Speaker 1: My darling. I gotta tell you, I'm always thrilled to
Speaker 1: speak to you. So Jeremy's boyfriend and me and my
Speaker 1: boyfriend are good friends. But when we walked down the street,
Speaker 1: I do talk to Jeremy, Moore and Anderson and are
Speaker 1: one a kind of like the grown ups, and me
Speaker 1: and Jeremy are kind of like the kids who were like, well,
Speaker 1: let's get candy, and my other guys are like, let's
Speaker 1: get carfy. Let's Kenny and Calf. Me exactly. Hello, I'm
Speaker 1: mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always loved
Speaker 1: Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game
Speaker 1: meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with so
Speaker 1: many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything.
Speaker 1: So I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted
Speaker 1: What I think are seven of the most important questions
Speaker 1: you could ever ask someone. They are when and where
Speaker 1: were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
Speaker 1: about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: What question would you most like answered, What person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 1: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 1: your life that has grown out of a personal disaster.
Speaker 1: The more people we ask, the more we begin to
Speaker 1: see what makes us similar and what makes us individual.
Speaker 1: I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I
Speaker 1: am honored and humbled to have had a chance to
Speaker 1: engage with. My guest today is Jeremy oh Harris. It's
Speaker 1: hard to know where to begin an introduction to Jeremy
Speaker 1: because to me, he is a force that has such
Speaker 1: diverse impact. It feels limiting to say specifically what he
Speaker 1: does or who he is, And actually part of his
Speaker 1: fundament seems to be challenging the way in which we
Speaker 1: quantify a lot of things. So it's probably right that
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. He is definitively the
Speaker 1: author the highly acclaimed Slave Play, which has become the
Speaker 1: most nominated non musical play in the history of the Tonys,
Speaker 1: with twelve nominations. I won't say explicitly what the play
Speaker 1: is about, because you should see it or find it
Speaker 1: and read it and think. But the super redux version
Speaker 1: is that it addresses themes of sexuality and racial trauma
Speaker 1: in America. Out magazine called him the queer black savior
Speaker 1: theater needs. I would rejoin and editor to say he
Speaker 1: is the queer black savior we all need, and if
Speaker 1: systems are grumbling, as they surely seem to be, voices
Speaker 1: like Jeremy's are the ones I'd like to hear loudest
Speaker 1: during the rebuild. He writes under different names, he explores
Speaker 1: different mediums of art, acting, playwriting, screenwriting, producing, and as
Speaker 1: a person and a rare talent at the forefront of
Speaker 1: a new generation of emerging artists, he is dismantling the
Speaker 1: idea of personal success and fame being the endgame. By
Speaker 1: using carved out fees from big deals in fashion and
Speaker 1: in television to establish funds and micro grants for theaters
Speaker 1: and libraries. He is quite literally lifting up and creating
Speaker 1: opportunities for others in his community and beyond. Whenever I
Speaker 1: talk to him, I feel like I'm talking to the future,
Speaker 1: a super tall, hot, progressive future. Correct me, jere I
Speaker 1: mean if I'm wrong, but I believe Slave Play became
Speaker 1: the most nominated Tony in the history of the Tony's.
Speaker 1: It's the most nominated Tony ever, It's the most nominated
Speaker 1: to It's been it's a Tony that has been nominated
Speaker 1: so many times its name is now Anthony Slave play
Speaker 1: was nominated more times than any other than any other play.
Speaker 1: I think Hamilton's has the most of any thing best
Speaker 1: because musical is cheat and can have more. You know,
Speaker 1: He's best score, best book, best orchestrations, like, we don't
Speaker 1: get those. So now, what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines
Speaker 1: love for you? Oh that's so good. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm probably so dark. It's probably like you know, the
Speaker 1: Young Girl and the Soldier and blasted the Sarah Kane play,
Speaker 1: like really dark. Oh my god, I mean I really
Speaker 1: really really love Magnolia. I really love Earl Partridge and
Speaker 1: his Wife that Julianne Moore plays. She married this guy
Speaker 1: for money and then as he's dying, she realizes how
Speaker 1: much she loves him. That is kind of what being
Speaker 1: in love is like for me. Obviously, adoreless person. You're
Speaker 1: able to be in public the face of the adoring partner,
Speaker 1: but in private moments you're like, oh, wow, you're smelly.
