Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central as I live in breathe.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite people in the whole world. Gabrielle Union,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Daily Show. I've been wonderful. I've
Speaker 1: been wonderful. Is that is that? Is that Africa? I
Speaker 1: smell on you? What is that? What is that? What
Speaker 1: is familiar to me? Not now? What is happening here?
Speaker 1: How was your trip? You just go back? It was amazing?
Speaker 1: It was amazing, you know, of course I had I
Speaker 1: had called Trevor as one does when you when you
Speaker 1: go to the motherland, and I was like, tell me
Speaker 1: where to go? One does like everyone just called Trevor,
Speaker 1: I'm going to Africa. I feel like you pick up
Speaker 1: I do I do? You do? You actually pick up
Speaker 1: the phone like, yeah, let me give you some suggestions.
Speaker 1: But we start off in Tanzania, then went to Ghana,
Speaker 1: then Namibia and then to your home countries. That's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this was this was a different trip. This is
Speaker 1: a big trip because you were learning, you were exploring.
Speaker 1: You also celebrating. They wrote fiftieth birthday, but that's not
Speaker 1: right though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, as you've seen me
Speaker 1: drop it low and you see how long it takes
Speaker 1: me to get back. You know, you know, you know
Speaker 1: are like Yo's please, I don't think so. I feel
Speaker 1: like you are one of those people who is eternally young.
Speaker 1: You are, You're You're so curious about life. You know
Speaker 1: everything you do, whether it's in the writing of your books,
Speaker 1: whether it's in you know, how you travel the world,
Speaker 1: what projects you engage yourself in, you know, in Broadway productions.
Speaker 1: I mean, this film is another example of that. We've
Speaker 1: seen Garrielle Union in so many different types of movies.
Speaker 1: Forgive me if if if I'm wrong in saying this,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen you like this. I've never seen
Speaker 1: you in a role like this. I can see why
Speaker 1: people are saying, oh man, if the Oscars are not
Speaker 1: watching this movie, then they're not watching movies because you
Speaker 1: you play a character in a movie that is so touching,
Speaker 1: painful and brilliant, and it's it's the story of a
Speaker 1: young black man, as we saw just in that in
Speaker 1: that preview, whose mother basically says, because you are gay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to disown you, and he goes off to
Speaker 1: join the Marines, and her hope is that this will
Speaker 1: this will turn him straight talk me through you know
Speaker 1: how you even get into this project and everything that
Speaker 1: the story was because it has a lot more do
Speaker 1: with real life than most people would think, way too
Speaker 1: much to do with real life than I like, Um, elegants.
Speaker 1: Bratton are director, writer, other producer. He came to me
Speaker 1: sent me this scripts him along with Effie Brown, and
Speaker 1: they're like, what do you think of the script? I
Speaker 1: was like, this is a winner. I absolutely want to
Speaker 1: be a part of this. I will come on as
Speaker 1: an executive producer. I know how I can be additive.
Speaker 1: And he's like, great, Um, I want you to play
Speaker 1: my mother. Oh. I tend to you know, when the
Speaker 1: when I come across people who behave and speak like this,
Speaker 1: I tend to read them for filth. Um. I tend
Speaker 1: to not be inspired to want to play them in
Speaker 1: a film. Uh. And I just didn't think that I
Speaker 1: was the right fit. And he said, no, it has
Speaker 1: to be you. It can only be you. And later
Speaker 1: I come to I came to find out that you know,
Speaker 1: him and his mom had been estranged for about eighteen years. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he knew that I was one of his mom's
Speaker 1: favorites and he knew that if I played her. She
Speaker 1: couldn't deny him, and she would, she would reconnect. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we got greenlit February. His mom passed February, So I'm
Speaker 1: not only playing a real person. I'm playing my director
Speaker 1: and writer's mother who has passed and they've had, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty fraught relationship. And I just wasn't I just
Speaker 1: wasn't sure this was the right time for any us.
