Speaker 1: Question. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Let's Go Kids.
Speaker 2: Supremo su su Supremo Role called Suprema su su Supremo
Speaker 2: roll Call, Subprema Supremo Role, Suprema su.
Speaker 3: Supremo Role, my team Suprema Yeah, ain't no hash Steppie Yeah,
Speaker 3: Robert Townsend Yeah, ain't you got no weapon?
Speaker 2: Suprema Supreme roll Suprema Suprema rode.
Speaker 1: My name is Fante Yeah, and I'm feeling cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I finally graduated, Yeah from Black Acting school.
Speaker 2: Supremo Suprema Role, Suprema su su Supremo roll Call.
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Back on the hash. Wait wait wait wait wait yeah,
Speaker 1: did I see you on mash because some brea su.
Speaker 4: Brevo roll It's like, yeah, I don't need no BIB yeah.
Speaker 4: Robert Townson, Yeah, can I.
Speaker 1: Get one rim.
Speaker 2: Supremo rolls Upremo Supremo roll came.
Speaker 5: My name is Robert Yeah, I'm in town yeah and
Speaker 5: getting down with this crew in town. Up the host clown.
Speaker 2: Supremo Suprema Supremo roll So.
Speaker 5: I messed up?
Speaker 6: Yeah and.
Speaker 1: Yeah and someone tell me, yeah, where is unpaid bill?
Speaker 2: Supremo Roll call signs up, Breva supremo, broun supremo, Roll.
Speaker 1: Up, Supreme roll Sorry about that the wrong version you
Speaker 1: keep taking two?
Speaker 3: Well you know I forgot that Bill's not here, so
Speaker 3: I should have did it for five people, but instead Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so way too many references.
Speaker 1: This is the pressure. I'm like, I want to put
Speaker 1: the ball in the black and the beautiful.
Speaker 5: It was just too many, it was too much.
Speaker 1: Okay, can we can we I'm right about the mash thing, right, yes.
Speaker 5: Yes, you are, yes, you are just checking because all right, so.
Speaker 3: Can we just collectively have a meeting? Okay, Okay, let's
Speaker 3: go because we have a tendency.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna embarrass you. Yeah, to sing people's songs
Speaker 1: and act out. I can't promise you that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I'm just making you know. I feel moved to see
Speaker 1: the heart of the house.
Speaker 5: For love that brain drops But.
Speaker 1: All right, is falling on the table for or did
Speaker 1: you just fall off?
Speaker 4: And I'm so sober? I'm sorry, I'm excited.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, we have questions I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to ask you since I was eight years old.
Speaker 3: You don't understand, like straight up, let me let me
Speaker 3: introduce our guests first, Yeah, we know, all right, So,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen, in case you don't know where you landed,
Speaker 3: this is called Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host, Quest
Speaker 3: Love and Team Supreme of course is strong fo how
Speaker 3: are you, brother?
Speaker 6: I'm with Robert Towns. That's automatics. Let's talk about him, Steve.
Speaker 5: Al right.
Speaker 3: Look, ladies and gentlemen, look, I will just say that
Speaker 3: maybe or maybe not, Emma Thompson household Times weren't that happy.
Speaker 3: I will say that this gentleman dingle handedly alone probably
Speaker 3: provided eighty five percent of all joy and happiness that
Speaker 3: happened at I can't say my old address right because
Speaker 3: there's somebody there's.
Speaker 1: Oh Stage Avenue in West Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: I've I've probably, you know, probably second to coming to America.
Speaker 3: I've never quoted a film more than our guest and
Speaker 3: his debut movie as a director, Hollywood Shuffle. All of
Speaker 3: his films have touched our lives. Fonte's looking at me
Speaker 3: like if you just don't say his name, plady and gentleman,
Speaker 3: Robert Townsend is on West Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on our show.
Speaker 5: Thank you guys for having me. Thank you, thank you
Speaker 5: so much.
Speaker 3: Okay, and we should also know Robin last night reminded
Speaker 3: me forty two times she said, you're welcome, You're welcome,
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Robin Feedee wants to you know up, yes.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, because of my daughter Scott.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so every twelve seconds, Robin wanted to come up
Speaker 3: to let me know that, thank you, thank you and
Speaker 3: all the writers, Robin congrassling, the.
Speaker 1: Writers getting the getting their money.
Speaker 5: Yes. Real.
Speaker 1: So I'm at a loss for words right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm thank you for having me. Just thank you
Speaker 5: for having me, guys, because I wanted to start crying
Speaker 5: on and I feel emotional.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, you got a podcast to do. Let's
Speaker 1: go all together. You aint direct line.
Speaker 6: To like our childhoods man, and like you know what
Speaker 6: I was saying in our memories, Yeah, memories like you
Speaker 6: know HBO, like the Partners in Crime episodes, Like dude,
Speaker 6: like that was an event, like that was something like that.
Speaker 1: Come on me and our family. We be on the floor,
Speaker 1: Like I'm on the floor watching and like all of that.
Speaker 1: Are you wiping your tears with the script?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sorry, Yeah, because he's right, I'm listening to
Speaker 4: and I'm like, yeah, that's showing itself.
Speaker 1: That changed, yeh changed, that changed, That changed us.
Speaker 6: We had Patrice Russian on the show like a couple
Speaker 6: of years ago, and like we talked to her about
Speaker 6: you know, musical director, musical direction.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: It was really just pioneering in so many ways and hilarious.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get the initial stuff out the way.
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
Speaker 5: I was born in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, on the West
Speaker 5: Side of Chicago.
Speaker 1: Why do become interview Chicago people show?
Speaker 3: We had Sally Richards, So why has Chicago been chosen
Speaker 3: as the epicenter of comedy even for like sketch shows,
Speaker 3: for writers, for acting, for comedy workshops?
Speaker 1: Chicago is where that starts? Is that just an SNL
Speaker 1: thing where you know?
Speaker 5: As a kid, I just remember West Side of Chicago,
Speaker 5: you know, black folks. We always been funny, funny, funny.
Speaker 5: But then I started. I studied at Second City when
Speaker 5: I was like fourteen, fifteen years old. I started when
Speaker 5: the Second City start. It's been around since the sixties,
Speaker 5: and Second City was like, a no, it's been around
Speaker 5: a long time. They had because back then my teacher
Speaker 5: was Joe Forrestburg, but Dale Close was like Jim Belushi
Speaker 5: and all those guys. Everybody came out in that class. No,
Speaker 5: I wasn't in that class. I wasn't in Dale's class.
Speaker 5: I was in the other class. Okay, yeah, But I
Speaker 5: started at Second City. I started doing Emperor, but I
Speaker 5: started in theater. I was like the youngest member of
Speaker 5: x BAG Experimental Black Actors GIL and it was like,
Speaker 5: you know, one of the actresses that came out, Mary Alice,
Speaker 5: who was inspired. She came out of there, and a
Speaker 5: guy named Felton Perry was one of the writers. But
Speaker 5: my first mentor so I started when I was fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 5: So that's when I started, and I did my first movie.
Speaker 5: I was in Cooley High. I had two lines. I
Speaker 5: was doing a play at x BAG and Laurence Hilton
Speaker 5: Jacob's Michael Schultze director and Glenn Turman came to see
Speaker 5: me in the show and I got a few So
Speaker 5: that's when I started. And then I was an extra
Speaker 5: in Mahogany with Billy Dan Dinah Ross. So I've been
Speaker 5: like as a baby. I started, you know, back in
Speaker 5: the game. But in terms of comedy, there was always
Speaker 5: comedy going around. But then I discovered like Rush Street
Speaker 5: had all the comedy clubs. I started performing, like when
Speaker 5: I was sixteen doing stand up seventeen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's your domestic situation into in your childhood? Your parents,
Speaker 3: your siblings?
Speaker 5: You know, here's the thing. I have four there's four
Speaker 5: of us. I have two sisters, one brother, and my
Speaker 5: mother raised four kids on her own. My father wasn't there.
Speaker 5: He was in our lives, but he was in and out.
Speaker 5: Right were you the baby or I'm the second oldest? Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay? Like what are the aspirations of your life in
Speaker 1: your childhood? Are you?
Speaker 5: I want to be a basketball player?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 5: I mean like I just went back to Chicago recently
Speaker 5: and all my boys were still friends, but we were
Speaker 5: all like my nickname back then was Left because I
Speaker 5: got a sweet left hand jump shot. And so then
Speaker 5: my other friend, his name was Ape because he had
Speaker 5: long arms and we used to call him Ape. And
Speaker 5: then you had Brown Chris he had he has two
Speaker 5: sons that were in the NBA. Shannon that's his dad,
Speaker 5: and so we were all like little kids loving basketball
Speaker 5: and Dennis Olive. We were all like just kids and
Speaker 5: we used to go.
Speaker 1: To the stock Stadius with the friends from your childhood.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, that is rare, and how does
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 5: Let me say this, through the years, we always stayed
Speaker 5: in contact. And then let me say this. When you
Speaker 5: have a dream as a kid on welfare on the
Speaker 5: West Side of Chicago and you just want to do
Speaker 5: something with your life, you need to have a circle
Speaker 5: of people that believe in you. And back then, even
Speaker 5: though my nickname was left, they were like, you know,
Speaker 5: I said I could I got you know, I could
Speaker 5: do voices and characters when I was really young. And
Speaker 5: so they were like, left, you got something, you got
Speaker 5: something left, And they always believed in me, and we
Speaker 5: just stayed We just stayed in touch. And so and
Speaker 5: then and Carl eight you know, his name is Carl Brentson.
