Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: This is Sugar Steve from Questlove Supreme. This March, we're
Speaker 3: celebrating women's history at QLs, something that we've done for years.
Speaker 3: Back in March of twenty twenty one, we spoke to
Speaker 3: Anika Noni Rose about her acting, singing and voice work.
Speaker 3: She discussed growing up in Connecticut, working on Dream Girls,
Speaker 3: and landing a life changing audition for Disney's The Princess
Speaker 3: and the Frog. This is a powerful and sincere conversation
Speaker 3: that is worthy of hearing, and I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know you say it was.
Speaker 2: Hi Ceo in the corn?
Speaker 4: What was it? That's funny. I thought I was visible
Speaker 4: for about six minutes and I was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 4: just a blank square.
Speaker 5: So we're just talking about the salt and pepper Lifetime,
Speaker 5: The salt Lifetime.
Speaker 6: Deep Salt Pepper, Deep Salt Pepper.
Speaker 2: Did you watch it yet?
Speaker 1: Proc Come on, brother, I was on time for that thing.
Speaker 1: Man's thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: Thirty seconds?
Speaker 7: Okay, the salt and pepper story, it was, I mean,
Speaker 7: it was cool for Lifetime. I thought they cast salt,
Speaker 7: real good pepper. I wasn't really too convinced on Pepper.
Speaker 7: I really was not convinced with Tretch. I really liked
Speaker 7: the way they cast Herbie love Bug and the twin
Speaker 7: although it hasn't really been documented that Herbie love Bug
Speaker 7: has a twin brother does have a he has a brother.
Speaker 7: I don't know if it's his twin brother, but Herbie,
Speaker 7: Herbie does have a brother. It looked like it was
Speaker 7: the lookalike was in his uh it was in the
Speaker 7: he was in the shoot video. I want to say
Speaker 7: his brother is was in the shoot video. I can't
Speaker 7: remember which scene, but anyway, Yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 7: a little too long. I felt like it probably could
Speaker 7: have been like two hours. I mean, you know, if
Speaker 7: it was Jackson, it was hours long.
Speaker 1: It was three hours.
Speaker 7: And mind you, let's contrast that with the Jackson's story
Speaker 7: being four hours.
Speaker 8: So that was multiple movie nights.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, the jack Nat was five yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 6: So did you learn anything about salt and pepper at all?
Speaker 6: Not that you didn't know, but just anything.
Speaker 7: I didn't know that, uh, pepper was not pepper. Salt
Speaker 7: had to eating disorder. They kind of they kind of
Speaker 7: hinted it that, you know what I'm saying that was
Speaker 7: the new information. But yeah, that was it, and you
Speaker 7: know it was I watched that ship on a Sunday
Speaker 7: afternoon of my couched Nigga.
Speaker 8: Hey man, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: So yeah, this is Quest Love Supreme and uh I'm
Speaker 5: yours quest though. That was that was our cold open
Speaker 5: take a little hot take on the Salt and Pepper
Speaker 5: Lifetime movie.
Speaker 8: Am as this episode airs in women's history mo.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah. Anyway, so we have a sugar Steve
Speaker 1: with us.
Speaker 5: I have, we have unpaid bill and we have Laya
Speaker 5: with us as well. Our Esteem guest today. Great, thanks
Speaker 5: for asking, but oh okay, how you doing Steve?
Speaker 1: Great?
Speaker 2: Okay, nice weather. I like I like this sweater.
Speaker 1: It's it's a champion hoodie. It's not a sweater.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well they can't see you on the on on.
Speaker 5: I mean it's a very expensive sweater, Steve. Can I
Speaker 5: please introduce the guest anyway? Our steam guest today is
Speaker 5: an amazing, versatile, award winning actress who stage credits range
Speaker 5: from Carl Jones to Raising his Sun to Eli's Coming
Speaker 5: Carolina Change, which she won a Tony Award, and her
Speaker 5: TV credits, so many Ladies Number one Detective Agency. She
Speaker 5: played Wendy Carr, one of my favorite TV shows. I
Speaker 5: missed The Good Wife so much, Like that's one of
Speaker 5: my favorite shows ever, and I wish we're still here,
Speaker 5: even though you know, the the not the reboot, but
Speaker 5: a good fight is sort of okay, you know, but anyway,
Speaker 5: we also can't forget her role as a jukebox character
Speaker 5: on everyone's favorite guilty Pleasure Power, not to mention Little
Speaker 5: Fires Everywhere. She also did The Quad and had a
Speaker 5: cool bucket list check as a voice on The Simpsons. Uh,
Speaker 5: not to mention her movie credits are just his own point.
Speaker 5: This past Christmas, she started in Netflix's amazing jingle Jangle
Speaker 5: The Christmas Journey, which hopefully will last for years and
Speaker 5: decades and decades and decades.
Speaker 8: Christmas story.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, my all, my niece's nephews enjoyed it. Not
Speaker 5: to mention, there's dream Girls for colored girls only, and
Speaker 5: also yes, she starred as Princess Tiana as the first
Speaker 5: Black Princess and the historical Princess and the Frog for Disney. Incidentally,
Speaker 5: she is the youngest inductee dever be honored as a
Speaker 5: Disney legend. I want to know what a Disney legend
Speaker 5: is and do I qualify for my four seconds? Now
Speaker 5: I'm playing Anyway, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to our show.
Speaker 5: Oh my fellow academy a member. It's it's like a
Speaker 5: secret society that only people know. Anyway, Welcome to Coest
Speaker 5: Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Anika Noni Rose, thank you, thank you for coming.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I wanted to ask, how how have you made out
Speaker 5: in the past year. You know this, this this year
Speaker 5: has been difficult on a lot of people, and it's
Speaker 5: been an adjustment for artists in all mediums like and
Speaker 5: for singers, for you know, actors, and for pretty much
Speaker 5: anyone in the arts is it's been an adjustment. So
Speaker 5: how have you been adjusting to the past year or so?
Speaker 4: I the past year was rough. It was it was
Speaker 4: a rough year, you know, and then you sort of
Speaker 4: feel funny even saying that, because it's been rough for everybody,
Speaker 4: like heavy for everybody in lieu of work. I've been
Speaker 4: really lucky because I'm a voiceover artist. So even when
Speaker 4: I can't do something where you see me on a set,
Speaker 4: I can still do voiceover work. So that's a blessing,
Speaker 4: you know, to be able to do that. And I've
Speaker 4: started doing some film work as well, which was weird
Speaker 4: and still feels weird to be on a set because
Speaker 4: I still sort of feel like, don't be that close
Speaker 4: to me. So professionally, I would have to say that
Speaker 4: I've been I've been pretty lucky in that respect, you know. Personally,
Speaker 4: it's taken some adjusting too. It's been wild. It's been
Speaker 4: a frightening year. It's been a year full of really
Speaker 4: intense anger. If there is an emotion on the emotional scale,
Speaker 4: I don't think that we've been saved from it this year.
Speaker 4: I think we've done that whole circle. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm grateful to be healthy, especially as an asthmatic. I'm
Speaker 4: very grateful to be healthy. I'm grateful that my family
Speaker 4: wasn't touched as often as some people have been by
Speaker 4: COVID and that type of loss. But I've lost friends
Speaker 4: and I've lost family, and it's been a really shit year.
Speaker 4: To be perfectly honest.
Speaker 2: No, we welcome that honesty.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm grateful for the possibility of change and
Speaker 4: we'll see, you know, how just how much people are
Speaker 4: able to do but you know, January twentieth, when everybody
Speaker 4: finally got inside and the doors were locked and the
Speaker 4: cameras were gone, I felt like I could breathe a
Speaker 4: little bit. I just wanted everybody to go inside. I
Speaker 4: was like, this is great, can you now go inside? Everyone?
Speaker 6: Everybody.
Speaker 1: I want Mama.
Speaker 4: Inside, I want to step children inside. I want everybody inside.
Speaker 4: So I was really I felt like it felt like
Speaker 4: at the end of the move of a movie, like
Speaker 4: a movie shoot when I've been wearing a corset and
Speaker 4: I have to take that course and get to take
Speaker 4: that courset off for the last day. It felt like
Speaker 4: I have been wearing a corset for four years and
Speaker 4: I finally got to take that thing off and get
Speaker 4: a deep breath in. I felt like I could just
Speaker 4: breathe a little bit.
Speaker 7: That is a very great metaphor. We've all been wearing
Speaker 7: spanks for the last four years.
Speaker 8: West trainers.
Speaker 1: Waist trains and on Bill and the face like, I
Speaker 1: was like, do we have to translate this for you,
Speaker 1: Like no, no, no, I'm hyptop type clothing.
Speaker 5: You know, I admire you for, you know, the transparency
Speaker 5: and the honest honesty about it because you know this
Speaker 5: has been a hard adjustment this past year, and for
Speaker 5: a lot of us, this forced us to deal with
Speaker 5: ourselves and to deal with the people in our lives,
Speaker 5: like to really get to know them. I mean, if
Speaker 5: you're quarantining alone or with the partner, your children or
Speaker 5: your family members and that sort of thing. So this
Speaker 5: was an adjustment for you know, a lot of us,
Speaker 5: and you know, a lot of us didn't didn't make it,
Speaker 5: you know, through the past year wiser or you know,
Speaker 5: I know a lot of people that are in this
Speaker 5: field that have given into to panic and fear and
Speaker 5: that sort of thing, and sort of what three divorces
Speaker 5: going on right now?
Speaker 1: Like three's going through divorces?
Speaker 5: Yeah, wow, yeah, you know, I hope for you that
Speaker 5: you know, it was at least a lesson.
Speaker 2: But for the voiceover work, was it more of a
Speaker 2: pivot for you?
Speaker 5: Or was it what you were always doing or was
Speaker 5: it something new that you weren't exactly prepared to make,
Speaker 5: you know, something as serious as far as your career
Speaker 5: is concerned.
Speaker 4: It's something that I've always been doing and that I
Speaker 4: really enjoy doing, and then it became something that I
Speaker 4: was also really really grateful to be able to do.
Speaker 4: You know, outside of just saying, oh yeah, I get
Speaker 4: to do voiceover. I'm a voiceover artist. That's fun and
Speaker 4: I'm glad to do that. It became something to be
Speaker 4: really grateful for during this past year.
Speaker 5: Can I has what experience does that intail? I took
Speaker 5: one hand. I did one time of trying to do
Speaker 5: voiceover work, and you know, I kind of I'll say
Speaker 5: I was unprepared. It was like an American Express card
Speaker 5: and I realized that like the inflections that you have
Speaker 5: to have and you know, read things sustinctly, so I
Speaker 5: well like what.
Speaker 8: I do a little bit too. I would.
Speaker 7: Not like what what does good voice over work entail?
Speaker 1: As far as having to.
Speaker 5: I assume that if you get called back, that means
Speaker 5: you're good enough to to work again.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's different. It's different for depending on
Speaker 4: what type of voiceover you're doing. Like if you're doing
Speaker 4: a commercial and they call you to be your voice
Speaker 4: because your voice is because you know you are questlove.
