Episode 1204 - Michael K. Williams
Marc:lock the gate all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf how's it going my guest today is michael k williams yeah fucking michael k williams omar from the wire yeah
Marc:omar from the wire is here you also know him from boardwalk empire uh the night of he's in the hbo movie bessie uh with uh queen latifah he's on this uh the other one the the lovecraft show you know a man it's a dude with the scar on his face
Marc:Big fan of his.
Marc:And he's in this new film, Body Brokers.
Marc:And I also talked to Melissa Leo on Monday about the movie as well a bit.
Marc:And it's one of these small movies.
Marc:It's not going to get a lot of advertising money spent on it.
Marc:And there's not going to be a lot of free publicity on it, but it's worth seeing and it's worth hearing these people who are in it.
Marc:And hopefully I can get to talk to the director as well.
Marc:But this movie is about the rehab racket.
Marc:It's about the drug rehab racket on all levels.
Marc:It doesn't pull any punches.
Marc:It's got a little bit of snark to it in terms of the narration, which seems to be sort of a thing now.
Marc:Kind of like that We Care A Lot movie.
Marc:But the nuts and bolts of it are pretty disturbing.
Marc:Because there are people given the opportunity, given the window...
Marc:given just the room to do it, will be corrupt, morally bankrupt, greedy, evil fucks.
Marc:Almost everybody is an opportunist.
Marc:Almost everybody is selfish.
Marc:And when a system breaks down as thoroughly as the system has broken down here over the last four years, even people who think they're good, when they see a window of opportunity,
Marc:To do something a little off or way off, we'll take it if they can rationalize the action.
Marc:Anyways, that's another tangent.
Marc:Maybe I could talk about that because I got a little something stuck in my craw.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Are there really innately sort of selfless or empathetic people?
Marc:Are most people selfish fucking people?
Marc:I tend to think so.
Marc:I'm a cranky bastard.
Marc:I'm defensive.
Marc:I seem to be...
Marc:I'm kind of self-centered, but I spend a lot of time in my head.
Marc:I spend a lot of time, even when it's not a plague, even when I'm not alone, I find I spend a lot of time in my head.
Marc:But if you get me out of my head because you need help, if you call me up and you need something and you're a friend or somebody I know and I know you're not trying to take advantage of me, I'll fucking step up.
Marc:I mean, I'm not saying I'm the guy that's going to run into the burning building to pull the people out or the doggies or the kitties.
Marc:But, you know, when the guy comes down with the doggies or the kitties or the people, I'll walk him to the ambulance.
Marc:I'll put a blanket around him and walk him to where they need to go to sit down or perhaps, you know, help give them a bottle of water.
Marc:You know, I don't know if I'm the guy that's going to step in between a couple of guys fighting, but I'll hang around and say, hey, come on, chill.
Marc:Look, I'm no saint.
Marc:But my point is, are there good people?
Marc:Are there just genuinely good people?
Marc:Like you think about all these service, these healthcare people, they're tremendously good people.
Marc:It's their job, but they do the job of helping.
Marc:They do the job of healing.
Marc:Those people are altruistic and necessary and thank God they exist.
Marc:There are people that put their lives on the line for other people.
Marc:And obviously, everyone's got their problems.
Marc:But I'm saying I think most people are out for themselves.
Marc:And I don't think that's just some part of capitalism.
Marc:I think there seems to be a few different types of people.
Marc:There's desperate people that need to survive.
Marc:So they're going to do what's necessary to survive.
Marc:They have to.
Marc:And hopefully it doesn't kill them or others.
Marc:Then there's people that are just shamelessly fucking self-serving.
Marc:Like, fuck you.
Marc:I want mine.
Marc:I get mine.
Marc:I'll do whatever I have to do to get mine.
Marc:It doesn't even have to be about survival.
Marc:Just, you know, fuck you.
Marc:Get out of my way.
Marc:I'm taking it.
Marc:And then there's people that think they're good, yet they do the same thing.
Marc:What am I beating around the bush about?
Marc:I finally know somebody.
Marc:Look, I'm sure there's plenty of people I know, rich people, people in positions of power that have jumped the line to get the vaccine.
Marc:And the real question is, if you had the opportunity, if I had the opportunity,
Marc:You know, would I go get the vaccine?
Marc:Probably.
Marc:Am I seeking that opportunity out?
Marc:No.
Marc:If someone said to me, like, dude, I got some vaccine in my truck.
Marc:Come here.
Marc:Do you want vaccine?
Marc:50 bucks.
Marc:I'll shoot you up right now.
Marc:We can knock it out, dude.
Marc:50 bucks.
Marc:I got a cooler in the truck.
Marc:I probably wouldn't do that.
Marc:You know, am I going to hang around a parking lot of a clinic for leftover ones?
Marc:No, it's happening.
Marc:So I'm going to wait till my health care provider to my Walgreens makes it available to me.
Marc:It's a drag.
Marc:And I know there are line jumpers, but the truth is, is that even if you think you're a good person, where's the virtue in waiting your turn if you don't have to?
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, if you had the choice or if you wanted to make it your goal, like I'm tired of this shit, I'm going to do whatever I got to do to go find me a fucking shot of vaccine on the level on the up and up.
Marc:But knowing that it really isn't on the up and up because, you know, it's not your turn.
Marc:What do the virtuous get?
Marc:You know, last in line, covid.
Marc:They could die, I guess.
Marc:But they'll die knowing that they didn't fucking jump the line.
Marc:But there's no difference between the good people who think they're good and do the shitty thing and the people that are shamelessly shitty.
Marc:The only difference between those people is the good people pay lip service to feeling bad about it or guilty about it.
Marc:But they still did the same thing.
Marc:You don't feel bad.
Marc:Just be honest.
Marc:I mean, people who who jump lines or cheat or steal, but they're innately good people that have somehow rationalized their behavior primarily because they they worked hard to figure out how to do it or they took advantage of their place in the world to get special treatment.
Marc:And they're like, yeah, I feel a little guilty.
Marc:No, you don't.
Marc:You don't feel bad.
Marc:You feel glad.
Marc:Just shut up.
Marc:Don't tell anybody if you cheated or if you jumped the line.
Marc:Just keep it to yourself or just say, fuck you.
Marc:I figured it out and I got it.
Marc:That's what you did.
Marc:That's who you are.
Marc:You're not like, oh, you know, I probably shouldn't have.
Marc:But, you know, I just shut up.
Marc:You fucking put your mind to it and you figured out a way to jump the line or get it.
Marc:But don't play games like, you know, I feel bad.
Marc:No, you don't.
Marc:People are selfish.
Marc:It's like, what do you feel?
Marc:Like, hey, you know, it's like, I'm sorry I started that fire, you know.
Marc:But, you know, we had a nice, it was a nice picnic.
Marc:I mean, I feel bad about the fire that burned all those land and killed those horses.
Marc:But, you know, those were good hot dogs.
Marc:Hey, it's really sad, man, that, you know, the neighbor's house burnt down because of our barbecue.
Marc:But, you know, but, you know, we had a good time.
Marc:And, you know, I didn't really like I don't really know them.