Speaker 5: He's the president of the West Side INNAACP. And so
Speaker 5: we were always we always had like a righteous mindset.
Speaker 5: We got to do something, we got to take action.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: So, so you were just neighborhood friends or were you
Speaker 5: connected through some well, I mean it was just basketball.
Speaker 5: It was basketball. Everything was basketball, and we met on
Speaker 5: like or no, no, I mean.
Speaker 1: Right, well, no, I'm just meaning like some sort of
Speaker 1: you could be church circles.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but it was basketball. We would play on
Speaker 5: the basketball court and we played at all the different
Speaker 5: tournaments and stuff. And then uh, I played in high
Speaker 5: school on different teams. I went to three different high schools.
Speaker 5: So I played at Weber Catholic, then Proserificational, and then
Speaker 5: I graduated from Austin.
Speaker 3: For me, like oftentimes, especially with with with black success
Speaker 3: and black stories, once you transition to another platform, the
Speaker 3: temptation to try to take everyone with you, right, I
Speaker 3: mean we can give an example like maybe an Alan
Speaker 3: and Iverson or whatever, like try to take everyone with
Speaker 3: you is a hard thing to do, and sometimes you
Speaker 3: can't go to these places and maintain what was beforehand.
Speaker 3: So well it was for you know, oftentimes you're people
Speaker 3: might see your success as their success, and.
Speaker 1: That's hard. So I'm really I'm really impressed that you
Speaker 1: still maintain childhood friendships.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, no, but they were real friends. There were
Speaker 5: a lot of people you know that are not in
Speaker 5: my life that they are, you know, because there's certain
Speaker 5: you know, I have frenemies that are friends and a
Speaker 5: part enemy and you just learn eventually to clean house
Speaker 5: and you surround yourself with the right people, and so
Speaker 5: I've been blessed.
Speaker 1: That's what's up.
Speaker 3: Did you know it was acting or were you just
Speaker 3: a thing where like I'm a fan of television and
Speaker 3: I can imitate these people, or how do you know
Speaker 3: acting is what your true calling is?
Speaker 5: If so, let me give you the story. So I
Speaker 5: am ten years old. I live on the West Side
Speaker 5: of Chicago. Neighborhood is surrounded by gangs, the vice Lords,
Speaker 5: the Executioners, the Disciples, the Senator six. And my mother
Speaker 5: is afraid at ten that I'm going to get recruited
Speaker 5: by one of the gangs. And so she goes, when
Speaker 5: you get out of school, run straight in the house.
Speaker 5: I run straight in the house. And all I do
Speaker 5: is watch television. I watched so much TV they nicknamed
Speaker 5: me TV Guide. Now like TV Guy was on the
Speaker 5: night and I go, like, NBC they got a really
Speaker 5: good lineup. And then at ABC, I think kind of cool.
Speaker 5: I think so and so and so and so. And
Speaker 5: then we were on welfare and it's like, when you're
Speaker 5: on welfare, you can't you can't buy soap because it's
Speaker 5: not food, it's food stamps. And so you always had
Speaker 5: that problem and so I would always try to make
Speaker 5: my mother laugh. And so then I discovered that God
Speaker 5: had given me a gift to do the shows because
Speaker 5: there was a time for the youngsters. There was a
Speaker 5: time the television went off, right, and when television went off, you.
Speaker 1: Know, we're all of aging here, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: know about okay, And.
Speaker 5: Television went off, and so if you missed the show,
Speaker 5: you missed a show. And so I discovered that I
Speaker 5: could do every show on television. So back when I
Speaker 5: was ten twelve, I could do voices and characters, and
Speaker 5: like if I saw a movie from you know, French film,
Speaker 5: showed that the levision and I'd walk around the house
Speaker 5: my brothers and sisters love the Wizard of Oz. I
Speaker 5: would do all the characters I had never got in
Speaker 5: my brains. If it Wolson for you what the square
Speaker 5: root of Walton, I would do Alfred Hitchcock, Good Evening
Speaker 5: they found the body in the alley Way. I would
Speaker 5: do the Westerns. No Brandish fixed you got to be
Speaker 5: out of town by Shindim. I was so good. I
Speaker 5: could do Lassie Timmy's in the Hood, Timmy. Here's a
Speaker 5: story I got discovered in the fifth grade. There was
Speaker 5: a teacher. His name was James Red tall, white dude,
Speaker 5: you know, big nose, and he was just this beautiful
Speaker 5: man and he wanted these little kids in the hood
Speaker 5: to learn about Shakespeare, and so he gave us three
Speaker 5: pages to read. And I just remember I got so
Speaker 5: nervous because it was like me, thinks and thou and
Speaker 5: thou and thus it was so yeah. And so I
Speaker 5: went to the library and I stole all the Shakespeare
Speaker 5: records because I wanted to get an a and I
Speaker 5: listened to him on our stereo at home, like Richard
Speaker 5: the Third, and I was like a horse, a horse,
Speaker 5: my kingdom for a horse. All he wants is a horse.
Speaker 5: And then like oh, othello, and then I listened to
Speaker 5: all of them. And we had to read in class,
Speaker 5: and that's how I got discovered, because we had to
Speaker 5: read a scene from Oedipus, and I remember he was like,
Speaker 5: Deborah Jenkins, you'll be Ophelia, Willie King, you'll be Oedipus,
Speaker 5: and Robert Townsend, you'll be terse As the blind Prophet.
Speaker 5: Le read and they read like kids. Deborah read like
Speaker 5: a kid in the hood.
Speaker 1: It up pissed you will married I mother a kid
Speaker 1: if that father.
Speaker 5: And I had been seeing shit. You know, I was
Speaker 5: listening to the Royal Shakespeare Company. So I was like
Speaker 5: there to piss. I played off the rage upon night
Speaker 5: Sari to be creatures. He knaught and so I went
Speaker 5: deep and the kids was like, who your ass is crazy.
Speaker 5: But the teacher after it was over, he was like,
Speaker 5: where did you learn that? Come here, Robert Towns. Where
Speaker 5: did you learn that? And I said, what is these records?
Speaker 5: You know they was in the library, but not he
Speaker 5: in my house. But that's how they do it in
Speaker 5: England at the Royal Shakespeare Company. And that teacher took
Speaker 5: me under his wing, and he was the one who
Speaker 5: was the first one to say you could be somebody.
Speaker 5: And I was like a little boy and I was
Speaker 5: like be somebody and he was like, you could be somebody.
Speaker 5: So my journey started there.
Speaker 1: He planned the seed in you.
Speaker 5: He planted the seed and he came, it's like to you,
Speaker 5: I won my first award in nineteen sixty eight, so
Speaker 5: it was like the you know, like I remember doing
Speaker 5: the news for my mother when Martin Luther King got killed.
Speaker 5: I was that, you know, she says, what happened again?
Speaker 5: What happened again. At twelve forty two, Martin Luther King
Speaker 5: was leaving and then Martin Luther King said, Mama, Martin
Speaker 5: Luther King said, we have been to the mountaintop free
Speaker 5: of blast, free of blass, and I would do all
Speaker 5: the I was a look a little magical kid.
Speaker 4: And did you realize in that moment too, that, like
Speaker 4: although the town, the amazing part was, yes, that you
Speaker 4: found these records and that you also mimicked these records.
Speaker 4: But the also amazing part was that you knew, unlike
Speaker 4: all your other classmates, that there were these records at
Speaker 4: the library. And to even do that because most kids.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying even that part to know.
Speaker 3: All right, so I'm a library kid. Same thing, not
Speaker 3: necessarily games where I grew up in the crack eighties,
Speaker 3: so really I wasn't It wasn't favorable for me to
Speaker 3: go out. So thus I always stayed indoors, right, And
Speaker 3: we had a gazillion records, So that's how I ingested
Speaker 3: all the music. And I knew four blocks away on
Speaker 3: Chestnut Street in Philly, there was a library and I
Speaker 3: would just go there listen to all the records. Read
Speaker 3: all the Rolling Stones, all the you know, music books
Speaker 3: and whatnot. So I too would do that as well.
Speaker 3: And like, the local library is one of my favorite spots.
Speaker 3: So was that like a destination for you if you
Speaker 3: weren't allowed to go out or no?
Speaker 5: You know, you know, The truth was that I don't know.
Speaker 5: I was because of television. I was always curious about
Speaker 5: stuff because it was kind of deep. Outside the house
Speaker 5: was like pimps and gangs and drug dealers. And then
Speaker 5: I'm watching Leave It to Beaver, and so then I've
Speaker 5: got this world and I'm watching the Andy Griffiths show.
Speaker 5: And then outside it's like if you don't have my money,
Speaker 5: I'll knock your motherfucker. And I'm like, oh oh, And
Speaker 5: then I was like, what is the reality. So when
Speaker 5: I would go to the library, I would just look
Speaker 5: through all the aisles at all the different things, and
Speaker 5: I saw those Shakespeare records and I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: that's interesting, and it was just I just remember listening
Speaker 5: to it on our little stereo, and we had the
Speaker 5: little stereo that had the blinking line yes that you know,
Speaker 5: had all the disco music kind of things on it,
Speaker 5: and everybody wanted to listen to the Temptations are Gladys
Speaker 5: Night and stuff like that, And then I was like, no,
Speaker 5: this is my homework and everybody's around the house listening
Speaker 5: to me, listen to Othello, and I understood it. I'm
Speaker 5: just mad I didn't think of that as a kid.
Speaker 4: I would have understood Shakespeare even more if I even
Speaker 4: thought that there were albums that I could just listen
Speaker 4: to instead of reading the work, like.