Speaker 4: They just want to hear your voice. So there's some
Speaker 4: things that you don't have to worry about. You don't
Speaker 4: have to create a character, but you still have to
Speaker 4: read whatever it is that they've given you in a
Speaker 4: way that gets the whatever emotional tone that they want,
Speaker 4: how does it push their product the best way. So
Speaker 4: in that respect, you know you have to be ready
Speaker 4: for that. If you're doing a character, they're looking for
Speaker 4: actors most of the time, unless, of course, you're being
Speaker 4: called in to be yourself. They're still looking for you
Speaker 4: to be an actor, but you still get to be yourself,
Speaker 4: which takes a little bit of that onus off of you.
Speaker 4: But I would say if they're looking for a character,
Speaker 4: if you're talking about a cartoon or an animated feature,
Speaker 4: or even a voice over for a feature film, there's
Speaker 4: acting involved because you need to know how to put
Speaker 4: forth the emotion the information that they need to have.
Speaker 4: And I think that what trips people up is that
Speaker 4: they think, oh, oh, well, let's just I'm just going
Speaker 4: there and talk. It's gonna be fine. And it's a
Speaker 4: lot more than that. And it's also tiresome because if
Speaker 4: you are doing a whole feature or something like that,
Speaker 4: they may want you to lay that whole thing down
Speaker 4: in one day and by the time you're done, you're like, thanks,
Speaker 4: that was.
Speaker 1: That was really nice.
Speaker 7: And it's also very competitive too, because unlike in some ways,
Speaker 7: even more so than acting, because we're acting.
Speaker 1: You can kind of age out of a role, so
Speaker 1: to speak.
Speaker 7: But in voice acting, I mean, hell, Nancy Cartwright been
Speaker 7: playing Bart Simpson for thirty years, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So once you get in those roles, you kind of
Speaker 1: stay there, and.
Speaker 4: If you're there, you can stay there. But it is
Speaker 4: extraordinarily competitive. It is becoming more different by the day
Speaker 4: and more competitive by the day because it's becoming more
Speaker 4: compartmentalized by the day as well. So it's very interesting
Speaker 4: watching the shift. But to be able to be on
Speaker 4: The Simpsons was so much fun and I got to
Speaker 4: be so silly, and anytime I get to be silly,
Speaker 4: I am very happy. And you know, Princess Gianna was
Speaker 4: a huge, huge honor. But I love doing voiceover for me.
Speaker 4: I love being able to create a character. I love
Speaker 4: when somebody listens to something and they don't realize it's me,
Speaker 4: or they figure it out real late that that gives
Speaker 4: me a kick, Like I feel real honored when that happens,
Speaker 4: and that's exciting to me.
Speaker 8: And that's the difference. That's what Creed Summer taught us. Y'all.
Speaker 8: Remember like that is why Anika is in the cree
Speaker 8: tribe of things where you can't tell them where you
Speaker 8: can do all kinds of different characters and whatnot. But
Speaker 8: then there's just the voice over a voice over artists,
Speaker 8: which is sometimes, like you said, just direct what you're.
Speaker 4: Talking about a commercial where they're like, hey, we want
Speaker 4: to know who this person is because they want to
Speaker 4: sell their project product on that person's voice. And look,
Speaker 4: trust if Nike or Apple or any of those people
Speaker 4: want to be like Ana, it would be great to
Speaker 4: I'll be there before they finish the sentence. I'll be
Speaker 4: right there, right there, direct deposit form in hand.
Speaker 5: Yes, I wish I knew that ahead of time, because
Speaker 5: I think I came there prepared to do like my
Speaker 5: dom Pardo uh impression. Then when I when I asked
Speaker 5: my manager, like, so what they think, They're like.
Speaker 1: They're going to roll with da da da da, I
Speaker 1: was like, where I mess up?
Speaker 5: And they were like they just wanted you to sound
Speaker 5: like you were mere. And I was like, oh, you
Speaker 5: know I was talking like this the whole time and no, no, no,
Speaker 5: So now now now I know that, Okay, yeah, but
Speaker 5: there would.
Speaker 4: Be another chance for you because your quest love and
Speaker 4: they see you on TV all the time and you
Speaker 4: are distinctive and now.
Speaker 7: You know, well common can sell a I I think
Speaker 7: you can.
Speaker 1: Say okay, okay, okay, all.
Speaker 5: Right, because because you have uh kind of both feet
Speaker 5: in all of these uh areas of acting?
Speaker 1: Is it one? Is it?
Speaker 5: Is it highly unusual to not just concentrate on one
Speaker 5: particular medium like strictly television or the Broadway stage or
Speaker 5: movies like are you just one of those supernatural people
Speaker 5: that will just take whatever comes your way?
Speaker 2: Or you know?
Speaker 5: Or is it highly unusual for a person in the
Speaker 5: acting feeld to sort of stretch out to all three
Speaker 5: different arenas. I'm sure there's more than three, but I
Speaker 5: know TV, right.
Speaker 4: And I think that when you can do that, you're
Speaker 4: lucky to be able to do that. So I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, and let me not say that it's just luck,
Speaker 4: because somebody is going to be like, oh, excuse me, ma'am.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of training involved, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of work involved to be the actor or performer
Speaker 4: that I am, And I've been lucky for the time
Speaker 4: that I've been here that I was here at the
Speaker 4: perfect time to be able to be in the running
Speaker 4: to be Princess Tiana, because five years beforehand or two
Speaker 4: years beforehand, two years afterwards, could it wouldn't have been me,
Speaker 4: you know. But also there is an adjustment of your
Speaker 4: craft depending on what you're doing. You're not doing the
Speaker 4: same thing on stage necessarily that you're going to be
Speaker 4: doing on film that you're going to be doing on television.
Speaker 4: And it's not something that I can be clear about,
Speaker 4: but there are tiny adjustments. And there are some people
Speaker 4: for whom they're amazing on film and they get on
Speaker 4: stage and you're like what. And there are some people
Speaker 4: who are on stage and you're like, I've never seen
Speaker 4: anything like it, and they get on film you're like oh,
Speaker 4: and you know, so there are there's a translation that happens.
Speaker 4: And if you are somebody who is able to translate
Speaker 4: to different mediums, well, it is again a blessing. It's
Speaker 4: the work that you've done, but it's also you know,
Speaker 4: you're lucky to be able to do that, because there
Speaker 4: are people for whom they are magnificent actors in either realm,
Speaker 4: but they get on screen and your face looks funny
Speaker 4: and you don't know why your face looks funny because
Speaker 4: your face looks great in person, but the screen will
Speaker 4: change your face, Like you get up there and you're like,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, why does my eye look so high
Speaker 4: on that side? Those things happen on screen, So the
Speaker 4: reasons that people don't make it on screen aren't always
Speaker 4: about their talent per se. There's always something that can
Speaker 4: make it not work for you. So I'm glad to
Speaker 4: be able to do all three things. And it was
Speaker 4: a plan for me to be able to do all
Speaker 4: three things because I like to do all three things,
Speaker 4: and I'm somebody who I get tired of doing the
Speaker 4: same thing over and over, Like it's important to me
Speaker 4: to be able to stretch out and try something different
Speaker 4: and be in a different space because I get ant
Speaker 4: see and I want to be able to challenge myself.
Speaker 4: And basically, anytime you see me doing something different, it's
Speaker 4: because I was like, yeah, I want to try that.
Speaker 4: Let me see if I can do that well, and
Speaker 4: I jump in.
Speaker 1: Which one edges out more like what do you prefer?
Speaker 1: Do you prefer the stage? TV?
Speaker 2: Or movies?
Speaker 4: I what was the last.
Speaker 8: Or or movie or movie?
Speaker 1: But then again there's also voiceover, so I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like, for I love stage, and you know why,
Speaker 4: you know that feeling being on stage, live in front
Speaker 4: of people, and the challenge that it is to yourself
Speaker 4: every time you're on a stage, how much better it
Speaker 4: makes you having to do that, wanting to do it.
Speaker 4: I love stage and I love film, and that's a
Speaker 4: different type of challenge, and it's also finite, which is
Speaker 4: sort of level. But on stage you have more control
Speaker 4: over what you're doing, over the performance that you're giving.
Speaker 4: And I really feel like stage is the place where
Speaker 4: I sharpen my pencil, where I hone my skill, so
Speaker 4: that when I step out to do something else, I
Speaker 4: know that I have grown a new limb from the
Speaker 4: time that I spent live on stage.
Speaker 7: Oh, I was gonna ask, have you ever given any
Speaker 7: consideration that thought about like singing, like making the Niko
Speaker 7: Noni Rolls album?
Speaker 1: Like is that a is that a dream of fashion
Speaker 1: of yours?
Speaker 4: I love to sing.
Speaker 9: I have.
Speaker 4: An album that I've been wanting to do for several
Speaker 4: years and I just don't quite know how to do it.
Speaker 4: And then I have a different musical project that I'm
Speaker 4: actually in the works of planning now. So yes, I
Speaker 4: love singing. And I don't know. And I think probably
Speaker 4: even when I started, when I started as a performer,
Speaker 4: I wanted to be I wanted to be like a
Speaker 4: Grammy winner. I said, by the time I was twenty one,
Speaker 4: I want to grabby That's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 4: That's what I didn't know that I wanted to be
Speaker 4: an actor, and that feeling came later. And then I've
Speaker 4: just been really really focused on this part of my
Speaker 4: career and I think that it is it is a
Speaker 4: loss to me inside of me to not sing as
Speaker 4: much as I used to, even and definitely that is
Speaker 4: in my plans. I just have to some things I
Speaker 4: need to figure out. That's a help I need.
Speaker 8: I need some help which a genre of passion.
Speaker 4: That's probably part of the problem.
Speaker 2: I just love to say.
Speaker 4: So I need to focus, you know. And I have
Speaker 4: a focus on something I did. I did a concert
Speaker 4: series a few, oh god, several years ago now very
Speaker 4: bad at time, and it was a tribute to my grandmother.
Speaker 4: And I would like to turn that into an album.
Speaker 4: And I always wanted to do some sort of like
Speaker 4: poppy thing, some sort of pop R and B. I
Speaker 4: love rock. I would love to put out a rock song,
Speaker 4: so like I'm not, I don't feel like, oh well,
Speaker 4: I would only do you know what I mean?
Speaker 8: Because you have a song out now right that's really
Speaker 8: popular from the Jingle Jangle down here, Yes.
Speaker 4: And John Legend wrote this song. It's called Make It Work,
Speaker 4: and it is such a brilliant piece of writing. And
Speaker 4: he is so interesting because his soul, I think, is
Speaker 4: one hundred and two years old and right he puts
Speaker 4: all of that into his music. So what Make It
Speaker 4: Work gave me was R and B and got bull
Speaker 4: and a henta pop and a tap of rock all
Speaker 4: up in one thing. And it gave me intense musical
Speaker 4: joy to be able to sing it. I love it
Speaker 4: so deeply. And it was so smart with regard to
Speaker 4: the movie because it was talking about many different things.
Speaker 4: It was talking about making the relationship work between me
Speaker 4: and my dad, but it was also talking about him
Speaker 4: making his creation work and making his life work again.