Marc:And, you know, they're gone now.
Marc:I mean, it's sad, but I feel bad about it.
Marc:But, you know, you know, we had a nice cookout.
Marc:Spare me.
Marc:Why am I so worked up?
Marc:I know why.
Marc:Because I'm not trying to cheat to get my fucking vaccine.
Marc:And I want it so I can feel better.
Marc:I'm tired of it, too.
Marc:But this is what waiting online sounds like.
Marc:Fuck these people.
Marc:What about me?
Marc:Come here, buddy.
Marc:I got a cooler in the truck.
Marc:I'm sitting on four.
Marc:Moderna.
Marc:You like Moderna?
Marc:You want the Pfizer?
Marc:I got the Pfizer.
Marc:Whatever you want, buddy.
Marc:Come over to the truck, man.
Marc:I got it in the cooler.
Marc:You want Pfizer?
Marc:I got the J&J coming next week.
Marc:What do you need, bro?
Marc:$100.
Marc:You got $200 cash?
Marc:I'll lay the Moderna on you right now.
Marc:I'll give you the second shot.
Marc:You can put it in your freezer.
Marc:Just keep it for yourself.
Marc:I'll give you the works.
Marc:I'll give you everything.
Marc:I'll give you the full kit.
Marc:$200.
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:I got it in the truck.
Marc:You want the Fize?
Marc:I got the Fizey.
Marc:You want the Fizey?
Marc:You want the Moderna?
Marc:Fizey, one shot of work, two shots guaranteed.
Marc:J&J, that shit's going for a little pricier.
Marc:$500, man.
Marc:I got it right now.
Marc:You want it?
Marc:Want the rig?
Marc:I'll give you the full works.
Marc:$500 for J&J.
Marc:So this movie, Body Brokers, is a good movie.
Marc:It's available to buy or rent on demand on platforms like iTunes, Prime Video, and more.
Marc:Body Brokers is the name of the movie.
Marc:Michael K. Williams is my guest.
Marc:You also know him as Omar from The Wire.
Marc:That was the big breakout.
Marc:Boardwalk Empire, Lovecraft Country, The Night Of, Bessie.
Marc:He was in Bessie, HBO.
Marc:Anyways, I was nervous because I didn't know what he would be like.
Marc:But man, we had a nice time and we had a nice chat.
Marc:This is me talking to the amazing Michael K. Williams.
Marc:Where are you at right now?
Guest:I'm in New York, man, Brooklyn.
Guest:BK.
Marc:Is the snow still there?
Guest:Yeah, you know, some snow on the ground.
Guest:It's winter, so we do here, you know what I mean?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I lived there for a long time.
Marc:I lived on the Lower East Side and over on 16th Street.
Marc:I got no seasons out here.
Guest:Are you in Cali now?
Marc:I'm in California, and it's just a little chilly.
Marc:That's our winter.
Marc:It's a little chilly.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Not too bad.
Marc:There's some part about having nothing to do that's not that terrible.
Yeah.
Guest:Man, come on with it.
Guest:Talk that talk.
Marc:I mean, I know it's like it gets a little crazy, but on another level, it's like, hey, if nobody else is doing anything, fuck it.
Marc:I'm okay.
Guest:You're going to have to be, because the alternative sucks.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You're going to have to be okay, man.
Guest:get some type of grounding.
Marc:Did you get it or no?
Guest:You know, I got a little scare.
Guest:Someone in my family, they went down.
Guest:They had to be hospitalized, and I was in contact with them.
Guest:So, you know, I quarantined for the 14 days.
Guest:And, you know, there was a point where, you know, I was like, I don't smell nothing.
Guest:And, you know, the taste got a little, you know, like, damn.
Guest:You know, because I cook, right?
Guest:So I made a pot of curry.
Guest:And I was like, damn, now I know I can taste my curry.
Guest:And I was like, okay, maybe I am.
Guest:So I have some symptoms, but, you know, grace to God, man, I didn't have to be hospitalized, no temperatures, no problems breathing.
Guest:It's when I just quarantined.
Marc:Oh, but so you tested, you got it.
Marc:You got it.
Marc:And you just got a minor.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Marc:Oh, yeah, you got lucky.
Marc:It's fucking crazy, man.
Guest:Yeah, you know, I mean, I, you know,
Guest:i i i consider myself blessed today man you know one i got good genes you know um you know i got i came from really good genes physically and um you know over the summer man you know like you spoke about with with everybody else ain't doing nothing so i had to find something to do because um nothing for me is not an option you know i don't mind double workshop i'm that dude yeah so uh you know i found uh
Guest:I found physical fitness this summer, but not for the sake of muscles.
Guest:You know, I got real, got real familiar with cardio and calisthenics and stretching and breathing simple shit.
Guest:And I truly believe man, that because I put that as in my program and my daily routine, um,
Guest:that it gave me a leg to stand on to fight that motherfucker back a little bit that that shit and it didn't knock me down i mean i'm no doctor that's just my little take on it that's what i chose to believe that you know um
Guest:We are so conditioned to run from this thing that I think sometimes we need to also remember that we have everything in our bodies to at least arm it to fight back.
Guest:We got a gun in our body.
Guest:It's called an immune system.
Guest:If we put some bullets in that motherfucker, we might just slay the giant.
Guest:We don't know until we fight back.
Guest:So that's where I'm at with it.
Guest:Hold on one second.
Guest:Don't hang on.
Guest:Hold on one second.
Marc:I'm not going to hang up.
Guest:I had my little lunch on the stove and I smelled this and it turned this shit off.
Guest:So what's up, man?
Guest:Talk to me, Mark.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, I've been doing that too.
Marc:Do you meditate?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not as much as I used to.
Guest:I'm one of those people like, damn, you know, meditating is so hard.
Guest:I'm like, damn, Mike, you mean sitting down, not saying shit, turning up your brain, closing your eyes,
Marc:that's hard like really like you got you got to do it first thing it's only hard if you've been doing other shit if you had a bunch of coffee you've already eaten you know what i mean well whatever you you've already on the computer and then all of a sudden i got to sit down and shut it off right when you get out of bed just do it that's what i've been doing i just started a couple months ago
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I received that for the thank you.
Guest:That's the trick.
Guest:Because, you know, I wait till I, you know, by the time I remember to do it, I've already done a few things in the morning.
Guest:Yeah, your brain's on fire.
Guest:Yeah, it can't.
Guest:That's what the trick do it first thing in the morning before my feet even leave the bed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I got the mat on the floor.
Marc:I just see it on the floor, and I get up, and I do yoga a little bit, and then I sit with the English guy on the app, the Headspace app, and he talks me through it.
Marc:He's annoying, but talks me through it.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I'm going to take that suggestion, bro.
Guest:I'm like...
Guest:The next time I see you, I'm going to be like, thank you.
Guest:You gave me two things.
Guest:One, do it first thing in the morning.
Guest:And I got a yoga mat here that I never use.
Guest:But if I lay it out in my room, in my bedroom, by my bed, and if I see it, it'll jar my memory.
Guest:That's a great idea, man.
Guest:I'm going to try that shit, bro.
Marc:Yeah, just get up and do it.