Speaker 1: You touched me all the time, you do, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the thing is, and then like you know, the
Speaker 1: minute that you shut the bathroom door, You're like, where
Speaker 1: are they? I need their warmth again, you know, because
Speaker 1: there's something about human beings where like you kind of
Speaker 1: want to nip the person that's closest to you. It's
Speaker 1: like what we do with our parents, you know. And
Speaker 1: the minute that you've gotten someone into your trust circle,
Speaker 1: you do in your mind convince yourself that they're not
Speaker 1: everything you want in the minute that they're about to leave,
Speaker 1: where they could go that's to you wanted the best.
Speaker 1: And I think that part of the work of being
Speaker 1: a good partner and a good person love is to
Speaker 1: minimize the moments of nipping that are natural and normal,
Speaker 1: and lean into who you are to the world, and
Speaker 1: lean into who you are when they're about to leave
Speaker 1: in those moments when it's just you two lying in bed. So,
Speaker 1: do you think that the specter of loss is then
Speaker 1: part of the defining factor of love for you? The
Speaker 1: idea that that person will be lost to you, or
Speaker 1: could be lost to you, but ultimately will be lost
Speaker 1: to you is actually what gives love of shame. Yes,
Speaker 1: I actually think that having a recognition that this person
Speaker 1: could be gone at any second should be the founding
Speaker 1: principle of any love magicure and or any healthy relationship,
Speaker 1: because that that would mean that you would treat it
Speaker 1: a little bit better. You wouldn't take it for granted.
Speaker 1: And I think that oft and we we take people
Speaker 1: for granted because we think that we're going to be eternal,
Speaker 1: you know. But even when I think about the fact
Speaker 1: that thirty years feels like it's passed so quickly, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I'm going to be out of here. Even
Speaker 1: if I lived to seventy or eighty, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be out of here in a moment. I know.
Speaker 1: It's a heartbeat, it's a heart Maybe that's also this time.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but since this pandemic, I
Speaker 1: felt like time has stretched, it's time slowed down. Time
Speaker 1: stop being this thing that I was always chasing after
Speaker 1: and actually became so present because all of the distraction
Speaker 1: and all of those branches that were really a lot
Speaker 1: of dead wood, kind of a cut away. But also,
Speaker 1: don't you feel like those three months at the very
Speaker 1: top of the year felt like forever, like at the
Speaker 1: very top of quarantinshure. Well, now I think about it
Speaker 1: from right now, I do, But at the time it
Speaker 1: felt like days were stretchy. It felt like nine am
Speaker 1: lasted until four. It felt like every moment was every
Speaker 1: conversation Shan, everything that we cooked, everything that we ate,
Speaker 1: every embrace. Yes, it felt distilled. You know, you couldn't
Speaker 1: really have written it. And it's been believable or been
Speaker 1: anything other than sort of Ryan Murphy kind of giant.
Speaker 1: You'll never believe this. Here. Let me put on a
Speaker 1: giant show for you. It's actually still Ryan Murphy. It's
Speaker 1: like it's Ryan Murphy and Shonda. Ryan's actually doing a
Speaker 1: cross over episode. It really is. It is exactly. It's
Speaker 1: them just passing back a script over a weekend and
Speaker 1: each of them perhaps drinking slightly more than the other
Speaker 1: with each new draft, and it's getting more and more
Speaker 1: insane and more and more ridiculous. All right, downing, So
Speaker 1: can you tell me in your life about something that
Speaker 1: has grown out of a personal disaster stuff? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's been so many things, but I think the thing
Speaker 1: and I know this because I went this amazing healer
Speaker 1: and the swaman was like, wow, what happened when you
Speaker 1: were nineteen? Like it's still living in your body. She's like,
Speaker 1: it feels like a big trauma. And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's so weird. That was the year that I got
Speaker 1: cut from drama school. You know, I went to this
Speaker 1: drama school. They accepted fifty two kids, only twenty sis
Speaker 1: got to stay. I liked it because it sounded like
Speaker 1: Survivor or a big Brother or something like. They turned
Speaker 1: training to be an actor into the Bachelor, and so
Speaker 1: I was really excited because I worked my ass off
Speaker 1: and like I had done the math, I was like, great,
Speaker 1: inside of my section, I'm in the top five percent.