Speaker 4: And what John managed to do in the music is
Speaker 4: he has a work song in there, like an actual
Speaker 4: work song from Time in the Fields. You can feel
Speaker 4: it in the bass and the movement of that song,
Speaker 4: and it talks to you in a way that I
Speaker 4: don't know, if people realize they're being spoken to, it
Speaker 4: comes from the inside. And you know, music moves you
Speaker 4: in wavelengths because your body moves on wavelengths. So when
Speaker 4: people are like, oh, I hate a musical, but then
Speaker 4: they go to a musical and they're like, god, I
Speaker 4: kind of even amazing. They've got caught because of what
Speaker 4: the music has done to your body and the wavelengths
Speaker 4: that your body moves on. And when music is really good,
Speaker 4: it seeps into your body that way. And I think
Speaker 4: that that's part of what he created with that song
Speaker 4: having written it, and it was my great joy to
Speaker 4: be able to come in and partner with him and
Speaker 4: take it to the next place of that vocally. It
Speaker 4: was an amazing experience for me and I loved it.
Speaker 5: I wanted to know what before you said that, you know,
Speaker 5: the stage is what caused you more of all the
Speaker 5: avenues that you can do your craft. I wanted to
Speaker 5: know that, even it's weird that that's your choice, even
Speaker 5: though like a thing.
Speaker 1: Think a lot of times.
Speaker 5: Stage actors get not dismissed, but I mean there's really
Speaker 5: no glamour or glory in it so much, you know,
Speaker 5: like the baccolades that a movie actor or a television
Speaker 5: actor would get this hardly, you know, extended to the
Speaker 5: Broadway world, and at that there's so much pressure because
Speaker 5: you kind of have to deliver out the park every night,
Speaker 5: Like there's no such thing as a bad night or
Speaker 5: one false newe you know, especially with musicals, Like how
Speaker 5: hard is it to preserve your like and basically to
Speaker 5: hit it out the park every night when you're on stage,
Speaker 5: Like how much pressure is that?
Speaker 4: Musicals are particularly exhausting, but it's also life giving, Like
Speaker 4: you leave the stage, you finish your show. For me,
Speaker 4: it takes hours for me to become tired. I am
Speaker 4: so high when I leave the stage, you know, like
Speaker 4: my energy is moving. And I get home, I make
Speaker 4: something to eat, and I talk on the phone or
Speaker 4: read something. I'm up for hours. It takes me hours
Speaker 4: to fall asleep because of the energy coursing through my body.
Speaker 4: But it's exhausting, and it takes an extraordinary amount of discipline,
Speaker 4: which I don't I don't know that people who haven't
Speaker 4: done it realize that, which is why it sometimes conquers
Speaker 4: people who haven't done it and are like, yeah, let's
Speaker 4: do that, and then they're like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 4: show number four. I'm about to die because it's a
Speaker 4: murderer like that if you don't know how to pace
Speaker 4: yourself for it. So depending on what you're doing, Like
Speaker 4: for me, if I'm doing a musical, I want nine
Speaker 4: hours of sleep period. I don't want to talk to
Speaker 4: people about it.
Speaker 1: I don't don't call me in no.
Speaker 4: Single digit am. No, I'm not trying to get up
Speaker 4: to do nothing with you. No, we're not going one
Speaker 4: out at night because I have to make sure that
Speaker 4: somebody one hundred and fifty dollars or however much they
Speaker 4: spent is worthwhile when they come to that stage. And
Speaker 4: it's that's my job. And I take too much pride
Speaker 4: in what I do to ruin it by being out
Speaker 4: at a bar or out doing whatever. And look, some
Speaker 4: people can do that. I can't. I'm speaking about it.
Speaker 2: The show is done, and no, I may go.
Speaker 4: Out to get something to eat, but what you will
Speaker 4: not see me do is talk.
Speaker 1: Done.
Speaker 4: I'll be at a restaurant eating, But if I'm talking
Speaker 4: to somebody, I'm talking in their ear, like I'm in
Speaker 4: their ear right here, real quiet, because you're going to
Speaker 4: I'm gonna lose my voice trying to speak over the
Speaker 4: din of a restaurant. You stress your voice so badly
Speaker 4: that the next day your voice is tired, not from
Speaker 4: the show you did, from the talking you did after.
Speaker 4: So I am really I go home most of the time,
Speaker 4: and I drink an extraordinary amount of water. I probably
Speaker 4: drink about two leaders of water a day, no less,
Speaker 4: to make sure everything is moving. I eat it super
Speaker 4: properly and well, because I can't afford to be sick
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 8: You're vegan, no dairy.
Speaker 4: I am not vegan. I would like to be that person,
Speaker 4: but that's where my discipline doesn't quite get that far.
Speaker 4: I need a piece of meat, you know, and not
Speaker 4: every day, but I need some meat or I'm cranky
Speaker 4: and tired. But I do you know, I cut back
Speaker 4: on I don't eat a whole lot of fried stuff.
Speaker 4: I don't eat a whole lot of spicy stuff. I
Speaker 4: don't eat a whole lot of heavy, heavy stuff. Why
Speaker 4: because those are the things that get on your body
Speaker 4: and say, ooh you've had fun, you ate really well,
Speaker 4: how about some reflux for tomorrow. So those are all
Speaker 4: things that I'm thinking about when I'm performing and somebody
Speaker 4: is going to be like, Oh, you don't have to
Speaker 4: do all that. I never had to do all it.
Speaker 4: I do this, I do that. That's great for them,
Speaker 4: and I wish I was that person. But for me,
Speaker 4: it involves a whole lot of discipline, and I'm not
Speaker 4: bitter about it because it's the thing that I love
Speaker 4: to do, so it always feels worth it.
Speaker 5: That's weird to hear because the time that I was
Speaker 5: involved with the cast of Faila, they would go super hard,
Speaker 5: like every.
Speaker 1: Night, like that's like a thing and a star thing.
Speaker 6: I think like you get to a certain age, you
Speaker 6: can't party that hard when you're like, you know, a
Speaker 6: lot of the ensemble kids don't feel like they need
Speaker 6: to save the voice as much as the word stopped
Speaker 6: you right there.
Speaker 4: Bill Present said something that I'm a now I can
Speaker 4: understand why you wouldn't have to you about to be muted.
Speaker 1: Canceled.
Speaker 4: I have never This has always been the way that
Speaker 4: I approached my job. It's my job and I and
Speaker 4: you know, FELA was an amazing show with amazing artists
Speaker 4: in it. Also a dance heavy show. I don't think
Speaker 4: it was as vocally heavy as it was dance heavy,
Speaker 4: and it's a different type of singing because it's also
Speaker 4: choral singing. So everybody singing except for uh, what was
Speaker 4: his name, Sasha Sar who was Chef's Kiss magnificent. So
Speaker 4: it's choral singing, so you have a whole lot of
Speaker 4: voices that can fill that thing out. And if and
Speaker 4: again let me make this clear, no shade whatsoever. But
Speaker 4: if one choral person is singing at level six or
Speaker 4: seven on a Tuesday night, the audience isn't going to
Speaker 4: know that one choral person is singing at six or
Speaker 4: seven unless that person has a solo. So when you're
Speaker 4: in a show that you can do choral work, I
Speaker 4: think you have a little more space you can lean
Speaker 4: on that day and what you said the person that
Speaker 4: is next to you in a different way. But if
Speaker 4: Sar would go out drinking every single night, Sar, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna have a different show the next day, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean? And he was, oh god, they were
Speaker 4: magnificent in that show.
Speaker 5: Wait, speaking of Bill good, well, now he's canceled build
Speaker 5: instead of Yeah, wait a minute, because Ninka, I was
Speaker 5: looking on your your credits and I saw Hamilton there,
Speaker 5: explain this to me when when was your run with this?
Speaker 4: Because I didn't do a run, I helped workshop Hamilton.
Speaker 5: Ah, So I did the original table like the the.
Speaker 4: Last not the last workshop, but the second to last
Speaker 4: workshop to Hamilton. We did a workshop up at Vassar
Speaker 4: at New York Station Film, which was amazing, and then
Speaker 4: I did A Raisin in the Sun. And I couldn't
Speaker 4: really do anything while I was doing A Raisin in
Speaker 4: the Sun because it was a three hour tour and
Speaker 4: I was it was just a really busy and heavy
Speaker 4: show and dramatic, and I didn't have a lot of
Speaker 4: space to do other things while that was happening. They
Speaker 4: were still doing work another workshop for it after that,
Speaker 4: and they got the lovely Renee Goldsbery and she ended
Speaker 4: up being blessed with the role. But that's how those
Speaker 4: things happened, you know what I mean. Like sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 1: Bill, I was I was not at that.
Speaker 6: I thought you were going to bring up being on
Speaker 6: the Sesame Street float, which is what you and Anica
Speaker 6: have in common other than many other things.
Speaker 5: No, but I mean she when I read that she
Speaker 5: was in the initial Hamilton thing, I was like, wait
Speaker 5: a minute, Bill, that's that's your whole world I did.
Speaker 6: I didn't know that I wasn't. I wasn't there during that,
Speaker 6: but I know that Anica was the first Angelica many
Speaker 6: many moons ago.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I was just confused because when I read that, I
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, I could have.
Speaker 6: Sworn it was to make a record a mirror, and
Speaker 6: she was not there when we made that record.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. I was like, wait, was I
Speaker 2: in ruined?
Speaker 4: It was so crazy? Is that Renee and I actually
Speaker 4: did the good fun together? And she is so amazing
Speaker 4: and beautiful and fantastic. And to watch her, you know,
Speaker 4: step up there and get that Tony and give that
Speaker 4: beautiful speech afterwards. I was so happy for her because
Speaker 4: she is such a good person as well as being
Speaker 4: you know, stupendously talented and not too painful on the eye.
Speaker 4: She's she's a lovely human being. So, you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: you lose out on a role as somebody, and with
Speaker 4: no rationality at all, you're sitting at home mad at
Speaker 4: the person. It has nothing to do with that person
Speaker 4: and you, but you have a little mad you home,
Speaker 4: sending them to no mad cussing under your breath. But
Speaker 4: she is somebody for whom you really can't begrudge anything.
Speaker 4: She's so good at what she does. She's such a
Speaker 4: lo person. She is, She's really a blessing. So I
Speaker 4: was really really happy for her. Does that mean I
Speaker 4: was not sad that I didn't get to do it now,
Speaker 4: But it does mean I had a great time when
Speaker 4: I did do it, and I was happy that the
Speaker 4: person who ended up getting to do it was somebody
Speaker 4: really beautifully fitted to what it was.
Speaker 5: Oh nice, I mean you wanted Tony previously for Carolina Cheams.
Speaker 5: What was that like to I believe that that world
Speaker 5: is very not unpenetrable, but just very hard to get
Speaker 5: a seat at the table, just based on my limited
Speaker 5: experience of being in that world, So I mean, what
Speaker 5: did it feel like to get the acknowledgment?
Speaker 4: At least it was one of the most amazing moments
Speaker 4: of my career because it was the last thing that
Speaker 4: I expected. I just had no idea that that was
Speaker 4: what was going on to come from that role. And
Speaker 4: even when at the time people were like, oh, we're
Speaker 4: coming to see your show, I was like, well, it's
Speaker 4: not really my show. I come in at this point
Speaker 4: in time, but come to see the show, because the
Speaker 4: show is amazing and everybody was phenomenal in it. I
Speaker 4: was stunned when I got nominated and then when I won,
Speaker 4: I I if you ever get to see that video,
Speaker 4: Like my head dropped, Like they said my name, they
Speaker 4: said my first name. I didn't even hear my middle name.