Marc:Also, I'm a big fan.
Marc:And I watched the new movie, The Body Brokers.
Marc:and uh i you know look i'm a sober dude you know and i like i know that world a little bit and then you know as it reveals itself it's sort of like it's insane and heartbreaking and uh and informative i really like the movie and i thought that you did a great job with it man oh man thank you you know and um
Guest:You know, first of all, this was it was this was a passion project for me because I share your story.
Guest:You know, I'm in the club as well, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:You know, and, you know, anybody that has heard me speak before, I'm not I'm not shy about it.
Guest:You know, relapse the part of my story.
Guest:And, you know, but I'm living good today.
Guest:You know, I guess all we got is today.
Guest:But this film.
Guest:you know, jails, drugs, jails, institutions.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, um, yeah, I've had my fair share of institutions.
Guest:I, you know, thank God I haven't gone to jail yet.
Guest:And obviously I'm still here, but I've had my fair share with institutions and, you know,
Guest:I feel what you said was this this film, the narrative of this film was extremely disturbing, extremely disturbing.
Guest:And I was like, I did almost like, well, like, what do we do with that?
Guest:Like, that's are you kidding me?
Marc:So when you when you first read the script by John Swab, is that his name?
Guest:Yeah, John Swab, man.
Guest:Great guy.
Guest:He's the writer and the director.
Marc:Yeah, because I know guys that work in that industry, but my buddy Mike, he came over yesterday to talk a little bit because I told him about the movie.
Marc:And he's like when he works with in rehabs and he had to quit two jobs, you know, because they were corrupt and he didn't feel comfortable.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So my my thing was, you know, when you read that script as a sober guy.
Marc:you know you realize you must have realized like you know i gotta do this people have to know this right but then the character too like that character he's not only a guy who's not quite sober and playing that part but this it's a movie about people rationalizing you know compartmentalizing things that makes them kind of evil right yes i mean you hit it right on the head you know um you know
Guest:as you and I, we both know, being sober doesn't take away the craziness.
Guest:You know, there's a lot of crazy motherfuckers in this program, you know, me included.
Marc:I call them demons in exile.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:And, you know, and to me, Wood,
Guest:was a perfect example of that.
Marc:I'm sober, but I can still do cocaine.
Guest:I'm sober, but I can still use people.
Guest:I'm selling drugs.
Guest:That was even more profound.
Guest:For me, this film, it spoke about the insanity.
Guest:People think that
Guest:or I assume that sometimes people think that drugs are the problem.
Guest:Drugs are the symptom of the problem.
Guest:You know, once we put the drugs down, that's when the work begins.
Guest:We got to clean up this house, all this garbage, right?
Guest:And so, because it manifests in other ways in our life, poor decision-making, you know, and poor characteristic traits, right?
Guest:And so Wood was a perfect example and an opportunity for me to show
Guest:that side of of what a recovering addict looks like it's not all roses and once you put the drug down it's happily ever after and life is going to be great no there's a lot of stinking thinking that we need to get rid of and bad bad habits and bad thought processes and what is the example of that but i'll tell you the redeeming moment for me with wood in the car and he ripped yes the car scene and when he apologized he apologized he made amends man and
Guest:That was that was that redeeming quality in him that made me fall in love with the character on a whole nother level.
Marc:That that acting to where, you know, you drop into the heart of that guy that's actually tormented and not the guy that justifies his behavior.
Marc:That was a great turn there.
Marc:And you can feel like those choices, man.
Guest:You know, and I just want to take the time this time to also say, you know, you know, I wasn't in that scene alone, obviously.
Guest:Man, I just got to tell you, Jack Kilmer, what he bought, the the the honesty, the vulnerability that he bought to that character, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Him and Alice.
Guest:They are like, I'm obsessed with them.
Guest:I can't take my eyes off of them, man, in this film.
Guest:But what Jack bought in that scene in that car, you know, that level of loyalty that he had, the way he looked up, he brought so much to the dynamic, man.
Guest:I couldn't have reached where I needed to be had it not been for what he brought to the table.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:It was it was.
Marc:Yeah, he was great.
Marc:And it was definitely that contrast of like, you know, that moment where he says, like, you know, people have been talking to me like that my whole life.
Guest:You know, and you really come on, bro.
Guest:Come on, bro.
Guest:Validation.
Guest:He saw wood.
Guest:It was like that was like a meeting in the car.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Man, that scene was it meant a lot to me.
Guest:And he brought up so much to it, bro.
Guest:With his instrument, he brought so much to the character.
Guest:He made it very easy for me.
Guest:Very easy.
Marc:I got a question because I get asked it too.
Marc:When I did the show Glow, my character does blow.
Marc:I've been sober 22 years, something.
Marc:People always ask me, was that hard?
Marc:I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:I didn't even think about it.
Marc:What was it like for you to be around drugs?
Guest:In the film...
Guest:uh um body brokers ironically uh wood didn't trigger me because of the decision that i made as to where he was in his recovery when he was sniffing that coke at that pool party yeah i i'll tell you who did who did trip me the fuck up it was freddie knight on the night of
Guest:when he was sniffing dope and, and, and the reasons why the escapism, um,
Guest:That was very familiar to my journey, to my struggle with this disease, man.
Marc:Oh, when you were in jail?
Guest:Yeah, it's called The Night Of.
Marc:Yeah, no, I saw it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Freddie Knight triggered the hell out of me, man.
Guest:He woke up.
Guest:He was rubbing that genie bottle like a motherfucker.
I was like, no, no.
Guest:Get back in.
Guest:Yeah, you know, I don't know what...
Guest:Wood that night, you know, I believed Wood when he said, man, yeah, you know, you know, it was more about, you know, the chicks being in the moment.
Guest:I don't think that he was, that he was in a relapsed state of mind, although, you know, technically he did get high.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't think that it was that.
Guest:I think he was just in the moment.
Guest:And because he said it, you know, the chicks, these dumb chicks brought this shit over here, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Freddie was in a different space that, that, you know, I don't know how to do drugs recreation.
Guest:And just for the moment, I know how to, I know how to numb, numb the pain.
Marc:He did it to cope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cope.
Guest:I, that's what I did it for.
Guest:And that tripped me up.
Marc:Right, man.
Marc:So like where now, when did you start?
Marc:Where do you think it started with you?
Marc:Where'd you, I mean, where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Brooklyn, man.
Guest:I grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn and a little, little project called the Vanderveer, Vanderveer States.
Guest:And, you know, um,
Guest:You know, like I said, it ain't about the drug.
Guest:The drug is a symptom and a problem.
Guest:But I started coping very early.
Guest:And, you know, I became an actor very early.
Guest:I would say by age nine, I was completely addicted to fantasy.
Guest:Like nothing about my life that I want, you know, so.
Marc:Like how did that manifest itself?
Marc:Like what kind of fantasies were you into?
Guest:I mean, you know, yeah.
Guest:Being something I wasn't, you know, like, for instance, my community, you know, is a Western and Caribbean community heavily that, you know, that's, you know, we call the Notion Avenue, Little Haiti.
Guest:Is that where your folks are from?
