, we are enough for each other. You know,
Speaker 3: we we were thankfully we were blessed with a lovely
Speaker 3: property where we have a decent amount of space. We
Speaker 3: had four dogs and six chickens and two parrots, and
Speaker 3: you know, we sort of had this whole existence. But
Speaker 3: it meant that that when the pandemic was over and
Speaker 3: when life started gaining some kind of semblance of normal
Speaker 3: normality again, we really missed each other when we weren't
Speaker 3: in proximity to each other in the same way. So
Speaker 3: to have had that and then suddenly we go from
Speaker 3: six in the house to four in the house was
Speaker 3: really difficult. I remember taking my because if my second
Speaker 3: son left first, he's now at drama school in London.
Speaker 3: He's in his second year now, and we were at
Speaker 3: Lax dropping him off, and I was trying to be
Speaker 3: very brave, and it was a real outer body experience
Speaker 3: for me because one of my most stark memories is
Speaker 3: the moment I was leaving home to go to the
Speaker 3: exact same drama school at pretty much the same age
Speaker 3: as Caleb, my second son, and it's the only time
Speaker 3: I can remember seeing my mom sob with tears, and
Speaker 3: it's an indelible memory of mine. And we were at
Speaker 3: the airport and I was like, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: be strong, you know, I don't. Let's not make this
Speaker 3: about me, and my wife was taking him to London,
Speaker 3: so they turned a corner and the moment they were
Speaker 3: out of sight, I made a sound I will not
Speaker 3: replicate here because it's incredibly ugly, but out loud in
Speaker 3: the airport, and my daughter was holding my hand.
Speaker 2: She went, Dad, are you okay? And I was not okay. No,
Speaker 2: I just was not okay.
Speaker 3: And it was three weeks of real devastation I felt.
Speaker 3: And my wife is sort of better at these things
Speaker 3: than me, certainly when it comes to our kids. She
Speaker 3: has a delayed reaction. I'm instantaneous. It's like right there.
Speaker 3: So and then my eldest son thought, oh, well, my
Speaker 3: younger brother's at the house. It's time for me to
Speaker 3: leave as well. So in like but this was three months.
Speaker 3: You know, we were half empty nesters, as I like
Speaker 3: to say. And yeah, but that's exactly what you're training
Speaker 3: your kids, so you or you're cultivating your kids into
Speaker 3: the ability to be able to leave and hopefully fend
Speaker 3: for themselves and beg citizens and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's the natural part. The unnatural part is just
Speaker 3: how hollowed out I felt anyway, with them no longer
Speaker 3: in the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, their whole lives, they've been with you,
Speaker 1: and you get used to the rhythm of your home
Speaker 1: as a parent, and the sounds and the footsteps, and
Speaker 1: you know, when they're little, their little heartbeats when they
Speaker 1: fall asleep at night, I can't. I sort of can't
Speaker 1: imagine it. But what an amazing thing that the in
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the word is I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: It's surreal, but it's also so real. Yes, that you
Speaker 1: got to stand and know exactly how your mom felt,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to be in that moment you're
Speaker 1: watching one of your sons go to the exact same school,
Speaker 1: Like does it sort of take you back to when
Speaker 1: and you did it and then also just feel like
Speaker 1: a completely new journey at the same time.
Speaker 3: Well, it really typifies that we are part of this
Speaker 3: cycle of life, this web that's been beautifully woven over
Speaker 3: time generationally speaking, the fact that a school I went
Speaker 3: to and I remember going to the London Academy of
Speaker 3: Music and Dramatic Arts and being the only black student
Speaker 3: in three hundred students, and my son is now there
Speaker 3: with diversity as a real thing at that school and
Speaker 3: he doesn't even have a thought about that. Like when
Speaker 3: I tell him what I my situation was, he can't
Speaker 3: get his head around it because it's just so antithetical
Speaker 3: to what his is. And that's beautiful. It's beautiful to
Speaker 3: see progression in a generation. But similarly, my dad did
Speaker 3: not want me to be an actor at all.
Speaker 1: What did he call you a jester?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly remember that? Or he said what do you
Speaker 3: Why do you want to go and be a jester?
Speaker 3: You know so, but that was it's that thing where
Speaker 3: you cannot be what you cannot see, so to speak.
Speaker 3: And my dad couldn't see a path for me. My
Speaker 3: son could see a path for him through me and
Speaker 3: was able to take it for granted. So that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: That's something I just feel so proud of. And people
Speaker 3: often ask me if I'm trepidacious about him becoming an actor, because,
Speaker 3: as you know, it's a very very trepidacious profession. But
Speaker 3: I can't be that way because it would be hypocritical,
Speaker 3: bearing in mind my parents' attitude towards it. Thankfully, he's
Speaker 3: very good. You know, I would have told him if
Speaker 3: he wasn't. It's all subjective, but I definitely would have
Speaker 3: done him that favor, and he's genuinely passionate about it,
Speaker 3: so you know, it's kind of a beautiful thing to witness.
Speaker 3: Do you.
Speaker 1: As you prepared him to go off to drama school,
Speaker 1: did you work with him? Did you give him any
Speaker 1: sort of inside tips on how you get into a script?
Speaker 1: How did you do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's incredible. Kids absorb so
Speaker 3: much more of what you do than what you say.