Speaker 4: My head went down. And then I was just focused
Speaker 4: on not tripping.
Speaker 1: As I got to the stage, Everyone's like, don't fall,
Speaker 1: don't fall.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of wires.
Speaker 1: Don't tell you that on the heel.
Speaker 4: And you haven't eaten for six hours freezing because yeah,
Speaker 4: and you're not trying to drink nothing because your dress
Speaker 4: is fitted and you're not trying to have come up
Speaker 4: put a pinch, so all those things. But I did
Speaker 4: have a lunar bar in my purse. Oh I always
Speaker 4: have a snack. I'm the one who a snack because
Speaker 4: otherwise I'm cranky.
Speaker 1: So you established that you're angry, like, but.
Speaker 10: My friend my friends like, NA, we're just going to
Speaker 10: carry some snacks for you because you don't really know
Speaker 10: how to act after a certain impoortant time.
Speaker 4: And I was like, no, but I can't even deny that.
Speaker 4: So I had snacks. But you know what was amazing
Speaker 4: to me was that it was a collection of my
Speaker 4: peers who said, you, you did something that stands out
Speaker 4: that is worthy of recognition. And I looked out into
Speaker 4: Radio City Music Hall and the people in the balcony.
Speaker 4: I could see them barely, but I could see them
Speaker 4: like they stood, and I could hear. At some point
Speaker 4: my hearing came back, like I got to the stage
Speaker 4: and then I could hear this wave of applause and
Speaker 4: I could see the Oh, the woman who wrote the music,
Speaker 4: Jantia Sorri, was climbing over somebody else to grab them.
Speaker 4: While it was happening, my brother was in the audience,
Speaker 4: my grandmother was there, and both of my parents, and
Speaker 4: I think I was so very moved and full, and
Speaker 4: I think that you know those times when you just
Speaker 4: have no idea, like I didn't even know when nominations
Speaker 4: came out, and I try not to know because I
Speaker 4: feel like it's stress. Live. I don't need that stress.
Speaker 4: You know, it's so rare that we're in a position
Speaker 4: where we were nominated for something and then go ahead
Speaker 4: and get it. That's something else, So I don't need
Speaker 4: to be thinking about oh, April second is blah blah.
Speaker 4: That's stress you don't need, so I just go on
Speaker 4: about my life. But I had zero idea that that
Speaker 4: was going to happen. And it was phenomenal. It was phenomenal,
Speaker 4: that feeling, and it led to me being in Dreamgirls
Speaker 4: because Bill Condon saw Carolina change and then he came
Speaker 4: back and saw me in Pearly and that's how I
Speaker 4: got to audition for Dreamgirls.
Speaker 8: Like it was an audition, the audition it was.
Speaker 4: It was interesting because I was such a knucklehead and
Speaker 4: I was so new. They had asked me to audition,
Speaker 4: and I said, well, you know, I'm actually supposed to
Speaker 4: perform at the Library of Congress and I told him
Speaker 4: that I would and I can't pull out of that
Speaker 4: because you know, it's a performance that I said I
Speaker 4: would do, and so let me know when you have
Speaker 4: a second round of auditions. That could have gone so wrong.
Speaker 4: So they did. They did let me know, and they
Speaker 4: were like, but now we're in Los Angeles, and I said, well,
Speaker 4: I'm guess I'm gonna fly myself to Los Angeles. And
Speaker 4: that's not something that I do regularly. I really generally
Speaker 4: feel like if somebody really really wants you in something,
Speaker 4: a company they'll send for you. Yeah, but if you
Speaker 4: really really really want something and you have to decide
Speaker 4: what that thing is, then then bring yourself and go
Speaker 4: get it. And my point of view was I'm coming
Speaker 4: to get this, So I flew myself out. I did
Speaker 4: an audition. It was a great audition. It was months
Speaker 4: before I heard from them, like it must have been
Speaker 4: three months, I think it was. And then they wanted
Speaker 4: me to come to a callback and they flew me
Speaker 4: out for the callback and there was a limo that
Speaker 4: met me at the airport.
Speaker 8: And I was like, what, I didn't notice really happy
Speaker 8: by this time? Where were they in the casting process?
Speaker 8: Like had some people been casting and some hadn't, or
Speaker 8: like where were they by the time you got I wish.
Speaker 4: That I could tell you, But you know what I
Speaker 4: was concerned about myself, Eddie Murphy, you know already in there.
Speaker 4: I think they were already there from the beginning, but
Speaker 4: we weren't auditioning with them, and they were still trying
Speaker 4: to figure out who the girls were going to be together,
Speaker 4: you know. And there are so many reasons why I
Speaker 4: may not have gotten that job. I'm short, I am
Speaker 4: five two and a half Beyonce, I think it's five six.
Speaker 4: Jennifer is five and nine. You might not have seen
Speaker 4: me on screen, so it was you know, it was
Speaker 4: me and five and literally five and a half inch
Speaker 4: heels through that entire movie, so that we could all
Speaker 4: be on screen together. And those are some of the
Speaker 4: things that people don't know happened. When you're casting something.
Speaker 4: You got the Lollipop.
Speaker 1: Guild me.
Speaker 4: Say so. Anyway, so I went, they flew me out,
Speaker 4: and I auditioned again, and I sang ain't no party
Speaker 4: live and with no music, and and then it was
Speaker 4: like another three months and and I was.
Speaker 7: Like, well, you know, you start three months waiting, like
Speaker 7: how are you supporting yoursel are you still working as
Speaker 7: an actress like making money and stuff?
Speaker 4: You know what, I've been very lucky that I've never
Speaker 4: done anything else with this. I've never waited at a table.
Speaker 4: I've only done this.
Speaker 8: Straight from school.
Speaker 4: And I'm grateful for that because I've seen people at restaurants,
Speaker 4: you know, people come in getting real entitled about their medium,
Speaker 4: well Hamburgers. So I'm grateful for that. And I have
Speaker 4: a lot of respect for the people who can deal
Speaker 4: with the public feeling special about their Hairburger. So I've
Speaker 4: never had to do anything else, but I have been broke,
Speaker 4: and at that time, I really wasn't having much money
Speaker 4: flow coming in because I didn't have a stage job
Speaker 4: in that moment, and I remember, but I still had
Speaker 4: to get my hair done because your hair is your face,
Speaker 4: so you have an audition, your hair need to be right.
Speaker 4: So I was getting my hair done. I was under
Speaker 4: a hair dryer and my phone rang and my agent
Speaker 4: was trying to talk to me, and I was like,
Speaker 4: what I can't hear, I can't.
Speaker 8: You gotta be calling you.
Speaker 4: So I got out from under the dryer and called
Speaker 4: this person back and they told me that I had
Speaker 4: gotten the role. And I was sitting in the hair hairdresser,
Speaker 4: tears running down my face because I wanted it so
Speaker 4: badly and I felt like it was for me, like
Speaker 4: I felt it in that moment. Sometimes you're wrong, though,
Speaker 4: and I was so thrilled that this was the next
Speaker 4: thing that I was going to do because I knew
Speaker 4: that music and I knew that show really well. And
Speaker 4: then Anthony Manguela, who did the Number one Ladies Detective Agency,
Speaker 4: saw me and Dreamgirls called Bill Condon to ask what
Speaker 4: kind of person I was, and that's how I got
Speaker 4: the audition for Number one Ladies. So everything is sort
Speaker 4: of connected.
Speaker 2: I see, I want to know. I know that you
Speaker 2: worked with the great Debbie Allen.
Speaker 5: She's one of our bucket list hopefuls for this show.
Speaker 5: What was it like working under her direction? For Kat
Speaker 5: on a high ten roof? First it was this all
Speaker 5: black version of it, which is unusual.
Speaker 2: Like, what was it like? And also with James L.
Speaker 2: Jones was in that book, right, Yes he was.
Speaker 4: That was my big daddy, and Felicia.
Speaker 1: Was, Yeah it was.
Speaker 4: It was great working with her because you're working with
Speaker 4: somebody who knows the stage like the back of her hand.
Speaker 4: You're working with someone who has no pretense. You're working
Speaker 4: with someone who will occasionally pull your hair to make
Speaker 4: a point. And I love her. I love her deeply.
Speaker 4: And the fact that she came to me with that
Speaker 4: role was I mean, it's something I never thought I
Speaker 4: would do, not because I didn't think I was able
Speaker 4: to do it. I just never thought that I would
Speaker 4: be considered for that role. I mean, you're talking about
Speaker 4: a sacred cow Tennessee Williams, who would have ever thought
Speaker 4: a black Maggie would grace a stage?
Speaker 1: And that's the role Elizabeth Taylor played.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 4: Yes, And I loved that play and I loved those words,
Speaker 4: and I loved that woman, Maggie. She's an amazing and
Speaker 4: tortured soul. And Debbie said, you know, would you like
Speaker 4: to do this? And I said absolutely. And I will
Speaker 4: really be grateful to her forever for giving me that
Speaker 4: opportunity to stretch myself like that and to be an adult,
Speaker 4: like a full blonde woman on stage, which until that
Speaker 4: point I had not really done. I was playing kids
Speaker 4: most of the time and really young people, and this
Speaker 4: was somebody who all the youth had been sort of
Speaker 4: sucked out of her. She was and she was a woman,
Speaker 4: and she traveled the world in womanhood before she was
Speaker 4: even a woman. So this was something that it was
Speaker 4: perfect in my life space because I had known disappointment
Speaker 4: at that point in time, and I had known pain, hurt,
Speaker 4: and Debbie knew, she knew that peace, and she knew
Speaker 4: that stage, and she just she just set me free
Speaker 4: in that space. I and I'm really, really to this
Speaker 4: day very grateful for her. And she's somebody you can
Speaker 4: laugh with but also who has done her homework and
Speaker 4: you know that you can have an in depth and
Speaker 4: fruitful conversation about the art of it with her.
Speaker 7: So okay, one question I had for you, Anita, I
Speaker 7: was specifically concerning your time at FAM.
Speaker 1: You it's not too many, we won't get.
Speaker 7: Too many HBCU grads, you know, to show I'm as
Speaker 7: I graduated North Calina Central, and yeah, FAM, he was
Speaker 7: actually one of my schools. I was, you know, I
Speaker 7: got like a seventy two, but I wasn't going all
Speaker 7: the way to down Florida. But yeah, oh yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 7: like you too, So yeah, just tell us about that time,
Speaker 7: you know, going to FAM, and just what that experience
Speaker 7: was like for you and how you think that influenced
Speaker 7: your artistry.
Speaker 4: Well, I wanted to go to an HBCU. I didn't
Speaker 4: know which one I was going to, but I knew
Speaker 4: I wanted to go, and I had already been accepted
Speaker 4: at a couple of other schools that were, you know,
Speaker 4: traditional schools. But I had family who went to Howard,
Speaker 4: I had family who went to Hampton, I had family
Speaker 4: who went to FAM, and so I was familiar with
Speaker 4: these schools and I don't know. I wanted to go
Speaker 4: someplace that was small enough to build a program and
Speaker 4: have individualized attention if you needed it. That was important
Speaker 4: to me because say, Howard Grade School, fantastic school, huge, so.