Guest:No, my mother's from the Bahamas.
Guest:And my father's from the South, which is so you had half of the community that was West Indian Caribbean.
Guest:And then you had the other half that was black American.
Guest:And there was a clash of cultures like in the in the mid to late 70s to the 80s.
Guest:And you had to pick one.
Guest:You were either a lazy welfare recipient Yankee or you were a high, high water wearing Yankee.
Guest:banana boat driving coconut.
Guest:Those were your options.
Guest:And my mother being from the Caribbean and my father being from the South, you know, um,
Guest:And me having a huge need to fit in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's low self-esteem.
Guest:I, you know, I started like, you know, I lost my identity very quickly.
Guest:Very young.
Guest:Trying to fit in, to be liked, to be accepted, to go under the radar so nobody would.
Guest:I didn't want to ever be singled out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, the disconnect.
Guest:from getting to know who Michael was that started at a very early age and the ability to chameleon myself to fit whatever I thought you needed to see to get in with you, that also started very early.
Guest:So that's what I mean when I say I got addicted to fantasy very quick.
Marc:Well, you get addicted to, like, I have that problem too.
Marc:Like, you know, by the end of this conversation, I'll probably be talking exactly like you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:i just have that thing where i feel like i'm a whole person but you know when i get around stronger personalities you just kind of like i'll just live in that guy's skin for a while welcome to my and of course i became an actor right like great great job for someone like me but you know i nearly you know like drove myself crazy man but um you know um
Guest:You know, again, wood was an opportunity to to explore all those different things, you know, because I believe in some form or fashion.
Guest:We're all addicts, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The economy of this country is built on it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:It requires us.
Guest:It requires us, which is what the film talks about.
Guest:It manifests in food, food disorders, sexual disorders, shopping disorders, being codependent, being emotionally manipulative.
Guest:That shit seeps out in so many different characteristics of human personalities.
Marc:That's my daily schedule you just read off.
Guest:Yeah, I would love to hear you speak one day, bro.
Marc:Real talk.
Marc:So you like to cook.
Marc:You're cooking back there.
Marc:Did you grow up like, because I always assume that people from the Caribbean, I always think about food.
Marc:So it must have been, at least you had an interesting confluence of culture there in the food department, huh?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And I'm a foodie.
Guest:You know, I don't eat to live.
Guest:I live to eat.
Guest:You feel me?
Guest:I just...
Guest:I love everything about food, not just the eating process.
Guest:I love the preparation.
Guest:Like, you know, um, you know, in my mind, Rachel Ray is like one of my best fucking friends.
Guest:You know, I'll sit here and I'll watch a segment and she, you know, the way she, the way, you know, and butter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, look at that.
Guest:You know, I make my mouth water when she cooks.
Guest:I share her passion for food.
Guest:It's like, it's bananas.
Guest:And then what I'll do is, you know,
Guest:I'll challenge myself.
Guest:I won't go to the website and look at the recipe.
Guest:I could look at what she's doing that day.
Guest:I know the basics of what she... She has a basic template that she works for.
Guest:Garlic, olive oil, a little salt and pepper.
Guest:We got the same foundation.
Guest:I may put a little twist on it or change something up here.
Guest:I may even fuck it up.
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:I just love...
Marc:i love the prepping of food i love you know trying new things and lord do i love feeding people i love we call people over man let's break bread man my people my family my friends right then you serve everybody and then you have that minute where you like so so how good am i i'm great right it's great i did that i did that pretty fucking good right
Guest:I just love to see people eat, man.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:And also, it's a great way to occupy the time, man.
Marc:I've been smoking fish.
Marc:I'm a Jew, so I've been trying to figure out how to smoke the fish like the old Jews.
Marc:And I got this smoker out there, so I'm fucking prepping, I'm brining, I'm smoking fish.
Marc:Yesterday, I spent an hour trying to figure out how to make perfect baba ganoush.
Marc:And then, like, you know, you...
Marc:You spend like three hours doing this shit.
Marc:Like, you know, smoking fish takes hours.
Marc:And then I'll eat it in 30 seconds.
Marc:Like, I don't give a fuck.
Marc:I'll put hours into prep and then I'll just plow through it.
Marc:If I'm alone and I make something, I'll eat it in 25 seconds.
Guest:You're two for two.
Guest:The yoga mat and doing meditating in the morning.
Guest:I'm going to find out how to smoke some fucking fish.
Guest:You got a smoker?
Guest:I'm going to...
Guest:No, I'm going to get one because I know I've heard about this process before.
Guest:I'm going to get the smoker and I'm going to go to air fryer.
Guest:Those are two things I want to get.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But the smoker.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I heard about the air fryer.
Guest:Everyone's talking about the air fryer.
Guest:Yeah, but the smoker.
Marc:Yeah, they gave it to me.
Marc:The Traeger grill.
Marc:They gave me the smoker, the wood pellets.
Marc:You got a yard to put it in?
Guest:Yeah, I got a little outdoor space.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, throw it up there.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I've been smoking the fish, and, like, I love to cook, and I'll do it by myself.
Marc:It keeps me sane.
Marc:It's the same thing you were talking about with the, you know, I just got to be careful.
Marc:Like, if I get off on, like, I made a pie.
Marc:Like, I made, like, if I eat...
Marc:If I fucking make a pie, dude, I'm fucked for weeks.
Marc:You know, then I'm making cakes.
Guest:Fuck about putting the pie in the pie hole, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I stay away from it.
Guest:Yeah, my family, we were more pecan pie.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Marc:Pecan pie.
Guest:Have you ever made that?
Guest:Those are the...
Guest:Never, but I will eat about three pies by myself.
Guest:I promise you that.
Guest:Pecan.
Marc:It's the best.
Guest:Or sweet potato.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'll put that in front of me.
Marc:I eat sweet potatoes all the time.
Marc:I just have them for a snack.
Marc:That's what I do.
Marc:And I drink a pot of coffee.
Marc:This is how I manage my addiction, Mike.
Marc:If there's ever a spare minute, I'm thinking about, all right, what can I eat?
Marc:What do we got?
Guest:Ain't nothing.
Guest:Listen, bro, you ain't hurt nobody.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:Like I said, I love food, you know what I mean?
Guest:And, and, and, you know, I try to keep it, you know, I'm not a health nut in the sense where, you know, I don't eat this.
Guest:I don't eat that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't care if I want, if I want a good juicy, greasy cheeseburger, that's what I'm going to eat.
Guest:You know, I'm not doing that every day.
Guest:I'm going to definitely make sure I use it in my, in my, in my regiment.
Guest:But, um, um,
Marc:Yeah, it's good.
Marc:Yeah, enjoy yourself.
Marc:Try to enjoy yourself.
Guest:It beats the alternative.
Guest:We gotta enjoy life, man.
Marc:We gotta enjoy it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I don't think about the other shit at all anymore.
Marc:So when did you, like, start really doing the acting?
Marc:I mean, when did you start doing it?
Marc:Like, when did you decide it was your life?
Marc:I mean, was it one of those things where you're like, you gotta save your life with something?
Guest:You know, uh...
Guest:The Wire.
