The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Phylicia Rashad To Discuss Respect, The Rhythm Of Acting, Chadwick Boseman's Brilliance. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes, sister, one of the most dangerous morning show to
Breakfast Club charlamagnea god, just hilarious. DJ Envy's not in,
but Laura le Rossa is filling in for him, and
we got Royalty in the building. Man, we have a
woman who has represented you know, black people, especially black
women correctly forever.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Miss Felicia Rashad is here. How are you, queen?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am good. Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm a little star strugg too.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
I mean to keep staring at you, but I cannot
believe I'm sitting here across from you and just and
like it's.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Because we've been watching you on TV.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You always carry yourself in such a regal man, But
then when you walk in the room, you feel it
even more.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
It's like whoa.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I was telling him, all right, mama walking in the room,
straightening up, okay, clean, make sure everything all right?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Do you have and I know you have this effect
everywhere you go. Are you used to people acting like this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh? You all?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Or what?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Can I just say? We are as a people respectful
yeah to each other? Yes, yes, yes, ma'am, yes we are.
Yes we are, but not the others we are as
a people.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Absolutely absolutely, yes, And you're here for I mean, we're
gonna talk to you about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
You're making your Broadway directorial debut and purpose. Yes, how
did that feel?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well? It was wonderful. It's not the first time I've directed.
This is the first time I'm directing in a Broadway theater.
But this play and this cast, it's a real gift.
You'll come and see. Yeah, yes, and I hope you'll
come to Brandon Jacobs Jenkins is the playwright. He received
(01:48):
the Tony Award last year for his play Appropriate And
This particular production originates in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater,
and the Steppenwolf has a own ethos, its own legacy
for theater as it was formed by actors. So it's
ensemble work, and that's the best work. Absolutely ensemble work.
(02:13):
But then that spirit I watched it move through the
cast into everybody, the designers, the production office and staff,
the theaters, we all, it's it's everybody. It's one. We
(02:33):
call it collective intention. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
When I think about the thing that you and your
sister have done, Ms. Debbie Allen, you know, I just
wonder what did y'all dream of when y'all was kids,
when y'all was just two little girls growing up? Like,
what did y'all play about? What did y'all think about?
What did y'all imagine?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
We We grew up in Houston, Texas. Our father, doctor
Andrew Allen's a dentist. Our mother, Vivianaires, is a poet.
We grew up with a poet. We grew up with
a visionary And it was about freedom. It was about
(03:17):
pardon me. It was about realizing your full potential as
a human being. Can you imagine things like this? Teaching
dual children like this. She would teach us things like
she'd have aphorisms and she'd give them to us to say,
the universe bears no ill to me, I bear no
ill to it. And we repeat that the universe fair
(03:39):
is no ill to me. I bear no ill to it.
If we just go around, the universe fairs no ill
to me. I bet when you teach a child like this,
when you teach a child, be true, be beautiful, be free.
She would say things like this to us, and she'd
say things like thinking requires thought, Thinking requires thought, would
(04:00):
say it, but these seeds were planted by the time
I was eleven years old. Yes, oh, Debbie. Debbie was
nine years old, and she said to my mother, I
did dance classes and you're not doing a thing about it.
(04:27):
And you're not doing a thing about it. Wow, well,
you know legal segregation at that time. My mother took
the railing off the side of the stairs going upstairs.
She took the handrail and had it attached to a
wall in what was supposed to have been the dining room.
(04:50):
And she hired this teacher who had come from the
New York City Ballet, a Caucasian man, to come and
teach Debbie in the house. Her ballet classes were there.
This is this is how we grew. We grew like this.
And he gave Debrah a book about ballet with photographs
of all the famous dancers, and we would look at
(05:14):
that book all day. Every day. My mother would take
us to exhibitions, to lectures things we couldn't understand. She
knew we couldn't understand it. She told us later, I
knew you wouldn't understand what was being said, but you
were present, and the seeds were being planted when we
(05:35):
were growing up. She didn't want us scarred by the
ignorance of racism, and it was all around us. It
was legal at that time, but as little little children,
if there was somewhere we wanted to go and we
were restricted, she'd explain it like this. She'd say, oh, well,
(06:00):
that's a private club for members only, and we're not
members of that club. And then she'd do something else.
She'd invite all our friends into the living room. She'd
teach us music. She'd teach us to tumble, she'd teach
us things like this, she'd teach us chorl speech. And
(06:21):
that's how we grew. And at that time, music education.
This is very interesting. In a time of legal segregation,
music education was free and in the schools, and the
schools had instruments that students could use. I studied viola.
(06:41):
Debbie played the bass violin, if you can believe it,
the littlest thing in the school. They had to sit
her up on a stool, had to sit that child
up on a stool, and her little fingers, her little hands.
Couldn't you know a bass player usually had big hands. Yeah,
you should have seen Debbie up there. She never missed
(07:01):
a beat and she never played a sour note. She
played that thing like she had created in herself. This
is how we grew We grew up in surrounded by
a community that cared for its children. And I mean
(07:22):
we were safe. Yeah, we were safe. We felt safe.
We didn't I didn't feel fear as a child. Our
mother was a great example of that too. One night,
somebody tried to break in the house, and my mother
was awake and she heard the clamor. She went out
(07:43):
the back door and walked her way around to where
this man was trying to come through the window. And
she stood right there and she said, you could get
arrested for that. You know, we scared. Jesus read we
grew up to be fearless, but not to be stupid.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Expound on that, fearless but not stupid.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Well, I mean, look, if you see a rattlesnake in
front of you, come on, that's right, that's right. Don't
be stupid. If you see a car come in your way,
don't be stupid.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Absolutely absolutely, I love that.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I love the story you just told, because as you
were talking about it, I'm like, man, how do you
teach freedom the black kids in the country that wasn't
providing you that freedom?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how. A poet,
a visionary hmm. You have to look inside, and you
have to teach young people to look inside. There's nothing
(08:59):
but freedom. So much distraction today, one thing and then
another to make anybody, not just African American children, but
anybody feel separate from its creation, separate from the one
(09:21):
who created everything that is separate from one's own self.
In the midst of majesty nature, in the midst of
presence distraction, pay attention to that.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You're gonna be stealing your quotes.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
But the rest of the month, every day there is
depositive note, and the Charlemagne is over there writing down
everything in his mind.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Going to be quoting you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
For the rest of them month.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I know it. Yeah, so you don't you know you
we knew history. You teach history, but you don't identify
with the Middle Passage. It's who you are. That's not
who you are, that's not who anyone is. That is
what happened. But people survive that because of who we
(10:27):
are as human beings. Right now, I'm just saying it.
Right now, we need all the people. Yeah, all the people.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, that's since the community you're talking about growing up
in Houston.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
You need that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
You need to be able to teach kids freedom. You
need to be able to instill security and safety in kids.
And that can only come from come.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
From it comes from home and in teaching. You know,
it's shared with others. You know, children are not born
into this world fearful. No human being is born into
this world fearful or filled with hate. Nobody's born like.
(11:21):
You have to learn that stuff. You know, there's a
song from a Broadway show. You have to be carefully taught,
carefully talked. Well, you can be carefully taught the right
way too.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
What was your mother's upbringing like? Because she seems like
she was so still and so short of herself, and
I'm sure she had, you know, experienced a lot.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
My mother grew up in Chester, South Carolina, from Calina.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I was born in Charleston Rayther, then a small town
called monst Corn.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Oh you the people, okay?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You the people?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Okay. So it was a small mill town, right. Her
father was a blacksmith, one of his brothers was a mortician,
and the other brother was a barber. And these businesses
had been owned by her grandfather. It was an agricultural community, right.
(12:20):
But there was a school there that had been founded
by the presbytery. There was such a number of such schools,
pardon me, that had been founded by the Presbytery for
the descendants of freed African people throughout the South. This
school was Brainerd Institute. And in this school there was
(12:43):
this classical education administered by black people. My mother was
always interested in music. Oh, she was quite the pianist.
She's described herself to me once is saying she was
a little girl swinging high on the swing, looking up
(13:08):
at the sky and dreaming big dreams. That's how she grew.
Her mother passed away when she was When my mother
was nine, she lost her mother. And she said, as
she sat at her mother's funeral and listened to the
things that people were saying, she decided none of them
were intelligent enough to tell her anything to do. She
(13:31):
would chart her own course at nine, at nine at nine,
and she did, and she did. It was not an
easy life, but there was this spirit in her, living
in her, burning in her, that carried her through. Her
(13:57):
first publication is by Collection of Porns. Her second publication Hawk.