Speaker 3: So it's extraordinary just how much just from watching me
Speaker 3: prepare for a role, or how I research, or you know,
Speaker 3: being on set with me. It's extraordinary how much he
Speaker 3: had already internalized. But you know I did help him
Speaker 3: with his audition pieces and things like that, and also
Speaker 3: just with advice. You know, drama school is a very
Speaker 3: vulnerable circumstance to find yourself in because often you're the
Speaker 3: big fish in a little pond where you've come from,
Speaker 3: and you're a tiny fish in this big pond. All
Speaker 3: of a sudden, everyone there is talented. Everyone has gone
Speaker 3: a journey to be accepted into this prestigious conservatoire, and
Speaker 3: that in and of itself is quite discombobulating. But there
Speaker 3: are syndromes. You know, the first year there's a stripping
Speaker 3: away because you've picked up bad habits. Your body is
Speaker 3: something that is being pushed, pulled and prodded in order
Speaker 3: for it to be able to, as we call it,
Speaker 3: find your zero. You know, you need to be able
Speaker 3: to play the Prince and the pauper. In order to
Speaker 3: do that, you have to know what neutral is, and
Speaker 3: so you're stripping away a bunch of stuff. You feel
Speaker 3: incredibly vulnerable because everyone else in your class it feels
Speaker 3: like they're better than you at being an actor, whether
Speaker 3: it's dance or fight or accents or whatever. And he's
Speaker 3: going at the age of eighteen nineteen, so you're still
Speaker 3: forming as a person. So I was able to really,
Speaker 3: through my own experience, talk to him about what he
Speaker 3: to anticipate, so to speak, but also just to help
Speaker 3: him realize that his journey is very different, is going
Speaker 3: to be different than anyone else's journey. He actually didn't
Speaker 3: want to go to Lambda because I had gone there,
Speaker 3: because he's very allergic to the idea of anyone thinking
Speaker 3: of him as gaining anything because of who his dad
Speaker 3: is or where his dad has been. But ultimately Lambda
Speaker 3: was just the best of the schools, or he felt
Speaker 3: it was the best of the school the audition that
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, that's been the joy is to now,
Speaker 3: especially because now he's in his second year. We have
Speaker 3: very in depth conversations about acting, and because he's so
Speaker 3: he's drunk with it. In that way that I remember
Speaker 3: being when I was his age. And that's a really
Speaker 3: wonderful thing because I am a forever student of acting
Speaker 3: and storytelling, and so to have those kind of conversations
Speaker 3: with my own son is really beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I think there's something there's something so beautiful
Speaker 1: about being an artist because it is it is that
Speaker 1: the potential at least of being able to remain an
Speaker 1: eternal student, being able to be curious forever. And I
Speaker 1: would imagine there's a there's kind of a purity of,
Speaker 1: you know, a nineteen year old boy finding his way
Speaker 1: and as you said, you're developing, your brain is still developing.
Speaker 1: He's finding his voice and his art and then also
Speaker 1: able to talk to his dad. It it must put
Speaker 1: you to in this really interesting dance together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I can always feel the moment where he
Speaker 3: pushes away because he wants to find his own way,
Speaker 3: and the moments where he leans in because he recognizes
Speaker 3: and appreciates he has a bit of a cheat code
Speaker 3: in terms of having a dad who's experienced.
Speaker 2: A lot of the specifics.
Speaker 3: Of what it is to be an actor, because it's
Speaker 3: incredibly nerve wracking, especially what he's dealing with now in
Speaker 3: the second year is you're already coming to the end
Speaker 3: of your training, because the third year is you're now
Speaker 3: doing shows, and those shows are where agents are coming, Producers,
Speaker 3: directors are coming basically potential employers of yours, or people
Speaker 3: or facilitators of yours in terms of agents, and so.
Speaker 2: There is no real way.
Speaker 3: That a drama school can fully train you for what
Speaker 3: it is to be a professional actor in terms of
Speaker 3: the day to day.
Speaker 2: Like, no.
Speaker 3: One can teach you how you are going to react
Speaker 3: to the shit amount of rejection that you will have
Speaker 3: to endure, the financial insecurity that comes with that. How
Speaker 3: do you deal with bad reviews? How do you deal
Speaker 3: with doing eight shows a week? You know, when you've
Speaker 3: been at drama school and you do three performances of
Speaker 3: a show, Now you're professionally expected to turn up every
Speaker 3: day at a certain amount of time, and no matter
Speaker 3: whether you've had a cold, a bereavement, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: you're expected to be on that stage at a certain
Speaker 3: time and giving a performance that is worthy of the
Speaker 3: money paid by the people who are coming to see
Speaker 3: the show. Those are all things that you learn on
Speaker 3: the job, even silly things I remember the first time
Speaker 3: being on a movie set and seeing all these different
Speaker 3: colored bits of tape on the floor, and I are
Speaker 3: those I don't I know they're important, but I don't why.
Speaker 3: And then I would see other actors walk up to
Speaker 3: this colored tape and hit that mark perfectly without looking
Speaker 3: down at it. That's something that I hadn't been taught
Speaker 3: at drama school. I think they do that more now
Speaker 3: at drama schools. They teach screen acting and the technicality
Speaker 3: is of it. But you know, there was like such
Speaker 3: a vulnerable making moment he has. I mean, I remember
Speaker 3: the day, the moment actually when I thought, oh, I
Speaker 3: think I think he's got the bug. And it was
Speaker 3: on the set of Selma. He was playing my son
Speaker 3: in it. There was no dialogue, and they'd set up
Speaker 3: this scene. The camera was facing this dining table and
Speaker 3: the chairs were all around the table. I watched my
Speaker 3: son and he gosh, that was so. He probably was
Speaker 3: seven eight something like that, maybe maybe maybe yeah, eight,
Speaker 3: And he walked onto the set, looked at where the
Speaker 3: camera was, and then found the chair that was.
Speaker 2: Directly in line with the camera.