Speaker 3: Even in Crazier Full Circle, because even in that like
Speaker 3: twenty second scene in Hollywood Shuffle.
Speaker 1: Where you guys are recreating was it Macbeth or or
Speaker 1: was that a fellow?
Speaker 5: It was King Lear.
Speaker 3: At that point that movie was such a revelation to
Speaker 3: me that when you got to there half the time,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I don't know if we will
Speaker 3: ever do that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But then I thought about it, like, wait, what would.
Speaker 5: Black Shakespeare look like?
Speaker 3: So that one scene in particular, like everything else, was
Speaker 3: for humorous, yes, yes, you know, like and I took
Speaker 3: it as humor.
Speaker 1: But that was like one of my rare moments where
Speaker 1: I was like, hmmm, like I wonder what that life
Speaker 1: would look like.
Speaker 3: In other words, like opening the palette and expanding my
Speaker 3: brains accept the fact that we can do anything.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 3: A weird full circle moment because even me watching Hollywood
Speaker 3: Shuffle based on your life experience, that even planning to see.
Speaker 1: For me like, oh we can we could do much
Speaker 1: more than what we're doing now.
Speaker 5: Yes, sure, yes, sure, yeah. So that's amazing.
Speaker 1: So what are your next steps? How did you know
Speaker 1: about a second city?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 5: So I'm in theater. So I'm at x BAG and
Speaker 5: then I went to the Lamont Zeno Theater on the
Speaker 5: West side of Chicago.
Speaker 1: This is high school.
Speaker 5: Was this college years? This is high school? Okay, And
Speaker 5: so I find my way to theater. And so then
Speaker 5: my first director, Paymun Rami, who's in Chicago now, is
Speaker 5: a powerful brother. Him and his wife, Masi Kwon Meyers.
Speaker 5: They were my first mentors. And so when you're around
Speaker 5: actors and people, and he was a casting director, so
Speaker 5: he cast me in Cooley High. He did the extras
Speaker 5: casting for Mahogany. And so you're constantly around like, oh,
Speaker 5: that's an agent over there. Oh that's what you know.
Speaker 5: And you get this information and when you're hungry, like
Speaker 5: you know, music for you, you're a sponge and so
Speaker 5: I would just kind of, you know, like, okay, you
Speaker 5: know what's an agent? Okay? Where acting class? Okay, I'm
Speaker 5: going to take an acting class. I'm gonna take another
Speaker 5: acting class. Okay, how do I do a movie? If
Speaker 5: I could just say one line in the movie? And
Speaker 5: so I was just hungry, hungry, and I wasn't going
Speaker 5: to have anything stop me. I have to tell you
Speaker 5: this story. I really wouldn't be in show business. I went.
Speaker 5: I was going to college at Illinois State University in
Speaker 5: normal Bloomington, and I was in the theater department and
Speaker 5: I love theater. And then I'm down there and on
Speaker 5: one side of the theater it's John Malkovich and what's
Speaker 5: her name, Lorie Metcalf. They were on the other those
Speaker 5: those are the actors. But for the black actors of
Speaker 5: the school, we had like little small parts. And so
Speaker 5: then I was like, oh, there's nothing. So there was
Speaker 5: this one teacher who you know, cause I was fascinated
Speaker 5: with New York, and I was like, what are the
Speaker 5: actors like in New York? I mean, all the best
Speaker 5: actors come out of New York. Even as a kid,
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, James Earl Jones is there Cecily
Speaker 5: Tyson is there, Sidney Poitier. They all come out of
Speaker 5: New York. And I was asking her questions about New
Speaker 5: York this one day and I was like, well, tell
Speaker 5: me about New York. You know the actors in New York.
Speaker 5: And she looked at me and she says, stop asking
Speaker 5: about New York. You don't have what it takes to
Speaker 5: make it in this industry. You won't make it. You
Speaker 5: don't have it. Are you done? Are you through? An
Speaker 5: actual adults said that teacher? Yes, and the way she
Speaker 5: said it to me, but let me explain something.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: She hit me so hard I left out of that
Speaker 5: out of her office numb, and I was like, I'm
Speaker 5: not going to make it. And I wondered the camp
Speaker 5: is just like lost, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 5: when an adult said something like that to you, it's
Speaker 5: an adult going like, you don't have it. You're not
Speaker 5: going to make it. And I was wondering in around
Speaker 5: the campus like what the what? Oh man, I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna make it. And then I had a moment, and
Speaker 5: I had this moment where I go, she doesn't know me,
Speaker 5: she doesn't know who I am, she doesn't know what
Speaker 5: my talent is what's inside of me. And I shook
Speaker 5: it off, and I said, I got to see for myself.
Speaker 5: So I was so lost wondering the campus. I didn't
Speaker 5: even know where I was. I was just like, I'm
Speaker 5: not gonna make it my dreams. And then I stopped.
Speaker 5: And when I shook it off, I looked up and
Speaker 5: there was a sign that says transferred to exchange with
Speaker 5: any student in the country Exchange program. And I was like,
Speaker 5: I went in that office, and I want to exchange
Speaker 5: with a student in New York. And when I have
Speaker 5: a school in New York, we have a school in
Speaker 5: New Jersey. I said, I'll take it. And I transferred
Speaker 5: to Wayne Patterson College in Patterson, New Jersey, close enough,
Speaker 5: and so I would get on a bus from Port
Speaker 5: Authority and go to Manhattan on the weekends after I
Speaker 5: left school. And you know, but that teacher, if I
Speaker 5: saw this, this is seventy six, New York, New York,
Speaker 5: New York, New York. And so that's when I met Denzel.
Speaker 5: You know, it's like, but did you see that teacher again?
Speaker 5: But see, here's the thing. If I saw that teacher,
Speaker 5: I'd give her the biggest hug I'd give her the
Speaker 5: biggest hug because like a lot of my friends, never
Speaker 5: left Chicago. And she broke me down so hard that
Speaker 5: day that I, you know, like the part of Robert Townsend.
Speaker 5: It goes like, wait a minute, now, who am I?
Speaker 5: What am I? And she at that point she I
Speaker 5: called my mother right away. I said, I'm leaving the school.
Speaker 5: I'm going to New York. I'm gonna be in New Jersey.
Speaker 5: But I got to get out of here now. But
Speaker 5: if she hadn't said that, I probably would have still
Speaker 5: been there, and I wouldn't I wouldn't be Robert Townsend.
Speaker 5: It was that one defining moment that she pushed me
Speaker 5: so hard that I was like, what am I going
Speaker 5: to do? And then I said, well, maybe I don't
Speaker 5: have it? And I said, well, you know what, I'm
Speaker 5: going to see for myself, So I'm going to bet
Speaker 5: on me and I you know, and I was like,
Speaker 5: And then I was in New York and I was
Speaker 5: studying with Marlon Brandell's acting teacher, Stella Adler. So I
Speaker 5: started studying with her. I started studying at the Negro
Speaker 5: Ensemble Company. And how quickly did these things happen? Because well,
Speaker 5: once she said that to me. I was only at
Speaker 5: USC for one semester. Once she said that to me,
Speaker 5: I got out because I was in the theater department
Speaker 5: and I was enjoying myself. But when she had that conversation,
Speaker 5: because it's like, I'm a kid, and so if somebody
Speaker 5: says that to you and you like, you hurt my feeling.
Speaker 5: I felt it, and so then I was like, I
Speaker 5: got to get out of here. So then I was gone.
Speaker 5: But then the Stella Adler Park, like so once I
Speaker 5: got to New York, it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 5: I say this to artists all the time, you got
Speaker 5: to have a blueprint. And so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: to get to the next level, I want to study
Speaker 5: with the best. Stella Adler's Marlon Brandle one of my
Speaker 5: favorite actors. I would watch all of his movies, you know,
Speaker 5: when I was that little boy TV guide. So then
Speaker 5: I'm studying with her and then I go, wait, but.
Speaker 1: How did you know to go to the top?
Speaker 5: How she take you? Like she took you?
Speaker 1: She took me like like you said, I need the
Speaker 1: best acting teacher ever? Where is she?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: How did you even?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: So so let me say this, you know cause it's
Speaker 5: kind of like if you're hungry for it, if you
Speaker 5: really want it, then if you go like I really
Speaker 5: want to be an actor. I want to be an actor.
Speaker 5: You know, who's the best acting teacher? Then you know
Speaker 5: Marl you know, so like you know, a small and
Speaker 5: brand though, and so I'm like that guy, and so
Speaker 5: I just started and then I you know, you ask
Speaker 5: actors in New York who's the best acting teacher? Oh man,
Speaker 5: so on. So it's like if you went on the
Speaker 5: street right now and went on Hollywood Boulevard and he says,
Speaker 5: who are the actually just then somebody would say, I
Speaker 5: found a Chubbick is really good and so on. So
Speaker 5: fine is good? So I asked. And then you got
Speaker 5: to audition to get in. And so when I auditioned
Speaker 5: to get in, I just did characters for you just
Speaker 5: and I wasn't even thinking about doing characters today. Back
Speaker 5: then when I was really in character boy mode where
Speaker 5: I would perform, you know, I would go in you know,
Speaker 5: I made a living doing dog food commercials because I
Speaker 5: could do that in visible dog. They would bring me
Speaker 5: in and they say, okay, a little a little chiw
Speaker 5: wowow a big dog he's excited to see her, and
Speaker 5: I made money being the dog.
Speaker 1: This is the greatest episode of all time. So anyway,
Speaker 1: SR Jimmy m.