If you read Hawk, you will understand how I grew.
This is an inner journey. This is an allegory of freedom,
which parallels flight through space without a vehicle. It was
(14:20):
published eleven weeks before the launch of sputnk Ie.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Wow, what did you learn from your your father, because
you said he was a dentist.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Oh, my father. My father was born on the back
porch of a farm in Lovedale, Louisiana. He was one
of nine children. His father worked on the railroad. He
was a fireman on the South Pacific Railroad. And his mother,
you know, was housekeeping. Right. My grandfather put great emphasis
(14:57):
on education, and he made sure that all of his
children went to college.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Imagine it, especially in that time.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Imagine it. So my father was a very kind and
generous man. He was what was called a man's man.
Men loved him and trusted him. He was always the
treasurer of the dental Association because they said, if text
(15:29):
takes care of the money, we're in good shape. He
was organized, he was very clean. He loved music, he
loved theater, he loved the arts. He came to see
any and everything we did, whatever it was. He was
very supportive. He was he was so handsome, he was
(15:56):
so handsome, and he was so good. He did things
that people didn't know he did. He was like that.
And in his office he dealt with people's pain and
(16:17):
anxiety every day, and they came to him and trusted him.
And when they couldn't pay, he'd work out a payment
plan for them that was convenient for them. They didn't
have to go anywhere and incur interest rates. He would
work that out for him. When my father passed away,
(16:41):
at his viewing, the line stretched out of the mortuary, wow,
all the way down the street, all the way round
the block. And when the last person came, he said,
he looked at it and me, he said, you don't understand.
(17:03):
You don't understand. That's my dentist mmm. And that motiicaide as.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I remember.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
That moticaid on the way to the cemetery, stretched as
far as the eye could see. He was so beloved.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Thank you, Joe, thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So that's why I asked, just because you know when
you look like I said, you know you we look
at Felicia, a shot at Wie Allen.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Two strong queens. Somebody had to raise them, somebody had
them steal that in them. And as a father raising
four beautiful black girls.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You know, I'm just always thinking about you know what
should me and my wife be in stealing in them
all the time just so they grow up to be.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Strong black women. Love them, my mom says, all the
time when you.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Love them, that's all you know. My father, if I
can remember one great instruction, my father gave me two
great instructions. He said, and I was a little girl,
he said, never let anybody run over you. Who was
five years old, and he told me that, never let
anyone run over you. And then later on in life,
(18:17):
he said, always know the balance of your bank account
and keep your own money.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yeah, what can you tell us about to start without
spoiling it?
Speaker 1 (18:33):
You know the Broadway?
Speaker 5 (18:35):
But what can you tell us about the story of
purpose without giving it all the way?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I know you don't want to. Oh, this is wonderful
family family drama, and there's humor in it. A young
man is recalling a visit to his home and on
this night of nights, so much happens in one night,
(19:05):
and so much is revealed in one night, and some
things are resolved. It's uh, That's all I'm gonna tell you,
except to tell you that cast Harry Lennox mm hmmmmkay,
(19:28):
the Tanya Richardson Jackson mm hmm Okay, Glynn Glenn Davis
mm hmmm, Alana Arenas and John Michael Hill. It's the
most it's the most incredible ensemble that I've ever witnessed.
(19:52):
Each one is a master, each one and the inimitable
Carry Young, who was Louty Bell in Pearly Victorious last season,
that's her cast. People come at the end of the
play and have various reactions. One woman said, ooh, that
(20:17):
scene at the dining room table. Who that was my
family's thanksgiving for the past time?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Relatable? Right?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And she was not an African American woman. People see
themselves and that's when we know we are really doing
our best work. When you see yourself.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I was gonna say, speaking of doing your best work,
I think you know, for a lot of us and
watching you on television, the iconic role of Claire Huxtable
and just what that image of you know, having a
mom that was just so graceful and so like everything
that you were in that show. Do you like in
real life? Is there ever, per sure was there at
the time for you to like upkeep like a certain
(21:04):
like I don't know, like an image or like just
anything that people try to house. No, like so not
in your house, but like in real life, like in
Hollywood and other roles you were taking in, like you
know what I mean, Like, did you ever feel like
because I think for us like you are like the
perfect like image of like a black woman. Like so
I always wondered if you felt that pressure.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
No, light is not heavy, m carry light, share light.
Light is not heavy.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Even in even in interviews. But I understand what you're saying.
Even in interviews back then, you would still have the
same deposition, the same grace when you know outside of
that role. I'm gonna tell you the one that sticks
with me when you told uh Saundra's boyfriend Elvin that
(22:01):
is iconic. And then when Vanessa wanted to go to Baltimore,
I'm friend to see the wretchet. Oh my god, when
I tell you those are my two like key episodes. Right, Well, yeah,
because I'm from Baltimore. I done snuck out the house,
and you know i'd have done all that. You ain't
knocked Vanessa out. I got knocked out a few times.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
But.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Well yeah, right, that's it. Also, I also want to
bring up the movie bee Keeper. Oh my god, how
is that working with Jason Stathum.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Oh he's such a good person. Yeah, oh yeah, so generous,
so kind, amazing to a fault. You know, that was
a great experience.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
That was a great movie because it also like talks
to what's going on these days. Like it's so I know,
y'all you probably didn't see it. So The bee Keeper
is a movie about an older woman who is robbed
of her her retirement funds, everything cleared, her bank accounts,
fraud a lot of frauds. She took a phone call
(23:12):
from this company that acted as if they were trying
to like help her with some type of banking information,
and she like kind of fell forward and ended up
now and Beekeeper did? Is this the question always have
Did the woman kill herself?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Or did she killed herself? Not because she lost her money.
It was other people's money she lost, Okay, And do
you know that maybe six months after that filming, I
read of such a thing in the newspaper. Wow, oh wow,
this was a man. Yeah, and he was so embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
His own Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
But the greater problem here is access, Yes, yeah, how
much access to people? Is all of that necessary. Is
it good?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
No, No it's not.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
No man, no it's not. And as we see it
moving towards more, think about that.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, how do how do you now a days like
because I mean you obviously pick and choose what you
want to do with your roles. Like I watched you
in the air from Detroit and I was like, the
one thing we all lay in the car and you
were talking about the temptations, all of them.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Right now, I felt bad watching that. I'm like, I
don't think I was supposed to hear her.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
But it's so funny though.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
The first time I saw the clips, they didn't tell
me it was from a TV show.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Yeah, he thought that you were really reflecting all your life.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I said, damn she slept.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
No, no, no, that was a character, Darling. That was
a character. As actors, we play these roles.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
When you choose a character like that, where it's like
it's a lot different than how we've seen you or
how I've seen you anyway, and different things that you've done.
What's your thinking behind it? Is it because you want
to you want people to see you in the different
lights or is it just I just want to do
to see.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
What she was doing. Yes, that's why I chose the character,
because of what she was doing. Yeah, people get all
caught up in funny stuff. Yeah, what was that woman doing.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
She was rescuing people.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
She was rescuing people. She was living with the deepest
hurt that a mother can have, that she lost her
child because she was not paying attention, and in her
heart she felt that her child was alive somewhere. And
this is years later, but just in the moment of
(25:55):
being too tired and too annoyed and too you distracted
and wanting to do something else, she turned away and
in that instant her child was taken from her. Yeah,
and so she said about saving people, She went on
saving people open one day somebody would save her son.
(26:18):
M hm. So I choose people because I choose a
character because of what people are doing.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, I want to go back to something just said.
She brought up the Elvin scene, right, because that.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Was a role.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Well, when you schooled Elvin on I guess the marital,
the marital, how much input did you have on that
scene and what were you trying to convey when you
saw it on paper? What did you say to yourself Oh,
I know what I can do in this scene to
convey a larger message.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Oh, I didn't say anything. I just said I just
said the lines.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
It was just as it was there.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
It was there, but it was the way you deliver it,
you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
So it was like battle rapping.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
It was so good. I thought it was impriv you know,
it was this is this is a part of your
training as an actor in language and how you use it,
you know, And there's rhythm in this pace, and so
much is conveyed in that way. If you said it
another way, it wouldn't be as effective. If you tried
to say it like you were singing the lazy No,
(27:26):
it wouldn't work.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It wouldn't hit like a black mama.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
What would in writers' rooms like though, because it felt
like a black experience with black writers writers.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
The thing was to write a human story, to write
about human behavior, the truth of human behavior. That's what
makes comedy and theater real, the truth of human behavior.
You don't have to make something up. If you're writing
(27:58):
about something that's real mm hmm, you can take a
different perspective on it, and your skills as a writer,
you know, show up in your language or your you
know those things that writers do.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Yeah, h what do you do to channel roles like
your role and fall from grace, like when you're the villain,
What do you do to channel those roles?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Everybody is a human being, right, yeah, okay, m she's
just a nasty human. This is a person who is sick.
Her whole perspective is warped. You've got to be sick
to mistreat another person. I'm sorry. You cannot be sane
(28:48):
and do hurtful things to people. You just the sane
person won't do that.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Do you agree that one of the four agreements is,
you know, don't don't take offense to things, don't take
things personal because what you do, what somebody does to
you is not a reflection to you, is something that's
going on internally with them. It's hard, you know, to
put yourself in that position, but you really got to know.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
That sometimes you want to just clutch somebody, shake them
real good.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
My daddy used to say, you'll stop taking everything personal
personal once you realize that it's a bunch of people
out here on cocaine wos like, people out here doing
all types of stuff that you have no idea about.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Where was your father from.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Monk's Corner, South Carolina. All my family in South Carolina, Mama, daddy, everybody.
It's the best because you know, it's like if you
ever been to the International African American Museum. Oh you
were there, i'mugging, yes, you were there for the grand opening.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I didn't get to meet y'all. Want to meet y'all
was on the other side.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But yes, it's right there on the port where, like
I think fifty percent of all enslaved Africans came through.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So that's like home for a lot of us.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
And don't know that's right, And don't.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Know another thing I want to ask you about when
you ran down on Vanessa, who are what were you
channeling in that moment, because I'm sure you, I'm sure
you and your sister snuck out the house a couple
of times and Mama had to get on you.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Never snuck out.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
I didn't have to sneak. Yeah, I didn't have to sneak. Okay,
yeah it was good. I didn't have to. But it
was good not to have to do that. Yeah, you know,
sometimes it might have stayed a little too long or
we didn't have to sneak. It was it was, it
was fun, it was you know, it was an actor
(30:33):
and you understand human behavior, you understand feelings. It's it's
the way you develop yourself. This is the craft. This
is what we do. And uh, I guess if you
do it in a certain way, people think it's you.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yes, that's why they can't see you playing a role
like in a fall from grades, like mister Shott is
a villain.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
No, she was.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We have to detach the actress from the character. Oh yeah,
you know. And as an artist, you don't want to
sing the same song or play the same tube. Yeah,
you don't want to paint the same picture whatever. You've
got a paint box, you want to use those paints
(31:26):
and do a different scenes because we have range. Well yeah,
and you want to express humanity in whatever you do
at least I do.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
You know you can't.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
I was going to say your time at at Howard,
I'm a HBC. You graded went to Delaware State?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Have you ever heard of it?
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yes? Wow?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
The police thing next exactly right. But the freedom that
you were talking about earlier, I remember, like I was
raised in a household where my mom was very much
like that. But going to an HBCU. I remember that
being the first time where I was like, oh, okay,
the world like really needs me. And it was because
of like teachers and counselors and stuff that kind of
had the same spirit that you have. I wonder, like
(32:08):
for you, what was like one of your favorite things
about walking on campus every day with those students as
a dean as.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
The dean ooh, walking on campus. Everywhere I looked, I
was reminded of my time there as a student, and
I was reminded of my friends, and I was reminded
of the things that we did in the time in
(32:34):
which we were living as students. It was an important time.
Doctor King was assassinated in my sophomore year.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, I watched these things happen. So much unfolded on
that campus. I remember when Muhammad Ali came and spoke
on the steps of Frederick Douglas Hall mm hmm. And
I remember him standing there and he said, look at me.
Can't you see that I'm free? And you could. Oh.
(33:13):
They were great people. There were great. Oh. The instructors.
When I tell you about instructors I had at Howard.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
University, you know, yeah, they feeling they pour in like
you never forget that, like they pouring into you in
a different way.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
And they're so well developed. They are deep, they are deep.
So there was a time, you know, I was just
referencing back to my father's area dentistry. There was a
time when African Americans were trained, could be trained at Harvard,
(33:50):
but they wouldn't hire them to teach. So these people
who were trained in these great quote great institutions went
to HBCUs to teach. You were receiving that education there,
that discipline, those demands. They were serious about it. They
(34:14):
were so serious about it. There was there was an
instructor at Howard down in medical school, dtr Montague J. Cobb.
They talked about this man. He was legendary. My father's
friend said, oh, no, you don't understand. If we failed
the test, he would say, meet me in the lab tonight,
(34:36):
and they'd all show up in the lab and while
they were going around doing what they were supposed to
be doing, he would pull out his viola and play
as he walked up and down the aisle. And my
father's friend said, you wanted him to play that viola
because that meant that he was pleased with what you
would do. I mean it came, you know, people, we
(34:56):
came through in a time that we should remember.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I feel like that's a level of village. I don't
know if we have anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Well, we can have it if we want it, and
we can expand it. We can expand it to it
include our Hispanic family. We can expand it to include
our Asian family. We can expand it to include our
Caucasian family. We can expand it because we need all
the people. That's a line from August Wilson's play Jim
(35:26):
of the Ocean on Esther who on this It says,
I'm going to show you what happened when all the
people call on God in the one voice. God got
beautiful splendors, and God got room for everybody.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Were you when you when you decided not to return
back to Howard did you feel like you didn't return
because your work was done there? Or was it just
like a personal decision because like business reasons, Like I
just felt like people like you what we need? You
want campuses every day. But I know it's probably it's
a lot to do well at once. But like, what
was that like for you, that decision not to go back?
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Well, I will always be connected. I will always be
connected to Howard University. As a matter of fact, next
week I will be in Washington, D C. For the
one night only reading of Chadwick A. Boseman's Deep Azure.
He wrote that. So he was one of my students
(36:28):
early early on, when Al Freeman Jr. Invited me to
come and teach for a semester. So we were in
the studio doing the show Monday through Thursday, and Friday morning,
I'd get up and fly down and I'd teach m
And he was one of my students. Collecchi Susan Collecchi
Watson was one of the students. Camilla Fors one of
(36:51):
the students. He was He was fearless, he was brave
South Carolina, and and he was also very respectful. That's
why I say, as a people, we are a respectful people.
We are naturally, you know. So anyway, he kept in
(37:14):
contact with me, and after he had graduated, one day
I received this call, I'm sending you something, mister Shady,
but always call me that I'm sending you something, mister.
Even after he had attained fame and notoriety, he still
called me mister always. So said okay, and what he
(37:36):
sent was a copy of the script that he had
written hip Hop Theater. Hip Hop Theater was born on
the campus of Howard University, and he was one of
the progenitors. He was one of the innovators. And it's
how can I say hip hop language and rhythm through
(37:58):
the voice and experience of a class that.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
It is grand that's like the essence of HBCU. Like
when you're saying it, it's like, okay, that's what it's
like when you go to like the caf for like
you and the parties or it's literally like everybody is
so like astute, but like you. It's a vibe like
you can't describe it. You got to just be there.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
And it's real. It's real. And people are taking their
education seriously right but now with this AI business, I
don't know, trying not to write their own papers to
try to do this what do they call it? This
chet thing chat? And who excuse me for stammering, but
it puts me at a loss for words like darling,
(38:42):
don't you understand why you're here now? If you wanted
to do that, you could stay home. You should stay
home because you're taking up room that somebody else could
be occupying. Who really wants to.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
Do the work?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, who really wants to develop? What about your intellect? Baby?
Do you have no care or thought for your intellect
for expanding that? What about that? What about your worldview?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Darling?
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Do you not care for that? Oh? Okay, you're gonna
give that to the chap too. All right, Well let's
see where you lad, Let's see where you end up.
So purpose the play. Yes, one of the things that
said in this play by the patriarch, he said, he
feels he feels that he has lost a communion with God.
(39:42):
He said, ancestors were in such close communion with God
and his creation. They knew how to do things and
how to take care of things, he says, And I
think that I have I think that we all have
lost that. He says. Well, maybe it's old age. I
don't know, but he says, he's very interested in the
(40:02):
things we used to do back home down in the country,
fishing and hunting and bee keeping and growing. You know,
I was shocked, shocked to know that they are children
(40:23):
who don't understand that French fries come from potatoes that
are alone, and.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Those wasn't the children that how it was?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
It? Okay? But I'm shocked. But I'm shocked to know.