Guest:So before The Wire, I used to be a background dancer, mostly house acts, crystal waters, technotronics, things like that.
Guest:You were a dancer?
Guest:Yeah, man, I danced for like seven years, man.
Guest:Self-taught?
Guest:Yeah, I'm a street dancer.
Guest:I actually watched the Janet Jackson videos.
Guest:That's how I learned how to catch choreography.
Guest:Then I started going public, and I would try to do the dance.
Guest:And they'd be like, you're going the wrong way.
Guest:Because I would learn off the freaking TV, right?
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:So it's Rachel Ray and Janet Jackson.
Marc:These are the keys to your existence.
Guest:You're damn right.
Guest:So around in 1997, 1998,
Guest:Well, my first film I ever did was a film called Bullet, Tupac Shakur, the late great Tupac Shakur.
Guest:He, I saw a picture of Paul Loretta, and he saw that I had this scar on my face, and he was like, oh, he told Julian Temple, the director, let's find this guy and audition him, and that was the first thing I'd ever done.
Marc:The scar got you the job?
Guest:Basically, yes, it did.
Marc:What was that fight about that got you that scar?
Guest:Real simple, in a couple of sentences, 25th birthday, pissy drunk, ballroom brawl.
Guest:Nothing special.
Guest:And, you know, except the fact that I almost lost my life that day, that night.
Guest:Who started it?
Guest:You know, there was a situation.
Guest:Technically, I started it.
Guest:You know, I was drunk.
Guest:I had the liquid courage in me.
Guest:And I saw a situation with someone that I had known at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it had nothing to do with me.
Guest:And I stuck my nose on someone else's business.
Guest:But in my drunk mind, I was being loyal.
Guest:Like, you know, I'm not going to watch you get jumped.
Guest:So and I was, you know, and so I was pumping my chest out due to the alcohol.
Guest:And I was in that zone.
Guest:And when that situation de-escalated,
Guest:those dudes that were having a confrontation with the person that I knew, they turned their attention on me.
Guest:And the rest is history.
Guest:So the second thing that I did was this movie called Mugshot, you know, and it was with Matt Mahern from New York City.
Guest:And, you know, it was an independent film, but I went from being just like Tupac's little brother to my second thing was a lead role in this independent film.
Guest:So, you know, I was starting to get a little, you know, like,
Guest:Starting to think this could happen.
Guest:And then, you know, Dick Wolf, he had all of his projects, you know, New York Undercover, Law and Orders.
Guest:That was essential for young New York City actors at the time.
Guest:And I started booking those things, those things.
Guest:And then the phone just went dead.
Guest:1999 rolls around.
Marc:With the Dick Wolf stuff, though, did you feel like you were being typecast?
Guest:Hell no!
Guest:I still, to this day, don't acknowledge typecast.
Guest:Newsflash, I don't get to assimilate into other cultures very much.
Guest:I'm a black man, and I tell the black experience.
Guest:I'm from...
Guest:the hood.
Guest:And I know for a fact, I have a front seat view with how people end up in the situations that they end up.
Guest:No one wakes up one morning and says, I got it.
Guest:I'm going to be a successful crack dealer on the corner.
Guest:I'm going to be a successful thug that robs people.
Guest:I'm going to be a successful thing.
Guest:No one wakes up and says, I'm going to be a successful anything that gets them in jail.
Guest:They do that out of a desperation and a feeling that they have no other options.
Guest:And
Guest:I've watched that happen so many times, the people that I call my brothers, my family members in my community.
Guest:And when I started becoming an actor and people were at Hollywood was looking to me to portray these stories, I immediately wore that as a badge of honor.
Guest:I was like, this is my community.
Guest:These are my people.
Guest:I know these people.
Guest:I'm going to do everything possible to make sure that people who don't know this lifestyle, don't know this community will leave from the story feeling empathy and having some sort of compassion and some sort of understanding.
Guest:Not saying you've got to agree.
Guest:But those three things, I made it my responsibility to leave the audience with those three things.
Marc:Well, that's interesting.
Marc:So so your your point of view was that, like, you know, instead of looking at me as somebody who is pigeonholed by this type of role, you you say like, yeah, but these are real people who I know.
Marc:And this is.
Marc:part of the experience and I'm going to depict it with honesty and authenticity.
Marc:You know, and these characters are going to are going to be alive.
Marc:This isn't I'm not playing a caricature.
Marc:This isn't a puppet here, you know, so you won't.
Marc:So I imagine that when you you look at a script, you think in terms of like, you know, how how deep is this fucker?
Marc:You know, like, is this a real thing or are you selling this guy short?
Guest:I don't have to even wonder, I can read the first 20 pages and know you're bullshitting as a writer.
Guest:I don't have to even, it's nothing to wonder about.
Guest:What I go in the script looking for is how do I identify?
Guest:That's what I go looking for.
Guest:Okay, Mike, how do you identify with this character?
Guest:Because I know if you really saying, you writing a story about my community, I'm going to find somewhere about this man's life
Guest:I'm going to have a parallel with him.
Guest:So I go in looking for that.
Guest:And I can tell you, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about within the first 20 pages.
Marc:And where'd you learn the craft?
Marc:Where'd you study the acting?
Guest:I studied, well, I was, again, New York City, man.
Guest:No city like in the world.
Guest:And I was blessed to be introduced to the off-Broadway theater world of New York City.
Guest:My first play that I did was at a theater on the lower east side called The La Mama Theater.
Guest:I know that place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ellen Stewart.
Guest:I was actually God bless her soul, man.
Guest:I was the last play that she produced and directed and wrote.
Guest:I was in that it was a city opera and it was called Tancredi and Armenia.
Guest:And it was about the war of the cultures in that part of the world, at least.
Guest:And then I studied there for about a year or two.
Guest:And then I left and went to Harlem.
Guest:And I studied under the late, great Tunde Samuels.
Guest:And he worked out of the National Black Theater, as we call it, NBT.
Guest:And there was a young writer, director.
Guest:Her name is Judy Shepard King.
Guest:And she had written this play called Endangered Species.
Guest:And I got a part in that.
Guest:And then thirdly...
Guest:my good friend and brother, Ray Thomas, or a lot too.
Guest:He's from Philadelphia.
Guest:Shout out to Philly.
Guest:And he brought his mentor and his theater company to New York City.
Guest:Every Saturday, these men would either get on the train or they would pile up in cars and they would come to New York every Saturday and they would teach.
Guest:And Mel Williams, he's the director of the company and it's called
Guest:theater for a new generation every saturday man we would come and we would have class either the producers club or anyone any little hole any little black black box in new york city man and we would um uh from 12 to 3 we would have a theater uh theater company theater class and then you know it would be a 10-week course that he would do and then around the fourth or fifth week
Guest:he would start giving out, he would break us up into groups, into partners, and he would give us scenes from a classic plays like Streetcar Named Desire, Ceremonies and Dark Old Men.
Guest:He has a litany of classic plays.
Guest:He would take scenes and he would give us, did the different groups scenes.
Guest:And at the end of the 10th week,
Guest:The last two weeks, he put us on stage.
Guest:We would put up and he called it.