Speaker 5: So, anyway, when you say, when you say the whole
Speaker 5: thing of that teacher, I would hug her because in
Speaker 5: that moment she challenged me so hard that I was like, no,
Speaker 5: I gotta see for me. Rather than like you're right,
Speaker 5: I'm nothing, I was like no, no, no, no. And
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people get squashed like that
Speaker 5: all the time, and so that was your teacher.
Speaker 3: Imagine if some of your family remember saying that to you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know that squash feeling.
Speaker 4: So Jesus, can you answer the question now, what's what's
Speaker 4: the difference with the New York actor?
Speaker 5: What are they like? You know? What it is is
Speaker 5: that it's not a New York actor. What it is
Speaker 5: is that actors from all of the country that are
Speaker 5: really hungry go for the dream. They don't sit in
Speaker 5: like I'm in little small town in Iowa. They go like,
Speaker 5: I want it, and they're all hungry, and so they
Speaker 5: all have that same DNA of we want it. So
Speaker 5: like when you see people, it's like a bunch of
Speaker 5: eagles all come together, and you've left all the pigeons,
Speaker 5: and so all the eagles are standing there and it's like, hey, man,
Speaker 5: you want this. I want this too. You want it too? Yeah,
Speaker 5: I want it too. And so then all the eagles
Speaker 5: are together like this. So when I you know, like
Speaker 5: when I all the people that I met, like I remember,
Speaker 5: you know when you talk about half the talent in Hollywood,
Speaker 5: they all had that eagle eye. They weren't sleeping or
Speaker 5: they were up, you know, like we wanted how bad
Speaker 5: do you want? Like today, I'm coming to talk, but
Speaker 5: I really you know, I like you and I'm meeting
Speaker 5: you today and I'm like, oh this brother, Like you're
Speaker 5: about something. So I don't do podcasts. You know you're
Speaker 5: about something. And so when I see it's kind of
Speaker 5: like when you talk about people's work, it's like millions
Speaker 5: of people can hear this. You can plant see like
Speaker 5: I've been in everybody's house, but I wasn't really in
Speaker 5: your house, but I was in your house and I
Speaker 5: was planning seeds of like okay, if you see you know,
Speaker 5: like say a man me and Howard Hewett, if I
Speaker 5: believe in God, I have faith, And so I said,
Speaker 5: let me plant the seed. Boom, it's a variety show.
Speaker 5: Let me plant the seed. Hey, you know what, I'm
Speaker 5: going to put a mixture of stuff in here. Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm going to do the bowl of black to beautiful.
Speaker 5: We've never seen black people dressed up, and I said,
Speaker 5: you know, the trojan horse here is going to be
Speaker 5: that we're going to see black people being funny and everything,
Speaker 5: but we're going to see them in the best clothes
Speaker 5: and the whole thing. And so there was always an agenda,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like everything is you know,
Speaker 5: you're planning seeds, there's always an agenda behind it.
Speaker 1: Do you want some tissues? Like, I'm sorry, I need.
Speaker 5: So sorry.
Speaker 4: I'm having a real a lot because everything you're saying
Speaker 4: is everything that we feel.
Speaker 5: But you articulated that.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get some tissues and we'll take a
Speaker 3: break and then we'll come back down on Coutlov Supreme.
Speaker 3: All right, So we are back at Questlove Supreme with
Speaker 3: the Man with the Master Teacher, Robert Townsend. Okay, so
Speaker 3: I have a theory about why New York because you
Speaker 3: raised a question like what was it about New York actors?
Speaker 1: Is it simply because in the.
Speaker 3: Acting world like the ma athletes or the snob actors
Speaker 3: are their their trial by fire is the Broadway stage. Like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm an actor and I've done Broadway. So
Speaker 3: is that kind of well not the good version of
Speaker 3: the scarlet letter, but a badge of honor as opposed
Speaker 3: to just going straight to Like what was it about
Speaker 3: La that didn't call.
Speaker 1: To you that New York was calling to you?
Speaker 5: Well, you know what it is is that New York
Speaker 5: is about craft, like to get on stage. Like when
Speaker 5: you're on stage, it's just you and the stage and
Speaker 5: you don't get to go cut, you know, know, Like
Speaker 5: for me what I love when I do, you know,
Speaker 5: perform or go in. I love theater like when I
Speaker 5: was doing stand up and all of that. There's something
Speaker 5: magical like so when I see the actors in New York,
Speaker 5: they live it, they eat it, and where actors like
Speaker 5: I work with some actors when I'm directing that you know,
Speaker 5: like you got two takes, you got three takes, that
Speaker 5: said Robert four takes, and the really great actors they go,
Speaker 5: how many more you want? You want to do? Fifteen?
Speaker 5: Let's go again, rob Let's go gain and rob Let's
Speaker 5: go again. Let's go again. Now I love those actors.
Speaker 5: Now when I have actors, you have it, Robert, I
Speaker 5: think you have it. And I was like, uh no,
Speaker 5: I mean I fought with the you know, don't get
Speaker 5: me started, because because because the thing is that you know,
Speaker 5: so let me let me say this, you know, like, okay,
Speaker 5: coming into this room today, all this love, So first,
Speaker 5: let me just say thank you for all the love.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I create what I create because at the end of
Speaker 5: the day, if we get a shot to create something special,
Speaker 5: why not strive for a classic? Why not drive for
Speaker 5: a hit? Why not strive? And it's not an ego thing,
Speaker 5: but it's kind of.
Speaker 1: Like when the full advantage of the opportunity that you have,
Speaker 1: that's all, you know.
Speaker 5: The thing for me is that I love what I do.
Speaker 5: I really I love what I do. So so part
Speaker 5: of the thing for me is that I have to
Speaker 5: give it my all. And I think with New York actors,
Speaker 5: you know, and it's not all of them. There there's
Speaker 5: a select group that they focus on the craft like
Speaker 5: nobody's business. And I think it's like with comedians the
Speaker 5: same thing. There are certain artists that just focus in
Speaker 5: it like Richard Pryor would focus as all the demons
Speaker 5: he had, he would always raise that bar in terms
Speaker 5: of comedy. And so I think anytime I, you know,
Speaker 5: I try to put you know, put my heart and
Speaker 5: soul into my work, that people would want to watch
Speaker 5: it again, people would want to remember the lines. You know.
Speaker 4: My Soldier story was a good example of that, right,
Speaker 4: because that was a lot of New York actors.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that was a c that was all of
Speaker 5: you know. It's so funny because that was all of
Speaker 5: us from New York coming together because uh, Denzel, you know,
Speaker 5: we were talking, you know the other day. We were
Speaker 5: we would be at the unemployment office together, and we
Speaker 5: would be at the actors lounge together, Actors Equity Lounge,
Speaker 5: and so we were all like, Norman, you know, Norman
Speaker 5: dwisn uh you know, directed it. But Ruben Cannon cast it,
Speaker 5: and he was like, I want the best purple. He
Speaker 5: did the color purple as well, and and he just
Speaker 5: wanted the best actors that he thought for the part.
Speaker 5: Because Hollywood would go, hey, we're going to cast so
Speaker 5: and so in this part and so and so on
Speaker 5: the casting could be all wrong, and he was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: I want David Allen Grad to play this part. Adolf
Speaker 5: Caesar is going to play this part. Howards, What was
Speaker 5: it like like before you asked that?
Speaker 1: Did he cast you in the color purple? Ruben Cannon
Speaker 1: was next in the color purple?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 6: I was like, I mean I was a kid for six,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean? But yeah, I had to
Speaker 6: audition in front of him, and so I got cast
Speaker 6: as a as an extra.
Speaker 5: I was a kid.
Speaker 6: They shot it in Calina, that's my home, and so
Speaker 6: I went and auditioned and he was there and I
Speaker 6: had to read what I wasn't reading. But the scene
Speaker 6: they gave us was we had to act like you
Speaker 6: were hungry and that you were angry. So it was like,
Speaker 6: give me some jam, I'm hungry, like you were telling
Speaker 6: the parent And I'm like six years old. And so
Speaker 6: the girl I was going up against, she was nine,
Speaker 6: and she was bigger, and she was like really angry.
Speaker 6: I was like shit, she said hungry for real, you know,
Speaker 6: like she played it up so fucking big.
Speaker 1: I was like, what the fuck? And so I came
Speaker 1: out the audition and again, I'm six years old. I
Speaker 1: have no idea.
Speaker 6: What the fuck any of this shit is like, no
Speaker 6: one has told me anything, And so I came out
Speaker 6: and like, you know, I'm thinking I failed.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 6: What this is, but I feel like I did a
Speaker 6: very bad job at it because I wasn't as animated
Speaker 6: as her. But I got it, and I'm looking back
Speaker 6: on it, I think what it was was that I
Speaker 6: was so young and my fear was like kind of palpable.
Speaker 6: So being one of Mister's kids, this big Danny Glove
Speaker 6: just run around beating the shit out of everybody that
Speaker 6: worked in my advantage because I was so young and
Speaker 6: I was so small and actually scared. So I ended
Speaker 6: up getting the part as an extra foc But I
Speaker 6: remember Ruven Cannon Maan, I had audition for him.
Speaker 5: Good Man, good man man.
Speaker 3: I know that your experiences in trying to get to
Speaker 3: a particular platform led you to document and sort of
Speaker 3: hone it into a script that will eventually become Hollywood Shuffle.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, can you talk about it? It's still relevant today, right.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about the experiences you had as an
Speaker 3: actor during the shuffle, the audition shuffle, the trying to
Speaker 3: figure out where you fit in and all those things.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, so so back then I'm living Keenan
Speaker 5: Ivory WANs. Keenan moved to la first, and then Keenan says, hey, Rob,
Speaker 5: these people are moving slow. I'm living in New York
Speaker 5: at the time. How did you two meet. We were
Speaker 5: both at the both comedians at the Improv in Manhattan.