Speaker 1: If they're cutting half of us, I can't be cut
Speaker 1: from my section. But there are five black men here,
Speaker 1: and amongst them, I'm definitely the weirdest one. So either
Speaker 1: they're gonna want me because I'm the weirdest one, or
Speaker 1: they're gonna be like, even though he's one of the best,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get cut because he's really weird. So I
Speaker 1: just did everything I could be weird myself over the year.
Speaker 1: So I came to school with really long hair. I
Speaker 1: cut off all with my hair, like halfway through the year.
Speaker 1: He was like radical transformation, And you know, I worked
Speaker 1: really hard, and I was still one of the people
Speaker 1: that got cut, and some of the cruelest things that
Speaker 1: I've ever been said to me were said to me
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen years old about why I was cut,
Speaker 1: saying was true of other actors. And you know how
Speaker 1: this is like these people are working with people at
Speaker 1: the beginning of their development into young adults, and like
Speaker 1: decided to say this the kinest things to them because
Speaker 1: they can because Heinu's things are said to them. They
Speaker 1: said a whittling down every year, and we were a
Speaker 1: part of the lucky community because they stopped whittling people
Speaker 1: down the second and third years, so it was just
Speaker 1: like one cut instead of multiple. I think that is
Speaker 1: so hideous because it means you could never actually relax.
Speaker 1: It's like the hunger. Yes, it's like you totally know
Speaker 1: that there's a Gaillo scene hanging above your head every
Speaker 1: day that you go to school. I mean, what a
Speaker 1: dreadful way to try and learn. Yeah. One of my
Speaker 1: closest friends there, Erica, who also got cut. You know,
Speaker 1: she had come from a school where she had never
Speaker 1: done a play before in her life. She got into
Speaker 1: a drama school, I having never done a play before
Speaker 1: her life, and she didn't more than one for me,
Speaker 1: And it's like let's that girl get in, Like she
Speaker 1: just gets to stay for all four years, because like
Speaker 1: what the fuck? But she came from a really rough
Speaker 1: community and she wasn't used to going to a room
Speaker 1: with a bunch of white kids and crying. She's like,
Speaker 1: I don't cry in front of people. You don't do that.
Speaker 1: She's in these classes with all these kids, many of
Speaker 1: whom come from privilege, who are able to weep form
Speaker 1: command all the time about anything, and her teachers are like,
Speaker 1: you feel too hard, but you don't want to share yourself.
Speaker 1: She's like, no one's giving me a reason to cry, Like,
Speaker 1: give me a scene, I'll do that. Then I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna sit and cry and gossip with you. Anyway. That
Speaker 1: was really difficult for me, and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: One of my professors told me, she's like, well, Jeremy,
Speaker 1: you're just not castable. Yeah, She's like, you have the
Speaker 1: face of the child, a body of demand. You won't
Speaker 1: be cast into your at least thirty five forties. So
Speaker 1: you should think about going to grad school for acting.
Speaker 1: And right now, you know you seem to like writing,
Speaker 1: so do that. And I was like what what? But
Speaker 1: it's incredible because of what did come out of that, Well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I immediately decided I was going to prove her
Speaker 1: I could be castable. So I got asked every major
Speaker 1: show that was happening in Chicago at the time. And
Speaker 1: then two years later I went to l A and
Speaker 1: that was when I started telling me I was a writer,
Speaker 1: which is what they had told me at school, and
Speaker 1: my entire identity changed after that. It's so extraordinary. I
Speaker 1: think I overuse the matrixes of reference points of touchstone
Speaker 1: in my life, but I do often think, like you
Speaker 1: know the scene where he goes to see the oracle
Speaker 1: and she tells him he's not the one. I just
Speaker 1: think that those moments in our lives where life is
Speaker 1: telling you, no, it's absolutely not you, it's not you
Speaker 1: at all, they are the moments out of which the
Speaker 1: most grows because you have to disagree with it in
Speaker 1: order to carry on in a way, or you have