I'm shocked to know from two pediatricians in two different cities. Right,
they have books, you know, in their waiting rooms for
the young children. Young children come in and pick up
a book and try to scan it.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
M m.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Because the parents aren't giving them books, They're giving them
these little things. Have these these things. Yeah, it's like,
so here we go back to parenting. You'll leave that
in the hands of somebody else and think it's gonna
come out right. I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
The dramatic pause, I don't know. This is a dramatic pause.
You'll be stopping. That's why i'd be just like, speaking
of dramatic pause, you call it a dramatic I'm.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Trying to figure out sometimes it's dramatic, Paul, but then
sometimes you really are done.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
So I'm just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
She's speak. We're in conversation.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
The I had a question about the deep as you're
so the proceeds from the One night Only are going
back to the College of Finding Arts at Howard. Yes,
what like today if Chadwood could see kind of like,
you know, how the final product has come along and
everybody that's involved, Like what would his sentiments be?
Speaker 5 (41:59):
Like?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
How happy would he b two see all of this
coming to fruition from that first phone call that you
guys had about I'll.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Tell you his wife is very and he's producing partner
who was his best friend in college. They're very happy,
and I'm very happy because it's happening, and it's happening
with a great cast of actors. I don't know if
you have that list.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
I can look it up.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I don't know if you have the list you want
to look it up?
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
I got it. Oh, you should look at it.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
It's it's Isaiah Johnson, Yes, Amber Emmon, who plays as
your Greg. Alvarez Reed plays Tone, Joshua Boone plays Rod.
Lauren Banks the Street Knowledge good. Yeah, I'm a mess
this one up. At a Sola isa col Aska, Looming.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
She said, what what you say?
Speaker 4 (42:55):
Oknew, I was gonna mess it up. I'm sorry. Is
the Street Knowledge evil? Jess Washington? Uh is stage directions?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
These are all professionals, yes, and uh god, we're so honored.
Mm hmmm, We're so honored and our and our our
Honorary Host Committee. H I mean you know who's on
that mm hmm. You can look it up. Look it
(43:25):
up and see. I mean, these are people supporting this.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
So the Honorary Host Committee. Ryan Coogler is the honorary chair,
Common Susan Khalichi Watson, don Cheto uh Tony see Coats,
I'm sorry, Tannahisee Coats, Camilla Forbes, Reginald Hudlington, Kenny Leon
and Terrell, Alvin McCraney. Yes, universe, ye.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
All too supporseeah to support his legacy. Chadwick was He
was really amazing. Chadwick was an actor. Yes, Chadwick was
a writer. Chadwick was a director. Chadwick was a scholar.
He studied many things. The etymology of words, oh, he
(44:20):
was deep into that, into names and the meanings of them.
He studied the Bible, not to Bible thump, but to
understand its origins really and its deeper meanings. And then
he combined all of that with you know, I hate
(44:42):
to say it like this, but I'll say it like this,
with African cosmology. Why do I hate to say it
like that, Because Africa is a huge continent and it
is not a monolithic proposition, but there is a certain
ethos that runs through all. He was brilliant. He was brilliant.
(45:04):
There was nobody else to play back Black Panther.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
But mm hmm, Chadwick, see I big. We got him
on the door. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
And you know what he really cared about. He called
me one day and this was after graduation. He was
living in New York and he was so excited and
he wanted me to know what he was doing and
to come and see. And I was thinking, Okay, now,
let's see what premiere is this, what film is this?
What play is this? It was none of that. He
(45:36):
was working with young people in the Schomberg Library and
he was so excited about that. M wow, yes he was.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
You know, you came up in an Arab mister Shad,
where dignity and grace were everything. So do you have
a look at how wild Hollywood is now? Think to yourself, boy,
y'all got it easy. Y'all wouldn't have got away with
dad my day.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Mm hmm. Yeah, you have to look at Hollywood. I
could look at the way young ladies dress. Pan I'm
not talking about I'm talking about you know, the young
ladies are so beautiful. They're so beautiful, and something has
(46:31):
happened in popular culture, you know. And I don't mean
to be critical, and I hope young ladies listening don't
take this as personal criticism because I don't mean it
that way. But you're young, Queen's beautiful and smart and
(46:51):
brilliant and bright, and it really I know I'm taken
aback when I see on a college campus young women
dressed in strips of clothing. I mean, male instructors don't
like it. But more importantly than that, and you correct
(47:18):
me if I'm wrong, sir, No man wants his woman
to be out like that right now.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I grew up on method man saying wearing three fourths
of cloth and that was showing your stuff off boo.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
You know, it's like there's today's designers. I mean, there's ways,
you know, there's there are other things and I.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Just leave something to the imagination. It would be nice
somethings for my eyes only, you know.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
And like you said, there are ways of being sexy
without showing so.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
Much, please, and that's really not sexy.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean, one of the most sexy is most beautiful
is you. I forgot what year it was. But you
got on like a basketball jersey, like and some popcorn.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
That is.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
That white jersey?
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (48:14):
That was Yeah, that was a beautiful picture.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
That's like that is the epitome of sexy.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Oh well, it's it's I think it has to do
with I think it has a lot to do with
what they're what they see, what they're emulating what they see. See.
We we grew up in a time where you know,
the the singers, these ladies were dressed down, these women
(48:41):
who they were wearing robes and gowns and dew right.
Well it's a little different today. Yeah, so they're really
just emulating what they said. Hmm.
Speaker 4 (48:53):
I thought it was from nineteen eighty seven. Madison Square
Garden was jery, it was, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I'm talking about yes, yes, remember what you were doing.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
I was there with Malcolm Jamal Warner.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Be here before you got here.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
Yes, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
You know, try to give your icons they flowers and
celebrate them while they're still here.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
Absolutely, whoa got her balloon.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Flowers?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
We don't never do that. Nobody here.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You've you've been so gracious with your time. So I
just got a couple more questions. What's the lesson you
learned way too late in life that you wish you
figured out sooner and you would teach the next generation.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Now, this is gonna sound weird to you after everything
I've told you. The lesson that I learned later in
life was that I'm enough as a young girl growing up,
(50:12):
you know, and young girls go through this. You'll know,
you go through a period where you feel like because
and it's because you're looking outside yourself. You compare yourself
to everyone else you see, and you're not enough because
(50:33):
you don't dressed like that one, or you don't have
hair like that one, or you don't have legs like
that one. You can think of any number of things.
Young girls go through. This kind of thing usually happens
around adolescence, where you feel like you're not enough. Part
(50:57):
of that had to do with my mother being so beautiful,
my father being so handsome, and my sister being so cute,
my brother being so whatever, And I just thought, well,
when I was born, the Lord was doing something else.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
I'm serious, what age was this that you felt like that?
Speaker 3 (51:19):
And I was when I was young, when I was
oh ten, eleven, twelve. And that's a subtle thing that
you'll carry with you until you look inside yourself, and
(51:40):
you start looking inside yourself, and that thinking vanishes and
goes away. This is only when we look inside ourselves
that we see what beauty really is.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
So when did you get to that place of worthy?
Speaker 3 (51:59):
When did I get to this? Please?
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (52:04):
I think I was about thirty I want to say
I was about thirty four, thirty five years old.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
And now I look back at those pictures of myself
and I say, what'd you feel like that? Yeah? The mind? Oh, yeah,
the mind. That's why it's important to teach young people
to look inside the mind, the state of mind. And
(52:48):
there's too much going on right now that's so distracting
for them. I don't know how young people feel. If
they listen to news reports today, they can't feel empowered.
It's not meant to do that for us, for anybody.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
But it never has though.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
I mean they always say if it bleeds, it leads,
like they especially for black people, it never would telling
us anything to make us feel uplifted and empowered.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
All of humanity is in the same boat, my friend,
nobody feels empowered by that. None, really. I was taught
a very great thing. I heard a very great thing
from a great being some years ago. Make yourself great
(53:34):
by making others greater. Mmm mmm, and that's what I
would teach a young.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Person, make yourself great by making others greater.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
M yes.
Speaker 4 (53:49):
Man, Well, thank you, not just for the interview, but
for your career things.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Thank you, Thank you for being you. Like you know,
it is not every day you get to meet people
that you you know, you grew up on and watched
and you know said to yourself, Man, that person right
there is a pillar of our community and what we
need to be as a people.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
And then you meet them and you're just as gracious
and regal in person.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Just thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Thank you to your mother and your father for raising
such a beautiful, strong woman, and I hope I can
do the same for my daughters.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
I think you are I think when they look at you,
they know that they're loved and they're protected. That's all
they need.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Absolutely absolutely make sure y'all go check out Purposes running
through on Broadway through July sixth.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
It is Queen Felicia Rashad. Thank you for joining us.
Wake that answer up in the morning. Breakfast Club
Wake that ass up in the morning Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes, sister, one of the most dangerous morning show to
Breakfast Club charlamagnea god, just hilarious. DJ Envy's not in,
but Laura le Rossa is filling in for him, and
we got Royalty in the building. Man, we have a
woman who has represented you know, black people, especially black
women correctly forever.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Miss Felicia Rashad is here. How are you, queen?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am good. Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm a little star strugg too.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
I mean to keep staring at you, but I cannot
believe I'm sitting here across from you and just and
like it's.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Because we've been watching you on TV.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You always carry yourself in such a regal man, But
then when you walk in the room, you feel it
even more.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
It's like whoa.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I was telling him, all right, mama walking in the room,
straightening up, okay, clean, make sure everything all right?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Do you have and I know you have this effect
everywhere you go. Are you used to people acting like this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh? You all?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Or what?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Can I just say? We are as a people respectful
yeah to each other? Yes, yes, yes, ma'am, yes we are.
Yes we are, but not the others we are as
a people.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Absolutely absolutely, yes, And you're here for I mean, we're
gonna talk to you about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
You're making your Broadway directorial debut and purpose. Yes, how
did that feel?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well? It was wonderful. It's not the first time I've directed.
This is the first time I'm directing in a Broadway theater.
But this play and this cast, it's a real gift.
You'll come and see. Yeah, yes, and I hope you'll
come to Brandon Jacobs Jenkins is the playwright. He received
(01:48):
the Tony Award last year for his play Appropriate And
This particular production originates in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater,
and the Steppenwolf has a own ethos, its own legacy
for theater as it was formed by actors. So it's
ensemble work, and that's the best work. Absolutely ensemble work.
(02:13):
But then that spirit I watched it move through the
cast into everybody, the designers, the production office and staff,
the theaters, we all, it's it's everybody. It's one. We
(02:33):
call it collective intention. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
When I think about the thing that you and your
sister have done, Ms. Debbie Allen, you know, I just
wonder what did y'all dream of when y'all was kids,
when y'all was just two little girls growing up? Like,
what did y'all play about? What did y'all think about?
What did y'all imagine?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
We We grew up in Houston, Texas. Our father, doctor
Andrew Allen's a dentist. Our mother, Vivianaires, is a poet.
We grew up with a poet. We grew up with
a visionary And it was about freedom. It was about
(03:17):
pardon me. It was about realizing your full potential as
a human being. Can you imagine things like this? Teaching
dual children like this. She would teach us things like
she'd have aphorisms and she'd give them to us to say,
the universe bears no ill to me, I bear no
ill to it. And we repeat that the universe fair
(03:39):
is no ill to me. I bear no ill to it.
If we just go around, the universe fairs no ill
to me. I bet when you teach a child like this,
when you teach a child, be true, be beautiful, be free.
She would say things like this to us, and she'd
say things like thinking requires thought, Thinking requires thought, would
(04:00):
say it, but these seeds were planted by the time
I was eleven years old. Yes, oh, Debbie. Debbie was
nine years old, and she said to my mother, I
did dance classes and you're not doing a thing about it.
(04:27):
And you're not doing a thing about it. Wow, well,
you know legal segregation at that time. My mother took
the railing off the side of the stairs going upstairs.
She took the handrail and had it attached to a
wall in what was supposed to have been the dining room.
(04:50):
And she hired this teacher who had come from the
New York City Ballet, a Caucasian man, to come and
teach Debbie in the house. Her ballet classes were there.
This is this is how we grew. We grew like this.
And he gave Debrah a book about ballet with photographs
of all the famous dancers, and we would look at
(05:14):
that book all day. Every day. My mother would take
us to exhibitions, to lectures things we couldn't understand. She
knew we couldn't understand it. She told us later, I
knew you wouldn't understand what was being said, but you
were present, and the seeds were being planted when we
(05:35):
were growing up. She didn't want us scarred by the
ignorance of racism, and it was all around us. It
was legal at that time, but as little little children,
if there was somewhere we wanted to go and we
were restricted, she'd explain it like this. She'd say, oh, well,
(06:00):
that's a private club for members only, and we're not
members of that club. And then she'd do something else.
She'd invite all our friends into the living room. She'd
teach us music. She'd teach us to tumble, she'd teach
us things like this, she'd teach us chorl speech. And
(06:21):
that's how we grew. And at that time, music education.
This is very interesting. In a time of legal segregation,
music education was free and in the schools, and the
schools had instruments that students could use. I studied viola.
(06:41):
Debbie played the bass violin, if you can believe it,
the littlest thing in the school. They had to sit
her up on a stool, had to sit that child
up on a stool, and her little fingers, her little hands.
Couldn't you know a bass player usually had big hands. Yeah,
you should have seen Debbie up there. She never missed
(07:01):
a beat and she never played a sour note. She
played that thing like she had created in herself. This
is how we grew We grew up in surrounded by
a community that cared for its children. And I mean
(07:22):
we were safe. Yeah, we were safe. We felt safe.
We didn't I didn't feel fear as a child. Our
mother was a great example of that too. One night,
somebody tried to break in the house, and my mother
was awake and she heard the clamor. She went out
(07:43):
the back door and walked her way around to where
this man was trying to come through the window. And
she stood right there and she said, you could get
arrested for that. You know, we scared. Jesus read we
grew up to be fearless, but not to be stupid.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Expound on that, fearless but not stupid.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Well, I mean, look, if you see a rattlesnake in
front of you, come on, that's right, that's right. Don't
be stupid. If you see a car come in your way,
don't be stupid.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Absolutely absolutely, I love that.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I love the story you just told, because as you
were talking about it, I'm like, man, how do you
teach freedom the black kids in the country that wasn't
providing you that freedom?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how. A poet,
a visionary hmm. You have to look inside, and you
have to teach young people to look inside. There's nothing
(08:59):
but freedom. So much distraction today, one thing and then
another to make anybody, not just African American children, but
anybody feel separate from its creation, separate from the one
(09:21):
who created everything that is separate from one's own self.
In the midst of majesty nature, in the midst of
presence distraction, pay attention to that.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You're gonna be stealing your quotes.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
But the rest of the month, every day there is
depositive note, and the Charlemagne is over there writing down
everything in his mind.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Going to be quoting you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
For the rest of them month.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I know it. Yeah, so you don't you know you
we knew history. You teach history, but you don't identify
with the Middle Passage. It's who you are. That's not
who you are, that's not who anyone is. That is
what happened. But people survive that because of who we
(10:27):
are as human beings. Right now, I'm just saying it.
Right now, we need all the people. Yeah, all the people.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, that's since the community you're talking about growing up
in Houston.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
You need that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
You need to be able to teach kids freedom. You
need to be able to instill security and safety in kids.
And that can only come from come.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
From it comes from home and in teaching. You know,
it's shared with others. You know, children are not born
into this world fearful. No human being is born into
this world fearful or filled with hate. Nobody's born like.
(11:21):
You have to learn that stuff. You know, there's a
song from a Broadway show. You have to be carefully taught,
carefully talked. Well, you can be carefully taught the right
way too.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
What was your mother's upbringing like? Because she seems like
she was so still and so short of herself, and
I'm sure she had, you know, experienced a lot.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
My mother grew up in Chester, South Carolina, from Calina.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I was born in Charleston Rayther, then a small town
called monst Corn.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Oh you the people, okay?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You the people?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Okay. So it was a small mill town, right. Her
father was a blacksmith, one of his brothers was a mortician,
and the other brother was a barber. And these businesses
had been owned by her grandfather. It was an agricultural community, right.
(12:20):
But there was a school there that had been founded
by the presbytery. There was such a number of such schools,
pardon me, that had been founded by the Presbytery for
the descendants of freed African people throughout the South. This
school was Brainerd Institute. And in this school there was
(12:43):
this classical education administered by black people. My mother was
always interested in music. Oh, she was quite the pianist.
She's described herself to me once is saying she was
a little girl swinging high on the swing, looking up
(13:08):
at the sky and dreaming big dreams. That's how she grew.
Her mother passed away when she was When my mother
was nine, she lost her mother. And she said, as
she sat at her mother's funeral and listened to the
things that people were saying, she decided none of them
were intelligent enough to tell her anything to do. She
(13:31):
would chart her own course at nine, at nine at nine,
and she did, and she did. It was not an
easy life, but there was this spirit in her, living
in her, burning in her, that carried her through. Her
(13:57):
first publication is by Collection of Porns. Her second publication Hawk.
