Episode 1287 - Halle Berry

Episode 1287 • Released December 13, 2021 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i should sound a little better but jesus man i got filled with snot to the brim

00:00:24Marc:Filled with snot to the brim last week.

00:00:27Marc:It took me, it was a kind of a rough week sickness wise.

00:00:32Marc:I mean, last week I got the cold and it just filled me up and knocked me out for a few days.

00:00:37Marc:And then I flew out to New Mexico to see my dad and I was out there and the cold was sort of holding on because I don't know, man.

00:00:46Marc:I'm sorry.

00:00:46Marc:How are you?

00:00:48Marc:These people are like, I never get colds.

00:00:49Marc:They last three days.

00:00:50Marc:They last a week at least.

00:00:52Marc:I mean, you might not feel sick, but you're filled with gop, goop, glop, snot.

00:00:59Marc:But back on track.

00:01:00Marc:I'm back home.

00:01:02Marc:I'll tell you about my dad, but maybe I should talk about the show a little bit.

00:01:05Marc:A couple of things.

00:01:07Marc:Halle Berry is here.

00:01:11Marc:You know her.

00:01:12Marc:She's an amazing actor, Oscar winner.

00:01:15Marc:And now she's a director.

00:01:17Marc:Her directorial debut is called Bruised.

00:01:20Marc:And it immediately became the number one movie on Netflix when it premiered last month.

00:01:26Marc:And then right after that, Halle signed a new multi-picture deal with Netflix.

00:01:32Okay.

00:01:32Marc:All right, we'll talk all about this stuff, this new chapter in her career and about a lot of other stuff.

00:01:38Marc:I definitely got into it pretty deep with Halle Berry.

00:01:43Marc:She's great.

00:01:44Marc:I related to her.

00:01:45Marc:We had a very open conversation about a lot of things.

00:01:48Marc:And to be honest with you, the movie is kind of visceral.

00:01:51Marc:I mean, right away.

00:01:53Marc:I mean, we talk about the nature of that genre, you know, the underdog fight movie.

00:01:57Marc:But she's very aware of what's up with that genre and how she wanted to change it.

00:02:01Marc:But I'll tell you, man, the movie just goes.

00:02:04Marc:And she is always fully committed as an actress.

00:02:09Marc:Really kind of astounding in terms of the emotional risks she's willing to take.

00:02:17Marc:Also...

00:02:18Marc:There's a holiday cat mug sale starting today at noon Eastern time.

00:02:22Marc:Brian Jones, who hand makes the mugs that I give to my guests, has some new mugs that you can only get from his website.

00:02:32Marc:So noon today, go to BrianRJones.com slash WTF.

00:02:39Marc:I'll tell you, watching Bruised, the Halle Berry movie,

00:02:43Marc:A lot of times I watch stuff because I want to be up to speed for the guests.

00:02:48Marc:I don't know how it's going to land or whether I'm going to like it.

00:02:51Marc:But I don't watch movies.

00:02:53Marc:I don't watch action movies.

00:02:54Marc:I don't watch fight movies.

00:02:55Marc:I just don't.

00:02:56Marc:I probably would like them too much.

00:02:58Marc:I would probably get hooked on them.

00:03:00Marc:But this one just took me right away because there's so much heart in it.

00:03:05Marc:I was excited to talk to her because of that.

00:03:08Marc:So look, I know there's a run on used cars because new cars are hard to come by because of supply chain issues.

00:03:15Marc:And some people are overpricing used cars.

00:03:19Marc:It's hard to trust people with used cars.

00:03:21Marc:It's hard to trust individuals selling their used cars.

00:03:25Marc:It's hard to trust in general, sadly.

00:03:28Marc:And I was just dealing with a fairly reasonably priced car because I wanted to help my friend Kit out.

00:03:35Marc:She's been hanging around with me for a while.

00:03:38Marc:And she's been there for me in some difficult times.

00:03:41Marc:And her car died.

00:03:42Marc:And I wanted to get her a car.

00:03:46Marc:And it became a real fucking problem.

00:03:49Marc:So the Carvana thing fell through after a month.

00:03:53Marc:She's taking the fucking bus and the train, which is not bad.

00:03:56Marc:I mean, you know.

00:03:58Marc:Nothing wrong with public transport, but still, I just wanted to get a reasonably priced used car that had some fucking juice left in it.

00:04:06Marc:So this kind of is a convoluted story.

00:04:08Marc:I go home to visit my dad, who goes to the hospital.