Speaker 5: We were auditioning. We were online to audition and we
Speaker 5: were the only two brothers online. And Keenan was coming
Speaker 5: home from Tuskegee because he was in college at Tuskegee,
Speaker 5: and so we were auditioning and he was there that summer,
Speaker 5: and then we were hanging out like, yeah, bro, I'm
Speaker 5: trying to do it. I'm trying to do it too, man. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know. And then Keenan was like, he goes, I
Speaker 5: got to do this for my family. And then he
Speaker 5: took me into the Chelsea Projects one time, and I
Speaker 5: go in there and it's like it's a four bedroom
Speaker 5: house and it's like all these kids and I see Marlon,
Speaker 5: I see Sean, I see Kim and they're all like
Speaker 5: these babies. And we used to walk from forty fifth
Speaker 5: and ninth Avenue the Improv to Pearl's place on ninety
Speaker 5: six on the East Side and walk and we would
Speaker 5: be talking about our dreams and it's like, man, and
Speaker 5: then one day I'm gonna be on the Tonight Show. Man,
Speaker 5: We're gonna make movies, says I'm gonna get my family,
Speaker 5: my whole family out of there. And it was like,
Speaker 5: you know, So that's how we met. So we had
Speaker 5: this thing about family and just success and winning.
Speaker 6: Winky Dinky dogs. Right, man, So you made that first
Speaker 6: movie shovel credit Cards.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, ight, talk about it. Man, So let me
Speaker 5: explain the route there.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I want to know the route too.
Speaker 5: So I'm a young actor in New York. Now I'm
Speaker 5: doing dog food commercials making money. I'm doing extra work.
Speaker 5: I was in the Warriors, I was in the Whiz
Speaker 5: as an extra, one of the citizens of Emerald City.
Speaker 5: You're gonna come back to that, you know, And so
Speaker 5: you know, I'm having these experiences and I'm like an extra.
Speaker 1: And then do you have an agent?
Speaker 3: I hate to interrupt you, I'm sorry, but you're dropping
Speaker 3: so many gyms.
Speaker 5: Do you have an agent?
Speaker 1: By this point?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, see in New York back then, you could
Speaker 5: have many agents because whoever got you the job first?
Speaker 5: Whoever got you the job first, so you'd be registered
Speaker 5: with this agent, that agent, that agent, that is agent,
Speaker 5: and then whatever the job came in, whoever got to
Speaker 5: you first, cause they didn't want to sign people like
Speaker 5: you're signed exclusively, so they'd go, like you could freelancer.
Speaker 5: So you've got nine agents or seven, six of the
Speaker 5: top people and commercial theater, film, television, whoever got to you?
Speaker 3: What is it like showing up on the because you're
Speaker 3: talking about like Mahogany and Cooley High and the Whiz
Speaker 3: and all these things.
Speaker 1: What's going through your mind?
Speaker 3: Like your first day on the set, like looking at
Speaker 3: are you I remember talking to the actors?
Speaker 5: Or I just remember the first day, Like when you
Speaker 5: talk about Mahogany, that was in Chicago. We were in
Speaker 5: the Cole and it was Billy D doing this speech
Speaker 5: and then I was behind and then and that was
Speaker 5: in another scene behind Diana Ross in the welfare line.
Speaker 5: She's like I want to get my old man back.
Speaker 5: And then but I just remember being out there, and
Speaker 5: it's like you talk about being it, you know, like
Speaker 5: like like my impressionist skills kick in because I was
Speaker 5: watching Billy D and it was like he was like
Speaker 5: I was watching his mouth and then I was just
Speaker 5: studying him, and it's like, you know, the polls say
Speaker 5: we're way behind. You know, the polls say we're way behind.
Speaker 5: And then it's like you on my arm to fall off.
Speaker 5: You know. It was like the way he talked with
Speaker 5: his mouth, and so.
Speaker 1: I channel someone.
Speaker 3: How long does it take before you actually nail them? Like,
Speaker 3: cause that's that's a gift where you.
Speaker 5: It's not you know, you know, you know it's so funny.
Speaker 5: It's like I can watch and listen and then there's
Speaker 5: a certain like if I really study, like I haven't
Speaker 5: done it in years, but back then, you know, it's
Speaker 5: kind of like like Jeffrey Stoart there's a certain sound
Speaker 5: in his voice or Bill Cosby, because you see there's
Speaker 5: a sound, there's a sound, and so I would hear
Speaker 5: different things. And so when I watched, I was out
Speaker 5: there in Nicole watching him, and I just remember that
Speaker 5: whole speech, and I would just do it and then
Speaker 5: when I got home, you know, I would do it
Speaker 5: like James Earl Jones, you know, like you see the
Speaker 5: daddy gotta beat the breadwind the claud the way of
Speaker 5: faw and the hip down frown.
Speaker 1: Wait what is stopping you from being just black rich little?
Speaker 1: Because I was the thing.
Speaker 5: I was a voice, like you know, you know, here's
Speaker 5: the thing I enjoyed. So let me say this. I've
Speaker 5: been working on a one man show about my life
Speaker 5: and I think it's it's it's I did it. I
Speaker 5: did it in Berkeley, you know, because of Richard Pryor.
Speaker 5: Because Richard Pryor broke away and went to Berkeley. And
Speaker 5: my friend Don Reid was like, you know, Rob, there's
Speaker 5: a theater up here in Berkeley. So I was working
Speaker 5: the show up there, and then now I'm going to
Speaker 5: take the show, you know, and workshopping in New York,
Speaker 5: you know, at the Public Jesus Christ. So so I'm
Speaker 5: in the middle of that. I will follow, Okay, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. So anyway, it's all the stories
Speaker 5: about my life. But I was, you know, I'll just
Speaker 5: say like this, God has blessed me with a lot
Speaker 5: of talent, so I can write, I can direct, I
Speaker 5: can produce, and I'm a performer. But when I was
Speaker 5: doing the stand up, you know, when I was doing
Speaker 5: all of that, then I started doing movies and I
Speaker 5: started you know. So then Hollywood Shuffle came out of that.
Speaker 3: How good is a living being in the extra in
Speaker 3: the seventies in the eighties, like as far as survivals concerned,
Speaker 3: like what is is the pay good enough for you
Speaker 3: to say okay?
Speaker 1: Or do you also have to like working a bolub
Speaker 1: or you know?
Speaker 5: Well, see, I was, I was hustling. I was such
Speaker 5: a hustler back then. I still am, but it was
Speaker 5: like back then, I was like hustling really hard. So
Speaker 5: I did my extra work. I did television commercials because
Speaker 5: I would always say I could have dignity in sixty seconds,
Speaker 5: so I I could, you know, like they're one of
Speaker 5: my commercials. Somebody just put on social media and it
Speaker 5: was like, this is Eddie. Eddie's trying to get a job.
Speaker 5: Eddie's trying to get an education, He's working hard. That's
Speaker 5: why we're working with Eddie, you know. And and I
Speaker 5: was playing I was Eddie, you know, And so it's
Speaker 5: just it's just somebody just posted it like two days ago.
Speaker 1: Origin like what are our expectations? He's working at McDonald's.
Speaker 5: I was, I was the original Calvin. So I did
Speaker 5: TV commercials, I would do theater every now and then,
Speaker 5: and like I said, my dog few commercials and then
Speaker 5: I was doing you know, I was I would do
Speaker 5: the demos for for Bill Cosby for the Ford back then,
Speaker 5: so I would They would say Bill Cosby's not coming in,
Speaker 5: can you do the voice? And it's like there's something
Speaker 5: about Ford motors that I like, you know, And I
Speaker 5: would do all the voices. So I was like doing
Speaker 5: different things and auditioning for the movies. And then I
Speaker 5: and I was auditioning for all that stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I was the extra work didn't pay. But I got
Speaker 5: to tell you, Okay, this is one story is that
Speaker 5: when I was doing the film called The Warriors, Warriers
Speaker 5: come out and playa I was in the Riffs. So
Speaker 5: if you don't know the movie, there's a gang someming
Speaker 5: in New York City. All the gangs come together and
Speaker 5: then the leader of the gang, Cyrus, is shot, and
Speaker 5: then they go who did it? The Warriors and the
Speaker 5: whole movies about the Warriors trying to get home. So anyway,
Speaker 5: I was in his gang, Cyrus's gang. So we were
Speaker 5: in Central Park shooting for five days in Central Park
Speaker 5: in the middle of the night. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 5: They had like seven hundred and eight hundred people out there.
Speaker 5: Now there was there were probably one hundred actors and
Speaker 5: the rest were real gang members. Oh and so here's
Speaker 5: how here's how I changed my life in one night.
Speaker 5: So anyways, they've got all the gang members and everything,
Speaker 5: and the prop department hands out chains, bottles, sticks and
Speaker 5: all this stuff. And so then you heard the first
Speaker 5: ad goes, when you hear the gunshot, then start running
Speaker 5: and use your weapons. And people were getting hurt, you know,
Speaker 5: people like where is the sag rep where is the saga?
Speaker 5: And I was seeing people get hurt, and the gang
Speaker 5: members they was loving. It's like, I'm gonna hear somebody
Speaker 5: else with this change next day, I want.
Speaker 1: To knock somebody out with this chain.