Speaker 8: That much smaller.
Speaker 4: It's the department is much smaller.
Speaker 8: Oh, the department.
Speaker 4: The department is much And I was coming from Connecticut,
Speaker 4: and that's another reason why I wanted to have a
Speaker 4: an HBCU experience, because that wasn't my growing up experience.
Speaker 4: Like in my particular neighborhood, I was one of two
Speaker 4: black folks and I don't know if the other person
Speaker 4: knew that they were wanting.
Speaker 5: To two.
Speaker 2: Connect Bloomfield.
Speaker 4: Oh, beautiful town, gorgeous town and a great growing up
Speaker 4: and I'm happy to have had it. But it was
Speaker 4: important to me to have that experience. And I, you know,
Speaker 4: and I grew up in a family who made it.
Speaker 4: You know. I was very clear about who I was
Speaker 4: and where I came from and what my history was.
Speaker 4: I didn't know if I would ever I don't think
Speaker 4: I would ever have the opportunity again after this time
Speaker 4: to be surrounded by my own culture. So that was
Speaker 4: important to me to have that experience, and it was.
Speaker 4: I think it was a good experience. It was a
Speaker 4: good place to be on stage. I studied theater, so
Speaker 4: I didn't study acting necessarily specifically. I studied theater so
Speaker 4: that meant I was acting. If I wasn't acting, I
Speaker 4: was doing costuming or directing or fighting. Yeah, I was
Speaker 4: doing everything. And I think that that was a gift
Speaker 4: to me as an actor because it made it very
Speaker 4: clear that there are a lot of other things happening
Speaker 4: around you that make the thing work. It ain't you.
Speaker 4: You know, you you are the reason the one thing
Speaker 4: that you're doing is happening. But you can't just do that,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And so I think it
Speaker 4: made me very appreciative of everything that happened all around me.
Speaker 4: And and the band was exquisite U and I knew
Speaker 4: the band before I had gotten to the school, and
Speaker 4: I had seen them live before I got into the school,
Speaker 4: and they were you know, it was just such an
Speaker 4: amazing culture to be a part of and to be
Speaker 4: proud to be a part of. And there are a
Speaker 4: lot of HBCUs with some good bands, but then there's
Speaker 4: fam you.
Speaker 1: Did this? Did you did this? Prepare you for your
Speaker 1: time on the quad?
Speaker 2: On BT.
Speaker 4: Because you know what was amazing about my time on
Speaker 4: the Quad is that I was playing a woman who
Speaker 4: was from Connecticut who was thrown into the HBCU experienced
Speaker 4: And did they.
Speaker 5: Know your did they know your history when writing this
Speaker 5: character or it was just coincidence Rob Hardy did.
Speaker 4: Rob Hardy did, but a little bit of coincidence. And
Speaker 4: it was really interesting and great for me to be
Speaker 4: able to bring that aspect of myself to what I
Speaker 4: was doing. And I had spent a lot of time
Speaker 4: in academia because because of family, and my grandmother was
Speaker 4: a teacher, and so all of those things sort of
Speaker 4: came to ahead. But the HBCU thing, most assuredly, I
Speaker 4: think you have to live it to know it, and
Speaker 4: you can read about it and you can watch some video,
Speaker 4: but you sort of have to live it to know it.
Speaker 4: And I was grateful to be able to bring that
Speaker 4: part of myself to that space. And we had a
Speaker 4: couple of writers on staff who were HBCU people, and
Speaker 4: Rob Hardy, who also went to family, was one of
Speaker 4: the creators. So it was luck that all of that
Speaker 4: came together in one space. And she was a pretty
Speaker 4: fun character to play.
Speaker 8: Can I ask a random role question because it was
Speaker 8: two roles I just wanted to ask you about, and
Speaker 8: one of them is very random, but it's still one
Speaker 8: of my favorite episodes of this brandis Law and Order. Yes,
Speaker 8: Law and Order SVU. I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 8: And I wanted to ask you about what that now
Speaker 8: that I know, I mean, I knew you were from Connecticut,
Speaker 8: but what that meant as an East Coast actor? What
Speaker 8: that means to East Coast actors in a way? And
Speaker 8: was that something that you felt like you had to do?
Speaker 8: It was on a bucket list of sorts in a way,
Speaker 8: because it's I feel like everybody has run through Lawn Order.
Speaker 4: It was not, And it was a badge of honor
Speaker 4: to be the only New York actor that I knew
Speaker 4: who had never been on Lawn Order. I was like,
Speaker 4: apparently they don't want me, and I'm the only New
Speaker 4: York actor they don't want, So I'm going to turn
Speaker 4: that into an honor.
Speaker 9: Instead of being like, y'all do I can't even be
Speaker 9: dead in the park like people die every week, right you?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: I didn't even get that.
Speaker 4: So it took years before that happened. And and it
Speaker 4: was a great and interesting role. And the guy who
Speaker 4: wrote it, Oh, it's Matthew's last name. I can't think
Speaker 4: of his last name, but I'm gonna figure it out
Speaker 4: right now because that's rude. He he was so good
Speaker 4: and I'm looking him up right now. That's why I'm
Speaker 4: trying to multitach my mind. He saw you on David Matthews.
Speaker 4: David Matthews wrote that episode. Warren Light is a really
Speaker 4: good dude, and they love theater people. But David wrote
Speaker 4: something so interesting with this character, this woman, this Marriam Dang,
Speaker 4: who was based on a real person who had had
Speaker 4: that situation happened to her. And I cannot remember.
Speaker 8: The real woman's in the beginning, Okay, I researched.
Speaker 4: Her, I pulled her up. I listened to her accent
Speaker 4: over and over again to find this woman and it
Speaker 4: was an interesting accent. It was different for me to do,
Speaker 4: but it was fun. It was fun to do, and
Speaker 4: it was just it was something different for me to do.
Speaker 4: And then I now, I can't say I'm the only
Speaker 4: one who they didn't want.
Speaker 8: My second world question was just about going to be
Speaker 8: about jukebox and the way that character was brought to you,
Speaker 8: and if it was brought to you, if you auditioned,
Speaker 8: and why it took it.
Speaker 2: Took me four episodes to realize it was her.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, you were just That's when I was like, oh,
Speaker 8: she's you.
Speaker 6: Just all things are kind of flying by you mirror like, like, no.
Speaker 1: Things, No, you're still in the doghouse. Yo, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come back. I'm gonna come back. Wait till we get
Speaker 1: to the Princess of the Frog.
Speaker 6: I got Betty questions, but literally literally and all kinds
Speaker 6: of ship.
Speaker 5: There's a point where you know where I guess you
Speaker 5: were going to Kiltaric or whatever. And when I watched
Speaker 5: the credits to the end, I was like, no, that's
Speaker 5: not her, let's get out of it. And then I
Speaker 5: realized that was you and I had to rewatch that
Speaker 5: episode again. Yeah, I totally did not make that you
Speaker 5: until you really lost there.
Speaker 4: For me, that is See, that's my favorite compliment. I
Speaker 4: love that. I loved jukebox. I loved jukebox.
Speaker 5: Courtney put you to do it, or like how I
Speaker 5: met her. She's one of the nicest people ever.
Speaker 4: Also from Connecticut. Courtney and I have mutual friends and
Speaker 4: we met at a game night and Courtney also wrote
Speaker 4: on The Good Wife? What so she knew me from
Speaker 4: The Good Wife? I didn't know her at that point.
Speaker 4: And then we met at this game night and had
Speaker 4: a great time. And when we met, we were like,
Speaker 4: we like each other. We should go to lunch. And
Speaker 4: so we went to lunch and she was like, you know, Anica,
Speaker 4: if there was a is there a role that you'd
Speaker 4: want to play that you feel like no one would
Speaker 4: ever give you? And I was like, huh, well yeah.
Speaker 4: She was like, well what is that? I was like,
Speaker 4: I would like to be a complete badass, preferably on
Speaker 4: a motorcycle, which I don't drive. I don't ride motorcycles.
Speaker 4: But I'm thinking this is something new when I would
Speaker 4: have given me and you know, just completely like wild
Speaker 4: and the outside of anything somebody would think of me for.
Speaker 4: And this was years before before power had even happened.
Speaker 4: And she was like, oh, that would be really cool.
Speaker 4: I'd love to see you this way. And I was
Speaker 4: like yeah. And so cut to a couple of years later,
Speaker 4: I'd get a call saying would you be interested in
Speaker 4: She's a cop, She's a rogue cop, she's a lesbian
Speaker 4: she's sort of murderous. I said, yes, yes, I would.
Speaker 4: I would be absolutely. I mean, you ain't got to
Speaker 4: tell me nothing else. Thank you. I loved her. I
Speaker 4: loved her because she was ruthless and interesting and different,
Speaker 4: and it's something I would never be in life, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like I would never want to
Speaker 4: do the things that she did in life. But that's
Speaker 4: one of those times where you can do all the
Speaker 4: horrible things on screen and have fun with it. And
Speaker 4: I got to mush fifty cent in the head, like
Speaker 4: we guessed the mushif.
Speaker 1: More than mush fifty cent in the head yo.
Speaker 8: And the accent I heard a DZ accent. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it was. It was really
Speaker 4: really fun for me. And it was so well written.
Speaker 4: The episodes were so well written. And that was that, honestly,
Speaker 4: was another moment where they were just like, so, how
Speaker 4: you want to do it? And I was like, oh, really,
Speaker 4: let's go. I just got to go. And I have
Speaker 4: been in New Yorker for so long, you know, I'd
Speaker 4: lived in New York for a really long time, and
Speaker 4: I've always been I grew up on the East Coast,
Speaker 4: so you know, Thank God. I haven't had to really
Speaker 4: spend time with those people, but I've definitely seen those people,
Speaker 4: and you recognize them when you see them, when you
Speaker 4: look into their eye and you see like they are
Speaker 4: not worried about doing away with you. It would not
Speaker 4: bother them. You've seen those people. So I loved her.
Speaker 4: I loved her, and thank you.
Speaker 5: Okay, So if you can, can you completely walk me now?
Speaker 5: I feel safe asking this question because people already know
Speaker 5: on the show that my animation watching activity is very
Speaker 5: very low, with the exception of occasional few, so I
Speaker 5: don't feel bad when people ridicule.
Speaker 1: Me for not you never saw the Lion King.
Speaker 5: Yes, I've been through all that, So can you walk
Speaker 5: me through the process now? And again, I know this
Speaker 5: is a very historical pivotal, not even for you, but
Speaker 5: just for history.
Speaker 1: Love it, keep going, keep.
Speaker 6: We didn't see Princess at the front.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 5: What I'm asking is to please walk me through the
Speaker 5: process of how that role came to you.
Speaker 1: And it's the best ship ever. I have daughters and
Speaker 1: it's just great.