00:04:11Marc:He needed to go to the hospital because he had all these symptoms, couldn't remember anything.

00:04:15Marc:He was shuffling in his gait.

00:04:16Marc:He had no balance.

00:04:17Marc:There was a lot of things going on mentally.

00:04:20Marc:And there was a lot of assumptions being made about what he might have.

00:04:22Marc:But it turns out he had a grown old man hydrocephalus.

00:04:28Marc:I think that's how you pronounce it.

00:04:29Marc:This water on the brain that was, you know, causing problems.

00:04:33Marc:And he had to get it drained.

00:04:34Marc:And it just happened coincidentally when I was there.

00:04:36Marc:We had a couple of days together, had some great laughs.

00:04:39Marc:Ate some food.

00:04:40Marc:It was great to see my old man.

00:04:41Marc:I know a lot of you know that, you know, sometimes I've been at odds with him in my life.

00:04:45Marc:But I'm showing up for the guy the best I can.

00:04:47Marc:And I always enjoy making him laugh.

00:04:48Marc:I think he was my original audience.

00:04:50Marc:But he went in, got a spinal tap, drained in the fluid.

00:04:53Marc:And apparently some of his brain's coming back.

00:04:55Marc:So if that's the problem, that's a fucking miracle.

00:04:57Marc:We'll see.

00:04:58Marc:Then I realized while I'm there that my dad's wife, Rosie, has a nephew.

00:05:04Marc:who would be my cousin by marriage.

00:05:06Marc:I don't deal with my cousins from birth.

00:05:10Marc:I just don't deal with family that much.

00:05:12Marc:It's probably a mistake.

00:05:15Marc:And I don't like to deal with them when I need something, if that's the only time you deal with them.

00:05:19Marc:But this was sort of a good introduction in a way.

00:05:22Marc:Her nephew, Gary Padilla, over there at Houston Wholesale Auto on Lomas,

00:05:28Marc:In Albuquerque, New Mexico, I'm like, let me talk to Gary, man.

00:05:32Marc:Maybe he's got a car over there because I know him.

00:05:36Marc:He's family.

00:05:37Marc:He's my cuz.

00:05:39Marc:You know, I'll know where the car comes from.

00:05:41Marc:This seemed like the best idea I could possibly come up with.

00:05:44Marc:And I went over there and there was a fucking 2012 Hyundai Elantra sparkly blue that somebody loved.

00:05:52Marc:The windows were tinted.

00:05:53Marc:The leather seats were still intact and nice.

00:05:56Marc:The interior looked great.

00:05:57Marc:There's nothing better than finding a used car, especially a reasonable used car that somebody clearly cared for.

00:06:04Marc:You could feel it.

00:06:04Marc:And I'm like, this is it, man.

00:06:05Marc:And he was like, I know this is it.

00:06:07Marc:And I'm like, this is it.

00:06:09Marc:Let's do it.

00:06:09Marc:Can we knock it out?

00:06:10Marc:And he's like, let me get it cleaned up and repainted.

00:06:12Marc:I'm like, I don't got time for that.

00:06:13Marc:He's like, just let me take care of it.

00:06:15Marc:So he got it all checked out, took the tint off the windshield, left the windows because, you know, it's cool.

00:06:21Marc:And actually did have some paint put on there on the windows where it was just weather worn.

00:06:27Marc:Guy went above and beyond.

00:06:29Marc:Great deal.

00:06:30Marc:And then it was sort of like, should we put it on a truck and have it delivered?

00:06:33Marc:I'm like, no, fuck it, man.

00:06:34Marc:I'll deliver it.

00:06:36Marc:I will deliver this car.

00:06:38Marc:I told my friends, I'm like, I'm going to buy this car and deliver.

00:06:41Marc:I'm going to take it home, give it to Kit.

00:06:43Marc:So he got the paperwork together.

00:06:44Marc:I'm telling my friends are like, what are you, 20?

00:06:46Marc:Who does that?

00:06:47Marc:I'm like, what do you mean?

00:06:49Marc:And then it was like really weird because I got up.

00:06:51Marc:I left at five in the morning.

00:06:52Marc:I'd put two hours in before the sun even came up in this car.

00:06:56Marc:And I got to Flagstaff before noon.

00:07:00Marc:It's like an 11 to 12 hour drive to L.A.

00:07:03Marc:And I just got to thinking, like, I don't live a life like regular people my age.

00:07:09Marc:It's not even a matter of feeling my age or being my age.

00:07:12Marc:It's just I don't live that life.