Speaker 5: And so then I was like, oh man, I don't
Speaker 5: want to get hurt. So then this is where the
Speaker 5: writer director Robert Townsend was born. Cyrus's body fell over there,
Speaker 5: and so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: be the one soldier that won't run. I'll just run
Speaker 5: to the body and protect the body. So then that
Speaker 5: way I won't get hit by nothing. So then they
Speaker 5: go at camera a camera b comera see and action,
Speaker 5: and everybody starts running chaos, and I run to the body,
Speaker 5: and I stay near the body, and I stand in
Speaker 5: the body, and I'm standing near the body, and then
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, I hear over the speaker the
Speaker 5: first a d goes the guy near the body, stay
Speaker 5: near the body, and so then they go cut. First
Speaker 5: ad runs over to me, says, what's your name? I go,
Speaker 5: Robert Townsend. He goes, the director love what you did.
Speaker 5: You just got upgraded. Now I was supposed to make
Speaker 5: sixty six dollars. Then I made two hundred and sixty
Speaker 5: stretch back. Then that was rich. And so then the
Speaker 5: other actors are coming over like why didn't you run?
Speaker 5: Like everybody else is to run, And so then something
Speaker 5: strange happened. Then all of a sudden, we took a
Speaker 5: twenty minute break, and then they go, okay, we're coming back.
Speaker 5: And then when I came back, I was standing where
Speaker 5: I was standing, and then they had everybody standing around
Speaker 5: me because the Walter Hill, the director, loved what I did.
Speaker 5: And then all of a sudden he goes, oh, wait
Speaker 5: a minute, that's right. There would be somebody that would
Speaker 5: stay with the body, not everybody would run. Away and
Speaker 5: then it looks like, you know, it's not in the film,
Speaker 5: but it you know. But I got stills from it
Speaker 5: because I pretended to be my own business manager. I'm
Speaker 5: not sure Childlen would like to get some stills. He
Speaker 5: was in the film and they cut his part out,
Speaker 5: but he'd like to can we come over. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: send a young black guy over there to take a
Speaker 5: look at it, pretend to be myself, you know. And
Speaker 5: so I went over and I got photos of it.
Speaker 5: But that day I was like, I changed the scene.
Speaker 5: I said, I changed the scene. And so then it
Speaker 5: was like the seed of being a director was planned
Speaker 5: because and he says, you get upgraded, and then I
Speaker 5: was like upgraded and he was like, yeah, you're gonna
Speaker 5: make and I was like a silent bit and I
Speaker 5: was like and so then every time I walked on
Speaker 5: the set, even though I was an extra on like
Speaker 5: I was a director. What are we shooting today? What's
Speaker 5: the first shot?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: I got to ask, since you're in New York and
Speaker 3: you're sort of a degree of common well, that's the thing, like,
Speaker 3: because you're also talking about stand up, which I think
Speaker 3: is a whole nother animal.
Speaker 1: Besides theater acting or acting acting.
Speaker 3: At this point, is what's happening at thirty rock in
Speaker 3: in your radar at all with Saturday Night Live? Like
Speaker 3: by this point, I'm assuming it's the late seventies early eighties, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know that Saturday Night Live is a thing.
Speaker 5: And I auditioned for Saturday Night Live?
Speaker 2: What year?
Speaker 5: So you don't know the history, Okay, So here's the history.
Speaker 5: I am at the improvisation and back then, Jay Lennol's
Speaker 5: the host, you got Billy Crystal, you got Rodney danger Phield,
Speaker 5: you got Robin Williams. Everybody's there, and I'm one of
Speaker 5: the few brothers there. And I do my characters and
Speaker 5: still Friedman, who just recently passed. She got the club
Speaker 5: from Bud Freeman in the divorce, and so she runs
Speaker 5: the club and I am doing my stand up and
Speaker 5: doing it. So Saturday Night Live is looking for somebody
Speaker 5: to be on the show, and so I put together
Speaker 5: all my characters and they go, you got to have
Speaker 5: an audition. And I go into the audition and I'm
Speaker 5: just like like today you're you're feeling my characters and
Speaker 5: what I do. But then you know, like I'm a
Speaker 5: kid and I'm like, po po. And so I get
Speaker 5: done with the audition and I'm like, I think I
Speaker 5: smoked it. I think I really smoked it. And so
Speaker 5: then they go, you didn't get it. My agent calls
Speaker 5: and says, you didn't get it. I said, but you know,
Speaker 5: I said, it felt good in my spirit. I felt
Speaker 5: like I was doing it. And they go like, well,
Speaker 5: they're going to go with this guy named Eddie Murphy,
Speaker 5: and so Keenan knows him from Long Island and from
Speaker 5: Roosevelt Island, and he goes, you know, like, Eddie's really good,
Speaker 5: and I said, oh, okay, okay, okay, I said, I guess.
Speaker 5: So then cut to a book comes out about Saturday
Speaker 5: Night Live and so Gene Dominion or I think her
Speaker 5: name is, she's so she I think she wrote a
Speaker 5: book or something. So then I started seeing all this
Speaker 5: stuff on social media like Rabbert Town's supposed to be
Speaker 5: on Saturday Live, Robert Town's supposed to be he lost
Speaker 5: out to Eddie Murphy. And I was like, what what what?
Speaker 5: What is this end of the book. I guess I
Speaker 5: really did give a great audition, and they were there
Speaker 5: was a big war in the room because they were like, no,
Speaker 5: he can do the voices and the characters and dah
Speaker 5: da da da da da dah you know, but I mean,
Speaker 5: here's the thing. Only be one. No, we can only
Speaker 5: pick one. We can only pick one. So so so
Speaker 5: so in the book it came out that that's really
Speaker 5: that that I was up for it. And then in
Speaker 5: the ninth hour, I guess this guy Neil said no
Speaker 5: we should go. I mean, but here's the everything worked out.
Speaker 5: But it was just, you know, like how you have
Speaker 5: something and you go like, I think I really did
Speaker 5: good in there. And then later on when the book
Speaker 5: came out, they says like they were debating on this
Speaker 5: new comedian named Robert Townsend.
Speaker 1: So you found out how close you would have came. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. All right, So I totally interrupted your story
Speaker 1: from hallywid shuffle, yes, making making that Now what's one?
Speaker 1: I was like, what's the straw?
Speaker 3: What's the straw that breaks the camel's back that leads
Speaker 3: to all right, I gotta do this.
Speaker 1: Is this a string of close but no cigar like
Speaker 1: lost Rolls.
Speaker 5: Or that sort of thing, or no, it is the
Speaker 5: day I have the uh, the worst audition of my life.
Speaker 5: And so there is a director from England. He's doing
Speaker 5: a movie about pimps and hustlers. And so I go
Speaker 5: into audition and uh, I'm depressed already. And so anyway
Speaker 5: he humiliates me. He goes, no, no, no, no, you
Speaker 5: get out of the cadillac. He's a bad mofo.
Speaker 7: You know you seond I know you're holding out on
Speaker 7: me how And then I want you to say b
Speaker 7: uch be oach be and uh do it again this
Speaker 7: time and this time you stick your ass out? Can
Speaker 7: you stick your ass out? You black guys have big asses?
Speaker 7: Can you move your big ass around?
Speaker 5: You know? Okay, okay, you're me to do it. Okay,
Speaker 5: hold your cock? Do you call?
Speaker 1: Do you say dick?
Speaker 5: Cock cock dick? Hold your cock?
Speaker 1: Answer?
Speaker 5: This is real?
Speaker 1: And so then what is this director? Director?
Speaker 5: Before? I didn't I didn't know. I was just young.
Speaker 5: So anyway, I finished the audition and I'm outside the
Speaker 5: room and I'm you know, like you're it's like you're
Speaker 5: a cell out at that point. You just want the
Speaker 5: job and you're selling your soul and I and I
Speaker 5: had sold my because I was like, you know, would
Speaker 5: you know, would you like see a dick adjustment? You
Speaker 5: know anything you can, I could do differently, you know.
Speaker 5: I was like selling, and he was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: it's fine, it's fine. No, no, no, don't apologize. Don't apologize,
Speaker 5: don't apologize. And so I walk out and the door
Speaker 5: is cracked open and I can hear him talking and
Speaker 5: he goes, he's all wrong, he's all wrong. I I
Speaker 5: need a nigga wow. And he's just screaming and so
Speaker 5: and so I leave and I'm like, damn, that's what
Speaker 5: they think of me. Damn. So then I go to
Speaker 5: Keenan's house and you know, and uh, Keenan sees a
Speaker 5: look on my face. And you know, Keenan Keenan because
Speaker 5: he has ten brothers and sisters. He would always cook
Speaker 5: and he could cook his butt off. So keen is
Speaker 5: in there cooking and he goes and he goes cockballs
Speaker 5: and I was like so mad. I was like, Keenan, this,
Speaker 5: We're gonna die doing this bullshit. Man. I said, fuck this, man,
Speaker 5: we gotta do something. And then that thing came out
Speaker 5: of my spirit and I was like, we got to
Speaker 5: make our own movies.
Speaker 1: And what year is this in which you declare that
Speaker 1: this is uh eighty.
Speaker 5: Three Wow, this is eighty three, and so Keene goes,
Speaker 5: Rob you never directed anything, never made a short film.
Speaker 5: You know, you're talking about making a movie. And I
Speaker 5: was like, if we don't do this, we're gonna die.
Speaker 5: We'll figure it out. Let's make a movie. And I
Speaker 5: had done you know, I was making money on my
Speaker 5: dogful commercials, so I'd make a lot of money. And
Speaker 5: I had just done a soldier story with Denzel and
Speaker 5: so I had like sixty thousand dollars saved in the bank.