Speaker 4: I was in l A doing Carolina Change after we
Speaker 4: closed the New York Rule, the New York Run. We
Speaker 4: did a soft tour, just La and San Francisco, and
Speaker 4: that was all I did, because by then I had
Speaker 4: done over three hundred shows. And while I was in La,
Speaker 4: the Disney people came to see it at the mark
Speaker 4: Taper and they were like, we'd love to have a
Speaker 4: meeting with you, and I was like yes, because I
Speaker 4: had always wanted to be a Disney voice, not necessarily
Speaker 4: a Princess. I really didn't care what I was going
Speaker 4: to be. I just wanted to be a voice. And
Speaker 4: so I had this meeting and I told them that
Speaker 4: I would love to be anything, and I could be
Speaker 4: a fleet even and I had a sound for the
Speaker 4: fleet or the ticket, and they probably thought I was insane,
Speaker 4: and from that meeting I was a couple of years later,
Speaker 4: three years later, two years later, they called me for
Speaker 4: to audition for The Princess and the Frog and I
Speaker 4: read that the piece that they gave you, because they
Speaker 4: don't give you the whole thing, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I know this girl. I am this girl. I am
Speaker 4: from a small town where nobody did the thing that
Speaker 4: I wanted to do. I spent my growing up and
Speaker 4: trying to do what I do, being told you know
Speaker 4: that it wasn't perhaps possible. I knew who this girl
Speaker 4: was and I was a hard worker. So it took
Speaker 4: three auditions over I don't know, must have been a
Speaker 4: year that those auditions happened. One was the first one
Speaker 4: was the day after the Dream Girl's premiere in LA,
Speaker 4: So you will see no pictures of me at the
Speaker 4: Dreamgirls premiere party in La because I went back to
Speaker 4: my hotel room and I worked on that audition and
Speaker 4: I think I sang everything in my book when I
Speaker 4: went in there, because I was like, I'm going to
Speaker 4: get this wrong. And the second one was some time later,
Speaker 4: and I also crazy. I was working on a show
Speaker 4: in Australia and I got a call back for the
Speaker 4: Princess and the Frog, and I was in Oh God,
Speaker 4: I was in New York. I was flying out to Australia.
Speaker 4: I think the next two days I was flying out
Speaker 4: and my audition was going to be I had to
Speaker 4: go to Australia, unpack a bag, shoot for one day,
Speaker 4: get on another plane, go back to LA And the
Speaker 4: day after that was my second audition. That sounds crazy
Speaker 4: because it was. However, I didn't care because I wanted
Speaker 4: that role and I was like, if I have to
Speaker 4: turn around and get dressed on this plane and gargle
Speaker 4: my way to Bourbank, I'm coming to get this role.
Speaker 4: So we did that, and then time went past, and
Speaker 4: I think I will It was two thousand and six,
Speaker 4: so I was we were doing the Oscars telecast for
Speaker 4: dream Girls, and Randy Newman was there because he of
Speaker 4: course had something that was nominated. And I'm looking at
Speaker 4: him because he had been in the room audition.
Speaker 2: I'm like, hi, toy Story sixteen.
Speaker 4: And I'm just hoping he's gonna say something positive to me,
Speaker 4: and he was like hey. And some more months went
Speaker 4: by before I got the word, and that one I
Speaker 4: got the word walking down the street in New York,
Speaker 4: headed to the bank with a sad piece of check
Speaker 4: in my hand. I don't know what. I just know
Speaker 4: it wasn't it wasn't exciting, but I was happy to
Speaker 4: be putting it in the bank. And I got the
Speaker 4: call walking down Broadway that I had gotten that role,
Speaker 4: and they were like, you should where are you? I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, oh, broa, where and they were like,
Speaker 4: you should come to our offices so we can celebrate.
Speaker 4: And I bopped myself to the Disney offices and had
Speaker 4: an intense, tearful, fabulous celebration and you know, three years
Speaker 4: of making later it came out. Wow.
Speaker 1: So it took three years from that point, wow for
Speaker 1: it to come out.
Speaker 4: And was that really what you were asking me? And
Speaker 4: I gave you an hire?
Speaker 5: Okay, we lived for this is the rabbit Hole Central.
Speaker 5: We we lived for those things.
Speaker 1: Wait can you.
Speaker 6: Talk about can you talk about Princess and the Frog?
Speaker 6: Like the music so like straight out of New Orleans
Speaker 6: and like just the whole process of like getting into
Speaker 6: that vibe. Also Randy Newman known for like the medium
Speaker 6: shuffle sort of getting himself out of that and writing
Speaker 6: things that are very you know, New orleansy as it were,
Speaker 6: And like, how did what was it? What was your
Speaker 6: approach to that and how did you feel about like
Speaker 6: being that character?
Speaker 4: I loved being that character.
Speaker 6: Because the singing, like the acting and the voice stuff
Speaker 6: is great in that show, but the singing and like,
Speaker 6: you know, you're always trying and Disney stuff to be
Speaker 6: the next great Disney songs, because these songs are are
Speaker 6: so high. This is coming from a guy who works
Speaker 6: to saysme street Disney songs are so high on the
Speaker 6: you know, on the thing of great songs, Like, did
Speaker 6: you feel a sense of purpose?
Speaker 1: I feel a.
Speaker 6: Sense of that you had to to be up. I mean,
Speaker 6: you're always up to a certain level. I'm not going
Speaker 6: to say that, but like, did you feel a sense
Speaker 6: of having to push it over the top?
Speaker 1: Like what was what was that? I don't want to
Speaker 1: get canceled again.
Speaker 4: No, my finger is hovering, but I didn't. I have
Speaker 4: to tap the new button. I'm glad. No. I felt
Speaker 4: a sense of responsibility towards the character. I felt a
Speaker 4: strong sense of responsibility towards her because I wanted her
Speaker 4: to be as honest and as real as possible. And
Speaker 4: I felt like it was something that I was old
Speaker 4: as a little black girl in this country who grew
Speaker 4: up on Disney. I felt like it was something that
Speaker 4: my parents' generation were old, having never seen that. And
Speaker 4: I felt like it was something that was old to
Speaker 4: the generation coming up behind me, that this person be real,
Speaker 4: that she be relatable, that she be honest. And there
Speaker 4: were things that we talked about as we went through it.
Speaker 4: You know, musically, I wanted to hear the youth in
Speaker 4: her voice, particularly as we started the movie, and the
Speaker 4: wonder in her voice, and I wanted her to be
Speaker 4: true to the sound of that era. So the movie
Speaker 4: starts with a tiny song the evening star shine and right,
Speaker 4: so make a wish and hold on time. There's magic
Speaker 4: in the air to night and anything can that was
Speaker 4: flat thing can happen. So I wanted that beginning to
Speaker 4: definitely be as magical and whimsical as possible. And as
Speaker 4: we went through almost there, you got her spirit in there,
Speaker 4: and you got her soul in there. That last note
Speaker 4: that I was able to just I was given the
Speaker 4: space to just hold and go with it. And then
Speaker 4: at the end, when she sings down in New Orleans,
Speaker 4: which Doctor John had sung towards the beginning of the movie,
Speaker 4: I felt like it was important to hear the maturity
Speaker 4: of who she had become and the journey that she
Speaker 4: had gone through. So it's still her, but you know,
Speaker 4: we all sing differently for different occasions, different feelings, different moments.
Speaker 4: I really put some a little bit of her gut
Speaker 4: in that song because I felt like she was freed
Speaker 4: of some things. She was freed of the responsibility that
Speaker 4: she had put on herself. She was a she was
Speaker 4: more open to just having some fun she had found love,
Speaker 4: which she didn't expect, and she had achieved her dream.
Speaker 4: And I feel like that is an opening up that
Speaker 4: happens that takes you from being a girl to a
Speaker 4: young woman. And I wanted that to be heard in
Speaker 4: her voice. So when you get to that down in
Speaker 4: New Orleans, sorry, down in New Orleans, in the Southland,
Speaker 4: there's a city way down.
Speaker 8: On the river.
Speaker 4: I wanted to use some more of the bottom part
Speaker 4: of the voice and some more and to let some
Speaker 4: more dirt for lack of a better word, come into
Speaker 4: to her voice for that song. And that was important
Speaker 4: to me, And we had a conversation about it because
Speaker 4: I didn't want her to be to spend a whole
Speaker 4: movie singing in this place.
Speaker 8: I didn't want not from.
Speaker 4: New Orleans, you know what I mean. And I felt
Speaker 4: like it was important to the truth of who this
Speaker 4: young woman is and would be to have that space today.
Speaker 5: Were you allowed to sort of drive what your character
Speaker 5: was or did you have to have like a conversation
Speaker 5: with the Disney people, because I you know, I would
Speaker 5: think that at least when you're dealing with the Hollywood
Speaker 5: superpower like that, they're always thinking about Middle America. And
Speaker 5: we don't want to scare them off, and you know
Speaker 5: that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: So yeah, no, I wasn't worried about Middle America. You know,
Speaker 4: she's from New Orleans, so I was worried about New Orleans.
Speaker 4: And she is me, so I was worried about representing
Speaker 4: you know, who we are. And they wanted it to
Speaker 4: be as true to form as possible. They really did,
Speaker 4: and so I was given the space to say, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't think this would be this doesn't really make
Speaker 4: sense to me for this reason or the other. And
Speaker 4: I was heard when I said those things. Now, mind you,
Speaker 4: I didn't write the story, so it's not like the
Speaker 4: necessarily the story was going to change. But if I
Speaker 4: said that something culturally didn't sit well, or if I
Speaker 4: said that, I know, we had a big talk about
Speaker 4: the scene in the I think I'm free to say this,
Speaker 4: the scene in the swamp where when Princess Tianna was
Speaker 4: a frog still and Navin was a frog and they
Speaker 4: were being hunted, and there was when we first did
Speaker 4: that scene, my concern was, I said, what we don't
Speaker 4: want in this scene is for it to feel like
Speaker 4: a slave hunt, because you know, black folks are always
Speaker 4: going to think about and feel that feeling when you've
Speaker 4: got these real what's the good word, like hick white
Speaker 4: dudes with two teeth and a net and some dogs
Speaker 4: running after us. Very important to have the tone of
Speaker 4: that scene correct. And we talked about it, and I
Speaker 4: talked about it and they were like, oh, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: So it made a difference in how that scene moved
Speaker 4: and the words that were used and how the chase happened.
Speaker 4: And I'm and I'm glad that I was working with
Speaker 4: a group of people who were open to hear that.
Speaker 4: And you would think, well, of course they would, because
Speaker 4: they want to make some money, but you'd be surprised
Speaker 4: the amount of times that people don't listen to you.