Speaker 3: Sat in that chair, regardless of anyone else who is
Speaker 3: going to be in the scene and just looked down
Speaker 3: the barrel of the lens smiling, and I thought, oh, dear,
Speaker 3: here we go.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 3: And you know, he was sort of on a trajectory
Speaker 3: to being an actor ever since, but he has been
Speaker 3: on set, so for him, he knows what a mark
Speaker 3: looks like. Yes, because he's he's been there. He's so
Speaker 3: comfortable in that environment, which I think has given him
Speaker 3: a leg up to speak in a good way. But again,
Speaker 3: you know, talking about talking about these things with him
Speaker 3: is a real joy for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now a word from our sponsors who make
Speaker 1: the show possible. One of the things that excites me
Speaker 1: about about it about for our friends at home Government Cheese,
Speaker 1: is it's this world that is so delicious to step
Speaker 1: into and look at, and all of these people is
Speaker 1: quirky and hilarious. And there was a moment when I
Speaker 1: first started watching you going what is it? What is
Speaker 1: it about this show? And I like to watch them
Speaker 1: before I you know, read the reviews. But then after
Speaker 1: the first episode, I'm like, Okay, let me go read
Speaker 1: all the articles you've been doing about it. And you
Speaker 1: talked about how you've been in the time period before
Speaker 1: and yes, how important the time period is to reflect
Speaker 1: on truthfully, you know, our history matters to us. If
Speaker 1: it didn't, they wouldn't be trying to ban all the
Speaker 1: history books. But also how refreshing it is for you
Speaker 1: as an to be in this period with no trauma, strife,
Speaker 1: no civil rights fight, no, you just get to be
Speaker 1: this family in this time and place. And I thought,
Speaker 1: I think that's what it is. I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: when it hasn't been historic with the real heaviness of
Speaker 1: the history, and I was like, God, I'm having so
Speaker 1: much fun watching you have fun.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right right.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's incredibly astute because one of the phrases
Speaker 3: that has come up time and again from people who've
Speaker 3: watched the show is I haven't seen anything quite like
Speaker 3: it before. And I think that's to do with the tone.
Speaker 3: That's to do with the characters, that's to do with
Speaker 3: this black family in the San Fernando Valley in the sixties.
Speaker 3: But I think that's also to do with how indelible
Speaker 3: from an African American standpoint, the sixties are in relation
Speaker 3: to strife, civil rights, racial unrest, trauma. And I have
Speaker 3: been someone who's participated in projects that I am deeply
Speaker 3: proud of that have showcased that very important part of
Speaker 3: America's history. But that is not the totality of what
Speaker 3: black people or people generally were experiencing in this country
Speaker 3: at that time. And that's a product or a by
Speaker 3: product of being marginalized. When you're marginalized, your story tends
Speaker 3: to be told in very compartmentalized ways. So if you're Hispanic,
Speaker 3: you are just constantly subjected to the narcos kind of
Speaker 3: narrative or.
Speaker 2: Being You're very rarely seeing.
Speaker 3: Hispanic characters that are lawyers and doctors and presidents and
Speaker 3: you know, captains of industry and who are aspirational. But
Speaker 3: in a narrative, they will they will be the house
Speaker 3: cleaner or the or the gardener or the whatever, which
Speaker 3: is a part of that experience. It's not the totality
Speaker 3: of that experience. If you're a woman, you're constantly objectified,
Speaker 3: or you're friend, Yeah, you're the arm candy of the
Speaker 3: you know, and that is part of the experience, it's
Speaker 3: not the totality of the experience. If you're African American,
Speaker 3: you're you're a criminal, you're a drug dealer, you're a slave,
Speaker 3: you're whatever. You know that there are black people who
Speaker 3: have been those things in American history and life. That
Speaker 3: is not the totality. As someone of of African descent myself,
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's the African despot, It's the flies
Speaker 3: on the little baby's face. It's all of those tropes
Speaker 3: and caricatures, which the more prevalent they become, the more
Speaker 3: oversized and out blown they are in people's minds as
Speaker 3: the truth of what those people are experiencing.
Speaker 1: Well, when the when the oppression becomes the identity, when
Speaker 1: the suffering becomes the identity, you know, when when for
Speaker 1: so long I remember hearing Naomi Watts talk about this
Speaker 1: that you know, I don't even remember what the script was.
Speaker 1: Just the thing she said rocked me when she said, oh,
Speaker 1: this was the first script I'd read in however many
Speaker 1: years of my early acting career where the woman I
Speaker 1: was auditioning to play was not the victim of a
Speaker 1: sexual assault.
Speaker 2: Wow. And I was like, wow, Oh.
Speaker 1: You know, because when you were trying to get a
Speaker 1: role on TV or whatever the case of the week,
Speaker 1: if you're a woman and it's that, it's that you stop,
Speaker 1: you start to forget, not that it's not incredibly important
Speaker 1: to always know our history, to tell those stories, to
Speaker 1: not shy away from them or sanitize them or whitewash them.
Speaker 1: But I think it's important also to understand how things
Speaker 1: are sized in our kind of mind's eye. When you
Speaker 1: look at the flat map of the world, why have
Speaker 1: the America's been drawn so enormously and why has the
Speaker 1: African continent been shrunken on the map. It's the human
Speaker 1: version of that to me, where we've outsized the reality
Speaker 1: of people's experiences. And you know, I think back to
Speaker 1: years ago, you know, when Moonlight was nominated for everything.
Speaker 1: I loved that movie, and I really love movies and
Speaker 1: TV shows that allow my black friends and actors I
Speaker 1: admire to shine and that don't have to be about trauma.
Speaker 1: I like watching a group of women. You know, the
Speaker 1: reason I think Sex in the City was so revolutionary
Speaker 1: to women in my age range is because these were
Speaker 1: four successful women meeting for lunch on breaks from their
Speaker 1: high powered jobs and their busy lives, and they were
Speaker 1: just crushing it as these women, and we were.
Speaker 2: Like, what what does this mean?
Speaker 4: And you know, now we.
Speaker 1: Look back and we're like, no, not all of that
Speaker 1: age So well, but at the time it felt like
Speaker 1: a shock. And it's important to see people, as you said,
Speaker 1: spread into other spaces of their totality. And I don't
Speaker 1: think I would have necessarily put my finger on it
Speaker 1: so quickly had I not read all the things you
Speaker 1: said about it after I watched the first episode. But
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: I'm that's it.
Speaker 1: I don't get to see this a lot. And you
Speaker 1: know the I mean, you know, wardrobe, the cars, the
Speaker 1: set deck, it's like every department head on your show
Speaker 1: deserves an award. It's so beautiful. But it must be
Speaker 1: I don't know, it must be just like a different
Speaker 1: kind of joyful to get to go and do that
Speaker 1: that comedy in that time.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've hit on the word. It's joy.
Speaker 3: It's joy to be able to celebrate character, a family,
Speaker 3: a show that genuinely colors outside the lines. The quirk
Speaker 3: factor is something that you know, you very rarely see
Speaker 3: with a black family because there are so few at
Speaker 3: bats for.
Speaker 2: Us as a people group. And so.
Speaker 3: The reality is you're constantly feeling the need to explain
Speaker 3: your existence because you feel that, you know, if you're
Speaker 3: writing a script and you have a character who does
Speaker 3: something extraordinary, you feel the need for your first act
Speaker 3: to be contextualizing who that person is. That by the
Speaker 3: time they do the amazing thing, you go, oh, that
Speaker 3: is amazing because they started here, and then they did this,
Speaker 3: and then they did that, and then that happened, and
Speaker 3: then there's the ending. Now, if you're a white male
Speaker 3: actor storyteller, the cheekode you have is you have one
Speaker 3: hundred and something years of cinema and television that has
Speaker 3: given so much context to your existence and experience. That
Speaker 3: means that you can get to the dramatic stuff very quickly.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So when you see Robert de Niro and Taxi Driver,
Speaker 3: you see Daniel day Lewis in There Will Be Blood,
Speaker 3: or you see Joaquin Phoenix and Walk the Line, and
Speaker 3: they're playing these anti heroes. Those are not heroes, the
Speaker 3: anti heroes. Or when you watch the work of Martin
Speaker 3: Scorsese and you see people doing bad staff but you
Speaker 3: still go the journey with them. The reason you do
Speaker 3: that is because you have context for who that people
Speaker 3: group is, and so you are giving them the benefit
Speaker 3: of the doubt when you're watching them going. But they're
Speaker 3: a human beings, So let me invest in why they're
Speaker 3: making those choices.
Speaker 1: So would you say that context also gives you the
Speaker 1: space to imagine their.
Speaker 3: Redemption, absolutely, because you're used to that people group being
Speaker 3: worthy of redemption. If primarily what you've seen of Hispanic
Speaker 3: people is that they are domestic servants, or they're criminalized,
Speaker 3: or they're a part of some drug cartel, there's a
Speaker 3: part of your brain that is not disposed to their
Speaker 3: redemption when they are central in a narrative. So when
Speaker 3: you put them central in a narrative, you feel the
Speaker 3: need to do more legwork to contextualize why you should
Speaker 3: tether yourself to that protagonist, and that ladens down the story.
Speaker 3: So there is literally, in my opinion, and a correlation
Speaker 3: between what streaming has afforded and us having more of
Speaker 3: these stories, because what happened in Hollywood is that for
Speaker 3: many years there was network which did what network did,
Speaker 3: which is to make sure that the advertisers were happy,
Speaker 3: and so the storytelling was, in my opinion, fairly basic,
Speaker 3: because you just want it to be the kind of
Speaker 3: storytelling that you know, you go to make a cup
Speaker 3: of tea, you grab a drink, doing the commercials or whatever,
Speaker 3: or even better, still stay for the commercials. Let us
Speaker 3: sell you the soft drinks and all that that stuff.
Speaker 3: And so it was a sort of a transactional way
Speaker 3: to watch a story, whereas film elevated, I've got to
Speaker 3: get you out of the house. I've got to get
Speaker 3: you into the movie theaters. So I've got to cultivate
Speaker 3: movie stars that are rarefied in a way whereby you,
Speaker 3: as the audience, go, that is an event. So I'm
Speaker 3: going to leave my house. So who gets to be
Speaker 3: an event, well, a certain demographic of person, and who
Speaker 3: gets to select who is an event? A certain demographic
Speaker 3: of person, who then dictates whether something gets the requisite
Speaker 3: marketing and gets to be international. And so these are
Speaker 3: all circumstances where people are using their own bias to
Speaker 3: decide what is going to be culturally impactful.
Speaker 1: Now, and then they tell you it's equated with value exactly.
Speaker 3: Oh, and they are not even having to tell you that.
Speaker 3: The billboard, the post suits, the marketing, the production value,
Speaker 3: the budget attributed to the show or the film is
Speaker 3: all telling you that. And the lack thereof for other
Speaker 3: people groups is also telling you how they are valued
Speaker 3: or not as well. But what streaming has done it
Speaker 3: has come along and giving us data of who's actually
Speaker 3: watching what. So I can clearly see an uptick in
Speaker 3: representation on screen the projects I've been afforded the opportunity
Speaker 3: to be a part of. I don't think bass Reefs
Speaker 3: happens in a world before streaming. I don't think government
Speaker 3: Cheese does either, because you now have data that's saying
Speaker 3: people like these shows, and not just black people want
Speaker 3: to see black stuff. You know, people when they see
Speaker 3: humanity represented in a fun, dramatic, entertaining, thought provoking way,
Speaker 3: they will tune in. Now when twelve guys in burbank
Speaker 3: somewhere are just making all those decisions and deciding no,
Speaker 3: they're not going to watch that, or they're not or
Speaker 3: that that story doesn't have value, and we're all sort
Speaker 3: of internalizing that lie that then becomes the cultural norm.
Speaker 1: So how do you? I mean, listen, You've got to
Speaker 1: do your thing as who you are as an artist,
Speaker 1: as an individual. Then there is the beautiful you know,
Speaker 1: partnership not only in your family but in your work
Speaker 1: that you and your wife have. You know, your production company,
Speaker 1: You've done this deal with Apple, which is where the
Speaker 1: show comes from. You obviously understand it because you've done
Speaker 1: this as talent, you've done this as a producer. You
Speaker 1: have this hybrid world where you do it all at
Speaker 1: the same time. How did this show come to be
Speaker 1: in the first place, Like, because you do have the
Speaker 1: day now, you do know there isn't a hypothetical. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't know if the demo's going to like that.
Speaker 2: I laugh.
Speaker 1: I think about years ago when Nia, who's you know,
Speaker 1: my best friend in my better half, when we started
Speaker 1: our business, she would hear a lot of like, well,
Speaker 1: you're not exactly the demo, And now we walk into
Speaker 1: rooms and do panels and she's like, I'm a black
Speaker 1: woman in my forties with expendable income, I'm exactly the demo.
Speaker 2: And every panel she says it on the whole audience.
Speaker 1: Goes crazy and it's like, my favorite moment of the day.
Speaker 1: And so for us, even when we analyze how to
Speaker 1: support women in the workplace, how to close the gender
Speaker 1: lending gap in the world of finance, the data is
Speaker 1: invaluable to us. Finance is hard enough, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people say entertainment's harder. So for people at home
Speaker 1: that are like, but then, how did you get on
Speaker 1: the other side of it. How did you figure this out?
Speaker 1: You know, how did you begin to say this is
Speaker 1: my moment, this is time to pitch this show. Did
Speaker 1: the show come to you? Did you go out and
Speaker 1: find it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How does it come to be that we're sitting here
Speaker 1: in May of twenty twenty five talking about this show
Speaker 1: that is on streaming, you know, showing people these other avenues, metrics, families, worlds.
Speaker 3: It's a great, great question, and the primary element is tenacity.
Speaker 3: This show came to me in twenty eighteen. End of
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen as a short film script. Paul Hunter sought
Speaker 3: me out and said, I have this idea based on
Speaker 3: my childhood growing up in the valley, and you're the
Speaker 3: guy who I really want to do it with, and
Speaker 3: it's to play a version of my dad. He was
Speaker 3: in and out of prison, but he was this amazing guy.
Speaker 3: He was an inventor, he was a visit And I
Speaker 3: read the script and I hadn't read anything.
Speaker 2: Like it before.
Speaker 3: I was actually dissuaded by my manager at the time
Speaker 3: from doing it because it's like, why do you want
Speaker 3: to go and do this little thing? But I saw
Speaker 3: something in it that was so unique and I thought, that,
Speaker 3: to me is what artistry looks like. When I find
Speaker 3: something that I haven't seen the likes of before, or
Speaker 3: I find something that I think has a special quality,
Speaker 3: that of course is what you're looking for. So you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't have any expectations that it was going to
Speaker 3: spin into a show. But we made this short film
Speaker 3: over four days in early twenty nineteen, and that quirky,
Speaker 3: unique quality that I felt on the page manifested in
Speaker 3: what we shot, and that became a proof of concept
Speaker 3: that we ended up taking to Apple and we spun
Speaker 3: into a show, and that has been the mark of
Speaker 3: a lot of the key elements in my career. It
Speaker 3: was the same thing with how I got to work
Speaker 3: with Ava Duvernet on Selma. It was sitting next to
Speaker 3: a guy on a plane, him watching on his iPad
Speaker 3: me in a show that I'd done back in the UK,
Speaker 3: turning to me and saying, is this you I'm watching
Speaker 3: on my iPad? I said yes. He goes is putting
Speaker 3: money into movies a good idea? I said, well, give
Speaker 3: me some context. He said, Well, this is lady called
Speaker 3: aver Duna. She's doing a film called Middle of Nowhere.
Speaker 3: She asked me for fifty thousand dollars towards her film.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, let me read it.
Speaker 2: I read it.
Speaker 3: I thought this was fantastic. I said, not only am
Speaker 3: I going to tell you to put money into that,
Speaker 3: I'm calling this lady and asking her if I could
Speaker 3: do her movie. Called her up, because you know, it
Speaker 3: was the title, her name and her number was on
Speaker 3: the cover of the script. Called her up and she said,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I cannot believe you're calling me about
Speaker 3: You were on my list. But I was like, there's
Speaker 3: no way you would ever do this. I said, this
Speaker 3: is exactly the kind of film I grew up wanting
Speaker 3: to be in because it feels like early Spike Lee.
Speaker 3: To me, it feels like she's got to have it more,
Speaker 3: better blues. It feels like like that. And that's how
Speaker 3: it ended up doing that film for one hundred dollars
Speaker 3: a day. Again, my reps at the time told me literally,
Speaker 3: the phrase was, this is not the kind of movie
Speaker 3: you want to be seen doing because it was a
Speaker 3: smaller movie. W I was like, I beg to differ there,
Speaker 3: and so that was a film I did with her.
Speaker 3: We made it for two hundred thousand dollars all in,
Speaker 3: but she ended up winning Best Director at Sundance for that,
Speaker 3: and that gave me the tools I needed when we
Speaker 3: were struggling to get Selma off the ground to say,
Speaker 3: I found the lady to direct this movie. And that's
Speaker 3: how Ava ended up directing Selma.
Speaker 2: So the point being that how I.
Speaker 3: Have been very blessed to be where I am now
Speaker 3: is the projects that have been most meaningful to me
Speaker 3: have taken an average of five to ten years to
Speaker 3: get off the ground. You know, Bastris was ten years,
Speaker 3: Selma was seven years, Government Cheese was six years, The
Speaker 3: United Kingdom was seven years. And it's all about going, Okay,
Speaker 3: I belie leaving that and every single day I'm going
Speaker 3: to do something to move the needle towards it coming
Speaker 3: to fruition. And the entertainment industry is inherently fear based,
Speaker 3: not faith based. And if you are able to go
Speaker 3: into rooms with a degree of faith rooted in tenacity
Speaker 3: and how much energy you have put into the project,
Speaker 3: that's something people feel able to bank on. Yeah, because Okay,
Speaker 3: if you believe in it that much, I'm skeptical about it.
Speaker 3: You've done work that I respect. The combination of your
Speaker 3: advocacy for it, the things I've seen you do, and
Speaker 3: my slight trepidation about it, which is being offset by
Speaker 3: your disposition, is the thing that's going to make me
Speaker 3: lean towards you. And you know, Bastrie has got rejected
Speaker 3: by the entire industry three times before it came to fruition.
Speaker 3: I put on the Way I needed to play Doctor
Speaker 3: King twice and had to then drop the weight because
Speaker 3: the film didn't go. So you know, those are all
Speaker 3: moments where you could have gone, you know what, I
Speaker 3: just can't do this anymore. That's what it takes. It's tenasty.
Speaker 1: I love that. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.