If you read Hawk, you will understand how I grew.
This is an inner journey. This is an allegory of freedom,
which parallels flight through space without a vehicle. It was
(14:20):
published eleven weeks before the launch of sputnk Ie.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Wow, what did you learn from your your father, because
you said he was a dentist.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Oh, my father. My father was born on the back
porch of a farm in Lovedale, Louisiana. He was one
of nine children. His father worked on the railroad. He
was a fireman on the South Pacific Railroad. And his mother,
you know, was housekeeping. Right. My grandfather put great emphasis
(14:57):
on education, and he made sure that all of his
children went to college.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Imagine it, especially in that time.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Imagine it. So my father was a very kind and
generous man. He was what was called a man's man.
Men loved him and trusted him. He was always the
treasurer of the dental Association because they said, if text
(15:29):
takes care of the money, we're in good shape. He
was organized, he was very clean. He loved music, he
loved theater, he loved the arts. He came to see
any and everything we did, whatever it was. He was
very supportive. He was he was so handsome, he was
(15:56):
so handsome, and he was so good. He did things
that people didn't know he did. He was like that.
And in his office he dealt with people's pain and
(16:17):
anxiety every day, and they came to him and trusted him.
And when they couldn't pay, he'd work out a payment
plan for them that was convenient for them. They didn't
have to go anywhere and incur interest rates. He would
work that out for him. When my father passed away,
(16:41):
at his viewing, the line stretched out of the mortuary, wow,
all the way down the street, all the way round
the block. And when the last person came, he said,
he looked at it and me, he said, you don't understand.
(17:03):
You don't understand. That's my dentist mmm. And that motiicaide as.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I remember.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
That moticaid on the way to the cemetery, stretched as
far as the eye could see. He was so beloved.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Thank you, Joe, thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So that's why I asked, just because you know when
you look like I said, you know you we look
at Felicia, a shot at Wie Allen.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Two strong queens. Somebody had to raise them, somebody had
them steal that in them. And as a father raising
four beautiful black girls.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You know, I'm just always thinking about you know what
should me and my wife be in stealing in them
all the time just so they grow up to be.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Strong black women. Love them, my mom says, all the
time when you.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Love them, that's all you know. My father, if I
can remember one great instruction, my father gave me two
great instructions. He said, and I was a little girl,
he said, never let anybody run over you. Who was
five years old, and he told me that, never let
anyone run over you. And then later on in life,
(18:17):
he said, always know the balance of your bank account
and keep your own money.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yeah, what can you tell us about to start without
spoiling it?
Speaker 1 (18:33):
You know the Broadway?
Speaker 5 (18:35):
But what can you tell us about the story of
purpose without giving it all the way?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I know you don't want to. Oh, this is wonderful
family family drama, and there's humor in it. A young
man is recalling a visit to his home and on
this night of nights, so much happens in one night,
(19:05):
and so much is revealed in one night, and some
things are resolved. It's uh, That's all I'm gonna tell you,
except to tell you that cast Harry Lennox mm hmmmmkay,
(19:28):
the Tanya Richardson Jackson mm hmm Okay, Glynn Glenn Davis
mm hmmm, Alana Arenas and John Michael Hill. It's the
most it's the most incredible ensemble that I've ever witnessed.
(19:52):
Each one is a master, each one and the inimitable
Carry Young, who was Louty Bell in Pearly Victorious last season,
that's her cast. People come at the end of the
play and have various reactions. One woman said, ooh, that
(20:17):
scene at the dining room table. Who that was my
family's thanksgiving for the past time?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Relatable? Right?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And she was not an African American woman. People see
themselves and that's when we know we are really doing
our best work. When you see yourself.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I was gonna say, speaking of doing your best work,
I think you know, for a lot of us and
watching you on television, the iconic role of Claire Huxtable
and just what that image of you know, having a
mom that was just so graceful and so like everything
that you were in that show. Do you like in
real life? Is there ever, per sure was there at
the time for you to like upkeep like a certain
(21:04):
like I don't know, like an image or like just
anything that people try to house. No, like so not
in your house, but like in real life, like in
Hollywood and other roles you were taking in, like you
know what I mean, Like, did you ever feel like
because I think for us like you are like the
perfect like image of like a black woman. Like so
I always wondered if you felt that pressure.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
No, light is not heavy, m carry light, share light.
Light is not heavy.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Even in even in interviews. But I understand what you're saying.
Even in interviews back then, you would still have the
same deposition, the same grace when you know outside of
that role. I'm gonna tell you the one that sticks
with me when you told uh Saundra's boyfriend Elvin that
(22:01):
is iconic. And then when Vanessa wanted to go to Baltimore,
I'm friend to see the wretchet. Oh my god, when
I tell you those are my two like key episodes. Right, Well, yeah,
because I'm from Baltimore. I done snuck out the house,
and you know i'd have done all that. You ain't
knocked Vanessa out. I got knocked out a few times.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
But.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Well yeah, right, that's it. Also, I also want to
bring up the movie bee Keeper. Oh my god, how
is that working with Jason Stathum.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Oh he's such a good person. Yeah, oh yeah, so generous,
so kind, amazing to a fault. You know, that was
a great experience.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
That was a great movie because it also like talks
to what's going on these days. Like it's so I know,
y'all you probably didn't see it. So The bee Keeper
is a movie about an older woman who is robbed
of her her retirement funds, everything cleared, her bank accounts,
fraud a lot of frauds. She took a phone call
(23:12):
from this company that acted as if they were trying
to like help her with some type of banking information,
and she like kind of fell forward and ended up
now and Beekeeper did? Is this the question always have
Did the woman kill herself?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Or did she killed herself? Not because she lost her money.
It was other people's money she lost, Okay, And do
you know that maybe six months after that filming, I
read of such a thing in the newspaper. Wow, oh wow,
this was a man. Yeah, and he was so embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
His own Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
But the greater problem here is access, Yes, yeah, how
much access to people? Is all of that necessary. Is
it good?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
No, No it's not.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
No man, no it's not. And as we see it
moving towards more, think about that.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, how do how do you now a days like
because I mean you obviously pick and choose what you
want to do with your roles. Like I watched you
in the air from Detroit and I was like, the
one thing we all lay in the car and you
were talking about the temptations, all of them.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Right now, I felt bad watching that. I'm like, I
don't think I was supposed to hear her.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
But it's so funny though.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
The first time I saw the clips, they didn't tell
me it was from a TV show.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Yeah, he thought that you were really reflecting all your life.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I said, damn she slept.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
No, no, no, that was a character, Darling. That was
a character. As actors, we play these roles.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
When you choose a character like that, where it's like
it's a lot different than how we've seen you or
how I've seen you anyway, and different things that you've done.
What's your thinking behind it? Is it because you want
to you want people to see you in the different
lights or is it just I just want to do
to see.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
What she was doing. Yes, that's why I chose the character,
because of what she was doing. Yeah, people get all
caught up in funny stuff. Yeah, what was that woman doing.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
She was rescuing people.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
She was rescuing people. She was living with the deepest
hurt that a mother can have, that she lost her
child because she was not paying attention, and in her
heart she felt that her child was alive somewhere. And
this is years later, but just in the moment of
(25:55):
being too tired and too annoyed and too you distracted
and wanting to do something else, she turned away and
in that instant her child was taken from her. Yeah,
and so she said about saving people, She went on
saving people open one day somebody would save her son.
(26:18):
M hm. So I choose people because I choose a
character because of what people are doing.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, I want to go back to something just said.
She brought up the Elvin scene, right, because that.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Was a role.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Well, when you schooled Elvin on I guess the marital,
the marital, how much input did you have on that
scene and what were you trying to convey when you
saw it on paper? What did you say to yourself Oh,
I know what I can do in this scene to
convey a larger message.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Oh, I didn't say anything. I just said I just
said the lines.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
It was just as it was there.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
It was there, but it was the way you deliver it,
you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
So it was like battle rapping.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
It was so good. I thought it was impriv you know,
it was this is this is a part of your
training as an actor in language and how you use it,
you know, And there's rhythm in this pace, and so
much is conveyed in that way. If you said it
another way, it wouldn't be as effective. If you tried
to say it like you were singing the lazy No,
(27:26):
it wouldn't work.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It wouldn't hit like a black mama.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
What would in writers' rooms like though, because it felt
like a black experience with black writers writers.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
The thing was to write a human story, to write
about human behavior, the truth of human behavior. That's what
makes comedy and theater real, the truth of human behavior.