Guest:The theater night would be called the night of scenes.
Guest:And we'd sell tickets and get people to come.
Guest:And I did that for years, man.
Guest:And I took that and took that into the to the audition process, man, in Hollywood.
Guest:And I started to book.
Guest:But then, like I was saying earlier, man, the phones went dead like around ninety nine.
Guest:Yeah, I couldn't I couldn't get a gig.
Guest:And so, you know, my mom, God bless her, man.
Guest:She retired and she decided that, you know, sitting down wasn't for her.
Guest:And she opened up a daycare in the projects where we live.
Guest:And by 2001, she was blossoming.
Guest:Like, you know, 70-year-old woman with no education.
Guest:Like, you know, really doing it.
Marc:And so... What, the daycare center got popular?
Guest:It got popular, man.
Guest:And at her highlight...
Guest:The kids, we took them from one to five years old.
Guest:So when they left us, they went to first grade.
Guest:The kids that were leaving our daycare were performing academically on such a high rate.
Guest:We were the number one in the community in Flatbush.
Guest:You were teaching?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:You know, after, like I was saying, when I couldn't get, when I stopped booking, and in 2000, my mom took all of us to the Bahamas, where she's from, because, you know, that was the end of the world, the 2K was coming, the end of the world, the sky's gonna fall, the sky's gonna fall, you know, and...
Guest:My mom was like, yo, we going out.
Guest:I want all my family together.
Guest:We going home, and we going to rock out.
Guest:And so at the New Year's dinner party, she said she offered me a job at the daycare because I was borrowing money to pay my rent from her every frigging month.
Guest:And she said, you know, might as well come work for me.
Guest:I'm paying your rent.
Guest:You might as well earn the money.
Guest:I was like, yeah, ma, not a bad idea.
Guest:Things could be a lot worse.
Guest:We got a family business in the community.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:So I did that for all of us.
Guest:of of uh 2000 and and then and into 2001 she gave me a desk and i started i coined myself her administrative assistant because she old school she had everything on in leisure books so you know i put i computerized everything for you know yada yada yada yeah so um she gets give me something to do so so um
Guest:I did that all of 2000 and then all of 2001.
Guest:And as you know, by September, you know, 9-11, 2001, that happened.
Guest:And I slipped into a... It was dark.
Guest:It got real dark for me.
Guest:You know, I stood on my building and I saw the second plane hit with my naked eye.
Guest:Like, me and my cousin, we watched the buildings drop.
Guest:You know, and for like two weeks after that happened, like the wind giving...
Guest:on any given Sunday, and depending on which way the wind would shift, I could smell the burning flesh still in the air.
Guest:It fucked me up bad, bro.
Marc:I was in Astoria.
Marc:I watched the same thing in Astoria from my roof.
Marc:And then that metal burning smell, man.
Guest:It lasted for weeks.
Guest:Weeks.
Guest:It was also the flesh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I know what burning flesh smells like, man.
Guest:So anyway, neither say I relapsed.
Guest:Let's just get that out there.
Guest:What was your thing, man?
Guest:Cocaine, man.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Coke and alcohol.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I relapsed, and I struggled for all of 2001.
Guest:I mean, for most of 2000, after 9-11.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On October, I was sitting in my apartment with my cousin and one of my homeboys, man, and, you know, we was getting high, and the setting would be you turn the TV on, but you mute it, and then you blast the music, right?
Marc:Get everything going.
Guest:Yeah, that's how you do it, right?
Guest:So...
Guest:And then you're talking.
Marc:You're talking too.
Guest:Yeah, we're talking shit.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So I think we're playing chess.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I just get how I play chess, right?
Guest:Talk shit.
Guest:So the TV was on, and I had it on HBO, Mark.
Guest:And I looked at the screen, and it was an episode of Sopranos that I was in.
Guest:So I looked up.
Guest:I was like, I had this out-of-body experience.
Guest:I was like, what the fuck?
Guest:I said, I looked what I was doing.
Guest:I said, man, there's something wrong with this picture.
Guest:And so, um, I asked my moms, man, I said, yo mom, I said, um,
Guest:I said, I don't know if I could do this no more.
Guest:I said, I got this.
Guest:I said, I feel like I should give this Hollywood shit one more shot.
Guest:And she said, what you need?
Guest:I said, I need you to lend me some money because I got to reinvent my package because I've been off the scene for two years.
Guest:And now I think they're doing this new thing called a reel.
Guest:You got to put a reel together.
Guest:And I got to do new headshots, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So I got to hire people, man.
Guest:And she said, all right.
Guest:She lent me the money.
Guest:And this was in late October, early November.
Guest:I did everything.
Guest:You didn't spend it on drugs.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Not all of it.
Guest:Hey.
Guest:Hey, y'all.
Guest:Keep it real, right?
Guest:Not all of it.
Guest:But I got what I needed to get done.
Guest:And then I gave them out.
Guest:I had a hit list of 10 names of people who I knew in the business that if I had any shot, I could get it from them.
Guest:And Queen Latifah and Shaquem Kapoor, Jimmy Roseman, Jackie Brown-Carmen.
Guest:I remember it was 10 names.
Guest:And I sent out the real, the new package.
Guest:And I said, you know what?
Guest:It's Christmas.
Guest:And they're going to look at it.
Guest:They're going to see that I'm back on the block.
Guest:And my phone's going to be ringing off the hook.
Guest:Give it the second, third week in January.
Guest:It's going to be major, right?
Guest:Here we are, February.
Guest:Ain't nothing happening.
Guest:And my mom was like, where the fuck did you want you to do with my money?
Guest:And I was like, oh, man.
Guest:So, you know, I slipped into a depression, man.
Guest:You know, like for real, for real.
Guest:Like, you know, I go see a doctor and he prescribed me like Paxil.
Guest:And I'm sitting there smoking weed and taking Paxil and wondering why I don't feel better.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like the fuck.
Guest:Anyway, that was in February.
Guest:And then in March, my mother caught me, man.
Guest:She's like, yo, come downstairs.
Guest:There's a fax for you.
Guest:And I went and I got the facts.
Guest:And you know what it was, Mark?
Guest:It was David Simon.
Guest:Yes, it was.
Guest:It was actually with Alexa Fogle.
Guest:And it was the breakdown for Omar Devone Little.
Guest:And that's when I knew this is real.
Guest:This is real.
Guest:Like, this is it.
Guest:They offered it to you?
Guest:Well, no, I had to audition.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had to audition.
Guest:But once I got it, I'm saying, you know, I went in her office, she auditioned me.
Guest:I think three days later, she called me telling me to be on the next Amtrak and report to Baltimore.
Guest:Like, I was on the set for like a week before I even met David.
Guest:Like, I had to like,
Guest:Jump right in head first.
Guest:And I never looked back.
Marc:Thank God you'd done the research.
Guest:Yeah, right?
Guest:You joke, but that's for real.
Guest:I poured a lot of my pain into the character of Omar, man.
Marc:A lot.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, it's a great character.
Marc:It was one of the best characters in that whole thing.
Marc:I mean, I remember...