Speaker 1: When you talk about and you've said this a few times,
Speaker 1: that the things that you produce or gifts to your
Speaker 1: younger self, I think about that in terms of what
Speaker 1: you said about representation, how different it was in your
Speaker 1: class at Lambda versus how it is for your son.
Speaker 1: I think about what it means to get to see
Speaker 1: yourself and to know that your younger self is seen
Speaker 1: in the work you do. And now I think about
Speaker 1: how that tenacity, that self assuredness, in a way has
Speaker 1: to be a gift to him too. Yes, to know
Speaker 1: that that thing you were convinced of when you were
Speaker 1: young and didn't have the proof but had the feeling
Speaker 1: is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that's cultural. The gift of that,
Speaker 3: I think came from having about seven years in my
Speaker 3: youth where we moved back to Nigeria, and just to
Speaker 3: be in an environment where your marginalization, your anomalization is
Speaker 3: not prevalent. Where you go, oh, everyone looks like me,
Speaker 3: Every opportunity on offering this society is mine for the taking.
Speaker 3: And to have that be something you're around enough for
Speaker 3: it to become internalized mentally. Even though I now found
Speaker 3: myself back in the UK now in America, in environments
Speaker 3: where that is not necessarily the case being a black man,
Speaker 3: but I've felt it in my body enough. I have
Speaker 3: muscle memory. I have muscle memory of what it feels
Speaker 3: like to walk into rooms and not have to explain
Speaker 3: my existence or apologize my existence. And then what starts
Speaker 3: to happen, or what happened for me, is that that
Speaker 3: disposition started being rewarded with people leaning towards you. Because
Speaker 3: you know, there's a phrase I use often which is
Speaker 3: people treat your home the way you treat it and
Speaker 3: people treat you the way you treat yourself to a
Speaker 3: certain degree, and it's a quality that I recognize hugely
Speaker 3: with Sydney Poitier, for instance. You know, there's no way
Speaker 3: he's achieving what he achieved when he did, considering the
Speaker 3: levels of racial discrimination that were going on in this
Speaker 3: country at that time, if he's not in a disposition
Speaker 3: that defies expectation, which has people kind of.
Speaker 2: Going, Okay, I guess we'll give.
Speaker 3: It to you, you know. And I think there is
Speaker 3: a degree of that the way you move through the world.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a generalization to a certain extent, but
Speaker 3: it's my lived experience, so it is specific to me
Speaker 3: that I know, those years living in Nigeria were formative
Speaker 3: for me. And I will say this, it's something that
Speaker 3: you know, you have to be careful about from a
Speaker 3: generalization standpoint, but slavery in this country, one of the
Speaker 3: things that it set out to do is to destroy
Speaker 3: the the the agency, the power, the self esteem of
Speaker 3: black people. It didn't succeed in doing those things, not totally,
Speaker 3: but it certainly stimied those things. And that is an
Speaker 3: active It is an active.
Speaker 2: Means of engendering supremacy. You know.
Speaker 3: The way you achieve supremacy is for everything you do
Speaker 3: to suggest that you are supreme over the person you
Speaker 3: want to subjugate, and so you have that disposition of supremacy,
Speaker 3: and then you subject the person you're oppressing to feeling
Speaker 3: lesser than and that's the way you gain control. And
Speaker 3: we see it even till this very day. The things
Speaker 3: that are being attacked currently in this culture is all
Speaker 3: about a certain section of society feeling like it has
Speaker 3: power and supremacy over another.
Speaker 2: I don't care how you reframe it, how you try
Speaker 2: to excuse it. That's what it is.
Speaker 1: Well, you can't reframe it or excuse it, because it's
Speaker 1: simply true when you see a decorated general get fired
Speaker 1: and replaced with an alcoholic from Fox News, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Just what are we talking about?
Speaker 3: But there's very very clever language that gets used to
Speaker 3: excuse those things. There are very clever qualifiers, and systems
Speaker 3: of oppression are becoming more and more sophisticated. Yes, and
Speaker 3: you see that with slavery migrating into the prison industrial complex,
Speaker 3: you know, so it's it's it's different phraseology you're you're
Speaker 3: you're not a slave, You're a sharecropper, you know, And
Speaker 3: and these are these are all things to be mindful of,
Speaker 3: because the central thought is the same.
Speaker 1: And when you really think about the fact that for
Speaker 1: all of it requires a both and right, like a
Speaker 1: willingness to hold dialectics, that many things can be true
Speaker 1: at the same time. And I think about what for
Speaker 1: me is sort of the seesaw of America, which is
Speaker 1: some of the most exquisite ideals of any nation in
Speaker 1: the world that we have often failed to achieve, and
Speaker 1: some of the most horrific acts done in the building
Speaker 1: of a nation with really incredible ideals, but that sought
Speaker 1: them out at the time it was founded for very
Speaker 1: few people, certainly not you and certainly not me. And
Speaker 1: when you see the kind of cyclical violence of white supremacy,
Speaker 1: you see the cyclical violence of patriarchy. It is not
Speaker 1: lost on me that when you talk about what a
Speaker 1: different world your son is experiencing, what a different world
Speaker 1: I experience as a woman and a woman who is
Speaker 1: a CEO of my life and all of the things,
Speaker 1: the difference in my life to my mother's, the extreme
Speaker 1: difference in my life to my grandmother's my grandmother who
Speaker 1: was born in a stone farmhouse in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere in Italy with no running water and no electricity.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And I think about how so much of what fueled
Speaker 1: the building of this country that was hidden, the history
Speaker 1: they didn't want to teach, and they really don't want
Speaker 1: to teach now, is that we used bodies as fuel,
Speaker 1: largely black bodies. And by happenstance, the harm done by
Speaker 1: the people doing that was also done to the women
Speaker 1: who look like me, who unfortunately have often cozied up
Speaker 1: to white supremacist patriarchy because they think it will protect them.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, girly pops, it has nothing for you either.
Speaker 2: Run.
Speaker 1: And what's fascinating to me is the backlash we see,
Speaker 1: the fact that you were no longer allowed to discriminate
Speaker 1: against the best applicant, if that applicant were a woman,
Speaker 1: if that applicant were a black man, and so on
Speaker 1: down the line. No one wants to talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that the greatest recipients of DEI in America are
Speaker 1: white women. It is not lost on me that just
Speaker 1: in a generation where we have certainly not achieved equity
Speaker 1: to four hundred years of a power structure for white men,
Speaker 1: but where we've gotten to pretty decent places as other groups.
Speaker 1: The backlash is so crazy. They want to eradicate diverse
Speaker 1: classes in colleges, They want to take away women's access
Speaker 1: to birth control and healthcare.
Speaker 2: And I just.
Speaker 1: I wonder to what end? Because I also look around
Speaker 1: and I know they don't have it the hardest. But
Speaker 1: I also know white men in this try are killing
Speaker 1: themselves at higher rates than anybody else. So I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: clearly this isn't working for you either. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know where. I don't really know where we
Speaker 1: go or what we do necessarily when the backlash to
Speaker 1: even the illusion of more equitable power systems is so intense.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you are on the outside of
Speaker 1: it as a man of color, but also on the
Speaker 1: inside of it as as a man as a patriarch?
Speaker 1: Do you do you kind of have to figure out
Speaker 1: how to hold all of these truths at the same time,
Speaker 1: Because you strike me. I know we don't know each
Speaker 1: other that well, but I do feel like we did
Speaker 1: the energetic, like sparkly thing, and now we're connected.
Speaker 2: In that way.
Speaker 1: Like you strike me as a as a non toxic man.
Speaker 1: Yes you are. You are I think a wonderful father,
Speaker 1: a wonderful husband. You exemplify if a really what appears
Speaker 1: to be healthy, kind patriarchal energy. I'm like, that's a
Speaker 1: good dad.
Speaker 2: That's my kind of guy.
Speaker 1: So like, how do you I don't know, how do
Speaker 1: you wrestle with all of this stuff? And also how
Speaker 1: do you leave all this stuff at the door and
Speaker 1: just find joy in the way you talk about with
Speaker 1: your show? How do you do it all?
Speaker 3: It's challenging. I don't feel on the periphery of it.
Speaker 3: I feel very much in the center of it. But
Speaker 3: the thing I know to be true is that foundations
Speaker 3: are incredibly important. Foundations dictate what the building is, how
Speaker 3: strong it's going to be, how integracy is going to be,
Speaker 3: and whether anyone cares to admit it or not. The
Speaker 3: foundation the building blocks of America pretty gnarly. You stole
Speaker 3: the country and then stole the people to build that country,
Speaker 3: and that's foundational, regardless of the tenets and the philosophies
Speaker 3: that came after that that, some of which are incredibly
Speaker 3: beautiful around equity, around how to build a society, but
Speaker 3: If the foundation is so compromised, if in the soil
Speaker 3: is murder and pillage and rape and all of these
Speaker 3: things that are also foundational to the creation of this country,
Speaker 3: whether people care to admit it or not, which again
Speaker 3: is why the history is being obfuscated, then the only
Speaker 3: way to offset that truth is repentance is to go, oh,
Speaker 3: I didn't commit those things, but my forefathers, who we
Speaker 3: are lionizing in this country and celebrating and therefore suggesting
Speaker 3: that they were above reproach, did perpetuate these things.
Speaker 2: And then there are.
Speaker 3: Descendants of people who are alive today who were the
Speaker 3: victims of what those forefathers perpetuated. At some point there
Speaker 3: has to be some kind of acceptance of the fact
Speaker 3: that what we all get to enjoy is built on
Speaker 3: an incredibly questionable foundation. And the only way you can
Speaker 3: move forward from that in a healthy way is the
Speaker 3: acceptance of that, the repentance on behalf of your forefathers
Speaker 3: for that, in order that you can have a chance
Speaker 3: to move forward better than that was.
Speaker 4: And now, for our sponsors this week on Dear Chelsea
Speaker 4: with me Chelsea Handler, Sophia Bush's here, tell me how
Speaker 4: that feels to be a hot considered a hot lesbian.
Speaker 1: Quite an honor. You know what's funny when you're actually
Speaker 1: more fluid with your sexuality, the swing goes from nobody
Speaker 1: gives a shit who you're sleeping with too. You better
Speaker 1: identify exactly who you are so we can figure out
Speaker 1: what name to call you. And it's like, is nobody
Speaker 1: been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've
Speaker 1: been kissing on camera? Hi, I've always been here.
Speaker 4: Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts
Speaker 4: or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Listen, these are the times, right, you've had like the
Speaker 1: most hopeful and happy sections of the discussion, and we
Speaker 1: have to have the heavy and the real because that's life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as you try to balance all of it for yourself
Speaker 1: and you mentioned earlier to be in joy in the
Speaker 1: work that you make, you have it with your family?
Speaker 1: How do you do it? How do you balance? Are
Speaker 1: there practices you have not just as you know David
Speaker 1: the performer, but as David the man? What are your
Speaker 1: practices for keeping your sort of sphere space joyful?
Speaker 2: Well? I count my blessings and you know a.
Speaker 3: Huge part of that is my wife my kids, my health,
Speaker 3: I get to do for work that which I love
Speaker 3: and would probably do for free.
Speaker 2: Don't tell Apple and never never for free.
Speaker 1: A raise in season two.
Speaker 3: But it's that, it's that it's counting my blessings. My
Speaker 3: faith is a huge component of my life personally. But
Speaker 3: you know, my wife and I have a two week rule.
Speaker 3: Were never apart for more than two weeks. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so no matter where I am in the world, like
Speaker 3: we we recently, so she had to be so she
Speaker 3: had to be in Hawaii for a retreat, and then
Speaker 3: I was going to Katar to set up a film,
Speaker 3: and then I had to be in London. And this
Speaker 3: meant that we were going to go over by fourteen hours. No,
Speaker 3: fourteen days. No, we weren't going to go over. We
Speaker 3: were going to be apart for fourteen days, in like
Speaker 3: six hours or something like that.