You don't have to make something up. If you're writing
(27:58):
about something that's real mm hmm, you can take a
different perspective on it, and your skills as a writer,
you know, show up in your language or your you
know those things that writers do.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Yeah, h what do you do to channel roles like
your role and fall from grace, like when you're the villain,
What do you do to channel those roles?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Everybody is a human being, right, yeah, okay, m she's
just a nasty human. This is a person who is sick.
Her whole perspective is warped. You've got to be sick
to mistreat another person. I'm sorry. You cannot be sane
(28:48):
and do hurtful things to people. You just the sane
person won't do that.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Do you agree that one of the four agreements is,
you know, don't don't take offense to things, don't take
things personal because what you do, what somebody does to
you is not a reflection to you, is something that's
going on internally with them. It's hard, you know, to
put yourself in that position, but you really got to know.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
That sometimes you want to just clutch somebody, shake them
real good.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
My daddy used to say, you'll stop taking everything personal
personal once you realize that it's a bunch of people
out here on cocaine wos like, people out here doing
all types of stuff that you have no idea about.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Where was your father from.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Monk's Corner, South Carolina. All my family in South Carolina, Mama, daddy, everybody.
It's the best because you know, it's like if you
ever been to the International African American Museum. Oh you
were there, i'mugging, yes, you were there for the grand opening.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I didn't get to meet y'all. Want to meet y'all
was on the other side.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But yes, it's right there on the port where, like
I think fifty percent of all enslaved Africans came through.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So that's like home for a lot of us.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
And don't know that's right, And don't.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Know another thing I want to ask you about when
you ran down on Vanessa, who are what were you
channeling in that moment, because I'm sure you, I'm sure
you and your sister snuck out the house a couple
of times and Mama had to get on you.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Never snuck out.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
I didn't have to sneak. Yeah, I didn't have to sneak. Okay,
yeah it was good. I didn't have to. But it
was good not to have to do that. Yeah, you know,
sometimes it might have stayed a little too long or
we didn't have to sneak. It was it was, it
was fun, it was you know, it was an actor
(30:33):
and you understand human behavior, you understand feelings. It's it's
the way you develop yourself. This is the craft. This
is what we do. And uh, I guess if you
do it in a certain way, people think it's you.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yes, that's why they can't see you playing a role
like in a fall from grades, like mister Shott is
a villain.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
No, she was.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We have to detach the actress from the character. Oh yeah,
you know. And as an artist, you don't want to
sing the same song or play the same tube. Yeah,
you don't want to paint the same picture whatever. You've
got a paint box, you want to use those paints
(31:26):
and do a different scenes because we have range. Well yeah,
and you want to express humanity in whatever you do
at least I do.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
You know you can't.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
I was going to say your time at at Howard,
I'm a HBC. You graded went to Delaware State?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Have you ever heard of it?
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yes? Wow?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
The police thing next exactly right. But the freedom that
you were talking about earlier, I remember, like I was
raised in a household where my mom was very much
like that. But going to an HBCU. I remember that
being the first time where I was like, oh, okay,
the world like really needs me. And it was because
of like teachers and counselors and stuff that kind of
had the same spirit that you have. I wonder, like
(32:08):
for you, what was like one of your favorite things
about walking on campus every day with those students as
a dean as.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
The dean ooh, walking on campus. Everywhere I looked, I
was reminded of my time there as a student, and
I was reminded of my friends, and I was reminded
of the things that we did in the time in
(32:34):
which we were living as students. It was an important time.
Doctor King was assassinated in my sophomore year.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, I watched these things happen. So much unfolded on
that campus. I remember when Muhammad Ali came and spoke
on the steps of Frederick Douglas Hall mm hmm. And
I remember him standing there and he said, look at me.
Can't you see that I'm free? And you could. Oh.
(33:13):
They were great people. There were great. Oh. The instructors.
When I tell you about instructors I had at Howard.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
University, you know, yeah, they feeling they pour in like
you never forget that, like they pouring into you in
a different way.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
And they're so well developed. They are deep, they are deep.
So there was a time, you know, I was just
referencing back to my father's area dentistry. There was a
time when African Americans were trained, could be trained at Harvard,
(33:50):
but they wouldn't hire them to teach. So these people
who were trained in these great quote great institutions went
to HBCUs to teach. You were receiving that education there,
that discipline, those demands. They were serious about it. They
(34:14):
were so serious about it. There was there was an
instructor at Howard down in medical school, dtr Montague J. Cobb.
They talked about this man. He was legendary. My father's
friend said, oh, no, you don't understand. If we failed
the test, he would say, meet me in the lab tonight,
(34:36):
and they'd all show up in the lab and while
they were going around doing what they were supposed to
be doing, he would pull out his viola and play
as he walked up and down the aisle. And my
father's friend said, you wanted him to play that viola
because that meant that he was pleased with what you
would do. I mean it came, you know, people, we
(34:56):
came through in a time that we should remember.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I feel like that's a level of village. I don't
know if we have anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Well, we can have it if we want it, and
we can expand it. We can expand it to it
include our Hispanic family. We can expand it to include
our Asian family. We can expand it to include our
Caucasian family. We can expand it because we need all
the people. That's a line from August Wilson's play Jim
(35:26):
of the Ocean on Esther who on this It says,
I'm going to show you what happened when all the
people call on God in the one voice. God got
beautiful splendors, and God got room for everybody.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Were you when you when you decided not to return
back to Howard did you feel like you didn't return
because your work was done there? Or was it just
like a personal decision because like business reasons, Like I
just felt like people like you what we need? You
want campuses every day. But I know it's probably it's
a lot to do well at once. But like, what
was that like for you, that decision not to go back?
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Well, I will always be connected. I will always be
connected to Howard University. As a matter of fact, next
week I will be in Washington, D C. For the
one night only reading of Chadwick A. Boseman's Deep Azure.
He wrote that. So he was one of my students
(36:28):
early early on, when Al Freeman Jr. Invited me to
come and teach for a semester. So we were in
the studio doing the show Monday through Thursday, and Friday morning,
I'd get up and fly down and I'd teach m
And he was one of my students. Collecchi Susan Collecchi
Watson was one of the students. Camilla Fors one of
(36:51):
the students. He was He was fearless, he was brave
South Carolina, and and he was also very respectful. That's
why I say, as a people, we are a respectful people.
We are naturally, you know. So anyway, he kept in
(37:14):
contact with me, and after he had graduated, one day
I received this call, I'm sending you something, mister Shady,
but always call me that I'm sending you something, mister.
Even after he had attained fame and notoriety, he still
called me mister always. So said okay, and what he
(37:36):
sent was a copy of the script that he had
written hip Hop Theater. Hip Hop Theater was born on
the campus of Howard University, and he was one of
the progenitors. He was one of the innovators. And it's
how can I say hip hop language and rhythm through
(37:58):
the voice and experience of a class that.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
It is grand that's like the essence of HBCU. Like
when you're saying it, it's like, okay, that's what it's
like when you go to like the caf for like
you and the parties or it's literally like everybody is
so like astute, but like you. It's a vibe like
you can't describe it. You got to just be there.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
And it's real. It's real. And people are taking their
education seriously right but now with this AI business, I
don't know, trying not to write their own papers to
try to do this what do they call it? This
chet thing chat? And who excuse me for stammering, but
it puts me at a loss for words like darling,
(38:42):
don't you understand why you're here now? If you wanted
to do that, you could stay home. You should stay
home because you're taking up room that somebody else could
be occupying. Who really wants to.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
Do the work?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, who really wants to develop? What about your intellect? Baby?
Do you have no care or thought for your intellect
for expanding that? What about that? What about your worldview?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Darling?
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Do you not care for that? Oh? Okay, you're gonna
give that to the chap too. All right, Well let's
see where you lad, Let's see where you end up.
So purpose the play. Yes, one of the things that
said in this play by the patriarch, he said, he
feels he feels that he has lost a communion with God.
(39:42):
He said, ancestors were in such close communion with God
and his creation. They knew how to do things and
how to take care of things, he says, And I
think that I have I think that we all have
lost that. He says. Well, maybe it's old age. I
don't know, but he says, he's very interested in the
(40:02):
things we used to do back home down in the country,
fishing and hunting and bee keeping and growing. You know,
I was shocked, shocked to know that they are children
(40:23):
who don't understand that French fries come from potatoes that
are alone, and.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Those wasn't the children that how it was?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
It? Okay? But I'm shocked. But I'm shocked to know.