Speaker 1: to become something else. Yes, I was the only kid
Speaker 1: in my class to graduate from drama school without an agent.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just me and my mom and all
Speaker 1: these other kids standing with their agents and their parents
Speaker 1: after the last performance with like warm white wine, and
Speaker 1: I was like everyone has an agent here except me,
Speaker 1: and my mom was like, well, I don't have an
Speaker 1: agent either. That's amazing. That's literally something my mom would
Speaker 1: say to me. Yeah. I mean it was really hard
Speaker 1: and it was really harsh. I think it's really interesting though,
Speaker 1: that the people who were so unsupportive of you as
Speaker 1: an actor told you that you were a writer and
Speaker 1: that you should go and do that, and the fact
Speaker 1: that you actually did go and do that, and now
Speaker 1: you can be an actor, you can be a writer,
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want. It's interesting. I like
Speaker 1: it when the people who were apparently limiting us, we're
Speaker 1: actually giving us exactly what we needed to grow. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's everything. Were you a student when he wrote Slave Play? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my god, Jeremy. Basically, Slave Play haunted all three years
Speaker 1: of my graduate degree because in my first year I
Speaker 1: started working on it and writing it, and then my
Speaker 1: second year we put it up in the fall and
Speaker 1: there was a big fallout with the administration and a
Speaker 1: lot of my professors who really hated the play and
Speaker 1: tortured me. And then the next half of the year
Speaker 1: I was trying to get some of the people who
Speaker 1: were really messed up about that fire um and then
Speaker 1: in my third year I wrote a thesis play about
Speaker 1: how that experience had been the worst thing ever while
Speaker 1: the play was going up in the city. What was
Speaker 1: the central beef that they had with your play? Well,
Speaker 1: it was mainly a power thing, which is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why it was most frustrating and really drawing,
Speaker 1: because it had very little to do with the actual
Speaker 1: like nuts and bolts of my play, as I could
Speaker 1: see visa vie their relationship to the other work that
Speaker 1: was happening around me. It was more so the fact
Speaker 1: that they told me to cut twenty minutes out of
Speaker 1: the play and I said, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: That note doesn't make sense to me, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: we're telling you to do this, and it was about
Speaker 1: like this power thing, and I think the more I've
Speaker 1: dug in my heels and was like, no, I think
Speaker 1: that's a bad note, the more angry they got. And
Speaker 1: it was just like the Battle of wills that ended
Speaker 1: with a professor yelling at me and sending me really
Speaker 1: hate his emails and just having like a full mental spiral.
Speaker 1: Do you think it made you connect? Forced each connect
Speaker 1: with the thesis of the play even more because you
Speaker 1: were defending it so profoundly. Do you think that you
Speaker 1: you kind of bonded with your play more because of
Speaker 1: that extreme conflict? Well, yeah, I mean I think it
Speaker 1: may be bond with the performers, especially the performer playing Knisha.
Speaker 1: A lot at Yale is played by this woman named
Speaker 1: Intra Neet Crow Legacy, who's an amazing actress. And obviously,
Speaker 1: as you've you've been to drama school, you know that
Speaker 1: when someone's actually just doing a power play, they'll change
Speaker 1: their tactics really well. And so the tactic became, well,
Speaker 1: it's not about the twenty minutes in that part so much.
Speaker 1: It's just that those twenty minutes are so bad that
Speaker 1: the endings the worst thing I've ever seen. I can't
Speaker 1: believe this actress is doing this. If you're not gonna
Speaker 1: change these twenty minutes, you have to change the ending.
Speaker 1: And so I tried to change the ending, and I
Speaker 1: came back and his actors was like, why are you
Speaker 1: changing this? Your play is saying this to me. She
Speaker 1: said something to the room about her character and why
Speaker 1: she understood what was happening in the play. That was like,
Speaker 1: my secret, it's for why I had written the play.