00:07:14Marc:This is the life I live where I'm like, fuck it.

00:07:16Marc:I'm going to drive this car to Los Angeles tomorrow.

00:07:19Marc:And I had to wrap my brain around it.

00:07:20Marc:I had to cancel flights.

00:07:21Marc:I had to return a rental car.

00:07:24Marc:And I had to be back yesterday to do a moderative panel and talk to Peter Dinklage.

00:07:29Marc:But I drove that car back, man.

00:07:31Marc:I drove it back.

00:07:32Marc:And it was also a way to see if it was a good car.

00:07:34Marc:It's a great car.

00:07:35Marc:But I just started thinking, man, if you live a grounded life and you feel secure, better make sure you're living it.

00:07:45Marc:I drove that car, man.

00:07:48Marc:I drove that sparkly blue 2012 Hyundai Elantra like a cowboy through the desert, baby.

00:07:56Marc:Had water and cashews in the car.

00:08:02Marc:Thinking.

00:08:03Marc:That's the other thing.

00:08:04Marc:Either you're a driver or you're not.

00:08:06Marc:I come from a family of drivers, runners.

00:08:09Marc:I don't know.

00:08:09Marc:It's just that me and my brother, we love to drive.

00:08:12Marc:My father, drive.

00:08:13Marc:Hours, hours.

00:08:14Marc:His wife's a driver.

00:08:17Marc:So, stopped at a truck stop.

00:08:20Marc:It had been so long.

00:08:21Marc:There's a lot of truckers out there right now.

00:08:24Marc:I have to assume because of the supply chain backup, now there's just an overload.

00:08:30Marc:And also, no one leaves their house anymore, so everything has to move.

00:08:33Marc:Everything has to be delivered.

00:08:34Marc:It was always busy, but it seemed really fucking busy.

00:08:39Marc:And I stopped at a truck stop, and I was like, wow.

00:08:42Wow.

00:08:43Marc:this is in the middle of fucking Arizona or wherever, maybe, you know, Western New Mexico is like, this is the most diverse environment.

00:08:51Marc:I think I've been in, in ages.

00:08:53Marc:There was like, you know, uh, Indian guys there, maybe Pakistani guys there, black dudes, uh, Mexican dudes, Asian dudes, like, you know, all kinds of people and their truck drivers.

00:09:05Marc:I didn't, I just realized this is like on the road community of people in sweatpants that climb out of fucking vessels and

00:09:13Marc:After hours and hours of being in them to shower and wash their face, brush their teeth, get some coffee.

00:09:21Marc:And I went to the bathroom.

00:09:22Marc:It was like crazy.

00:09:24Marc:It's like just people like, you know, waking up.

00:09:26Marc:Everyone's waking up together.

00:09:28Marc:People of all kinds in their sweatpants.

00:09:31Marc:They're driving sweats.

00:09:34Marc:And I'm just waiting to use a stall because I got to go to the bathroom.

00:09:37Marc:Some guy's waiting before me and there's like three or four stalls.

00:09:40Marc:It's a weird moment.

00:09:40Marc:This huge dude was waiting to go before me and do a stall.

00:09:44Marc:And I go, look, it's filthy.

00:09:46Marc:It's fucking filthy.

00:09:48Marc:Truck stops.

00:09:49Marc:But what are you going to do?

00:09:50Marc:A lot of movement in there.

00:09:51Marc:A lot of people coming through.

00:09:53Marc:So some dude leaves the stall and then this big dude walks into that stall, turns around and runs away.

00:10:02Marc:Like something in there terrified him.

00:10:06Marc:Or maybe the guy who was in there just before forgot something.

00:10:09Marc:I don't know what happened, but this guy lit out of that stall.

00:10:14Marc:And I look around and I'm like, what's up?

00:10:17Marc:And I went in there and I'm like, what could be in here that could be so terrifying?

00:10:21Marc:Now, I'm a grown person, but this has happened.

00:10:25Marc:And I'm a grown person.

00:10:25Marc:I've seen some pretty nasty shit, literally, in bathrooms, whether they be porta-potties or public restrooms.

00:10:35Marc:A lot goes on there.

00:10:37Marc:You know, you can't account for what someone does to their insides.

00:10:40Marc:But this guy ran out of there.

00:10:42Marc:But I walk in there, and they're all automatic flush toilets, and I guess this one wasn't working, maybe.

00:10:49Marc:But there was like a... How should I say it?

00:10:53Marc:There was like a...