I'm shocked to know from two pediatricians in two different cities. Right,
they have books, you know, in their waiting rooms for
the young children. Young children come in and pick up
a book and try to scan it.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
M m.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Because the parents aren't giving them books, They're giving them
these little things. Have these these things. Yeah, it's like,
so here we go back to parenting. You'll leave that
in the hands of somebody else and think it's gonna
come out right. I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
The dramatic pause, I don't know. This is a dramatic pause.
You'll be stopping. That's why i'd be just like, speaking
of dramatic pause, you call it a dramatic I'm.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Trying to figure out sometimes it's dramatic, Paul, but then
sometimes you really are done.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
So I'm just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
She's speak. We're in conversation.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
The I had a question about the deep as you're
so the proceeds from the One night Only are going
back to the College of Finding Arts at Howard. Yes,
what like today if Chadwood could see kind of like,
you know, how the final product has come along and
everybody that's involved, Like what would his sentiments be?
Speaker 5 (41:59):
Like?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
How happy would he b two see all of this
coming to fruition from that first phone call that you
guys had about I'll.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Tell you his wife is very and he's producing partner
who was his best friend in college. They're very happy,
and I'm very happy because it's happening, and it's happening
with a great cast of actors. I don't know if
you have that list.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
I can look it up.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I don't know if you have the list you want
to look it up?
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
I got it. Oh, you should look at it.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
It's it's Isaiah Johnson, Yes, Amber Emmon, who plays as
your Greg. Alvarez Reed plays Tone, Joshua Boone plays Rod.
Lauren Banks the Street Knowledge good. Yeah, I'm a mess
this one up. At a Sola isa col Aska, Looming.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
She said, what what you say?
Speaker 4 (42:55):
Oknew, I was gonna mess it up. I'm sorry. Is
the Street Knowledge evil? Jess Washington? Uh is stage directions?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
These are all professionals, yes, and uh god, we're so honored.
Mm hmmm, We're so honored and our and our our
Honorary Host Committee. H I mean you know who's on
that mm hmm. You can look it up. Look it
(43:25):
up and see. I mean, these are people supporting this.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
So the Honorary Host Committee. Ryan Coogler is the honorary chair,
Common Susan Khalichi Watson, don Cheto uh Tony see Coats,
I'm sorry, Tannahisee Coats, Camilla Forbes, Reginald Hudlington, Kenny Leon
and Terrell, Alvin McCraney. Yes, universe, ye.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
All too supporseeah to support his legacy. Chadwick was He
was really amazing. Chadwick was an actor. Yes, Chadwick was
a writer. Chadwick was a director. Chadwick was a scholar.
He studied many things. The etymology of words, oh, he
(44:20):
was deep into that, into names and the meanings of them.
He studied the Bible, not to Bible thump, but to
understand its origins really and its deeper meanings. And then
he combined all of that with you know, I hate
(44:42):
to say it like this, but I'll say it like this,
with African cosmology. Why do I hate to say it
like that, Because Africa is a huge continent and it
is not a monolithic proposition, but there is a certain
ethos that runs through all. He was brilliant. He was brilliant.
(45:04):
There was nobody else to play back Black Panther.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
But mm hmm, Chadwick, see I big. We got him
on the door. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
And you know what he really cared about. He called
me one day and this was after graduation. He was
living in New York and he was so excited and
he wanted me to know what he was doing and
to come and see. And I was thinking, Okay, now,
let's see what premiere is this, what film is this?
What play is this? It was none of that. He
(45:36):
was working with young people in the Schomberg Library and
he was so excited about that. M wow, yes he was.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
You know, you came up in an Arab mister Shad,
where dignity and grace were everything. So do you have
a look at how wild Hollywood is now? Think to yourself, boy,
y'all got it easy. Y'all wouldn't have got away with
dad my day.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Mm hmm. Yeah, you have to look at Hollywood. I
could look at the way young ladies dress. Pan I'm
not talking about I'm talking about you know, the young
ladies are so beautiful. They're so beautiful, and something has
(46:31):
happened in popular culture, you know. And I don't mean
to be critical, and I hope young ladies listening don't
take this as personal criticism because I don't mean it
that way. But you're young, Queen's beautiful and smart and
(46:51):
brilliant and bright, and it really I know I'm taken
aback when I see on a college campus young women
dressed in strips of clothing. I mean, male instructors don't
like it. But more importantly than that, and you correct
(47:18):
me if I'm wrong, sir, No man wants his woman
to be out like that right now.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I grew up on method man saying wearing three fourths
of cloth and that was showing your stuff off boo.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
You know, it's like there's today's designers. I mean, there's ways,
you know, there's there are other things and I.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Just leave something to the imagination. It would be nice
somethings for my eyes only, you know.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
And like you said, there are ways of being sexy
without showing so.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
Much, please, and that's really not sexy.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean, one of the most sexy is most beautiful
is you. I forgot what year it was. But you
got on like a basketball jersey, like and some popcorn.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
That is.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
That white jersey?
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (48:14):
That was Yeah, that was a beautiful picture.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
That's like that is the epitome of sexy.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Oh well, it's it's I think it has to do
with I think it has a lot to do with
what they're what they see, what they're emulating what they see. See.
We we grew up in a time where you know,
the the singers, these ladies were dressed down, these women
(48:41):
who they were wearing robes and gowns and dew right.
Well it's a little different today. Yeah, so they're really
just emulating what they said. Hmm.
Speaker 4 (48:53):
I thought it was from nineteen eighty seven. Madison Square
Garden was jery, it was, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I'm talking about yes, yes, remember what you were doing.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
I was there with Malcolm Jamal Warner.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Be here before you got here.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
Yes, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
You know, try to give your icons they flowers and
celebrate them while they're still here.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
Absolutely, whoa got her balloon.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Flowers?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
We don't never do that. Nobody here.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You've you've been so gracious with your time. So I
just got a couple more questions. What's the lesson you
learned way too late in life that you wish you
figured out sooner and you would teach the next generation.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Now, this is gonna sound weird to you after everything
I've told you. The lesson that I learned later in
life was that I'm enough as a young girl growing up,
(50:12):
you know, and young girls go through this. You'll know,
you go through a period where you feel like because
and it's because you're looking outside yourself. You compare yourself
to everyone else you see, and you're not enough because
(50:33):
you don't dressed like that one, or you don't have
hair like that one, or you don't have legs like
that one. You can think of any number of things.
Young girls go through. This kind of thing usually happens
around adolescence, where you feel like you're not enough. Part
(50:57):
of that had to do with my mother being so beautiful,
my father being so handsome, and my sister being so cute,
my brother being so whatever, And I just thought, well,
when I was born, the Lord was doing something else.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
I'm serious, what age was this that you felt like that?
Speaker 3 (51:19):
And I was when I was young, when I was
oh ten, eleven, twelve. And that's a subtle thing that
you'll carry with you until you look inside yourself, and
(51:40):
you start looking inside yourself, and that thinking vanishes and
goes away. This is only when we look inside ourselves
that we see what beauty really is.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
So when did you get to that place of worthy?
Speaker 3 (51:59):
When did I get to this? Please?
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (52:04):
I think I was about thirty I want to say
I was about thirty four, thirty five years old.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
And now I look back at those pictures of myself
and I say, what'd you feel like that? Yeah? The mind? Oh, yeah,
the mind. That's why it's important to teach young people
to look inside the mind, the state of mind. And
(52:48):
there's too much going on right now that's so distracting
for them. I don't know how young people feel. If
they listen to news reports today, they can't feel empowered.
It's not meant to do that for us, for anybody.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
But it never has though.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
I mean they always say if it bleeds, it leads,
like they especially for black people, it never would telling
us anything to make us feel uplifted and empowered.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
All of humanity is in the same boat, my friend,
nobody feels empowered by that. None, really. I was taught
a very great thing. I heard a very great thing
from a great being some years ago. Make yourself great
(53:34):
by making others greater. Mmm mmm, and that's what I
would teach a young.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Person, make yourself great by making others greater.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
M yes.
Speaker 4 (53:49):
Man, Well, thank you, not just for the interview, but
for your career things.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Thank you, Thank you for being you. Like you know,
it is not every day you get to meet people
that you you know, you grew up on and watched
and you know said to yourself, Man, that person right
there is a pillar of our community and what we
need to be as a people.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
And then you meet them and you're just as gracious
and regal in person.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Just thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Thank you to your mother and your father for raising
such a beautiful, strong woman, and I hope I can
do the same for my daughters.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
I think you are I think when they look at you,
they know that they're loved and they're protected. That's all
they need.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Absolutely absolutely make sure y'all go check out Purposes running
through on Broadway through July sixth.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
It is Queen Felicia Rashad. Thank you for joining us.
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