Speaker 8: As you were saying it to you, I was thinking
Speaker 8: to myself, they listening, and I was wondering if that
Speaker 8: anybody in that room that looked like you though that
Speaker 8: was helping to write that story. But I'm guessing that
Speaker 8: that's why you had to provide that expertise, because.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think we had one black writer,
Speaker 4: maybe two, but they weren't always there with us. And
Speaker 4: I think when you're dealing with large entities that you
Speaker 4: do the best you can to make sure that you're heard,
Speaker 4: but sometimes it's hard to be heard. And look, I
Speaker 4: don't know what conversations happened before I said that, so
Speaker 4: let me make that very clear. I don't know what
Speaker 4: conversations happened. But sometimes it's hard to be heard from
Speaker 4: the inside of the room. Sometimes something has to come
Speaker 4: through from the outside of the room for people to understand, Oh,
Speaker 4: this isn't just so and so who I work with
Speaker 4: every day. This really is something that you know will
Speaker 4: be a universal thought issue, you know, problem feeling. But
Speaker 4: I don't know what they talked about beforehand, but I
Speaker 4: know that for me, that that was something that we
Speaker 4: really needed to talk about. And I'm glad that they
Speaker 4: heard me. And they were really wonderful during the process,
Speaker 4: like really wonderful Peter del Vaco, Ron Clements and John Musker,
Speaker 4: who are amazing and they also did a little Mermaid,
Speaker 4: so it was an amazing production team. And I did
Speaker 4: feel listened to when I spoke I'm and I'm glad
Speaker 4: for that. And I think it's only smart of people
Speaker 4: who are creating something in a culture that isn't theirs
Speaker 4: to listen to the person who in the room for
Speaker 4: whom it is now, am I from New Orleans, No,
Speaker 4: but as a black woman who grew up in this
Speaker 4: country and knows her history and has family in the South.
Speaker 4: There are things that I'm going to bring to that
Speaker 4: that they never would have listened to there. First of all,
Speaker 4: not even women, so we can start there. You know,
Speaker 4: it was a group of men, but they were good dudes.
Speaker 4: And there were other things that we talked about, like
Speaker 4: I asked for Tiana to be left handed, and they
Speaker 4: were totally into that. Yeah. Right, And that's something that
Speaker 4: you just don't I am, and it's something you just
Speaker 4: don't see, you don't get to see. It was important
Speaker 4: to me that she not have a cookie cutter body.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, this is a black girl,
Speaker 4: so let's make sure that you know, we don't want
Speaker 4: it to look like porn, which sometimes cartoons can do
Speaker 4: to people. But she need to have a booty because
Speaker 4: let's be true to form. Let's make a real person,
Speaker 4: not just paint something that's there. And to be clear,
Speaker 4: this wasn't a fight. They asked me the things that
Speaker 4: I that I thought of that I felt were important,
Speaker 4: and those were, you know, some of the things that
Speaker 4: I talked about, but not all of them. But those
Speaker 4: are the things that you will see immediately. And that
Speaker 4: our hair not be straight, those are things that you'll
Speaker 4: see immediately. And it was and I have now taken
Speaker 4: you all the way to Wonderland because I think I'd
Speaker 4: forgotten what the question was.
Speaker 1: That I got.
Speaker 6: A quest love supreme, where every tangent is a good tangent.
Speaker 8: Again.
Speaker 1: No, this this brings a whole new level of respect
Speaker 1: that you know was already there, but added more to it.
Speaker 5: No, thank thank you for sharing that you're in Tyler
Speaker 5: Perry's uh for Colored Girls with damn near half of Hollywood.
Speaker 1: What was that?
Speaker 5: What was that whole experience like in doing that that movie?
Speaker 4: You know, it was interesting because most of those people
Speaker 4: we I didn't see till the end, and I I
Speaker 4: didn't I didn't see them. However, it was it was
Speaker 4: actually a really good experience. And I'll have to say
Speaker 4: that as far as how you're treated on a set,
Speaker 4: Tyler had there were flowers in my trailer every morning
Speaker 4: when I went into work, fresh fresh flowers that had
Speaker 4: never happened before.
Speaker 1: And so that makes a difference.
Speaker 4: You know. All it says is we care.
Speaker 8: Okay, and at the very least you're doing so much
Speaker 8: heavy work that it kind of doesn't end up lifting
Speaker 8: a ways. Okay, well, at least I'm starting my day
Speaker 8: off with these flowers, because yeah, start.
Speaker 4: Off with something nice because you're going into the ships
Speaker 4: that one. But that was a really lovely thing. And
Speaker 4: we shot in New York and we shot in Atlanta
Speaker 4: and it was pretty fast. But yeah, so I didn't
Speaker 4: really get to Tandy and I became very close on
Speaker 4: that set. For some reason, we ended up being what
Speaker 4: year was that we ended up being connected that two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine, and Carrie and I became friendly, but
Speaker 4: we didn't really get to find, you know, meld and
Speaker 4: work together because it really as much of an ensemble
Speaker 4: as it was. It was also, you know, if you
Speaker 4: know the original piece, which I'm sure you do, it
Speaker 4: was monologues, right, It was singular stories that cut together
Speaker 4: and touch each other in the corners. So but what
Speaker 4: I am grateful like that monologue is such an amazing
Speaker 4: and phenomenal monologue that I got to do in the hospital.
Speaker 4: And I remember Tyler was like, oh, so we're gonna
Speaker 4: do this shot and then that shot and the other shot,
Speaker 4: and I started to do it. We did a rehearsal,
Speaker 4: and then I went back to and we didn't want
Speaker 4: to use a lot of time because it was so
Speaker 4: emotional and I was coming off with something else and
Speaker 4: going straight into that, and I was supposed to go
Speaker 4: back to makeup, and I said, no, I don't want
Speaker 4: any makeup. I want you to leave my face as
Speaker 4: it is. I think it's important to see her face.
Speaker 4: I don't want her to look nice or better or
Speaker 4: falsely worse. I want you to see her face as
Speaker 4: it is. And he did not fight me on that.
Speaker 4: And then one thing that he did, which I really
Speaker 4: appreciate it was he was like, you know what, we
Speaker 4: were going to do different angles, but you just do
Speaker 4: your monologue. And so instead of doing different angles and
Speaker 4: cutting and doing this and that and the other, I
Speaker 4: did a take and he got closer and closer and
Speaker 4: closer and closer with the camera so that it didn't
Speaker 4: have to be cut up and I didn't have to
Speaker 4: find create that same emotional space because I've waited now
Speaker 4: for fifteen minutes for a camera angle to change or
Speaker 4: for a lens to change, which God bless them, those
Speaker 4: people are doing their jobs, and they're trying to make
Speaker 4: you look as good as possible when the edit is done.
Speaker 4: But sometimes there is something to be said for allowing
Speaker 4: the emotional space to live and just showing it in
Speaker 4: its naked space. And I think that that's something that's
Speaker 4: something that happened in that moment that I think Tyler
Speaker 4: totally made. Well. Look, that sounds crazy, but it felt
Speaker 4: like the right choice to me at the time, and
Speaker 4: as an artist, it definitely was the right choice for
Speaker 4: me to be able to do the best that I could.
Speaker 1: Do in that space, you know what.
Speaker 5: You mentioned that, And then it also hit me that
Speaker 5: well because I worked on it as well. You were
Speaker 5: No No, No, No, not colored girls. I've worked on Roots,
Speaker 5: you were on Kiss, and I totally forgot I was.
Speaker 4: Episode four. I think I was, you know, which was
Speaker 4: quite an honor to bring that, to bring that story
Speaker 4: to the young people, people who haven't seen the original,
Speaker 4: who didn't know about the original, And at first I
Speaker 4: was like, why are y'all doing this again?
Speaker 2: What already?
Speaker 4: And not because it was about slavery, because listen, I
Speaker 4: think it's important that people know about slavery. Here's one thing,
Speaker 4: there's a reason that the Jewish population teaches the Holocaust
Speaker 4: all of the time, and they teach it all of
Speaker 4: the time because it is important for young people to
Speaker 4: know what happened so that it does not happen again.
Speaker 4: We must move through the pain of the thing so
Speaker 4: that we know how to keep it from coming back,
Speaker 4: so that we are clear on our history, and so
Speaker 4: for people who did not live the history know what
Speaker 4: their lineage did and can teach themselves and their children
Speaker 4: to do different things and make different choices. We must
Speaker 4: tell the story of slavery. We must, and maybe we
Speaker 4: want to tell it from a different angle. Okay, I
Speaker 4: think that it's important to talk about It's important to
Speaker 4: talk about the revolutions that happened on plantations. It's important
Speaker 4: to tell this, to not just tell the story of bondage,
Speaker 4: but to tell the story of the breaking freeze, to
Speaker 4: tell the story of the moors, to tell the story
Speaker 4: of the Sorry the oh. I can't remember.
Speaker 8: Shaking my head so hard because me and Fonte had
Speaker 8: this debate all the time. I'm like, it's important.
Speaker 4: The more is not the word that I wanted to say,
Speaker 4: but the ah what do they call the people in
Speaker 4: Jamaica and then Haiti who went off into the hills.
Speaker 4: And I can't think of the name of the word.
Speaker 4: It starts with the M. I can't think of it
Speaker 4: right now. But see, that's why you have to keep tellings.
Speaker 4: But there are other angles to enslavement and to slavery.
Speaker 4: But also what we need to do, like with Jingle Jangle,
Speaker 4: is have stories in that time period where you see
Speaker 4: people who are not dealing with bondage, because bondage was
Speaker 4: not what we sprang from. Bondage is not the only
Speaker 4: thing that happened to us. So I am somebody who yeah,
Speaker 4: sometimes I'm like, oh God, I don't know the slave story,
Speaker 4: but only because it's coming from the same angle. We
Speaker 4: have to look at other angles. But we cannot afford
Speaker 4: to not tell this story. And if we thought we
Speaker 4: could afford to not tell this story, January sixth should
Speaker 4: have taught us.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 4: That's where I am making a gun.
Speaker 8: Because I make this point constantly and people always argue
Speaker 8: with me about it, and I'm like, I don't understand
Speaker 8: twelve years a slave with not the same slave movie
Speaker 8: as Roots twelve You of the slave was really cause
Speaker 8: I'm kind of different, like I've never seen the Story
Speaker 8: of a Free Man that guy kidnapp Like, stop acting
Speaker 8: like that's the same. It just was.
Speaker 4: So I'm just runs maroons want to give me.
Speaker 8: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Are you do you feel that you're now at the
Speaker 1: place where you can.
Speaker 5: Well that you can create productions and and and things
Speaker 5: that you want to do without having without not having
Speaker 5: to go through the Hollywood shuffle. It's like, are you
Speaker 5: past the place where it's like, no, this particular company
Speaker 5: calls and we want you to fly in to read
Speaker 5: for this role in that I'm learning now through this
Speaker 5: show that there's two different types of processes, Like you
Speaker 5: get called.
Speaker 1: In and you have to read and read and read
Speaker 1: and wait for a call back.
Speaker 5: And then there's people that are like, I won't do that.
Speaker 4: There are times when I won't do that. There are
Speaker 4: times when I won't do that because sometimes people want
Speaker 4: to put you through hoops just to put you through hoops,
Speaker 4: and there's too much tape for people to watch to
Speaker 4: be putting folks through hoops for no reason of very
Speaker 4: different roles, you know what I mean. It's not like
Speaker 4: I've been doing the same role for twenty years and
Speaker 4: you're like, but today we'd like you to be a magician,
Speaker 4: and we've never seen you pull a rabbit out of
Speaker 4: the hat. You know, there's a lot of tape for
Speaker 4: people to look at. So there are some things where
Speaker 4: I'm just like, no, no, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 4: There are other things that I would be willing to
Speaker 4: and I do go in for. I mean, i'd like
Speaker 4: to say that's over, but I don't know that it's
Speaker 4: ever over, to be perfectly honest. There are things that
Speaker 4: I get on offers for, and then there are things
Speaker 4: that are like, we'd love for you to We love you,
Speaker 4: You're amazing. We think, oh my god, you are our
Speaker 4: favorite in this and we've got this amazing role. We'd
Speaker 4: love for you to read what happened of Love? What
Speaker 4: happened to that?