Speaker 1: It's like someone's naming all the reasons why I had
Speaker 1: written the play from the point of view of acting
Speaker 1: in this thing, and so I felt so immediately um indicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it also made me know that at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, great performers, they are great ensemble are
Speaker 1: more important than teachers. No wonder how many you know,
Speaker 1: McArthur Pullitzer, O bis they've won. You know what I mean? Well,
Speaker 1: you'd think that. But by the way, speaking as someone
Speaker 1: who has worked with extraordinarily collaborative people and then slightly
Speaker 1: more autocratic directors and producers, I must say that it's
Speaker 1: very refreshing to hear you say that, Jeremy, because it
Speaker 1: is a collaboration. You're all working towards the same thing.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes actors certainly get the reputation that
Speaker 1: it's really just about self aggrandizement. And I really is
Speaker 1: biggest soliloquy as opposed to no best idea wins. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I love because you're a writer and an actor
Speaker 1: and a director and a kind of conceiver of art
Speaker 1: that you recognize that. I feel vindication as an actor
Speaker 1: knowing that you say what you bring him when you're
Speaker 1: inside a character, you can sometimes give a perspective that
Speaker 1: is unique because you're living inside your particular piece of
Speaker 1: this greater piece of work. One of the things that's
Speaker 1: most invigorating about getting all of these Tony nominations is
Speaker 1: that twelve Tony nominations have very little to do with
Speaker 1: Jeremy o' harris writing this play right, and everything to
Speaker 1: do with the community of people around this play that
Speaker 1: I wrote. Those things really matter to me because the
Speaker 1: family that we made with this play was really tight,
Speaker 1: and we listened really well to each other. And I
Speaker 1: think what's really exciting what the Tony is that everyone
Speaker 1: seeing James Society, Morier, Jachina Cala Congo, Annie McNamara, Shalia Latour,
Speaker 1: Auntie Blanks and Wood, Lindsay Jones, G G D D
Speaker 1: Clint and Robert and not to mention like Paul Sullivan
Speaker 1: and it ain't a who were the three actors of
Speaker 1: our eight that didn't get nominated, but who obviously play
Speaker 1: the gift twelve nominations, they're still being celebrated as well,
Speaker 1: the community saying like, no, you guys really came together
Speaker 1: and you fought for each other. And that makes me
Speaker 1: soory because Arena and Shalia were in the first reading
Speaker 1: of its play, So I just wanted to say that
Speaker 1: Slave Player also did something really extraordinary. Jeremy insisted on
Speaker 1: there being a subsidized ticket program so that when you
Speaker 1: would go to buy a ticket, you would be also
Speaker 1: able to buy a ticket for someone who maybe couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to go to the theater. And what that did
Speaker 1: for the community and the anomaly that that was I'm
Speaker 1: really genuinely hope becomes a normal practice on Broadway in
Speaker 1: the West End, in every theater loving city in the world.
Speaker 1: It was extraordinary the amount of first time ticket buyers
Speaker 1: or theater girls who went to see Slave Blay because
Speaker 1: they were able to what that speaks to you about
Speaker 1: community and what that speaks to you about what the
Speaker 1: theater is always purporting to be about, which is about
Speaker 1: coming together and than the stories of our community. For
Speaker 1: the community, that was one of the most amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: beyond the extraordinary impact of the play and what it
Speaker 1: forced us all to meditate on and think about and
Speaker 1: talk about forever, is that notion of community for me
Speaker 1: and availability to everybody, not just to the famous people,
Speaker 1: the rich people, the white people, but to everybody. It's
Speaker 1: an incredibly special play for so many reasons. When I
Speaker 1: hope that it stops being an anomaly and actually just becomes,
Speaker 1: you know, the norm same. I mean, it's really nice
Speaker 1: to be an anomaly because it means you're special, you're
Speaker 1: one of a kind. But when being one of a
Speaker 1: kind means that you're like opening the doors for more
Speaker 1: people than it's not fun. You want to know that
Speaker 1: more people are doing that so that this thing you
Speaker 1: love a can survive and be can be experienced by
Speaker 1: as many people as possible. What person, place, or experience
Speaker 1: has most altered your life, well, I think I think
Speaker 1: because she's constantly offering the direction of my life. It
Speaker 1: would have to be my mom, because she had me
Speaker 1: when she was nineteen and came to a community that
Speaker 1: does not have very many opportunities for people of color,
Speaker 1: especially women of color, and worked really hard to psyphon
Speaker 1: off as many opportunities as she could for me, even
Speaker 1: if that meant denying herself certain opportunities. And so that's
Speaker 1: why I think she's most afted in my life. She
Speaker 1: put me in the private school so that she couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to send me to and she's always sounded like
Speaker 1: an extraordinary person. She's the absolute Disneys and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the person I am now without her. Um. I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that. I'm glad it's your mom.