Speaker 5: And I was like, you know, and everybody was like,
Speaker 5: you know, you're gonna get a Porsche, You'll get a
Speaker 5: jag What you gonna do with that money? And I
Speaker 5: was like, let's make a movie. And it was like,
Speaker 5: but you never did it before, And I said, that
Speaker 5: doesn't it doesn't look hard. I've been on enough sets
Speaker 5: I could do we could do this. We could do this.
Speaker 5: And I basically taught myself how to make a film,
Speaker 5: and we everything we did. The film was shot in
Speaker 5: twelve days, The whole film twelve of the hardest days
Speaker 5: of my life. I'm co writing with Keene.
Speaker 1: I mean all the things from soup and nuts, like, so.
Speaker 5: I have sixty thousand in the bank, right, And so
Speaker 5: then I go, let's just make Keenan and I, you know,
Speaker 5: we started writing and we're like, lit's is make a
Speaker 5: movie about our lives, and like people say, write what
Speaker 5: you know, let's just start writing. It's like, let's do
Speaker 5: that audition, let's do that part. Okay, hey, you know,
Speaker 5: and you know what, and let's show them what we
Speaker 5: who we are. So I says I want to always
Speaker 5: play a detective, and he goes, yeah, we could play
Speaker 5: a detective and then I could play the bad guy.
Speaker 5: Why don't we call him Jerry Dude, that'll be perfect.
Speaker 5: So then I'll be Sam a'ce like Humphrey Bogard wants
Speaker 5: in the movies and stead and Hmry Boguard, I'm Sam
Speaker 5: Ace and I'll be cool like saying, and we do
Speaker 5: it in black and white, yeah, yea yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And then it's like there's no point and what you're
Speaker 1: just like we're in over our heads.
Speaker 5: Who we kidding? Like, you know, because because you know,
Speaker 5: I call it the salami theory. A salami is a
Speaker 5: piece of meat like this, and you just cut off
Speaker 5: one little piece, one little piece, And so I just
Speaker 5: knew to cut off one little piece at a time.
Speaker 5: I wasn't trying to go like ah. I was like, okay,
Speaker 5: this is how much I have for my rent and
Speaker 5: my gas and my car. We can't touch that, so
Speaker 5: we don't take everything else and put it on the table.
Speaker 5: So then how much does it cost to make to catering?
Speaker 5: We could do pasta, we could do chicken, We could
Speaker 5: do so and so on and get it. You know,
Speaker 5: da da da da. We could get the pastries and
Speaker 5: blah blah blah blah blah. So craft service taken care
Speaker 5: of hey. Back then, you could rent the camera on
Speaker 5: a Thursday, say you're gonna shoot for one day, and
Speaker 5: then you go like I missed the deadline. I'll bring
Speaker 5: it back on Monday. So then you shoot for your
Speaker 5: whole weekend, and then you shot with short ends. So
Speaker 5: I called Norman Jewison from a Soldier story and Ron Swore,
Speaker 5: the producer, and I said, I'm gonna make a movie.
Speaker 5: Can I have the leftover film from a soldier store?
Speaker 5: And he goes, you know, they call me Bob, Bobby,
Speaker 5: take it all, Bobby, take it all, take it all.
Speaker 5: So then I get the leftover film. And for those
Speaker 5: of you don't know short ends. Okay, a short end.
Speaker 5: So the concept of short ends, for those of you
Speaker 5: understand film, is that a magazine to shoot to load
Speaker 5: on the old school cameras was ten minutes long. If
Speaker 5: the scene is seven minutes, you have three minutes of
Speaker 5: them left over. You can't do the whole take again,
Speaker 5: so you just have three minutes to go get another
Speaker 5: mag so that three minutes of film. Nobody can really
Speaker 5: shoot anything with three minutes. I go give it to me.
Speaker 5: So if I've got to do one scene and go
Speaker 5: like sometimes I only had like a minute of film
Speaker 5: and I just say just say winki nicky dog, and
Speaker 5: it's like wiki, Dicky Dog. We got it. It is
Speaker 5: rolled out. Okay, let's go moving on and so reload, reload, reload,
Speaker 5: And so it would just be going that fast and
Speaker 5: that quick and short end short ends we couldn't afford
Speaker 5: the high editing places. So Keenan is always like, this
Speaker 5: is where we got into that brain thing. Because Keenan
Speaker 5: was like, he says, Rob, where do they edit pornos at?
Speaker 5: Because if we go to a porno place, we can
Speaker 5: really edit over there. And so they said, I hear
Speaker 5: in Chadsworth they got porno places, so we went there initially,
Speaker 5: what got a deal to edit porno? It's me and
Speaker 5: sixteen porn editors. And I had never heard anybody. I
Speaker 5: had never heard anybody direct porn. So then you hear like,
Speaker 5: You're like, I'm walking down the hall waiting on my cut,
Speaker 5: and then I can look in other people's room. I
Speaker 5: look in the room and then you see the editor
Speaker 5: there and he are cigarette and he's editing, and he's
Speaker 5: doing the whole thing. And you can hear the extor's voice.
Speaker 5: Put your leg down, put your leg down, enjoy it,
Speaker 5: enjoy it. Put your head back, put your head back,
Speaker 5: put your leg down, put your head back. Look, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, and they're just yeah, cockballs, right. And so
Speaker 5: the actors, you know, my whole thing was, look, i'm
Speaker 5: gonna make this movie, and I'm gonna take you through
Speaker 5: boot camp because I started in theater when I was
Speaker 5: a kid. So I said, we're gonna do acting exercises,
Speaker 5: and we did we actor exercises, warm ups and all
Speaker 5: of that, rehearsing, rehearsing.
Speaker 3: Wait, how did you even rally the troops? Everybody wasn't
Speaker 3: a Marie Johnson sort of established.
Speaker 5: No, nobody was established.
Speaker 3: I've seen her on extras and no, not that. The
Speaker 3: first time I've ever seen her was Hollywood Shuffle.
Speaker 5: I mean she had done little things, but not really
Speaker 5: like popping.
Speaker 1: Okay, but even like John Witherspoon, and.
Speaker 5: You know John hadn't really John had done stuff, but
Speaker 5: it was you know, it was like there was a
Speaker 5: time when it was like the Black Exploitation, which was
Speaker 5: not exploitation, it was just movies where we with the leads.
Speaker 5: You had that period with Melvin Van Peebles and all
Speaker 5: of them's and Michael Schultz and Cooley High and then
Speaker 5: there was like a little bit of pause where there
Speaker 5: were no movies like where we were. And then Spike
Speaker 5: was in New York doing She's Got to Have It,
Speaker 5: while I was in LA working on Hollywood Shuffle. Okay,
Speaker 5: So that was that time. And so there were actors
Speaker 5: that were working, but the work at work wasn't consistent.
Speaker 5: So then the thing for me was to say, look,
Speaker 5: I don't have any money to pay you, but when
Speaker 5: you're gonna have a great time, we're gonna make a movie.
Speaker 5: We're gonna make history, you know, And we're kicking over
Speaker 5: here at the craft services. That was right, that was right.
Speaker 5: And so they were like, he's gonna feed us, and
Speaker 5: he's gonna do this and so and I will have
Speaker 5: respect for your time. I will all have day jobs, right,
Speaker 5: all have day jobs. And so we shoot on the weekends.
Speaker 5: So I will get you in and get you out.
Speaker 5: And so the one thing I learned early on was
Speaker 5: I know how to plan. And so I was I
Speaker 5: did the call sheets, and I knew we had to
Speaker 5: be invisible so that people wouldn't break shut us down.
Speaker 5: So I go, We're gonna shoot at this house, but
Speaker 5: park three blocks away, and here's where you can park,
Speaker 5: and then walk over. And hey, don't hang out in
Speaker 5: front of the house, hang in the back. Please be quiet,
Speaker 5: so that we could shoot, shoot, shoot, and then we're gone.
Speaker 5: And then by the time we shot all of our
Speaker 5: outdoor stuff like the Black Acting School, Sunday morning. Sunday morning,
Speaker 5: people met at my house at five o'clock. We went
Speaker 5: to Nicholas Canyon, Nichols Canyon and laid everything out.
Speaker 1: Jumped into the mountain.
Speaker 5: Yeah where we go, you know? Yeah? So and so
Speaker 5: by the time, well, what.
Speaker 1: About like the beauty shop where Amerby Johnson worked at.
Speaker 5: Like that was in We made a deal where we said, hey,
Speaker 5: we will pay one hundred dollars plus clean up, you know,
Speaker 5: for a couple of weeks if you let us shoot.
Speaker 5: And that was like on Crenshaw. So we just you know,
Speaker 5: for the movie theater.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: The movie theater was the old Baldwin Theater that's not
Speaker 5: there anymore, and it was owned by these two brothers
Speaker 5: and basically we just said, you know, hey, we don't
Speaker 5: have a lot of money to pay you, you know,
Speaker 5: but we'll clean up. We'll mop the floors. And I
Speaker 5: think I mopped that theater for about a couple of
Speaker 5: weeks after it was done. And they said, hey, you
Speaker 5: can shoot, but you got to be out before the
Speaker 5: movie starts at eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: It was an active movie theater, and you guys would
Speaker 1: shoot on the off hours.
Speaker 5: What we shot before the movie started, like back then
Speaker 5: the morning in the morning. We shot in the morning
Speaker 5: so we'd get there. I think we got there like
Speaker 5: a four o'clock set up, started shooting. We had to
Speaker 5: wrap out by ten thirty and then the movie started
Speaker 5: at eleven.