Speaker 1: And he assured me, he said, no, we we have
Speaker 1: to tell this story. We have to tell the story,
Speaker 1: and and we know that you can do this. And
Speaker 1: I was like, and he was like, you know, the
Speaker 1: black community has known that you've had the range to
Speaker 1: do this. Uh. And I had to admit to myself
Speaker 1: that I had put myself in a in a cage,
Speaker 1: in a box and decided what I could do and
Speaker 1: couldn't do. You had type cost yourself and the rules
Speaker 1: that you could play because of the rules that were
Speaker 1: afforded to you. Absolutely right. Yeah, So I had to
Speaker 1: break out and give myself the opportunity to try to,
Speaker 1: I don't know, to try to grow creative. It's terrifying,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely terrifying. I don't want to ruin this man's story.
Speaker 1: You know with you know, pulling it like an isis
Speaker 1: from bringing on you know, I don't know what he's
Speaker 1: expecting yet, and yet I feel like I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, it seems so perfect and it seems so
Speaker 1: obvious now because because when you see you in the film,
Speaker 1: I can see I can see what he saw I
Speaker 1: you know I, And it's interesting. I would love to
Speaker 1: know how your your opinion of his mom changed in
Speaker 1: hearing his story and his side of it, because to
Speaker 1: your point, there are many scripts, and there are many
Speaker 1: stories that are told of people that give us an
Speaker 1: idea of them, and then once we're forced to be
Speaker 1: them in some way, once we're forced to empathize and
Speaker 1: get into their lives, our opinion of them changes. Taught
Speaker 1: me through that change, because you don't play her like
Speaker 1: somebody that you hate. You don't play her like somebody
Speaker 1: that we even hate. So I'd love to know what
Speaker 1: you understand differently about her that doesn't condone her views
Speaker 1: on her son being gay, but in some way, empathy,
Speaker 1: you know, creates empathy in us. For her, I had
Speaker 1: to find her humanity and I had to figure out
Speaker 1: how to keep the love not just on the set
Speaker 1: as a producer. But the love between these characters, and
Speaker 1: the more I talk to parents who struggle in the
Speaker 1: way that she struggles, they none of them deny that
Speaker 1: they love their children deeply, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: truly believe that by rejecting their child or denying their identity,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately denies their humanity, is the way to love
Speaker 1: them properly, is the way to protect them, is the
Speaker 1: way to save them. Which sounds very backwards, right, but
Speaker 1: that's firmly in their hearts. They believe that. And the
Speaker 1: more I started asking about her background, she was orphaned
Speaker 1: at ten. She was a top student, she was a
Speaker 1: top athlete, and she just wanted people to think that
Speaker 1: she was good and worthy and deserving. And I was like,
Speaker 1: now that's where I can relate. You know. We we
Speaker 1: have these conversations often where all the shape shifting that
Speaker 1: you will do to get someone to say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you right, whether it's a relationship or a business opportunity,
Speaker 1: or just how you move through the world surviving as
Speaker 1: a person of color in this in this world, you
Speaker 1: will minimize yourself. You will barter with anything to try
Speaker 1: to get this much closer to the power structures or
Speaker 1: opportunities or whatever, and that we had in common because
Speaker 1: I've bartered with many things, just not my kids, but
Speaker 1: I've bartered with my soul plenty of times. You know.
Speaker 1: We talk about soul sacrifices and those those more list
Speaker 1: that you will never get back, that that that live
Speaker 1: in your memory, that you that you're ashamed of, and
Speaker 1: I have those as well. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I figured out how I can get in. How
Speaker 1: do I keep the love in this space but still
Speaker 1: show that this is the most unhealthy way of showing
Speaker 1: your love for your child, And hopefully I can be
Speaker 1: a mirror to some parents. I don't think. I don't
Speaker 1: think to hope for me. I think we will be
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's brilliant. I mean, it's accessul.
Speaker 1: The film is phenomenal. The story that you tell is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: It is everything. And as I say, if if the
Speaker 1: Oscar's people don't come knocking, I'm I'm gonna be free
Speaker 1: in like a few weeks. I'm just gonna go chase them.
Speaker 1: You you call me and you let me know, you know,
Speaker 1: I answer the phone. You have. I want to chase
Speaker 1: the people You're phenomenal. Thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: me on the show again. Thanking Gabriel Union. Everybody. Make
Speaker 1: sure to catch the film The Daily Show with Trevor
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Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcast