Speaker 1: Pushkin. Me and my friend R. L. Shephear. We always
Speaker 1: say that no one has ever really held the front
Speaker 1: door open for either one of us in our careers.
Speaker 1: And I don't even come through the back door. I
Speaker 1: come through like a chink in the wall, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to come back again
Speaker 1: and come back again, and you'll realize that I've always
Speaker 1: been here and you've needed me, you know. So that's
Speaker 1: what I feel like what's happening right now, which is
Speaker 1: why I feel like on every platform things are, Things
Speaker 1: are in a really good place right now. It's they're
Speaker 1: not always like that. But what's important for me, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about this stuff is that I want
Speaker 1: people to see that there's been a lot of work
Speaker 1: and faith and taking chances and taking lots of risks
Speaker 1: to have any of this success that I have. None
Speaker 1: of it's been easy. And if people look up my
Speaker 1: career even just about ten years ago, they could see
Speaker 1: how different things were. That was Coleman Domingo. I'm san
Speaker 1: Fracoso and this is talk easy. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Coleman Domingo cannot be categorized as one thing. He's a
Speaker 1: multi hyphenant talent. An actor, a writer, director, a playwright.
Speaker 1: He's really done every kind of work in film and
Speaker 1: television and theater. You've probably seen him on Fear, The
Speaker 1: Walking Dead as Victor Strand, or The Nick as doctor
Speaker 1: Russell Daniels. He had a bit part on Horse and Pete.
Speaker 1: In film, he's been in Lincoln forty two, Newlyweds, Lee Daniels,
Speaker 1: The Butler, The Birth of a Nation. He is incredible
Speaker 1: in Red Hook Summer. But most recently though, he's in
Speaker 1: two new films. The first is called Assassination Nation by
Speaker 1: director Sam Levinson. It's out September twenty feet and then
Speaker 1: there's If Beale Street Could Talk, which is the latest
Speaker 1: film from director Barry Jenkins. Here's a bit from the trailer.
Speaker 1: But I was growing up. I was trying to limited
Speaker 1: connection through the life I saw and the life I lived.
Speaker 1: There are days but you won't which your role is
Speaker 1: in this country, Isn't it? More than anything? Coleman is
Speaker 1: just a natural storyteller, whether it's through acting or writing
Speaker 1: or directing. He knows how to get from point A
Speaker 1: to point B in a way that's concise and intriguing,
Speaker 1: which it lends itself to the podcast format, So throughout
Speaker 1: the episode you're gonna hear various songs interspersed, and every
Speaker 1: track is from a play that Coleman wrote and was
Speaker 1: performed in New York. And if you'd like to read
Speaker 1: that play, you should absolutely do so. It's called A
Speaker 1: Boy and His Soul. It's available on Amazon, Google Play,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your ebooks. It's also i'm sure on
Speaker 1: paperback in various bookstores. It's completely worth your time and
Speaker 1: I hope you check that out. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: here is Colman Domingo. I want to start in what
Speaker 1: I believe is the beginning for you in West Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: You're born in sixty nine, but you wrote and directed
Speaker 1: and acted in a play called A Boy and the Soul,
Speaker 1: and in it, or rather in the beginning, you give
Speaker 1: pretty vivid description of what this house looks like, and
Speaker 1: I wrote some of it down. Does a stereo soul
Speaker 1: LPs and forty fives, an artificial white Christmas tree, an
Speaker 1: easy bake oven, and a song by the Switch, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that I was playing on repeat while driving over here.
Speaker 1: How accurate is that snapshot of your life? That's very accurate,
Speaker 1: I think it's very fair. I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up at a time when I think, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that I grew up in a very I
Speaker 1: don't know, working class African American home, and I think that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, that music was very important to us. And
Speaker 1: I think that I wrote that play. Um it was
Speaker 1: an examination of like culture of sort of a coming
Speaker 1: of age story in your thirties, when your parents are
Speaker 1: getting older and you're actually becoming, um you're moving into
Speaker 1: adulthood but still someone's kid, and while you're you know,
Speaker 1: ushering your parents onto their next stage as well. So
Speaker 1: I was really just wrestling with a lot of things
Speaker 1: and really taking stock of what we come from and
Speaker 1: what we're made of, and then seeing how well that
Speaker 1: would propel us forward. And the conduit is music that
Speaker 1: we all have that in common, and I love that,
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's a show I developed a way.
Speaker 1: It was in two thousand and eight. Eight, Oh look
Speaker 1: at you, you did your work two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: I started writing it in two thousand and five, though,
Speaker 1: and then I'm did some other smaller productions and then
Speaker 1: I premiered in New York and what the London and
Speaker 1: things like that, not even Australia. And the thing, the
Speaker 1: common thing that I get is that everyone relates to it.
Speaker 1: It becomes because I write so specifically about a certain
Speaker 1: neighborhood of family, and so, like you were saying when
Speaker 1: you came in, you're like it reminded you of your childhood,
Speaker 1: you know, coming from Chicago. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: greatest acknowledgement that you write something that's just essentially just
Speaker 1: very human. And that's what I was trying to do
Speaker 1: and just sort of like tell my story, to tell
Speaker 1: your story, right, I think that that's hopefully what I
Speaker 1: think you can do best with a solo form. You know,
Speaker 1: as a teenager at that time in West Philadelphia, And
Speaker 1: what did you make of your surroundings? Did you find
Speaker 1: it as a lot because you wrote this playe in
Speaker 1: the thirties, but in the moment, did you feel it
Speaker 1: to be alive and full? What do you remember about
Speaker 1: being a team? Then? I do I wonder if I
Speaker 1: look at it in sort of like in technicolor view
Speaker 1: in hindsight, But I do think that my neighborhood was
Speaker 1: alive and creative and felt a little dangerous at times.
Speaker 1: But um, what did your parents. Do you know my parents?
Speaker 1: My parents were very simple, heart working. Like my dad
Speaker 1: he refinished floors. He worked for this, um I think
Speaker 1: it was called Birding Company and basically he basically he
Speaker 1: and I would work with them during the summers. He
Speaker 1: would teach me how to reseand floors and I'll help
Speaker 1: him out. And my mother worked in a bank. She
Speaker 1: was you know, white color, just you know, customer service
Speaker 1: at first pent defend your bank. Um you did like
Speaker 1: a movement, yeah, you're personifi Yeah, it was a proper Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, they're hardworking people who
Speaker 1: they just um, I don't know. They just imparted values
Speaker 1: of trying to just become better people in some way.
Speaker 1: Like we didn't have a lot, but we had a
Speaker 1: lot of Like my mother would if I wanted to
Speaker 1: go through to the moon, my mom would try to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get me there, how do we
Speaker 1: get cold in there? Exact, how do you get me
Speaker 1: to the moon. Like when I when I told him
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an actor, it wasn't a problem.
Speaker 1: And I was the first kid to go to college
Speaker 1: and sort of, um, you know, their hopes were that
Speaker 1: I would do something that would you know, turn an
Speaker 1: income and then I had this very precarious career for
Speaker 1: a long time. But they still believed in it. They
Speaker 1: were like, you know, whatever it is that you want
Speaker 1: to do and being a part of the world and hopefully,
Speaker 1: you know, making the world a better place, you know,
Speaker 1: as little to nothing. You know, well initially though, you
Speaker 1: go to college at Temple and you're studying journalism, and
Speaker 1: was that something they were supportive of. Yeah, because you know,
Speaker 1: I think that my parents did well. Like I tell you,
Speaker 1: they're very simple people. And my dad was just like
Speaker 1: he wanted me to do anything but work with my hands.
Speaker 1: He was very clear about that. He actually told me
Speaker 1: that one day when we were standing floors and he
Speaker 1: was looking at he was looking at me. He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like, you see me, my my my
Speaker 1: back hurts. Things like that. My dad, my stepfather, had
Speaker 1: like a fourth grade education, and he was he said
Speaker 1: it was very important for him for me not to
Speaker 1: work with my hands. Whatever that meant. He said, if
Speaker 1: you don't work with the hands, you know, create something
Speaker 1: beautiful like and he was showing me the floors and
Speaker 1: how beautiful they were and how he could, you know,
Speaker 1: take strip, strip them off, and refinish them and make
Speaker 1: show me the sherry wood and things like that. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: So I'm they're very simple people, and so by the
Speaker 1: time I went to college, it's just happy I went
Speaker 1: to college. You've used the word simple a few times,
Speaker 1: and I wonder what that means to you. I guess
Speaker 1: you know, I consider people from Philadelphia to be the
Speaker 1: salt of the earth. I think that when I say simple,
Speaker 1: they're not not to say they're not complex, but they're
Speaker 1: not so complicated in terms of like what they actually
Speaker 1: feel or think. They're just they're what you see is
Speaker 1: what you get. I think there's no airs about these people.
Speaker 1: I think that's where I come from. I think that's
Speaker 1: why I know that generally people. You know, when I
Speaker 1: walk into one room in LA to another room somewhere else,
Speaker 1: I think I'm the same person, because I was just
Speaker 1: raised that way, right. I guess I don't know how
Speaker 1: to put on airs, you know. So I think I
Speaker 1: come from very simple people, and not simple like unintelligent,
Speaker 1: but simple as a sort of um At the essence,
Speaker 1: they just worked through the world in a very simple way.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is? Ah that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think it's because I wonder if it's because maybe
Speaker 1: their expectations in the world were not huge. I think
Speaker 1: that it was simple about providing for a family, having
Speaker 1: some good times, some good music, love, um. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't about, like, you know, like everyone I know, most
Speaker 1: of my family, they all still live in West Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and I think that's because they're very simple and they're
Speaker 1: what their wants and needs are, and I think they're
Speaker 1: happy that way. For a long time, I was wondering,
Speaker 1: I'm like, why don't you everyone do you want? Don't
Speaker 1: you want to live downtown or in the northeast or something?
Speaker 1: But now it was like it made sense and they
Speaker 1: were comfortable, just like how I found that even more
Speaker 1: so about a RUTHA Franklin, the fact that everything Franklin was,
Speaker 1: you know, the most legendary or who could probably live
Speaker 1: and do whatever she wanted and she had. She was
Speaker 1: very simple to the core. She liked to sing, and
Speaker 1: she liked to go to her church, and she liked
Speaker 1: the things that she liked. Was still very Detroit, very
Speaker 1: simple things, you know, right, It sounds simple, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it sounds very impossible to me. It doesn't sound very
Speaker 1: simple to me because I can't fit into that. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if you feel the same about you know,
Speaker 1: you're an actor, you're a director. These are not simple
Speaker 1: things and they lend themselves to emotional complexity. I think
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to I can say this as I've
Speaker 1: been starting to direct for like television or I'm directed.
Speaker 1: I'm attached to direct a couple of films, and each
Speaker 1: time I'm in these meetings with these these brilliant people
Speaker 1: who have done this work before, I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: bring it to a simpler place. I know that's naturally
Speaker 1: what I'm always trying to do, and I think it's
Speaker 1: maybe from my roots in the theater, where it's I
Speaker 1: kind of make something out of nothing. When I started
Speaker 1: out in like small black box theaters in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and I was produce in theater for five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: But I had some ideas and some movement and some
Speaker 1: music and some actors that were game. And I think
Speaker 1: at the core, I think I'm always trying to utilize
Speaker 1: that because that's very healthy for me. It's it's like
Speaker 1: almost like how we're playing as kids, and we're playing
Speaker 1: make believe, and we have ideas and trying to bring
Speaker 1: that stuff together. And I think it's actually very simple. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we let things get way too complicated, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that way. I think I think
Speaker 1: they get way complicated, way more complicated than it is.
Speaker 1: I think, honestly, I tell people there are some colleagues
Speaker 1: of mine who as an actor, I don't think acting is.
Speaker 1: I think people will make more of it than actually
Speaker 1: it is, and I think sometimes it takes them so
Speaker 1: far away from actually the essence of what acting is.
Speaker 1: And I think it's about like being prepared, researching, being
Speaker 1: and then I sort of let let go and be
Speaker 1: in the center of it and actually just sort of like, um,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people get way too heady about it,
Speaker 1: about process and things like that. I think it's all process,
Speaker 1: but it's all the way you handle it. And I
Speaker 1: think you have to handle it gently and with some
Speaker 1: grace and respect and hard work. But I think hard
Speaker 1: work is also It can be simple, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you know the tasks that are ahead of you, and
Speaker 1: you just prepare well and you give it your all
Speaker 1: and then you release. You also have to release and
Speaker 1: let go. That's how you make great art in any way,
Speaker 1: I think you can't. You can't, you can't hold on
Speaker 1: to it too tight. Your entry point into acting is
Speaker 1: that you started in journalism and then you took a
Speaker 1: class at Temple and you had a professor who said, essentially,
Speaker 1: you have a gift, and you know, maybe this is
Speaker 1: something you should try. But I feel like the story
Speaker 1: i've heard the story is better than that, So I'm
Speaker 1: going to get rid of the interview I read, okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you the real story. The real story is,
Speaker 1: um I grew up. Honestly, it's almost odd to me
Speaker 1: that I'm sitting here with you having an interview about acting,
Speaker 1: because I want to tell you I was growing up
Speaker 1: in school. I was not the effervescent, expressive one. I
Speaker 1: was shy. I was very quiet, very studious. I had
Speaker 1: a lisp, which also probably catered to it was so
Speaker 1: and also I or my sisters hand me down clothes,
Speaker 1: whether my brother to my sister to me as a
Speaker 1: poor kid, and I didn't have a lot of competence.
Speaker 1: So I think I was in school studying journalism because
Speaker 1: I watched everything, and by the time I got out
Speaker 1: of high school, I thought the idea of like writing
Speaker 1: and writing as a profession was interesting, and documenting the
Speaker 1: news or going to war torn places was interesting, and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, that's cool. So I was studying journalism
Speaker 1: at Temple, and then there was I had some time
Speaker 1: to take an elective, and I thought, I've always been
Speaker 1: interested in, like what acting was. Now I come from
Speaker 1: a place where no one as an actor, and I
Speaker 1: didn't go to the theater, so I had no I
Speaker 1: don't even know why or how I thought this would
Speaker 1: be interesting. Maybe I thought it was interesting. And I
Speaker 1: said this before to someone. I used to watch that
Speaker 1: television show eight is Enough, and I remember there was
Speaker 1: a TV show back in the seventies and it was
Speaker 1: a kid named Nicholas on it, and I just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: I can do that whatever Nicholas was doing, because he
Speaker 1: was a good kid, cute kid, and he was I
Speaker 1: was saying, I think I can do that. But I
Speaker 1: think that was laid a foundation, laid in my brain
Speaker 1: a long time before I actually did anything about it.
Speaker 1: So in school, I took an elective and I'm taking
Speaker 1: these classes, this one class, and this professor named Chris,
Speaker 1: he comes to me me and this one girl, I
Speaker 1: think her name was Christina. We were killing it in
Speaker 1: this class. I don't know whatever exercises he gave us.
Speaker 1: We just like took to it and we were deep
Speaker 1: in it. And he pulled his aside one day and
Speaker 1: he said, he told it both of us. He says,
Speaker 1: have you guys thought about acting as a major? And
Speaker 1: I thought, no, what is that? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: even know you can do that. He said, I think
Speaker 1: you should really investigate this, Coleman, and you too, Christina.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to her, but I took
Speaker 1: but I took that. I took it to heart, and
Speaker 1: I just really thought. So I started taking some extra
Speaker 1: classes off campus at the Wanner Street Theater School because
Speaker 1: I was very um almost embarrassed to tell people that
Speaker 1: I was taking an acting class, because people like, who
Speaker 1: are you to take an acting class? Are you're going
Speaker 1: to be an actor? You know? You know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know people are when he told you that, in
Speaker 1: that moment, what is going through your head? I thought,
Speaker 1: No one has ever told me that I had a
Speaker 1: gift of any kind of any kind. And it was
Speaker 1: the first time somebody said I had a gift in something,
Speaker 1: and I just never not that. I you know, I
Speaker 1: heard that. You know, I've been gifted because I was
Speaker 1: in you know, scholars Magnet and I had great good grades,
Speaker 1: So I was gifted. I was in the gifted program.
Speaker 1: But someone told me, actually I had a gift doing
Speaker 1: something and the gifts felt like it? Did I think
Speaker 1: about that, the word gift. It actually felt like a
Speaker 1: gift because I felt like I felt good about it
Speaker 1: and I felt like I had something to give actually
Speaker 1: with it, you know. So, UM, did you believe him?
Speaker 1: I did? I did. The way the way he spoke
Speaker 1: to me, he was very you know, I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: the best teacher or you know, the I think it's
Speaker 1: what you can be is being impressionable, you know, give
Speaker 1: a great impression on someone. And I really m I
Speaker 1: took his words to heart. I wish I tried to
Speaker 1: find him years ago. I think he was an actor
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia for a while too, and then I think
Speaker 1: I just could never contact him. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: say thank you to him. So, Chris, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: he used to teach at Temple University. I don't know
Speaker 1: his last name, but Chris was a good guy. Um,
Speaker 1: he kind of like it was kind of a dude too,
Speaker 1: but he really did h inspire me to keep going.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I started taking classes off campus,
Speaker 1: and then from them, moved to San Francisco and I
Speaker 1: started I give it a try. And everything I've been
Speaker 1: doing I've done by by working. I didn't I don't
Speaker 1: have any straight up formal training. I took probably a
Speaker 1: total of three or four classes in my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then everything else is by watching, by showing up
Speaker 1: to two rehearsals that I wasn't a part of, um,
Speaker 1: you know, asking fellow actors like how do I get
Speaker 1: a laugh on something? As a writer, I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been just seeing a lot of plays and I
Speaker 1: think I seem to start writing things because I'm frustrated
Speaker 1: with the form of something like if I see something
Speaker 1: like A Boy and a Soul was written because I
Speaker 1: didn't particularly love solo shows, and I thought, well, this
Speaker 1: is the way I think a solo show could work right,
Speaker 1: that I would be interested in. You know, I'd see
Speaker 1: this show. That's a good reason to do something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like anything else, I'll write it.
Speaker 1: I'll write something I think that I'm gonna try fuck everyone.
Speaker 1: That basically, that's it The Coleman Show. Is that also
Speaker 1: what your podcast is about? That's my podact. I don't
Speaker 1: like any other podcasts. It's just that's why I'm going
Speaker 1: to start a podcast. No, no, you can have my
Speaker 1: microphones exactly. You know. But this is a common thread
Speaker 1: in the in the little I know about you, which
Speaker 1: is there are traditional narratives and traditional formats to create
Speaker 1: something and to tell a story. And um, in partition, Killer,
Speaker 1: I know you have talked about in the past about
Speaker 1: you coming out is something that rather your story varies
Speaker 1: from the common conception of the preconception people have about
Speaker 1: people coming out, especially people of color coming Absolutely, that's
Speaker 1: and I think it's funny. Um. One of my was
Speaker 1: it soul. There was a critic in San Francisco who
Speaker 1: said she doubted the validity of my story because from
Speaker 1: what she knows from watching documentaries that it's very hard
Speaker 1: to come out in the African American community. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, what the this is the whole reason
Speaker 1: why he is What the fuck? I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: isn't it the point of feeder? And also to add
Speaker 1: your voice to the chorus, And I thought, who's going
Speaker 1: to doubt the validity of my own story, you know so.
Speaker 1: And I wrote a real scathing letter to her and
Speaker 1: then but I didn't send it because I didn't think why,
Speaker 1: because it didn't matter. She was gonna feel the way
Speaker 1: she's gonna feel no matter what. You should have sent it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I sent it. Now, we could post it a lot.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine. Just send a letter now and just
Speaker 1: like trust me, I'm not heard by this thing that
Speaker 1: happened ten fifteen years ago. It's been holding onto this letter.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was fascinating that she thought. And
Speaker 1: also she was also a white woman, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was very interesting that the story that she would
Speaker 1: like my story to be instead of me saying that
Speaker 1: this is um trying to inspire some mothers that it's
Speaker 1: you can come out and your family you could be
Speaker 1: met with love. You you use the word fascinating, but
Speaker 1: you mean bullshit, right, yea bullshit? Okay, Well yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I try to you know, do you need me to do?
Speaker 1: I try to go high. You go low for me.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear that whole sentence until I did. I
Speaker 1: have to go low. That's such a terrible deal nobody.
Speaker 1: We sometimes you need that balance, you need somebody to
Speaker 1: go low for you. You can. Oh, I'm see, I'm
Speaker 1: the white person. That's a wing man. That's a good
Speaker 1: wing man. I'll take care of it, Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: No problem. Really, I do want to know though your
Speaker 1: older brother was like a ladies man. Oh he still is,
Speaker 1: still is Yeah, Um, he's cool. What was the interaction
Speaker 1: with your family? I know he was very supportive about
Speaker 1: you coming out. Yeah, but what was it like? What
Speaker 1: did happen? Um? It's actually I wrote about it in
Speaker 1: a Bueno Soul and it really did happen that way.
Speaker 1: It was like a game telephone. Um, I came out.
Speaker 1: I came out to my mom. No, of first, I
Speaker 1: came up to my brother outside of a strip club
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia because he was trying to take me there too,
Speaker 1: you know, to get some you know, and I was
Speaker 1: laughing and silly about it, and so I came out
Speaker 1: to him outside and he said, I love you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you can tell. Man. I was sobbing because it
Speaker 1: meant the world to me. And what a setting. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: it's true and it was absolutely true. But it makes
Speaker 1: sense because you're what he wanted of you was being
Speaker 1: pushed to its extreme at a strip club. That's exact.
Speaker 1: And you know the thing that I prided myself and
Speaker 1: my family own. We try to be as authentic with
Speaker 1: each other as possible. And I knew that I was
Speaker 1: living in San Francisco, and I just didn't want there
Speaker 1: to be an abyss between us, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, the more that I was, like,
Speaker 1: you know, living my best life, they weren't a part
Speaker 1: of it. And that's just not the nature of our family.
Speaker 1: So I knew that by doing that, I wanted to
Speaker 1: get closer to them. And then I got a call
Speaker 1: from my sister, who my brother's promised that he wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell anybody. And a week later, my sister calls me
Speaker 1: and she tells me she's mad at me, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what she said, I can't believe you told Rick first.
Speaker 1: She was just mad because I told my brother first
Speaker 1: about her, and then we laughed about it. She said,
Speaker 1: I think you should tell mom. Did anyone in your
Speaker 1: family feel like they already knew before you told them? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll get to this. This is good to my mom
Speaker 1: because so then the call goes. So my sister says,
Speaker 1: I think she'd tell mom. She shouldn't find out the
Speaker 1: way I did, and we had a laugh about it.
Speaker 1: I called my mom and I told her I had
Speaker 1: something to tell her. And she was like, what's wrong. Uh?
Speaker 1: Did you get somebody pregnant? I'm like, no, are you
Speaker 1: in jail? No, I'm not in jail, you know. So
Speaker 1: she had she thought it was gonna be all these
Speaker 1: other extreme things. And then I came out to her
Speaker 1: and she took a nice pause and she said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I love you. The first thing. She wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure if she knews that she had to think about it.
Speaker 1: But she loved me. Um, but you know, she said,
Speaker 1: I'll actually do it. But you know, I can't tell
Speaker 1: your stepfather this. I said, okay, okay Mom. So I
Speaker 1: hung up. Twenty minutes later, the phone rings and my
Speaker 1: mother says, Jay, they called me Jay, that's my nick name. Jay. Well,
Speaker 1: I told your stepfather about what we talked about. I said, what, No,
Speaker 1: what she said? Oh? I said, what did he say?
Speaker 1: He said, hold on he gets on the phone. Jay.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, pop. Oh, well you know
Speaker 1: what me and your mom talked about. Say, yeah, Wollo,
Speaker 1: he's from the South. That's why I was doing to you. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I just want you to know when you know, you're
Speaker 1: a good boy. And he beat around the bus for
Speaker 1: bed and then he finally said, I love you. There's
Speaker 1: nothing you can tell me that would make me stop
Speaker 1: loving you. Oh and I knew that they had that
Speaker 1: much love for me. And look about a month later,
Speaker 1: my mother came out to San Francisco to visit me,
Speaker 1: because you want to see almost like see who I
Speaker 1: was and see if I was still the same boy
Speaker 1: that she knew, and I was. Of course, she just
Speaker 1: and I think it. I think they're people in our
Speaker 1: families that are supposed to open us up and challenge
Speaker 1: the norms of what we think. And I know she
Speaker 1: came out there and we walked around the castro and
Speaker 1: nothing was unusual to her. She was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: thought I had one idea about what this is, but
Speaker 1: now you're showing me so much more. I know that
Speaker 1: my son is my son. I know that her world
Speaker 1: just expanded, and then it expanded so much she actually
Speaker 1: went we walked into um, how do you want to drink?
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, she come on, I want to
Speaker 1: take my son for a drink and we go into
Speaker 1: some bar. I'm oh, my god, I don't want to
Speaker 1: go into this bar. We're going too this bar and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, you know, just some some gay bar
Speaker 1: and the castro. I'm like, oh my god, I hope
Speaker 1: nobody's doing anything. What's happening. I was like, So I
Speaker 1: was so conservative. I was like, what's going on? Is
Speaker 1: there a bathroom? Hold on, let me go use the
Speaker 1: bathroom and see how it's It's clean night. So my
Speaker 1: dad came back. I come back. She bought a couple
Speaker 1: of cocktails, talking to people, and she was just but
Speaker 1: she wanted to She wanted to get to know me
Speaker 1: even more. So I know my world, and it kept
Speaker 1: us close up until both my mom and my stepfather
Speaker 1: both passed away in two thousand and six, like six
Speaker 1: months apart from each other, and they were very much
Speaker 1: in love. And yeah, but I know that I had
Speaker 1: people who are really truly um people who really loved me,
Speaker 1: and well, like I said again, they were simple people
Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, just wanted to
Speaker 1: know that I was a good person and I was
Speaker 1: making a good impression on the world and I don't know,
Speaker 1: just trying to do trying to do good, you know,
Speaker 1: be a successful human being in the world. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean like success like the way we think of success.
Speaker 1: I think it's just by like having a job, making
Speaker 1: a difference, having a sense of who you are spiritually. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, that's it basic. That was a good story.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I got emotional there. Yeah, it does. It
Speaker 1: does because it's like, and I forget because there are
Speaker 1: these are things that I don't know if you bury them.
Speaker 1: But it's like, like, no one asks me to talk
Speaker 1: about that on the daily, so I have no you know.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, suddenly it hits a um, a button,
Speaker 1: a string or something that you realize it's probably always
Speaker 1: a little bit right here, but you don't really deal
Speaker 1: with that. But you ask something that's so personal. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Okay, wow, yeah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome Jesus Christ. I just did more research on get
Speaker 1: people cry. I would have said, no, thank you, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing that show. I can imagine. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: not in tune with my feelings. No, thank you. That's
Speaker 1: a personal choice you have to make. It's so nice
Speaker 1: to see up together, all the things that were going down.
Speaker 1: It's been a long long time since we han a
Speaker 1: chance to get together. Nobody knows the next time we
Speaker 1: see each other. Maybe family, Hey, family, nice family. To
Speaker 1: tell me about early acting days in San Francisco. What happens?
Speaker 1: What's what is? What are those days? Well, well, because
Speaker 1: you're there, you have to be there in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: is what my clock says. Yeah, that's exactly it. So, um,
Speaker 1: it's a strange like Punk is happening, then Rave is
Speaker 1: the cast shows really like coming into its own. Rave
Speaker 1: is happening, And you know I had like CC Peniston
Speaker 1: was playing, and you know, I was living my best life.
Speaker 1: I moved out there. I was twenty one years old,
Speaker 1: and you know, you get caught up. Thank God, I
Speaker 1: think that I maybe it's because I think I really
Speaker 1: believe I had some um, a good family to you know,
Speaker 1: gave me some foundation because I listened. I went to
Speaker 1: San Francisco in the nineties and it was it was wild.
Speaker 1: There was you know, there's there's things, there's ecstasy, there's
Speaker 1: we there's parties, there's things. You're young, you want to
Speaker 1: find yourself and you know, I didn't find yourself. I did.
Speaker 1: I think I did. I think I was there from
Speaker 1: my whole twenties, and I think I found myself. And
Speaker 1: that's why I was able to move out of there,
Speaker 1: because I understood who I was. But I went there
Speaker 1: because I actually want that because one of my best friends,
Speaker 1: Guy I, had moved there. I was my parents were
Speaker 1: moving to Virginia and I was, you know, getting out
Speaker 1: of school, and he moved to San Francisco and there
Speaker 1: was three guys living in a studio apartment in the Tenderloin,
Speaker 1: and he was like, come on out, you'll be the
Speaker 1: fourth four guys living in a studio apartment in the
Speaker 1: Tenderloin up literally in a walking closet, and it was
Speaker 1: I think, I look at it now, it's kind of romantic,
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun. It was hard, and I was
Speaker 1: really poor, and you know, I don't come from like
Speaker 1: wealthy people, so it was like there were times where
Speaker 1: I thought, I can't afford this career. What do I
Speaker 1: look like coming out here to try to become an artist?
Speaker 1: And in San Francisco, which was much cheaper than it
Speaker 1: is now, you could actually be an artist there. So um,
Speaker 1: I got a job at a place called the Kennel
Speaker 1: Club that had a night called the Box. The Kennel
Speaker 1: Club would play all different kinds of music on Sunday nights,
Speaker 1: like people like Angelique Keijoe would come and perform. That
Speaker 1: was in Hayes Valley. So I worked there and I
Speaker 1: was a bartender and I made a ton of money. Well,
Speaker 1: I got the job because I lied. Actually, I had
Speaker 1: no bartender experience, but apparently I knew that I'd be
Speaker 1: a great actor because I lied my way into this job.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I said, um, you know, bartender at
Speaker 1: a couple of places, and in Philadelphia, I didn't really bartender,
Speaker 1: you know, I waited tables, but they needed a bartender
Speaker 1: and I needed money money, so um, I learned everything
Speaker 1: by going home and looking in books about bar attending,
Speaker 1: about how to make a cocktail. It was all trial
Speaker 1: and error. I got hired because of personality. I see,
Speaker 1: this is your entire career was built on lines up.
Speaker 1: And but I wasn't going to say it's built on
Speaker 1: like saying no but no formal training. No, but but
Speaker 1: I have no formal training. But I think the eagerness
Speaker 1: and the interest to learn and to learn quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that's the thing that I have a
Speaker 1: tattoo that says, yes, I know that I have a
Speaker 1: capacity of learning why. You can barely see the why.
Speaker 1: But that's the point. Oh, you have to lean into it.
Speaker 1: It's there, you just can't see it. Did it actually
Speaker 1: just fade away? No, it just wasn't there and never
Speaker 1: added it. Oh really, yeah, it's where you lean into it.
Speaker 1: It's all Jedi mind tricks. I almost want to throw
Speaker 1: this pen at you. Exactly, but now we're fighting. You know,
Speaker 1: it was going so well that it was derailed that
Speaker 1: when he got my I I need to be the
Speaker 1: disapproving parents exactly. You're at it. No, it's fine, it's
Speaker 1: just like, okay, no, it's fine. Do you have any tattoos? No? No, no, no, okay,
Speaker 1: what you're like, No? No, no, Like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're like, why, I don't think I'm afraid of needles.
Speaker 1: It's not a needle, it's all of it. Though. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like shots. I don't. I just I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna like that. Do you have piercings? No? Okay, but
Speaker 1: we got work to do. You're gonna work after I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get a tattooed, like all on this show. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, the show really would the numbers would go up.
Speaker 1: I think they'd be like, what the fuck's happening on
Speaker 1: this podcast? Coma has just given this dude to tattoo.
Speaker 1: It's the weirdest thing to happen. So I like that
Speaker 1: there's a I'm a guiding philosophy behind it, though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that why this. I think that generally I
Speaker 1: just have an enormous curiosity, and so anything that I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do, I really feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out. I really feel like I'm one
Speaker 1: of those guys we're like, yeah, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to bar, but I'll learn, right. That's why I think
Speaker 1: that's most of my career. I've been in musicals by
Speaker 1: Candor and ab and actually would turn things down and
Speaker 1: be like, you know, I don't sing like that and
Speaker 1: I don't dance like that. They were like, we still
Speaker 1: want you. I'm like, great, I'll learn it. So then
Speaker 1: I would learn how to dance and sing and doing
Speaker 1: things like when I play Billy Flynn on in Chicago,
Speaker 1: they gave me the full choreography that they'd never give
Speaker 1: anyone because they believe I could do it because they
Speaker 1: were They're like, can we give you the full choreography.
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's try it. I'm game, let's try it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, but maybe that's it because
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes I think it's best for me
Speaker 1: not to know a lot. Like sometimes I go into
Speaker 1: meetings where I'm like, I'm not sure exactly what that
Speaker 1: person does, but it allows me to be authentic because
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking, oh, this is the president of this studio.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know. I'm just have a meeting
Speaker 1: with this dude and we're gonna sit up and chop
Speaker 1: it up and want to talk about his family and things.
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's a job or not. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to walk out with a new friend, you know.
Speaker 1: Is that how you've approached it all? That's the way
Speaker 1: I approach most things. I think it's it's always less
Speaker 1: about as we know, even this podcast. We may think
Speaker 1: we're here for a podcast, but also it's about so
Speaker 1: much more. Always you never know what we're going to
Speaker 1: learn or discover or take away with this. But by
Speaker 1: saying yes and leaning into it and leaning to whatever
Speaker 1: it is, it opens us up to some magic, I think,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where magic is in the world.
Speaker 1: It's it's in the situations where you have an option
Speaker 1: to say yes or no. Yeah, I've said yes to
Speaker 1: things where I thought I should have said no, and
Speaker 1: then you stumble into it and it's like, oh wait, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something that happens here. Absolutely when you think you're
Speaker 1: not going to like something, especially, Yeah, it's true, I think,
Speaker 1: and I think to do the things. It's funny because
Speaker 1: I think I'm doing things right now in my career,
Speaker 1: but I'll show my life that I think I'm putting
Speaker 1: myself in places that I'm not as comfortable because I
Speaker 1: think you know that you get stagnant in that way.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, well, so you made a choice
Speaker 1: to pivot from theater to film. Not that you're not
Speaker 1: doing theater, but a lot of people, a lot of
Speaker 1: your friends, I imagine, or in theater that is what
Speaker 1: they're going to do. They do not have an interest
Speaker 1: in going to film or television. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people actually do have. Most of my theater friends
Speaker 1: that for some reason, I don't know, it's it's such opposites.
Speaker 1: Most of my television film, television, and film friends are
Speaker 1: dying to do theater. My theater friends are dying to
Speaker 1: do film and television. It's like, no one's happy with
Speaker 1: what they're doing. Me. I just go back and forth
Speaker 1: between genres and mediums because I feel like you get
Speaker 1: to make all of them jealous. Basically, it could make
Speaker 1: everybody jealous now because but also because I'm just curious
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I'm cool with doing either. But
Speaker 1: but the thing is, get this, I have never sought
Speaker 1: out let's say, television, film. I wasn't that person. I
Speaker 1: was just like, I just want to do good work
Speaker 1: and like wherever it comes. I was really looking at
Speaker 1: the art first. Really, I was one of those people who,
Speaker 1: probably not to my advantage at times, was always looking
Speaker 1: at the art rather than the commerce. There's something I said,
Speaker 1: you know, there were times in my career I thought,
Speaker 1: I just want to get a job on some dumb show,
Speaker 1: saying something dumb and making a ton of money. And
Speaker 1: it never happened because I realized that that's just not
Speaker 1: my that's I don't give up everything for that right.
Speaker 1: I have to do things that are meaningful in some way. Also,
Speaker 1: the people who get those jobs. Do not think of
Speaker 1: it as a dumb show where you're saying dumb lines.
Speaker 1: I feel like probably walking in with like an attitude
Speaker 1: like that you don't want to do it. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: feel like that. I'm looking down on every line. What
Speaker 1: about The Walking Dead, I'm not saying that's dumb. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's brilliant. Actually, I've never seen a single episode, do
Speaker 1: you know what. I never saw one episode of The
Speaker 1: Walking Dead, and I'm on fear. I'm on Fear the
Speaker 1: Walking Dead, so I never spin off the spin off
Speaker 1: with it with the Companion series. The Companion Series, and
Speaker 1: I never thought of being on any sort of like
Speaker 1: horror zombie genre. And then I read the script and
Speaker 1: it was like again, it was like, oh, I think
Speaker 1: I had it all wrong. It's really interesting storytelling and
Speaker 1: a great character and I was surprised that. You know,
Speaker 1: it was the first audition that my new agents got me,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, Realy, they don't understand me at all.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is not going to work out. Then
Speaker 1: they were. They were right. They were like, oh no,
Speaker 1: this is what you want to do. And yeah, So
Speaker 1: that's been that going on for what almost We're going
Speaker 1: into season five next year. Walk me through working with
Speaker 1: Spike Lee. Spike Lee, how could I walk you through that? Well,
Speaker 1: I first met Spike Lee. I have a feeling you
Speaker 1: will give um as honest of an answer as you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh no, I'll give I'll give you an honest impression
Speaker 1: of Spike. Spike is um I first met Spike Lee?
Speaker 1: When was it through passing Strange? Yes? It was based
Speaker 1: on what I've read, Yes it is. He came in
Speaker 1: self passing strange like a thousand times, and then he
Speaker 1: just said he wanted to, you know, do the documentary
Speaker 1: sort of hybrid of it in which we did. And
Speaker 1: from there then I did Uh Miracle at Santana. I
Speaker 1: had small roll on that, and then Reddick Summer I
Speaker 1: did some voice work on one of his last shy
Speaker 1: rack or something, um the Red. You know, your Ddick
Speaker 1: Summer was the one where I think we really worked together.
Speaker 1: You got that scene that is phenomenal. Thanks man, Thanks.
Speaker 1: I think you know, working with a Spike is like
Speaker 1: working with a basketball coach. He's like, you know, he's
Speaker 1: hanging outside of a car when you your van pulls
Speaker 1: up and he's like he rolls down. He's like calm man, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you wanna be able to be emotional day and that scene,
Speaker 1: You're gonna be able to be emotional. Yeah, You're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to do it again and again. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna like we look like we're annoyed with
Speaker 1: each other. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go get some breakfast,
Speaker 1: all right, Like calm down, and because he's like he's
Speaker 1: pumping you up, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 1: have to be very calm when I'm working, but I
Speaker 1: know he wanted to be. He wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that I had it. But he's like, get in there. Um.
Speaker 1: I loved working with Spike. Spike is a really um.
Speaker 1: He's kind. He asked a lot of his um company
Speaker 1: and his crew. He wants everyone to bring their a game. Um.
Speaker 1: He respects you when you work hard. He's um, he's spirited,
Speaker 1: he's a he has a definite opinion about work and
Speaker 1: the way you work. But I've had such a great
Speaker 1: time with them. I really, I really, I've had a
Speaker 1: great time working with Spike. We've worked together in a
Speaker 1: long time, though he has at this point such a
Speaker 1: huge body of work. Yeah that I think people are
Speaker 1: I think it's tough for a lot of people to
Speaker 1: watch newer stuff when you've seen you know, like going
Speaker 1: back to She's Gonna Happen. Well, that's like Woody Allen
Speaker 1: as well, like it's hard to watch, you know, you
Speaker 1: watch their old stuff, you're like, oh, this is when
Speaker 1: they were such innovative artists, and they were really they
Speaker 1: were really unaware of exactly what they were doing, right,
Speaker 1: but they were ballsy as hell. And I think we
Speaker 1: always come we can always compare, like Spike and whether
Speaker 1: it's you know and anyone who's you know, Spike is.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Black Klansmen yet, but I hear it's
Speaker 1: like people are people are really happy with it. You know.
Speaker 1: You know when Spike was doing his Dolly shot, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure he didn't know exactly what he was doing
Speaker 1: that he had a feeling about it and he went
Speaker 1: to try this thing, you know, but now that you
Speaker 1: you've seen it now a few times and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: here it is, I was like, I like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a signature it's a signature shot. What does what
Speaker 1: does that mean to you? To have one of those moments,
Speaker 1: to have one of them signature shots? Are Spike Lely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's really cool. Imagine you um
Speaker 1: as a kid in West Philadelphia thinking about a future self. Man,
Speaker 1: I think this is it. I'd be very honest with you.
Speaker 1: I think my mother, my mother had more vision for
Speaker 1: what I could do or who I could work with
Speaker 1: than I had. She would always say things like, oh
Speaker 1: she would my mother would write Oprah. My mother would
Speaker 1: write Oprah when I was a struggling actor. She wrote
Speaker 1: her like four times that you know, Oprah connect a letter. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We used to write Oprah like they're writing, you know,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, but yeah, yeah, basically she's Santa Claus. But
Speaker 1: my mother would writ Oprah and asked Oprah to help me.
Speaker 1: She wrote open like four times, I could you help?
Speaker 1: But you know, I just know if Oprah and you know,
Speaker 1: and she would say like, oh, if Spike Lee just
Speaker 1: knew you and knew your work, he would he'd be wonderful.
Speaker 1: I really wish Steven Spielberg would know you. All these things.
Speaker 1: I had no vision for that I had. I had
Speaker 1: no thought. I'm like, you know, mom, all right, well
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna work and working in theater. Things happen
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not checking for that because I don't
Speaker 1: want to be disappointed. And I've worked with everyone that
Speaker 1: my mother wanted me to work with everyone and have
Speaker 1: a friendship with these people, you know, So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't intend for that. She manifests that.
Speaker 1: I think she did manifest that. I think sometimes people
Speaker 1: I know a lot of times in my life that, um,
Speaker 1: it's amazing when someone sees something in you that you
Speaker 1: don't even see in yourself. I think that's how I've
Speaker 1: become a director and a writer. I think sometimes someone
Speaker 1: may call on it and you're like, oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. That's what I was trying to do by
Speaker 1: having an opinion about all these things. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a director, you want to direct this thing. And
Speaker 1: I just thought I was an actor who just had
Speaker 1: a big mouth. Yeah you know. Oh, while you have
Speaker 1: a lot of stories to tell. Um, you're very interested
Speaker 1: in things in the world right now, which is because
Speaker 1: of read the New York Times, and I'm interested in
Speaker 1: art and architecture and science and travel. Yeah, you're a writer. Huh, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll try to write something. You know. It's interesting that
Speaker 1: you've had encouragement at certain stops in your life. Do
Speaker 1: you think you've needed that or do you think you
Speaker 1: would have found that yourself. I think everyone needs it,
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes I think, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I need it now. I think no one is.
Speaker 1: I think I need you know, I need you to
Speaker 1: encourage me right now? Not no, But I think I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking. I think it's funny. I think that everyone
Speaker 1: needs encouragement, and I think these do it. These days,
Speaker 1: everyone's seeking encouragement and in small but really, um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, imposing ways, like whether it's Instagram or Facebook
Speaker 1: or something like that, those things are actually encouragement, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. For sometimes I think we're redesigning
Speaker 1: the way we think we need encouragement in some way.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you need a word. I think that's why people
Speaker 1: are posting. Sometimes I see there's a I feel. Isn't
Speaker 1: there a difference between you know? The encouragement that you
Speaker 1: had at Temple was a teacher that you met and
Speaker 1: you were in his class. The encouragement to direct an
Speaker 1: episode of Fear of the Walking Dead was I imagine
Speaker 1: a showrunner on there or someone some ep telling you
Speaker 1: you can do this, that was it. So those are
Speaker 1: very interpersonal. You are here in this room with me,
Speaker 1: the stuff on Instagram, on Twitter, it's like those moments.
Speaker 1: They don't feel like, you know, when your teacher told
Speaker 1: you that at temple and you're eighteen, nineteen or probably twenty.
Speaker 1: Actually it came as a surprise. It's power lived in
Speaker 1: spontaneity because it was not born out of something that
Speaker 1: was calculated. Right, You're absolutely right, You're absolutely right. But
Speaker 1: it's funny because I talk to my My sister has
Speaker 1: said this to me several times, and I always wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, you think that you're very much alike and
Speaker 1: think that, oh I get my encouragement from the people
Speaker 1: close to me, things like that, And my sister would
Speaker 1: just constantly say, I wish, you know, I had somebody.
Speaker 1: She constantly needs encouragement. And I would see sometimes and
Speaker 1: on her posts that she's doing it because she needs encouragement.
Speaker 1: She needs somebody to co sign her. Now I think, naturally,
Speaker 1: I do have something more inside of me where I
Speaker 1: do have my I know how to encourage myself, whether
Speaker 1: to motivate myself to do something, to believe that you
Speaker 1: have agency or a voice in some way so I
Speaker 1: think that, um, it does. You just you have to
Speaker 1: work on the self as well, and I think you
Speaker 1: can self encouragement as the best encouragement. Maybe my fear
Speaker 1: is just that if we're relying on encouragement from people
Speaker 1: on the internet, Yeah, it feels like dangerous territory. I
Speaker 1: think that is dangerous because it's never ending because you
Speaker 1: constantly need it. Also, they're strangers, yeah, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what their interests are. You can't believe everything
Speaker 1: you hear. And unlike people in real life, people on
Speaker 1: the internet they can turn on a dime and they
Speaker 1: do and they do it and they and they do
Speaker 1: because no problem with doing that. Yeah, well, because it's
Speaker 1: just some words and a heart or something. It's not
Speaker 1: really actually, and they feel like they can give and
Speaker 1: take it away or say something and be um, you know,
Speaker 1: not so kind. So I think that. But also I
Speaker 1: think it's also because everything has been moving so fast
Speaker 1: and we're all still adapting and learning how to use everything.
Speaker 1: You know, the moment we had cell phones and you know,
Speaker 1: people still don't know how to use cell phones. You know,
Speaker 1: people are still just like you know, talking loudly at
Speaker 1: the gem on their phone. I'm like, dude, you know
Speaker 1: you nobody needs to hear your private conversation. You know,
Speaker 1: why don't you know how to use this yet? You know, bizarre. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're living in law Angels now. You were in New
Speaker 1: York and London for a time. Yes, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: time to be living here, especially as an actor and
Speaker 1: a director. How are you feeling about We're talking about
Speaker 1: things moving fast. The conversation about being an artist in
Speaker 1: the city seems to be changing. I'd say what every
Speaker 1: other week. I think that La feels like New York
Speaker 1: felt for me and like when I will come up
Speaker 1: and visit in the late eighties and nineties. It feels
Speaker 1: like if you see a lot of things building, you
Speaker 1: see lots of areas that are like a bit more
Speaker 1: cool and interesting, like the Arts District or That's why
Speaker 1: I live, you know, downtown, because I wanted to be
Speaker 1: near people and not just you know, LA's most sanitized,
Speaker 1: you know, perfect vision of itself. I wanted some of
Speaker 1: the grit and know that I can get to that
Speaker 1: perfect you know La life if I need if I
Speaker 1: need that as well. But there's mountains in sky and
Speaker 1: you can see clearly. I think you can see vast
Speaker 1: far and wide. That's what I was longing for. New
Speaker 1: York started to be built up and I couldn't see anymore.
Speaker 1: To be very honest, I literally a hotel was being
Speaker 1: built in front of my window, and I thought, I
Speaker 1: literally can't see anymore, and it was dark and gloomy,
Speaker 1: and it's time to move. But I think that La
Speaker 1: is um. A lot of people have been moving to
Speaker 1: la as well because of being um. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't afford to live in New York anymore in many ways,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that, and have the lifestyle that
Speaker 1: you like. It's like I enjoy a nice, healthy lifestyle
Speaker 1: and I enjoy good things. But sweet Jesus, the price
Speaker 1: you would pay for it to New York is absolutely outstanding.
Speaker 1: And here you can actually have a you could. I
Speaker 1: believe that you can find places too. Would say, you
Speaker 1: don't work to live, live to work, You know you
Speaker 1: so you're you're working in your living as well. I
Speaker 1: find times where I have much more time to breathe
Speaker 1: and relax and like it's telling early it's a barbecue,
Speaker 1: and and socialize. And I think that Ellie, I think
Speaker 1: is really having sort of a renaissance when it comes
Speaker 1: to being an artist, and I think that it's less
Speaker 1: it's not just about film and television anymore. But I
Speaker 1: do think it's about like I say, I've never been
Speaker 1: more obsessed with like architecture in this town and going
Speaker 1: around and seeing why, you know, in the restaurant culture.
Speaker 1: You know, just I think it's really fascinating and really healthy.
Speaker 1: Has your emissions to him and as an artist changed here?
Speaker 1: I mean well, because I was we were thinking about
Speaker 1: the Spike Lee. You know, when he was younger, people
Speaker 1: felt his films felt full of more, full of life
Speaker 1: and vital. And the older he got, and that's true
Speaker 1: of many artists, right, It's like the older you get,
Speaker 1: it seems you're not reinventing the wheel. I think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll say this, I think fit my Oh, I'm about
Speaker 1: to be very very honest with you. About a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago, I found myself having more tension
Speaker 1: with some collaborators, whether it's with producers or artistic directors,
Speaker 1: you name it. And we were wrestling more and I
Speaker 1: started to wonder why there was so much tension when
Speaker 1: it comes to creating work. And I knew that I
Speaker 1: was finding more of my own voice and what I
Speaker 1: believed in, knowing that I had a strong opinion about it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes when creating art, no one tells a painter
Speaker 1: what to paint and give notes on what to paint
Speaker 1: and that should be this color and it should be
Speaker 1: the size and reflecting life this way. And I think
Speaker 1: I've been really sort of asking more of that of
Speaker 1: that agency as creative by saying that's what I think
Speaker 1: it is, and not for it to be altered by
Speaker 1: all these other voices and marketing people and people who
Speaker 1: think that, oh this, people will come to this and
Speaker 1: we do this and that and make sure that's clear.
Speaker 1: It's like and you know, and it's funny because it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm very much a theater artist who who and I
Speaker 1: love to collaborate. But I think what I've been asking
Speaker 1: for is really and giving myself more permission, is to
Speaker 1: be at the head of the table and for me
Speaker 1: to be the ultimate voice and for my opinion to
Speaker 1: matter as much as these others, you know, the producers,
Speaker 1: the money people, board directors, who name it. And that's
Speaker 1: a bit of a struggle. So when you all of
Speaker 1: a sudden become that person because your life experience the
Speaker 1: way you've been creating art for many years, suddenly you're
Speaker 1: in that position and you're fighting for that position. And
Speaker 1: I knew that that was I guess if it's part
Speaker 1: of my mission statement, I'm creating things that I really
Speaker 1: but I've always done this. I really create things that
Speaker 1: I really care about. I can't I can look back.
Speaker 1: Some guy I was getting this Emerging Writers Award or something,
Speaker 1: and I was like, first of all, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm consider myself still like a kid. I'm like, why
Speaker 1: am I getting this award. It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: old dudes who've been doing this for a thousand years,
Speaker 1: But I guess I am. So he started to rattle
Speaker 1: off my resume for years, and it was the first
Speaker 1: time I took a moment to look back, because I
Speaker 1: just keep going forward and doing new things. And I
Speaker 1: was really proud of what he said and what he
Speaker 1: laid out. And I start to see the career trajectory
Speaker 1: that I've had, which was about being in service, which
Speaker 1: was about creating art that I think will last, dissecting
Speaker 1: American culture. I think you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 1: I really look at everything I've done, even like people
Speaker 1: are like, well, what about there the Walking Down. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: that's part of it. People like Timeless, you know, I
Speaker 1: played you know, you know, the Lone Ranger and things
Speaker 1: like that, Like, yeah, these things matter to me. Everything
Speaker 1: I've done is something that matters. And I think even
Speaker 1: more so that's amplified even more in my work that
Speaker 1: I have a piece that when it comes out, I
Speaker 1: think that I told someone this, I said, it's coming
Speaker 1: out at the giff And Playhouse next year. It's called
Speaker 1: Lights Out net King Cole, And if anyone wants to
Speaker 1: know what I really feel as an artist right now
Speaker 1: in these times, they can go right to this piece.
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those pieces of theater,
Speaker 1: of pieces of work that I feel like, like Atha
Speaker 1: Fugard says with Blood Knot, he said, this is where
Speaker 1: I really this is where I truly found my voice
Speaker 1: as an artist. And I think this piece for me
Speaker 1: is where I truly found my voice and what I'm
Speaker 1: committed to him, what I want to say in the
Speaker 1: world and how we can say it. It's deconstructing the
Speaker 1: American dream. Basically, it's deconstructing an American icon and really
Speaker 1: deconstructing the form of theater, and it's sort of like
Speaker 1: it's a mixture of rage and love. It's so strange
Speaker 1: that you're saying this. This is entirely personal now. But
Speaker 1: yesterday I was like, I listened to Nackinkole for about
Speaker 1: four hours straight, and I was thinking, why has there
Speaker 1: not been? Or has there? And I was asking people,
Speaker 1: has there been a fictional recreation of him in some way?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding you. I promise
Speaker 1: you this is true, and I will have references to
Speaker 1: prove that. I ask people this in text. Okay, isn't that?
Speaker 1: Isn't that? It's well, it's part of the zeit guys
Speaker 1: loo because we have body languages the same. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, well because I'm like so stunned I was
Speaker 1: when you when you said that, I was like, you're
Speaker 1: fucking kidding me, dude, this Wow, that's wild. Let's see
Speaker 1: this this part of the reason why we had to
Speaker 1: sit and talk to each other. Like I said, there's
Speaker 1: always bigger reason. It's about this, even something see that
Speaker 1: has to be cosmics to be of course. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't like, I don't want to sound so woo woo.
Speaker 1: But it's like that has to What other way is
Speaker 1: there to expect? I don't know. I don't listen for
Speaker 1: four hours Nat King Cole, and suddenly towards the end
Speaker 1: of interview, I'm like, Okay, by the way, the thing
Speaker 1: that I love the most is this thing about Nat
Speaker 1: King Cole. Yeah, that I didn't get tripping, So why
Speaker 1: are you tripping? I'm gonna just tell you a little
Speaker 1: bit about at it. I got this commission from People's
Speaker 1: Lighting Theater Company in Philadelphia about a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago, about two years ago, and my friend Zach
Speaker 1: was like, I've been so curious about like you. He
Speaker 1: was like, why has anyone written anything about Nakin Coal?
Speaker 1: And I thought the only way I can examine Nat
Speaker 1: King Cole is through a lens of like because I
Speaker 1: need to be have complete liberty and freedom. We did
Speaker 1: all this research, me and my co writer, Petition McGregor's
Speaker 1: all this research or Nat King Cole, and I found
Speaker 1: that he became frustrating to me because he was constantly
Speaker 1: the most graceful gentleman, yes, no matter what, And I
Speaker 1: was like, are you fucking In my four hours of research,
Speaker 1: I found that to be true too, and you're at
Speaker 1: some point you're like, are you fucking kidding me? Except
Speaker 1: for like an affair or two. There was an affair,
Speaker 1: two things like that. But yet still the dude, you know,
Speaker 1: he get this. There was one there was one article
Speaker 1: in Ebony magazine where he This was after his show
Speaker 1: was pulled off the air in nineteen fifty seven, after
Speaker 1: it was going for a year. He was hemorrhaging money.
Speaker 1: He was one of the pretty users NBC could not
Speaker 1: find a national sponsor. He was, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the number one, you know, stars of our time. But
Speaker 1: yet still they were so afraid of the pull of
Speaker 1: the South for national sponsors to sponsor a show. So um,
Speaker 1: he just it was. It was a blow. And there's
Speaker 1: just one article he wrote and he said Madison Avenue
Speaker 1: was afraid of the dark, and it showed under all
Speaker 1: that grace and how much rage, the subtle rage, there was,
Speaker 1: and what his politics were, what he believed and how
Speaker 1: he believed it. So I wanted to go through that lens.
Speaker 1: So we created this piece which is quite dark, but
Speaker 1: it's quite beautiful and funny, but it deconstructs everything that
Speaker 1: we know about Americana, about iconography about this American dream
Speaker 1: and principles of all that we stand on, and it
Speaker 1: becomes Breakdan at some point um it takes it takes
Speaker 1: place fifteen minutes to places at the on the last
Speaker 1: night of Nat King Cole's show, and he's asked himself
Speaker 1: the question, you know, like, what do you do when
Speaker 1: you have a platform? What do you say? And how
Speaker 1: do you say it? And he slips into sort of
Speaker 1: slips into sort of a very sort of like a
Speaker 1: Christmas carol or you know, we suddenly you slip into
Speaker 1: a fever dream and the whole television show starts turning
Speaker 1: in on itself and all these things that are swirling
Speaker 1: around his mind, and Sammy Davis Junior, who was one
Speaker 1: of his dear friends, it becomes the provocateur and the
Speaker 1: play starts. It gets this weird meta feel. And so
Speaker 1: by the time you get to the song, the Christmas Song,
Speaker 1: you'll never be able to hear that song the same
Speaker 1: way again, because by the time you get to it,
Speaker 1: you realize the cost. You realize everything that made Nat
Speaker 1: King Cole that you listen to with with your family
Speaker 1: warmly every year, the cost that it took that man
Speaker 1: to sing that song, right, yeah, and for how long
Speaker 1: are you saying song? Yeah? In many different songs? Yeah, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, this I'm in. So I guess you're coming
Speaker 1: to opening night at the Geffen Playhouse at the giff
Speaker 1: In Playhouse in February of twenty nineteen. I'm set to
Speaker 1: the Geffen Playhouse dot Org. I will happily sale now
Speaker 1: Dooley Hill Its plays that King Cole you know him
Speaker 1: from suits? Wow? You really? I don't usually let people
Speaker 1: pitch stuff. I full out pitched it, but you know
Speaker 1: what I wanted. But you're into it because you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's what I want it. You know, you want to
Speaker 1: know when tickets are available. You wanted to know I'll
Speaker 1: come Okay, good great on to the world as it's
Speaker 1: been a ride, Joe lab but spin get you died
Speaker 1: things often. Hold on that and your keep yourself respect,
Speaker 1: your man leave bride um, moving forward with the rest
Speaker 1: of your career. You're gonna be fifty soon, right, No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be forty nine soon. Sorry, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: forty nine cent me man, I'm such a youthful You're
Speaker 1: so far away from fifty. Sorry, I'm gonna be forty
Speaker 1: nine soon, Dylan, we can change it in the edit.
Speaker 1: Let me ask it again. Yes, so you're gonna be
Speaker 1: forty soon. No, twenty, I'm gonna be twenty. So, wow,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be twenty soon. I'm just you know, you're
Speaker 1: the youngest person Benjamin Button right here, I'm turning back.
Speaker 1: You're an actor after all, basically makes sense. Um, tell
Speaker 1: me what you are looking to do obviously outside of
Speaker 1: this play with not just your career, but um, you
Speaker 1: know your state of mind, how you want to act
Speaker 1: and live through this world as you're going to I
Speaker 1: don't know, fifty is not older age. I think that's
Speaker 1: like sixty five, seventy. But you're not a kid anymore. No,
Speaker 1: thank you, I appreciate that, no problem. But I think
Speaker 1: I just had to remind you. You're like, just do
Speaker 1: you want to strange be getting older as we stay
Speaker 1: here at coleman Um? So I honestly think that, And listen,
Speaker 1: I've told a couple of friends this and they just
Speaker 1: don't believe it. I've said, folks, I've said the friends
Speaker 1: that I probably have about another six years of doing
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. Why, because I think I should be
Speaker 1: doing something else after that. I think as I get older,
Speaker 1: by the time I'm like fifty five, maybe i'll direct
Speaker 1: some things here and there, act on things here and there.
Speaker 1: Will I'll be doing things at the capacity that I'm
Speaker 1: doing right now. Absolutely not. I think that this is
Speaker 1: why sort of I'm sitting up my world for that
Speaker 1: and doing all the things I want to do while
Speaker 1: I'm healthy and strong and spirited. But I also I
Speaker 1: think there's other things to do in the world. I
Speaker 1: think it's important to go and live other places and
Speaker 1: learn other languages, and I don't know, I think I'd
Speaker 1: like to teach somewhere. I really thought like I'd like
Speaker 1: to go teach in like this little town called Collier
Speaker 1: and France, and like work with some kids or something,
Speaker 1: you know, for like a summer, and then like go
Speaker 1: live in Japan and learn something new I don't even
Speaker 1: know what, or maybe like learn you know, you know,
Speaker 1: do something with wood with my hands or something, and
Speaker 1: be there for like a year or something. But I
Speaker 1: feel like I would like to go and live other
Speaker 1: places and then still, you know, make contributions in art
Speaker 1: in some way, but not at the capacity I'm doing
Speaker 1: right now. I've been hustling for a long time. And
Speaker 1: a friend of mine actually told me recently, in the
Speaker 1: last year, Coleman, you've planted so many seeds. You have
Speaker 1: so much going on, do you know you can actually
Speaker 1: take a break. And the idea of a break was
Speaker 1: so far into me. It was like, No, I work
Speaker 1: all the time and I plant seeds. And I thought, no,
Speaker 1: it's actually important to actually just go and sometimes do nothing.
Speaker 1: And I've been learning that, and that's hard. That's hard
Speaker 1: for me. I have to go like religious, like okay,
Speaker 1: what if I went out by the pool and put
Speaker 1: my phone down and I just sat there and listened.
Speaker 1: And I've been buying a lot of wherever I go,
Speaker 1: I just came from, like Brazil and Buenas Aires. And
Speaker 1: also it's important to buy some books from about that
Speaker 1: land and architecture and style and things like that. So
Speaker 1: I've been buying lots of hardcover, big old art books
Speaker 1: and throwing them around my apartment so I can make
Speaker 1: sure that I'm looking at them and inspired and talking
Speaker 1: about architecture and food and you know, think different things,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like I need to learn more, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: like I feel like, especially like as an actor, I
Speaker 1: feel like I know a lot about acting. I know
Speaker 1: a lot about directing and writing. And now what don't
Speaker 1: I know? You know, i'd like to It's okay to
Speaker 1: not know something, and I just say I want to
Speaker 1: go learn something new, like a new language. It doesn't,
Speaker 1: it didn't. I'm not afraid of it. You know. I
Speaker 1: love going to places where I don't speak the language.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I should learn. You know what about love? Love?
Speaker 1: I have love. I've I've been married for four years.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Yeah, how's that? It's wonderful. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: I'm very private about my love life because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we always I'll say this about that, we
Speaker 1: always got to keep something to ourselves. It's precious and
Speaker 1: it's um you know, it's it's precious and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's filled with love. I've had this the same partner
Speaker 1: for thirteen years, and that case me grounded. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think you need something to come
Speaker 1: home to as we seek to make a difference and
Speaker 1: create and also have a good time in my travel, buddy,
Speaker 1: here's your might. I have only one question about this.
Speaker 1: How do you make it work. For thirteen years. I
Speaker 1: think we came into our relationship we both wanted to
Speaker 1: be as honest and as generous and loving. I wanted
Speaker 1: somebody who's going to be my friend as well. That
Speaker 1: was very important because I feel like when you're first
Speaker 1: dating somebody, they wear the mask, and the mask slips.
Speaker 1: After five years you're like, oh, you're the devil slips
Speaker 1: before that, Oh yes, to play before them, but then
Speaker 1: there's many slips. But then you're like, wait, you weren't
Speaker 1: you were your best you're your best self. You didn't
Speaker 1: tell me this person that your best version. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: I was like no, I was like, I get I
Speaker 1: put I put them through like an interview. I was like,
Speaker 1: it was like it was less romantic. It's more like
Speaker 1: who are you really? You know, before I can get
Speaker 1: all romantic, tell me who you really or how do
Speaker 1: you feel about these things? And so that we know
Speaker 1: going down the road that that's the truth of the matter.
Speaker 1: I think the important thing is to know that people
Speaker 1: are going to grow at different times and have different needs.
Speaker 1: If you've got to be along for that ride, you
Speaker 1: got to be about about that person. You're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm about you and your growth. You need to go
Speaker 1: back to school and do this thing. I support you.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a relationship where you think everything
Speaker 1: doesn't have to deal with do with me. It's not
Speaker 1: about me all the time. It's a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's about like, how can I support you? How can
Speaker 1: I help you achieve what you need to achieve for yourself?
Speaker 1: You're going to gain something in that. And also just
Speaker 1: being in service to the one you love. How cool
Speaker 1: is that? And also you gotta learn how. You gotta laugh,
Speaker 1: you gotta travel, You gotta be honest about your feelings.
Speaker 1: But you get on my nerves. I'm like, God, you
Speaker 1: drive me crazy and you laugh about it. You drive
Speaker 1: me so crazy, you know. But the more you can
Speaker 1: just get over and just be cool about it, it
Speaker 1: is the best. And you also have to have like
Speaker 1: your own your own livelihood, you know, things that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the other person, you know, and
Speaker 1: support that person with that. You know, whether it's you know, hey,
Speaker 1: you go to yoga and do that. I have no
Speaker 1: interest in that, but go ahead, how can I get
Speaker 1: you there? You know? Or like you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's healthy. You know, everyone shouldn't try to
Speaker 1: bend in and be this weird unit that's always together
Speaker 1: and doing the same thing and finishing each other's sentences.
Speaker 1: I think that naturally will happen when you're just authentic
Speaker 1: with each other. I like that. Yeah, what about you?
Speaker 1: Are you in a relationship? Yeah? How long? It's hard
Speaker 1: when it gets turned on you? It doesn't it? Four
Speaker 1: or five months? Four or five months? Do tell? How
Speaker 1: how's it working about? It's I think it's going pretty well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it has its ups and downs. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: figuring it out. Um. But I I asked that because
Speaker 1: I can be personal too common. Okay, I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: you cry, not hard. I cry, you know. I cried
Speaker 1: driving over here. Um well, the traffic was awful, I'm sure. No,
Speaker 1: the traffic was fine. It was it was it was
Speaker 1: just it was oh it was switched. Yeah, really, I
Speaker 1: mean I teared up a little mild tear up. Um.
Speaker 1: I only asked that about thirteen years because my parents,
Speaker 1: my family has been divorced and full of times, and
Speaker 1: so I think it has affected how I approach love. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's that's an easy statement to make, and
Speaker 1: it's probably made me reluctant, a reluctant lover. But get this,
Speaker 1: and get this and this I'm gonna open to you
Speaker 1: right now. Great, we get this because I have one
Speaker 1: more Oprah moment for you too. I just think it's
Speaker 1: important too. They say you have to I don't know,
Speaker 1: cheat a relationship. Like you know, people come into your
Speaker 1: life and they're like a little puddle in the mid
Speaker 1: of your hand, and times it will fall and go away,
Speaker 1: and the good stuff will stick around for a little longer.
Speaker 1: You give everything to for the moment and just hope
Speaker 1: and have faith that will last. And when it doesn't,
Speaker 1: it's okay because it's opening up for the next one.
Speaker 1: I've learned that that's something I'm not just saying, that's
Speaker 1: in practice, that's actually has happened to me. To stay open,
Speaker 1: to constantly be open, but to go full out and
Speaker 1: go deep. I told my partner I loved I loved
Speaker 1: them on our first date. I went full in, full
Speaker 1: out because I knew I loved them and it was
Speaker 1: no games and it was true, it was right, And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people don't go with that. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, you absolutely know there's no games. When people
Speaker 1: are like oh, should I call this person back? Should
Speaker 1: to do this? Maybe I shouldn't do that. If you're
Speaker 1: doing all that thinking about it, you're not actually just
Speaker 1: being in it. Just be in it, and people should
Speaker 1: be a bit more fearless about love. Simple. Yeah, it's simple.
Speaker 1: It's actually simple. Look more, kids, I like you, I
Speaker 1: like you too. I'm gonna hold your hand. That's it.
Speaker 1: It's actually that simple. As adults, we get we make
Speaker 1: everything so complicated, and the more we get down to simple,
Speaker 1: simple truths about love, the more we win. And we
Speaker 1: got to go full it, full out, because that's the
Speaker 1: only Listen, we're all here for the blip of an eye,
Speaker 1: you know. So I feel like it's like we're here.
Speaker 1: Just go for it. Tell a person you love them
Speaker 1: and go full go, full out, and see how far
Speaker 1: that goes. And when it doesn't go any further, it's
Speaker 1: okay too. They need to go on their way. You
Speaker 1: need to go on your way and find something else
Speaker 1: and the next door will open up. That's life. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe i'll play this tape for her and see she says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do it, Tell a go for it. It started.
Speaker 1: This whole conversation started with simplicity. In your family, and
Speaker 1: I'm immediately thinking about your mother goes to see if
Speaker 1: her boy is still the same boy in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and you guys go to a bar, and she's the
Speaker 1: type of mother when you're in the bathroom, she's befriending
Speaker 1: the people around her. She's the type of mom who
Speaker 1: wrote letters to Oprah as supportive as you can possibly get.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking now where you're at in your career
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. You know, I wonder what would your mom
Speaker 1: say about You're just gonna kill me, aren't you? You're
Speaker 1: just gonna kill me. I know that my mother would
Speaker 1: be very proud because I think that I know my
Speaker 1: mom and I'm not gonna enjealousize her at all. She
Speaker 1: was a really she was just a robust, funny, sweet woman.
Speaker 1: She gave you the her last of everything. And she
Speaker 1: was the kind of mother who would talk to everyone
Speaker 1: in the supermarket and you'd be so embarrassed. She's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, can we just get out of here?
Speaker 1: Why do you have to talk to everybody? But she
Speaker 1: meet friends everywhere and everyone knew her walking down as
Speaker 1: you can never just walk down the street, You're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, and she's got to tell everybody what
Speaker 1: you're doing and how proud she is, and you're like
Speaker 1: so annoyed by her, But I know that she u
Speaker 1: I'm so much like her that I do the exact
Speaker 1: same thing. I talk to everybody. I can never just
Speaker 1: leave a party. I have to go through and say
Speaker 1: I'm spoke to speak to everybody. I know that she
Speaker 1: would be very proud of the things that I was
Speaker 1: doing in my career because she knows that they're meaningful.
Speaker 1: I think she'd be proud of the people that that
Speaker 1: I spend my time with that I care about. I'm
Speaker 1: very protective of the people I love and and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I think there's something that's funny. I had a moment
Speaker 1: today where I thought I wanted to make sure that
Speaker 1: I'm being clear with people with friends, especially long term friends.
Speaker 1: I say, I had a moment with a friend a
Speaker 1: couple weeks ago where we were almost about to have
Speaker 1: it out a little bit because things weren't clear. And
Speaker 1: I know that that's important. I say, clarity is just
Speaker 1: very important. And I think you just have to be
Speaker 1: clear with people and let people know how you feel
Speaker 1: and vice versa. I'm not perfect. I can be better,
Speaker 1: but you have to give people the opportunity to be better.
Speaker 1: And I'm willing to do the work because I think
Speaker 1: that's that's the real work when you love somebody. And
Speaker 1: I know I love intensely the people around me, and
Speaker 1: I know that my mother would be very proud of that.
Speaker 1: She'd be very proud of um. The fact that I'm
Speaker 1: really sort of at the head of pretty much everything
Speaker 1: I'm doing, that I'm I'm doing things. I recognize this,
Speaker 1: and without any ego attached to it. I recognize that
Speaker 1: I'm doing things and creating things at such a level
Speaker 1: and a capacity that many people don't. And I've been
Speaker 1: very I won't say I've been lucky. I will say
Speaker 1: I've worked very hard, and I've created opportunities where there
Speaker 1: were none. And I know I get that from my mother,
Speaker 1: just to keep going, to keep going, to keep to
Speaker 1: find another way. Me and my friend R. L. Shephear,
Speaker 1: we always say that no one has ever really held
Speaker 1: the front door open for either one of us in
Speaker 1: our careers. And I don't even come through the back door.
Speaker 1: I come through like a chink in the wall, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not going anywhere I'm going to come
Speaker 1: back again and come back again, and you'll realize that
Speaker 1: I've always been here and you've needed me, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what I feel like what's happening right now,
Speaker 1: which is why I feel like on every platform things are.
Speaker 1: Things are in a really good place right now. It's
Speaker 1: they're not always like that. But what's important for me
Speaker 1: you want to talk about this stuff is that I
Speaker 1: want people to see that there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: work in faith and taking chances and taking lots of
Speaker 1: risks to have any of this success that I have.
Speaker 1: None of it's been easy. And if people look at
Speaker 1: my career even just about ten years ago, they can
Speaker 1: see how different things were, Like the fact that people
Speaker 1: new people. I've had some guys say to me, Oh,
Speaker 1: I really want your career. First of all, I hate
Speaker 1: hearing that don't want my career. I want your career,
Speaker 1: you know, But I was like, do you you really
Speaker 1: want my career? How about when I was on Broadway
Speaker 1: and I got off a Broadway stage and within the
Speaker 1: next month I was on unemployment and my refrigerator broke
Speaker 1: and it was hot in the summertime, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have any money, and I had to borrow one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars from a friend of mine, a friend of mine's friend,
Speaker 1: on the streets of Harlem, and I was crying like
Speaker 1: a baby because I was like, I'm thirty six years old.
Speaker 1: What am I doing with my life? Thirty six thirty seven?
Speaker 1: I said, that's part of this career. But yet still,
Speaker 1: and after this successful Broadway show was passing strange on Broadway,
Speaker 1: I go back to bartending downtown, you know, those constant moments,
Speaker 1: and like, that's really being an artist. Some dude the
Speaker 1: other day told me it's like, you know a good looking,
Speaker 1: tall guy who's like, you know, I'm trying. I want
Speaker 1: to try this acting thing. I said, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't call it a thing. I said, I want
Speaker 1: you to respect it if you really wanted to be
Speaker 1: an actor and really learned. And so I think I
Speaker 1: was the wrong person for him to say this too,
Speaker 1: because I realized I was not not that I wasn't kind,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I have such a respect for
Speaker 1: what we do. Don't call it a thing, and know
Speaker 1: that it takes great work. I said, not just because
Speaker 1: you're good looking. And somebody says, oh, you should be
Speaker 1: an actor, because you could you like the finishing product
Speaker 1: of it all. It's like so therefore, I sort of
Speaker 1: launched into a little bit of a tirade for like
Speaker 1: five minutes, and I could tell that it was not
Speaker 1: what he wanted. I said, You're gonna have to figure
Speaker 1: this out. I'm just wanting to take some classes. Said,
Speaker 1: not only take some classes, you have to really you
Speaker 1: have to really figure out how you want to do this.
Speaker 1: Do you just want to be a pretty face? Do
Speaker 1: you want to really do the work? I said, if
Speaker 1: you're ready to be on set for sixteen hours a day,
Speaker 1: if you're ready to be in a theater of a
Speaker 1: ninety nineteet theater and get paid two hundred dollars or
Speaker 1: less to do work, I said that you're rehearsing fifty
Speaker 1: hours a week. I said, then come talk. Then I'll
Speaker 1: sit down with a couple of coffee, and I tell
Speaker 1: you I'd give you some advice on how to get there.
Speaker 1: But his eyes were wide. He didn't understand the work
Speaker 1: that went into it, because, yeah, it takes work. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of hard work. And yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would use that word, but I guess
Speaker 1: that's a word that I don't even know what being
Speaker 1: make it is. I think, I think, I think when
Speaker 1: I made it, I made it. I first made it,
Speaker 1: like the first job I got, like in you know,
Speaker 1: the early nineties, when I was in an educational theater
Speaker 1: school tour. I feel like I made it. I think
Speaker 1: you made it at Temple. I think I made it
Speaker 1: a temple. Huh. I'll receive that I made it because
Speaker 1: I guess I made a decision right and I made
Speaker 1: I connected with something and I said yes to it,
Speaker 1: so that I guess that is making it. You know, well,
Speaker 1: I know you said that the doors not hopping open
Speaker 1: for you, and that you are not welcome in some places,
Speaker 1: but you're always welcome back here, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And I'll say that to say that that was then
Speaker 1: and now is now. And I could tell you the
Speaker 1: doors have been flung wide open lately, and that's been
Speaker 1: I think that, like I said that, that's been a
Speaker 1: lot of hard work for a lot of a long time.
Speaker 1: I came through the chink in the wall. But now
Speaker 1: the doors, the doors are open out. I hope to
Speaker 1: stay that way. I hope so too. You know, you're
Speaker 1: never know in this business. But right now I'm having
Speaker 1: a good time and hopefully I can open up doors
Speaker 1: to other people too. M Colman, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm not crying anymore. Special thanks to Kelly Hires and
Speaker 1: Annak Bowler for making this speek episode possible. Coleman has
Speaker 1: two films out in theater this fall. The first one,
Speaker 1: Assassination Nation, drops September twenty first, and then on November thirtieth,
Speaker 1: we have If Beale Street Could Talk from director Barry Jenkins.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Coleman at www dot com
Speaker 1: easy pond dot com. Also on the site you can
Speaker 1: find all the episodes we've done with actors, filmmakers, writers
Speaker 1: this year, John Chow Alan, Alda Jancarlo Esposito, Ioni Sky
Speaker 1: alias shawk At, William Dafoe, Lena wayThe Jenny Slait. Some
Speaker 1: of those are from last year, but all of those
Speaker 1: can be found on our website, iTunes, SoundCloud, pretty much
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. As always, the show is
Speaker 1: executive produced by David Chen, Graphics by Ian Jones, illustrations
Speaker 1: by Christiana Shnai. Our associate producer is Elliott Weintraub, and
Speaker 1: the show is produced by Dillon Peck. I'm San Fragoso.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you
Speaker 1: next week.