Marc:like i didn't watch it in real time i watched it all at once so like i i watched it a couple years after the fact but i was in new york and i was doing a radio gig and i just would watch three or four episodes a day like i was on drugs man it was like the wire was my drug i would binge i would do like four or five episodes a day and i'd feel fucked up after but but your character was like every time omar came on you're like ah
Marc:There's fucking Omar, man.
Guest:You're always happy.
Guest:I'm going to tell you a secret, though.
Guest:You want to know what the best character on that show was, hands down?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the city of Baltimore.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I promise you.
Guest:That city...
Guest:permeates it it it i can't you had to be on those streets like you know we shot a lot of location yeah why it wasn't it wasn't a uh uh you know a cushy set type of a gig we were we was in them streets bro and i got to know the people i got to see the culture i got to feel the streets yeah you know and when i tell you that city
Guest:is one of the most beautiful cities one of the most beautiful gems in this country and we don't know it but baltimore the city of baltimore is the number one character the people and the energy and the spirit of that city is is the number one character on the wire and simon and simon loves that city i mean so like he still lives there born and still there yeah yeah i interviewed that guy he's a smart guy
Guest:Yeah, crazy motherfucker.
Guest:That's my big bro.
Marc:Yeah, I thought, obviously, I'm not alone in thinking that was an amazing show, but it's just all the performances were deep, man.
Marc:You know, and I just work with Andre.
Marc:I'm friends with Andre.
Guest:Andre Royal?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Come on, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:We just did a movie a month ago.
Marc:I know.
Guest:I know what it is.
Guest:I mean, we stay in contact, man.
Guest:I know exactly which parts you're talking about.
Guest:I can't remember the name, but I know.
Marc:Two Leslie, it's called.
Marc:But I can't imagine you two getting together.
Marc:I would have to sit that one out and just watch.
Marc:Just to watch you guys talk.
Guest:We've been talking about that.
Guest:Me, him, and Sonia.
Guest:Sonia and I have been talking about developing something.
Guest:Who's Sonia?
Guest:Sonia Song, who played Keem McGregs.
Guest:Oh, OK, right.
Guest:Yeah, us three, we're three musketeers.
Guest:And she and I, we both have full working knowledge that you must know now, too.
Guest:Andre Royer was special.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He different.
Guest:He far from regular.
Guest:Like, we all cute.
Guest:All of us is cute.
Guest:But Andre Royer was special.
Guest:And, like, you got to – if you know him, then you know what I'm talking about.
Guest:I ain't got time to go into why we know this, but you and I know why I say he's special.
Marc:He'll go there, man.
Guest:Dre's different, bro.
Guest:He says, like, you know, he says with such vernacular and such effortlessness what most of us are thinking, and it's not tacky, it's not offensive.
Guest:He just has this way –
Guest:spitting that shit that's on all of our minds but none of us have the balls to say and he does it with such a freedom that you just have to you'd be like you just don't like what are you what are you doing it's like anyway yeah no he's got there's a there's a like a real kind of honest vulnerability there that he speaks from perfect yes right and and and you just got to be like what the fuck you look at you
Guest:You got to love him.
Guest:You just got to love him.
Marc:That's true.
Guest:You have to love him, man.
Guest:Or you hate him, but you ain't going to like him.
Guest:You're either going to love him or you're going to hate him.
Marc:If you hate him, you got problems.
Guest:You got fucking problems, my dude.
Guest:So we've been working on a project that will highlight Dre, man.
Guest:And if I could be a one of you said it, because we really, Sonya and I, we talk about that often.
Guest:We got to create something for our brother, because that's how much we feel he's just that special to us.
Marc:Yeah, and I think also, like, you know, it's a weird place for him because, like, he should be in everything, but I don't know how much is coming to him, and I don't know if people really know how to use him, you know, because if they did, he'd be working on it.
Guest:Oh, come on, man.
Guest:You already know what that's about.
Guest:That's a whole other conversation that, you know, I'm not going to go down that road right now because, you know, I'm tired of waiting for the, you know, I'm at the point now where, you know,
Guest:It's time for me to build my own table.
Guest:It's time for us to build our own table.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You can start a production company?
Guest:That's already done.
Guest:It's called Free Dome Productions.
Guest:Dome piece, free your dome.
Guest:Free Dome Productions.
Guest:We're housed in the Navy out here in Brooklyn.
Guest:That ship has sailed.
Guest:This pandemic has changed.
Guest:It's humbled us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it had leveled the playing field massively.
Guest:And if it's ever time to shoot your shot, I believe it's now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, yeah, you're right.
Guest:They don't know what to do with it.
Guest:They barely know what the fuck to do with me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So, you know, it's time for us to lift each other up.
Marc:Now, do you ever think about theater anymore?
Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Me and my brother, the same gentleman that introduced me to theater, Ray Thomas, from Philadelphia.
Guest:He and I was talking the other day, man, that we're working on this idea about a traveling theater.
Guest:Like, just take it, you know, we come with a story and travel.
Guest:The idea of traveling theater and taking it to neighborhoods that normally would not be exposed to a plane.
Guest:you know, and what that would look like, you know, that'd be, you know, yeah.
Marc:Well, someday when we, when we can go back outside, we can, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I can't congregate right now, but you know, yeah, we don't, we'd be definitely talking about that, man.
Marc:It must've been interesting.
Marc:Like La Mama, because like that's some weird shit sometimes.
Guest:And you know what, we know what's the love about theater too.
Guest:There's no mistakes.
Guest:There's no cut and action.
Guest:It forces us to use everything.
Guest:You got to stay in the moment.
Guest:It forces me to stay in the moment.
Guest:I remember when I first started coming around, because of my theater training, I memorized everybody's lines.
Guest:In fact, I used to write.
Guest:I would only write my lines and not write.
Guest:Memorize them.
Guest:I would just write them down, but I would memorize your lines, the other actors' lines, because I needed to stay in that moment.
Guest:And what I did with my dialogue, I would tell myself, well, Mike, if I understand the world and what the other characters are saying, where they're coming from, my lines will be common sense.
Guest:They'll be logic.
Guest:I don't have to remember my line.
Guest:It'll come to me because it's logic.
Marc:Oh, and then even if like, and then once, so then you know the intention.
Marc:Bingo.
Guest:Bingo.
Guest:And so theater taught me that.
Guest:And theater also taught me to, because it taught me to know the intention.
Guest:If you switched it up, because another thing about Andre Royo, he also comes from the theater background, the same circuit that I was running and Dre was running, and we didn't know each other at the time.
Guest:We actually did the same play and didn't know each other at the time with Yolanda Ross.
Guest:we played three different men in her life and she was like marrying with blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So Dre was notorious for switching it up.
Guest:And the line was like, yeah, I got to go home and walk my dog.
Guest:Dre would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to go feed my cat.
Guest:And you got to like, you know, and theater taught me no matter how many times, how many nights we do it,
Guest:If I mess around and stop listening to you and waiting for you to shut up so I can say my line, I could get tripped with an actor like Andre who...
Guest:He might throw you a nugget, and if you're not in a position to catch it, you're going to trick.
Guest:It'll knock you in the head.
Guest:Theodore taught me those things, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You got to listen.