Speaker 3: Dude, the same way that The Disaster Artist was made
Speaker 3: about the room. Oh yeah, I need a movie made
Speaker 3: about how this movie got made. First met a movie
Speaker 3: about making a movie about a movie about someone that
Speaker 3: didn't get to make movies.
Speaker 1: So continue.
Speaker 5: So everybody that I had ever auditioned against, you know,
Speaker 5: because the other thing is that you go like, oh
Speaker 5: that guy is really a good actor, or oh I've
Speaker 5: seen her and stuff before, she's really good. And so
Speaker 5: everybody I ever auditioned again and said, Hey, I'm trying
Speaker 5: to do this movie. Do you mind being in the
Speaker 5: movie with me? And they were like, sure, have you
Speaker 5: ever directed us? Says no, you know, I said, but
Speaker 5: they knew coming out of the theater. I knew what
Speaker 5: I was talking about because I had been in theater.
Speaker 5: So everybody said yes, and and I said, you know,
Speaker 5: I won't take my money first. Your money will be
Speaker 5: the first money. As soon as the money comes in,
Speaker 5: you're you will get paid first. And so that was
Speaker 5: the best day of it.
Speaker 1: I made a spect deal like if this goes to
Speaker 1: the theater and makes money and whatnot.
Speaker 5: There was no deal. It was my word. It was
Speaker 5: my word because I we didn't have a lawyer or anything,
Speaker 5: so it was just my word, like I go, you
Speaker 5: have my word. If there's nothing on paper, you know
Speaker 5: so so so basically, so here's here's the deal. So
Speaker 5: that was the happiest day of my life because when
Speaker 5: the film is done, I'm just going to jump ahead
Speaker 5: a little bit and come back. But when the film
Speaker 5: is done, I say to the Samuel Gowan Company, Sam
Speaker 5: Gohan says, I love this. I want to distribute it.
Speaker 5: And so then I say, hey, can I get my
Speaker 5: check like now? And he goes like, well, you know
Speaker 5: why you like you need it? He says, I said, well,
Speaker 5: I charged the rest of the movie on credit cards.
Speaker 5: And he was like, you charge your film on credit cards?
Speaker 5: And I was like yeah, And so then I go
Speaker 5: it's like forty thousand dollars and I need that money
Speaker 5: like now. And he was like, you did, and he says,
Speaker 5: this is the best story ever. And I told him,
Speaker 5: I said, hey, I couldn't pay for you know, food,
Speaker 5: but I could charge it. I said, I couldn't put
Speaker 5: you know. So I went through how I did all this,
Speaker 5: the charging. So then he goes, he goes, we'll do
Speaker 5: that and we'll take care everything I said. But the
Speaker 5: first thing is that I got to pay all these
Speaker 5: actors because I said, I told him, and so he says, okay.
Speaker 5: He says, how soon do you want to do it?
Speaker 5: We're going to sign a deal. And I said, how
Speaker 5: soon can you do it? And he goes, you know,
Speaker 5: it's it's Thursday. He says, it's going to take me
Speaker 5: some time to get it together for Friday. I said,
Speaker 5: can we do it Sunday at my house? And so
Speaker 5: Sunday at my house. I was living on Orange Drive
Speaker 5: and right off a mail Rose and I said, tall,
Speaker 5: just meet meet at my house at this time. The
Speaker 5: accountant from the Golden Company is going to be there.
Speaker 5: I have a one bedroom. You'll meet, you'll sign your
Speaker 5: contract in the bedroom. You'll wait in the living room.
Speaker 5: I have drinks and food and everything. And they got
Speaker 5: their checks before I got mine, and they all did
Speaker 5: it and came in my bedroom and they signed their
Speaker 5: contracts and that was the happiest day, you know, my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what act specific? We want to ask you about
Speaker 1: Loudi Washington, Yes, sir, what dogs we played? Don Michael Jackson's.
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: That did Gregory right? He's he's just one of them actors.
Speaker 5: That Livy showed up, you know, because there were certain
Speaker 5: people that Uh, Jackie Brown was the casting director because
Speaker 5: there were certain people that we knew and people that
Speaker 5: we didn't know, and Loudy showed up and just and
Speaker 5: and here's the thing.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: I worked at a place called Yankee Doodle Dandy in
Speaker 5: Chicago and Keenan worked at McDonald's in New York, and
Speaker 5: so we both combined our experiences and so Ludi was
Speaker 5: one of the cats that we they we used to
Speaker 5: work with.
Speaker 1: It was like yeah, yah, yeah, yeah, whose idea was
Speaker 1: it about hoe cakes?
Speaker 3: Because the only person I ever heard mentioned hoe cakes
Speaker 3: was James Brown on Live of the Power Volume three
Speaker 3: where he talks about.
Speaker 5: That was John Weatherspoon. Spoon was improvising Spoon. Here's the
Speaker 5: thing again, when you ask these people say, hey, I'm
Speaker 5: going to do a movie, and you haven't done a
Speaker 5: movie before, and they were like, what is the hell
Speaker 5: are you? Who do you?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: And so he was like, man, whatever you want me
Speaker 5: to do, and John Weatherspoon was like, he would just
Speaker 5: give you the world. And so when I said, okay,
Speaker 5: this is a flashback now, he's down and out and
Speaker 5: so and so on and so on and so then
Speaker 5: and John just started going off and I had never
Speaker 5: heard Hoe Cakes either, and I just thought it was
Speaker 5: just brilliant.
Speaker 1: At that point, did you know who.
Speaker 3: Melvin Van Peeples was and that that was his exact
Speaker 3: experience making Sweet Sweetbacks?
Speaker 5: Badass? You know, I didn't know anything because I you know,
Speaker 5: I kind of knew some directors, but I didn't know
Speaker 5: because I wasn't like I'm going to be an independent filmmaker.
Speaker 5: I was just so fed up that I just go,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to complain. I never complained. It's like,
Speaker 5: let me just do something about it. Let's take action.
Speaker 5: So then later on I discovered who he was in
Speaker 5: his films, Well.
Speaker 3: Probably the most established person of that ensembles maybe Patrese Russian,
Speaker 3: who by then was a platinum selling yes artist. So
Speaker 3: how did you get her involved in the scoring of
Speaker 3: the film and all that stuff?
Speaker 5: Well, you know what it was was that because I
Speaker 5: love movies, I know that music is really important, and
Speaker 5: so I was looking for different people and then sending
Speaker 5: stuff to different people's agents, you know, because even though
Speaker 5: we were small, it was like it's a small film,
Speaker 5: but you know, at that point, we had something in
Speaker 5: the can that people could look at. So her agent
Speaker 5: reached out and sent us a thing her real because
Speaker 5: she had never really composed. She had done you know, music,
Speaker 5: but then it's like you know how people go like
Speaker 5: you know and even Sam going, you know, they were
Speaker 5: like and like, wait, you know you got an artist.
Speaker 5: Maybe they can't compose. Maybe they you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: two different skills like songwriter versus a So, so I
Speaker 5: met with her and she was like, I'd love to
Speaker 5: do it, and you know, it's just kind of like
Speaker 5: for me, there aren't a whole back then. They might
Speaker 5: be a little bit more now, but there weren't a
Speaker 5: lot of black women composers or black women musical directors.
Speaker 5: So when she said, hey, I want to do it,
Speaker 5: you know, I knew her music, but then I saw
Speaker 5: her passion to like I can give you some music
Speaker 5: underneath here and I can do this and I can
Speaker 5: do this. And then when I did Partners in Crime,
Speaker 5: I said, you could be my musical director and come up,
Speaker 5: you know, it could be the play ons, playoffs and
Speaker 5: so and then she went on to do the you know,
Speaker 5: the Emmys and every thing. So you know, it's just
Speaker 5: like but it's just seeing it, just seeing it.
Speaker 1: So what's is there a moment of for you, like
Speaker 1: like completion.
Speaker 3: Is it after the first screening of it at whatever?
Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys did a premiere or not.
Speaker 3: Is it when Eddie Murphy hears about this and rents
Speaker 3: out the theater to see it, Like, at what point
Speaker 3: do you realize that, holy shit, this is going to
Speaker 3: be a thing.
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 5: Let me say this, when we were putting it together,
Speaker 5: editing and doing the whole thing, you know, Keenan and
Speaker 5: I we it made us laugh. We don't it's like
Speaker 5: if we really laugh, like on this Jerry Curl stuff.
Speaker 5: We were laughing and it was just us right laughing,
Speaker 5: having a good time. So I wasn't really like everyone's
Speaker 5: gonna love this. It really doesn't.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: There's a part that you want to be loved, and
Speaker 5: then there's another part like I just want to do
Speaker 5: what makes me happy. I just period, And I think
Speaker 5: we were being true to that.
Speaker 4: Okay, QLs fam, this is where we're stopping part one.
Speaker 4: And I know you heard a mirror say it during
Speaker 4: the episode, but I have got to reiterate this Yere
Speaker 4: episode is top ten Quest Love Supreme episodes of all time. Okay,
Speaker 4: And you know, every year, Quest Love Supreme celebrates Black
Speaker 4: History Month. You know I do it every day, but anyway,
Speaker 4: Robert Townsend is Black history, which means.
Speaker 5: What class He's American history.
Speaker 4: So make sure you come back for part two next
Speaker 4: week or check out the podcast. In the second part
Speaker 4: of this conversation, he speaks about.
Speaker 5: Meteor Man and his talent and now Emmy Award winning daughters,
Speaker 5: Guy and so much more.
Speaker 4: Okay, can y'all tell I really love this conversation.
Speaker 5: Make sure you come back.
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