Speaker 1: So here we go. I would like you to please
Speaker 1: tell me where and when you were happiest. This is
Speaker 1: really it is actually really funny because I just answered
Speaker 1: this question for g Q and and for some reason
Speaker 1: felt like a fake answer at the time. But the
Speaker 1: more I think about, the more real it sounds in
Speaker 1: my head. I think I felt the happiest when I
Speaker 1: was at McDowell in New Hampshire, which is where I
Speaker 1: went when I was twenty six year old. It's where
Speaker 1: I decided I was going to go to grad school,
Speaker 1: and it was where I really, for the first time
Speaker 1: in my life, I felt like an artist because I've
Speaker 1: been welcomed into this historic colony of artists. For people
Speaker 1: who don't know McDowell, it's the oldest artistic commune in
Speaker 1: the country. James Baldwin wrote Giovanni's room there. Tanahusey Coats
Speaker 1: wrote there the color purple is written there. I'm naming
Speaker 1: only the black people like Lennard Bernstein went there and
Speaker 1: it's artists of all disciplines. It's painters, writers, composers, playwrights.
Speaker 1: And you endowed with this. You invited, you singled out
Speaker 1: and invited. No, you're not invite, you apply. So it's
Speaker 1: an application process is highly competitive. So many writers I
Speaker 1: know haven't gotten in. And it's a place that's really
Speaker 1: rare because you can be there with someone who's won
Speaker 1: four pool and surprises, you know, Michael Chaban, can be
Speaker 1: there with someone who's only written a short play, which
Speaker 1: is what I had done. Like I had only written
Speaker 1: a thirty minute play. I had no real credits. I
Speaker 1: just had good recommendations. And you tell them what you
Speaker 1: want to write while you're there, and I told him
Speaker 1: I want to write this play called Daddy. And so
Speaker 1: I got there, you know, and I'm sitting at a
Speaker 1: table with the likes of Michael, Alma Raida and Adrian
Speaker 1: Nicole LeBlanc, and I was like, great, what it was?
Speaker 1: It was really lovely. But I think that there was
Speaker 1: a moment there when I had such insane imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: because you know, I started out as an actor, I
Speaker 1: didn't start out as a playwright. And I lived in
Speaker 1: l A for six years sort of telling people I
Speaker 1: was the play right because I didn't want to tell
Speaker 1: people I was an actor. And then one day someone
Speaker 1: was just like, well, are you actually a writer? And
Speaker 1: I was like, I think I am. And then I
Speaker 1: started writing, but I still felt like I was tricking
Speaker 1: people right, like that I was illegitimate. And meanwhile, I'm
Speaker 1: telling my mom, who's working three jobs to support herself,
Speaker 1: my sister and me, well past the age that people
Speaker 1: get supported. Where I'm coming from, there's no idea of
Speaker 1: the young artist who gets helped from their mom at
Speaker 1: twenty four to help pay their rent. Right. My mom
Speaker 1: is doing something that's like a huge anomaly for our community.
Speaker 1: And I keep promising her, like I promise you, mom,
Speaker 1: if you just help me out one more time, it's
Speaker 1: gonna work out. Just give me a few more years,
Speaker 1: another month, like if I don't figure it out by
Speaker 1: the time I'm thirty, I'll go back to school and
Speaker 1: become a lawyer or something. And so I was there.
Speaker 1: I had all this imposter syndrome, and then one day
Speaker 1: someone was talking about something and someone turned me like, Jeremy,
Speaker 1: what do you think? And I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: think this. I don't know if you've ever read this thing,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember exactly what it was, but everyone
Speaker 1: the table was like, wow, oh my god, that's so impressive,
Speaker 1: because that's so great, and the like changed the course
Speaker 1: of the thing. Everyone started asking more questions about what
Speaker 1: I just said, and in that moment I realized whoa, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm really here, and I went outside to have a
Speaker 1: cigarette and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, who is the MacArthur Genius
Speaker 1: Grant winning writer of Random Family, came up to me
Speaker 1: and was like, that was so beautiful what you just
Speaker 1: said back there, and I was like, it's so weird.