Speaker 2: And it was the.
Speaker 3: Assistance phones were blown up, right, Okay, so I am
Speaker 3: going to I have to take her to the airport
Speaker 3: at this time that you have to change my flight
Speaker 3: because we can't. Oh no, we're still an hour over.
Speaker 3: We're still at an hour no, because we went over
Speaker 3: by eleven hours once and I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't do it.
Speaker 3: It's for me like a once I commit to something,
Speaker 3: that is it. Yeah, And you know, I've been married
Speaker 3: for twenty six years now.
Speaker 1: So it's working.
Speaker 2: It's working. But honestly it is.
Speaker 3: It can sound a little cheesy, it can even sound
Speaker 3: like it's work, but love is something you work out.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: And when I talk about counting your blessings, it's going
Speaker 3: I have someone I want to be back in proximity.
Speaker 2: Of no, like yeah, no more than you're really in
Speaker 2: trouble after like two days.
Speaker 3: So so the point being, and we worked it out
Speaker 3: and we were well within the fourteen days at the.
Speaker 1: End of the day.
Speaker 2: But it's it's it's the small things actually, you know.
Speaker 1: But what that says to me is also it's promise
Speaker 1: is made, promises kept. Yes, love is something you work at.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think if you wake up in your life
Speaker 1: and you realize you quote have love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No one's working at yeah.
Speaker 1: Then you don't have love. Then you have a business
Speaker 1: partner or a roommate or whatever. And so even the
Speaker 1: fact that after twenty six years you two are like
Speaker 1: hold on six hours too many for me, I'm tickled
Speaker 1: by that because what it is to me, is that
Speaker 1: the promise is so important. Yeah, it's not just the
Speaker 1: rhythm you keep, it's that you commit to keeping the
Speaker 1: rhythm correct.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, right, Thank you, thank you? And you know,
Speaker 3: and I have kids who are healthy and who love
Speaker 3: mommy and daddy and like being in proximity of them.
Speaker 3: You know, I've seen what I've been around, great wealth,
Speaker 3: I've been around great fame. I've been around the things
Speaker 3: that people truly seem to value or aspire to. I'm
Speaker 3: telling you right now for anyone listening who thinks that
Speaker 3: there is something out there in those realms that is
Speaker 3: going to transcend. If you have someone you like curling
Speaker 3: up on a couch with, and you have food in
Speaker 3: your stomach, and you are happy and keen to be
Speaker 3: in proximity of people who maybe your kids, maybe your spouse,
Speaker 3: maybe your family, maybe your friend, and the notion of
Speaker 3: not having to talk to each other and yet be
Speaker 3: comfortable around each other is yours. You have heaven on earth, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because you're not having to work to be safe, to
Speaker 3: feel loved, to love, to touch to you know.
Speaker 2: All of those things. Nothing.
Speaker 3: There is no place. I've been to so many places
Speaker 3: in the world. There's no place I feel more like
Speaker 3: I'm in a heaven on Earth situation than curled up
Speaker 3: on my couch with my kids, with my wife, maybe
Speaker 3: watching movie, maybe we're just all laughing at each other,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. That's as good as it gets here
Speaker 3: on earth. Guys. That's as good as it gets. And
Speaker 3: it's not to do with the couch. It's not to
Speaker 3: do with the movie. It's to do with the people. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that you want to be in proximity of those people.
Speaker 3: And so those are the blessings I count amongst other things,
Speaker 3: and that's where my joy comes from. And the reality
Speaker 3: is those things are finite. You know, I've lost both
Speaker 3: my parents. I know that these things are finite, and
Speaker 3: so every day you have them, they are to be
Speaker 3: embraced with a veracity that is just you know, every
Speaker 3: ounce of energy within you.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful and it's a lovely reminder to focus on
Speaker 1: the right things. Yeah, it seems that you're so practiced
Speaker 1: at it. That's a muscle that you work. That gratitude.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Does it Does it feel like something that will always
Speaker 1: be your work in progress? Or is or is that
Speaker 1: something else? Is it a project? An idea.
Speaker 3: It will always be a work in progress because you
Speaker 3: don't know what's going to come along to upend it.
Speaker 3: You know, when I lost my mom, that was that
Speaker 3: took my peace for years. You know, she had a
Speaker 3: brain aneurysm and she was in a vegetative state for
Speaker 3: three years. And I'm the eldest son, and I felt
Speaker 3: the need to sort of look after my brothers and
Speaker 3: my dad, and I didn't do grieving particularly healthily. I
Speaker 3: sort of tried to push it away, and so I
Speaker 3: am still a work in progress when it comes to that,
Speaker 3: just just forgiving myself for things that I probably don't
Speaker 3: need to forgive myself for in relation to.
Speaker 2: My Oh oh gosh, maybe.
Speaker 3: I should have been there to make sure she was
Speaker 3: taking the high blood pressure medicine or all the things
Speaker 3: you know that that are tied to love. You know,
Speaker 3: how much you miss someone is relative to how much
Speaker 3: you loved them, So that's kind of healthy. But also
Speaker 3: if you're if you're crippled by that feeling, that's unhealthy.
Speaker 3: So that's that's a working progress. All of it is
Speaker 3: a work in progress. I think that's the gift of life.
Speaker 3: I think you know you're given this project which is
Speaker 3: your life. And you know you're I'm never going to
Speaker 3: be the totality of the actor I aspire to be,
Speaker 3: or the father I aspire to be, or the husband
Speaker 3: that I aspire to be, or the human being, because
Speaker 3: fallibility is what is by definition, what makes you a
Speaker 3: human being. And so but the journey of that is
Speaker 3: it was where the excitement lies and the days where
Speaker 3: oh gosh, I think I was a pretty good father today,
Speaker 3: and then most days, oh gosh, I didn't think I
Speaker 3: was a very good dad today, you know. So I
Speaker 3: to be alive is to be in a work in
Speaker 3: progress circumstance, and I like being alive. So being being,
Speaker 3: being a work in progress is indicative that we're still here.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and heart
Speaker 1: with us again today.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I always love speaking to me too,