Speaker 5: So we love for you to read. It's sort of
Speaker 5: the deal breaker that, like man, it depends on.
Speaker 4: The on the role, on the project, on how I
Speaker 4: feel about it. It depends. There are a whole lot
Speaker 4: of variables that that go into that.
Speaker 1: So is there a genre that you haven't stepped into yet,
Speaker 1: like the horror genre or I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they call the Marvel world like science fiction or not.
Speaker 5: I don't know, Like I don't know what the I'm
Speaker 5: supposed to do a horror movie.
Speaker 4: I was scheduled to get on a plane two weeks
Speaker 4: after Quarantine it and I'm supposed to be in Romania,
Speaker 4: but no, it was a really it was interesting and
Speaker 4: different and potentially a lot of fun. And now I
Speaker 4: think it's dead. I would love to I miss comedy.
Speaker 4: I miss comedy, and I think maybe people have forgotten
Speaker 4: that I can do that, so I sort of miss
Speaker 4: that now. Sort of I really do miss do income
Speaker 4: comedic things. I would love to do a cute, little
Speaker 4: romantic comedy or just a regular comedy. I love sci
Speaker 4: fi and I'm glad you mentioned that. And I've got
Speaker 4: the rights to a couple of book series that I
Speaker 4: am trying to make happen, And then I don't have
Speaker 4: the right to a couple of series that I'm friends
Speaker 4: with the authors, and I'm like, I'm we are talking
Speaker 4: about moving forward with me as part of their package
Speaker 4: without moving the rights, but to have me as a
Speaker 4: producer and an actor on it, because I sort of
Speaker 4: I love sci fi. I love us in the world
Speaker 4: of sci fi. I love anything that goes beyond the
Speaker 4: boundary that people have tried to give us, And so
Speaker 4: I'm into those things because I'm not into being told
Speaker 4: who I am allowed to be. So that is always
Speaker 4: exciting to me when I can find something that is
Speaker 4: outside of the space that we have sort of been
Speaker 4: relegated to, because I always say, and people are like,
Speaker 4: when I see a sci fi movie and people are,
Speaker 4: you know, seventy five, one hundred years into the future
Speaker 4: and you've got one black person.
Speaker 8: You a lie, you a lie.
Speaker 4: There is no way that black people and I mean
Speaker 4: throughout the diaspora have been through the things that they
Speaker 4: have been through and are here in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: and you think we're not about to be here in
Speaker 4: thirty twenty one.
Speaker 8: If you here, we here, we started this time, we're here.
Speaker 4: So that is always a story that I'm interested in
Speaker 4: telling and putting us in a space where we have
Speaker 4: been told that we do not belong or will not exist.
Speaker 1: I'm always interested in that awesome, awesome, real quick.
Speaker 5: My last question is about Jingle Jingle, Like, what was
Speaker 5: the experience for you and doing that film? And well,
Speaker 5: I know it's important for at least my nieces and nephews,
Speaker 5: like they you know, they lost their minds over it
Speaker 5: and seeing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but how did that project come to you?
Speaker 4: David Talbert offered me that role, and it was so
Speaker 4: funny because I think he was trying to get in
Speaker 4: touch with me for like the better part of a year.
Speaker 4: We just kept missing each other and I would have
Speaker 4: missed out on something so great.
Speaker 8: No happy, But it success for him too, by the way, Yes.
Speaker 4: It's really great for him. And so we had a
Speaker 4: Zoom meeting because I don't know where I was. I
Speaker 4: think I was. I was in New Orleans shooting some
Speaker 4: and so we met on Zoom and we talked and
Speaker 4: then it was had to go up the flagpole and
Speaker 4: then oh and while we were talking about it, I
Speaker 4: had read a version of the script, which was an
Speaker 4: fairly early version of the script at that point, and
Speaker 4: I was like, this is cute and this is cool
Speaker 4: and yeah, this is interesting. And then he was like,
Speaker 4: and you know it's a musical and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I had heard it was a musical. That's cool. Well
Speaker 4: who's doing the music and he said Philip Lawrence, phil
Speaker 4: and John Legend And I was like and sold. Because
Speaker 4: everything came together in that package. You've got this Chris
Speaker 4: story with us centralized and normal but also magical, and
Speaker 4: now you've got these amazing musicians connected to it. I
Speaker 4: love Phil Lawrence. I think he is magnificent. And I
Speaker 4: also love Bruno Mars, whom you know that he writes
Speaker 4: for a lot, but he as a singer musician is
Speaker 4: also beyond Phil himself. And I've already told you how
Speaker 4: much I love John Legend and his work and how
Speaker 4: he is able to translate story to song and a
Speaker 4: song for a story. So all of those things sort
Speaker 4: of just worked together, and it was a really wonderful
Speaker 4: thing to be a part of another project that centralizes
Speaker 4: Black children and our wonder, our ability to feel wonder
Speaker 4: the joy of Christmas in a way that wasn't showing lack.
Speaker 4: You know, there was family dysfunction, but that's important to
Speaker 4: show too because we all have it. But the story
Speaker 4: wasn't about what these people couldn't have, couldn't get, couldn't whatever,
Speaker 4: aside from love. And they rectified that. The story took
Speaker 4: place in the Victorian Age with these amazing costumes by
Speaker 4: Michael Wilkinson, who's Australia, randomly and phenomenal, and he mixed
Speaker 4: all these African fabrics in with these Victorian costumes and
Speaker 4: these amazing colors, and then the hair with Sharon Martin,
Speaker 4: who I'd worked with on Half of The Yellow Sun,
Speaker 4: and all the hair was natural and it wasn't like
Speaker 4: there wasn't a commentary on it, because this is what
Speaker 4: people's hair was supposed to look like, does look like,
Speaker 4: looks like. So the amount of positive reinforcement within this
Speaker 4: film without beating people over the head with it is
Speaker 4: just fantastic. And then you know, again, to be able
Speaker 4: to sing the songs that I was able to sing
Speaker 4: was delicious. And I'll say this because we were talking
Speaker 4: about make it work and it's not a way that
Speaker 4: people have heard me sing before, and that for me
Speaker 4: was quite the gift because I love to access that
Speaker 4: part of my voice. And I think usually when people
Speaker 4: are thinking of me, they're thinking of me as a soprano,
Speaker 4: because that's you know, I am a soprano. However, I'm
Speaker 4: also that you know, I'm also that gritty. I don't know,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not Fantasia, so I'm not I haven't
Speaker 4: gone there yet. I think when I do that, that's
Speaker 4: the farewell concert. That'll be the last note, but I
Speaker 4: also live in the deeper register of my voice and
Speaker 4: I and I really enjoy being there. So there was
Speaker 4: an aspect of my voice that I don't think I
Speaker 4: had gotten to express before, and that to me was
Speaker 4: really joyous to be able to do so the whole thing.
Speaker 4: And I got to work with my Felicia Machad, who
Speaker 4: I just love, love love. I got to see Madeline
Speaker 4: come into being, which is always something that's amazing when
Speaker 4: you see a little kid come into to being. Kieran Dyer,
Speaker 4: who played Edison, who was a scream, was also magnificent
Speaker 4: and the lovely and very gentle Forrest Whitaker, so there's
Speaker 4: there was nothing to not lack about it.
Speaker 1: Really wow. Thank you. You know.
Speaker 5: Our episodes can go on forever, but you know we
Speaker 5: gottap up.
Speaker 1: We have to wrap up. We really thank you.
Speaker 4: I thank you because I have embarrassed myself in front
Speaker 4: of you at least twice. I have shamed myself at
Speaker 4: least the first time you were DJing at Hammi party.
Speaker 2: I do this, yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, in l a Okay, I.
Speaker 4: Can't remember what hotel it was, but anyway, and.
Speaker 1: You were going off the year's eve.
Speaker 4: No, no, the Emmys. The Emmys was a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago, and Kirk was playing the hell out of
Speaker 4: this guitar. I mean when I say he was playing
Speaker 4: the hell out of this guitar. So he was playing it,
Speaker 4: and he lifted it over this girl's head, and I
Speaker 4: think she was talking, and I don't think he appreciated
Speaker 4: that at the time. So he lifted it over her
Speaker 4: head and she was talking to her friend, and and
Speaker 4: the and the guitar came over her head. And he's
Speaker 4: playing the guitar in front of this girl as if
Speaker 4: she was playing it and got all of her attention
Speaker 4: and all of our attention. And my mouth is open
Speaker 4: and my eyes are wide, and I'm like, I can
Speaker 4: what's happening right here, right now? This is amazing. And
Speaker 4: so I started you all were going on a break.
Speaker 2: I think it was her Amazon. I remember this.
Speaker 4: It was like you root for the hotel being crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was a little fanned out right. I was amped
Speaker 4: by the music, and I was feeling very fanny. And
Speaker 4: I was walking and talking and not paying attention, but
Speaker 4: like running my mouth about how fantastic everything was. And
Speaker 4: I don't remember who stopped me, but I was I
Speaker 4: was being talked to. I wasn't talking at somebody's back
Speaker 4: or anything. I wasn't being a crazy person. But I
Speaker 4: was talking and running my mouth and I had to
Speaker 4: be stopped, and I was like, what, what's happening? And
Speaker 4: it didn't occur to me that you all were going
Speaker 4: into your dressing Oh really?
Speaker 9: And I was just walking and talking and like heading
Speaker 9: into this dressing room with y'all, and I.
Speaker 4: Was moretrified, and I was like, these people are going
Speaker 4: to think I'm insane and they are never going to
Speaker 4: speak to me again. And it has lived with me
Speaker 4: for years. So thank you for erasing that, Like you know,
Speaker 4: men are blacking it from your memory of.
Speaker 1: All the roots. We definitely welcome you into our dressing room.
Speaker 8: I'm just.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you so much for doing this for us,
Speaker 5: and thank you for you know, we appreciate your your
Speaker 5: talent and and sharing your story with us, and you
Speaker 5: know we're proud of you. Thank you for coming on
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you so very much. It was really lovely speaking
Speaker 4: with all of you and getting to know you, and
Speaker 4: you know, outside of what you see of the person,
Speaker 4: but really getting to see you the person has been
Speaker 4: a gift all of you and and Bill, I forgive you.
Speaker 5: All right, I'm still canceled, but thank you or viaf
Speaker 5: like you and Sugar Stephen, and we have.
Speaker 1: The same birthday. Nice job.
Speaker 7: Wow that's my wife's birthday. You got you and my
Speaker 7: wife same birthday. And she's left handed as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow.
Speaker 2: Nice wow.
Speaker 5: Anyway, anything else, Steve, Nope, just the birthday thing. Thanks, okay, okay,
Speaker 5: anyway where we have a birthday burger group down there,
Speaker 5: and and fontigolo and uncanceled uh Bill.
Speaker 1: Uh this quest left signing off for QLs.
Speaker 2: We'll see you on the next go round.
Speaker 1: Thank you, yo, what's up?
Speaker 2: This is Fante.
Speaker 7: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 7: QLs and let us know what you think you who
Speaker 7: should be next to sit down with him?
Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, all right? Peace
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