Guest:Got to listen.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you feel better.
Marc:Now, when you did The Wire, were you high?
Guest:I didn't get high the whole first season of The Wire.
Guest:I had wanted to make such a good impression on David and Nina and Ed.
Guest:I decided, you know, I stopped smoking weed.
Guest:I wasn't getting high, nothing.
Guest:And ironically, I picked up cigarettes.
Guest:I said, you know, because I said I can, you know, cigarettes don't get me high.
Guest:It'll feed my oral fixation.
Marc:That's a tough one.
Guest:Yeah, but I went to clothes.
Guest:Like, you know, the Djarams?
Guest:I started there.
Guest:And so the whole first season, I didn't get high.
Guest:And then they made me a series regular on season two.
Guest:And as we all know, season two is about the docs.
Guest:So what happened, again, my idle mind became the Devil's Workshop.
Guest:I'm in Baltimore.
Guest:I'm already partying, going to clubs and things of that nature.
Guest:And I have all this time on my hands.
Guest:I don't have the responsibility that you can't get fucked up because you got to be to work tomorrow.
Guest:There were like weeks, a week or days, chunks of time in between.
Guest:So you got to play some chess.
Guest:And, you know, and I ended up picking up in season two.
Guest:But, you know,
Guest:I really, man, the cast of The Wire, Wendell Pierce, Sonya, Andre.
Guest:Wendell's the best.
Guest:Seth Gilliam, Dom Lombardozzi.
Guest:These men and women, man, they...
Guest:they would come grab me up.
Guest:They never let me slip too far between the cracks, man.
Guest:And, um, we became a family on, they became, they became my family on season two, I should say.
Guest:And, um, that still holds true to this day.
Marc:That's beautiful.
Marc:And I can't, I can't, there's in terms of influences to have Andre on one side and Wendell on the other, you got the full spectrum, man.
Marc:You know, you've got, you got the raw honesty and then you got the thinky stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Wendell is like an oracle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of heart.
Guest:A lot of heart.
Guest:And he got a lot of fight in him.
Guest:Don't let that... Don't let those reading glasses and that three-piece suit fool you with that necktie.
Guest:Wendell will fuck you up.
Guest:And he comes... That's a New Orleans dude through and through, man.
Guest:And I just... And he's educated.
Guest:And he's not afraid.
Guest:You know?
Guest:And, you know, like he... I take...
Guest:He drops jewels like he's full of wisdom.
Guest:Like early on in the career, man, Wendell sat me down.
Guest:Forget what he was talking about.
Guest:But he says, you know what, Michael?
Guest:He said, this business is about the work you do, the people you meet and the relationships that you build.
Guest:And I never forgot that.
Guest:It kept me humble.
Guest:It kept me focused on what what's important about being in this this land of make believe that we that we live in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kept me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's that's the kind of thing that windows.
Guest:But he also he'll be right beside you at the bar throw in the back.
Guest:He has, you know,
Guest:You know, a lot of people don't know.
Guest:You look at him and you perceive him a certain way and you miss the party.
Guest:You will miss the party.
Guest:We're looking at his suit and tie.
Marc:Yeah, I've talked to him.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:So when you did the Boardwalk Empire, man, how do you feel about that time travel business?
Marc:You like going to different time?
Guest:You know, I was talking to a good friend of mine and he kind of, he kind of,
Guest:hit me, you know, pull my attention to what you just said.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, the answer first off is yes, I do.
Guest:I do love going back in time.
Guest:I decided to use those stories, whether it was Chucky White on Bobok Empire or Jack G in Bessie opposite Queen Latifah, or if it was Montrose Freeman in Lovecraft Country.
Guest:I keep, there is something that my friend Gano, he was telling me, he said, yo, Mike, he said, have you noticed the ancestors
Guest:keep bringing you back using you to tell their story and it's not just all over the place i'm always being asked to go to the 1920s the era that my father was born in and um my good friend like i said he was talking he was like you know we do um we do you know i i i work with my ancestors man i acknowledge them on a daily basis and um
Guest:He hit me to that just recently.
Guest:So, yes, I do.
Guest:I also take that the opportunity to go back in time and tell the stories of my ancestors.
Guest:I also wear that just as much with a badge of honor and a huge responsibility to me as well.
Marc:Is your your folks still around?
Guest:My father's deceased.
Guest:My mom's still alive, man.
Guest:She just made 93 this past December.
Guest:Still swinging that cane, trying to knock me out.
Guest:Come here, I knock you out.
Guest:All right, mom.
Marc:She live close by?
Guest:Nah, man.
Guest:We got her out of state.
Guest:We got her out of New York, you know, 93.
Guest:She did her video.
Guest:50-some odd years in the projects.
Guest:She managed to save her.
Guest:And let me go on record, she bought her own house, cash, from that daycare.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:It took some nudging because she was so comfortable.
Guest:Almost 60 years in one apartment, in one building, in one community.
Wow.
Guest:That's New York, man.
Guest:Yeah, in Brooklyn, right, in Vanderveer.
Guest:And, you know, like around 70, right after her 75th birthday, man, we took some nudging.
Guest:But she said, ah, what the hell?
Guest:Okay, I'll go.
Guest:So she's out of state now, but she's doing fine.
Guest:She's happy.
Guest:Very happy.
Marc:And you're happy.
Guest:Yes, I am, man.
Guest:I'm grateful.
Guest:You already know.
Guest:You already know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm grateful.
Guest:I ain't got nothing to complain about, man.
Guest:We here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're cooking.
Marc:You got Rachel ready.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah, Rachel ready.
Guest:She caught you.
Guest:I'll miss her already for this morning.
Guest:I'll catch her recipe tomorrow.
Marc:Have you ever met her?
Guest:Yes, actually, I did, man.
Guest:She interviewed me when I was doing this show called Happen Leonard.
Marc:Did she know you were such a big fan?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, after the show went off, yes, she found out because I was not about to leave.
Guest:I said, I said, oh, Rachel, I said, I said, I said, you know, there's no you know, there's no way I'm leaving the studio without you making me a hamburger.
Guest:You got to make me the special Rachel Ray burger.
Guest:Because with the three different kinds of meats, I need that in my life.
Guest:She looked at me, and she chuckled.
Guest:She's like, this motherfucker.
Guest:But she went to the set kitchen, because there's a real kitchen on that set.
Guest:That's all real.
Guest:She went in the back.
Guest:20 minutes later, man, I had an authentic, you know, Rachel Ray cheeseburger.
Guest:I could have died and went to heaven.
Marc:Well, I'm glad that happened for you.
Marc:All right, man.
Marc:It was good talking to you.
Marc:And I love the movie.
Marc:I love your work.
Marc:And, you know, this is like going to a meeting.
Marc:I feel better.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
Guest:Same here, brother.
Guest:Thank you, man.
Marc:Okay, Pat.
Guest:Take it easy.
Bye-bye.
Marc:that's it that's our show the movie is body brokers and that's available now to buy or rent on on-demand platforms like itunes prime video and more let's play some guitar
guitar solo
do do
guitar solo
Thank you.
.
.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda and cat angels everywhere.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.