Speaker 1: Everyone here feels so beyond me, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: that I can even catch up with where they are
Speaker 1: in the world, and the fact they care about what
Speaker 1: I have to say is so weird. And She's like,
Speaker 1: why is it weird we're all sitting at the same table.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I think I felt so happy because
Speaker 1: it felt like this thing I've been promising my mom
Speaker 1: that like my difference meant that I was, that I
Speaker 1: was a part of a community of artists, was finally affirmed. Right,
Speaker 1: All of our hard work was affirmed in that moment,
Speaker 1: so do you feel a sense of belonging and the
Speaker 1: vindication of everything that your mom had believed in you
Speaker 1: and put into it qualifies that happiness? Yes, it shapes
Speaker 1: that happiness. I love that Jeremy. I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: Barack Obama book right now. He's so handsome. He's so handsome.
Speaker 1: He's so handsome and so kind, and I love his
Speaker 1: wife so much. It's almost like they're superheroes. I do.
Speaker 1: I put them in the same category. I really want
Speaker 1: to interview him because he's been saying some really interesting
Speaker 1: things recently. He did this interview about his book. He
Speaker 1: was just like talking too, how crazy the Republican Party
Speaker 1: it's got. Now. He's like, you know, there's just so
Speaker 1: much crazy stuff. You know, one minute they're saying Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton is running a pedophile ring, and the next minute
Speaker 1: they're saying that Joe Biden is a socialist, Like who
Speaker 1: are these people? And it's just like, I get what
Speaker 1: he's trying to say, but also like saying Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is a socialist, it's not as egregious an idea as
Speaker 1: someone running a pedophile ring, But the fact that those
Speaker 1: two things are in the same level in that anecdote
Speaker 1: said something Freudian, and I'm just like, someone needs to
Speaker 1: mind this because you also came out of the gate.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, this wild progressive, and yet like
Speaker 1: he's aligning himself so often with this in drists, in
Speaker 1: our parties and ways that I find he definitely doesn't
Speaker 1: have to unless that's just really how he feels, in
Speaker 1: which case it makes me a little sad. But I
Speaker 1: want to challenge him on some of that. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I so now I want to hear that Jeremy Harris, Brock,
Speaker 1: Obama and Tod. I think that would be really good
Speaker 1: because I was st talking about sex because he's a leo,
Speaker 1: so he walks around with pelvis first. You know, he
Speaker 1: has like a real like b D about him, which
Speaker 1: I think was the most attractive thing. And I just
Speaker 1: kind of we're talking about like I was like, but
Speaker 1: you were a nerd. But when did you start getting late?
Speaker 1: Like was it in college or was it in grad school?
Speaker 1: Like when did you start to know him your sexual power?
Speaker 1: When did your not get its freak on? Yeah? Exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: But I want to know that now too. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know I wanted to know that until you just
Speaker 1: said that. Now I'm going to think about it a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of hot and also feels naughty. Yes,
Speaker 1: And in his book apparently he talked about how he
Speaker 1: used to say the word fag in the seventies. And
Speaker 1: I want to be like, but did you ever make
Speaker 1: up with a guy? Because you feel like you did.
Speaker 1: It's so funny here we are kind of federating a
Speaker 1: bomb or like putting him on his pedestinal. Meanwhile, you're like,
Speaker 1: did you kiss a guy? Because I feel like you did.
Speaker 1: That's what we all really want to know. Come on,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see you again. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see you again. And I thank you with all
Speaker 1: my heart for doing this. I'm thrilled about the idea
Speaker 1: of everything that you are going to do. It makes me,
Speaker 1: It makes me happy. Thank you. In closing, I would
Speaker 1: like to tell you that Jeremy co wrote this movie Zola,
Speaker 1: which a Nick's a Bravo based on tweet spy Asaiah King.
Speaker 1: Jicks also directed the movie, and it's out June. This woman,
Speaker 1: as Iah King tweeted, in real time and experience she
Speaker 1: decided to be a part of. And I won't give
Speaker 1: anything away but it is. It's an extraordinary premise and
Speaker 1: I really cannot wait to see the finished film. It
Speaker 1: premiered at Sundance last year. Jeremy also is adapting with
Speaker 1: the Ziza Barnes Britt Bennett's novel The Vanishing Half, which
Speaker 1: I also can't wait to see, and that will also
Speaker 1: be out later this year. Mini Questions is hosted and
Speaker 1: written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer
Speaker 1: Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby
Speaker 1: by Mini Driver, additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced
Speaker 1: by Me and man Gesh Hetty Cador. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and
Speaker 1: a Nick Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
Speaker 1: Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support
Speaker 1: Henry Driver two