00:10:55Marc:a turd the size of like a forearm in there.

00:11:01Marc:And part of it was out of the water.

00:11:02Marc:So that's scary.

00:11:05Marc:I mean, really, that would scare anybody.

00:11:06Marc:You don't know if it's going to jump out at you.

00:11:10Marc:It looked like it was poised to go.

00:11:14Marc:So by the look of that thing, I thought maybe that guy ran out.

00:11:19Marc:Maybe get that guy's autograph because this thing was like, or maybe he just couldn't handle it.

00:11:25Marc:I don't know.

00:11:26Marc:But I just fucking, you know, there's a button on those kind of toilets.

00:11:28Marc:Just push it and it'll flush.

00:11:30Marc:And then I was free.

00:11:32Marc:I was free to do my business, which was, you know.

00:11:36Marc:minimal in comparison you know there are people that do the big work then there are those of us who you know just hope we can do the work at all and you know and want to be healthy ran out of there maybe just want to shake that guy's hand I don't know not sure this is the best lead in but it is what it is it's a real story and it's a real memory and it might be a children's book

00:12:06Marc:Halle Berry is deeply talented, emotionally present, and was amazing to talk to.

00:12:14Marc:Her new film, Bruised, that she directed and stars in, is now streaming on Netflix.

00:12:20Marc:And this is me talking to her.

00:12:21Marc:Chris Spencer says hi.

00:12:33Guest:Oh, were you just talking to him?

00:12:35Marc:Well, I saw him last night.

00:12:35Marc:We do comedy.

00:12:37Marc:So he was on before me.

00:12:39Marc:Oh.

00:12:40Marc:I work at the comedy store.

00:12:41Marc:Yeah.

00:12:41Marc:And I told him I was talking to him.

00:12:42Marc:He's like, oh, tell her I said hi.

00:12:44Marc:And I'm like, do you really know her?

00:12:45Marc:And he's like, yes.

00:12:46Marc:Yes, I do.

00:12:48Yes.

00:12:48Marc:we do but he said that um he said that he's directing a movie as well is he yes so you didn't know that i didn't know that well now you know and he said that he was using the cinematographer you used um bruised frankie demarco well i had two who was the other guy unfortunately josh reyes they don't sound either one of those town familiar you had two

00:13:12Guest:One got let go halfway through.

00:13:15Marc:Yeah.

00:13:15Guest:And then another one showed up on a Monday.

00:13:18Guest:It was something rare that hardly ever happens.

00:13:21Guest:Oh, really?

00:13:21Guest:On this movie, to tell you the truth.

00:13:23Guest:Yeah.

00:13:24Guest:Anything could happen?

00:13:25Guest:Everybody said, in all my years, I've never seen this happen.

00:13:28Guest:If I heard that one more time, my head was going to explode.

00:13:31Marc:Like about what?

00:13:32Guest:Everything.

00:13:33Marc:Oh, really?

00:13:33Guest:The crazy things that were happening to me.

00:13:36Uh-huh.

00:13:36Guest:People were saying, in all my years, I've never seen this happen.

00:13:39Guest:Like what?

00:13:40Guest:Another day later.

00:13:41Guest:Well, like that, having to have two DPs.

00:13:43Guest:One guy getting gone and another guy showing up that I never met, never talked to, and them saying, here's your new DP.

00:13:47Guest:And I'm like, oh.

00:13:48Marc:Wow.

00:13:49Guest:Nice to meet you right in the middle of shooting.

00:13:52Guest:Wow.

00:13:53Marc:It's crazy.

00:13:53Guest:So many things.

00:13:55Marc:But, you know, the movie looks so great.

00:13:57Marc:Well, thank you.

00:13:58Marc:I mean, like, you know, it's got a very like, you know, the sort of it kind of vibrates.

00:14:02Marc:It's electric, you know, and I like all that close up stuff and the handheld stuff.

00:14:06Marc:Yeah.

00:14:06Marc:Like it really goes.

00:14:07Guest:Yeah.

00:14:07Guest:And the budget, you know, dictates a lot of that.

00:14:09Marc:Sure.

00:14:10Guest:You know, like I thought, what will be the most effective way to shoot this movie and have it be gritty and dark and real?

00:14:17Marc:Yeah.

00:14:17Guest:What would be the best way?

00:14:18Guest:So it was pretty much all handheld in a budget.

00:14:21Marc:But what is the story of this movie?

00:14:22Marc:Because it seems like the little movie that could.

00:14:26Marc:It is.

00:14:30Marc:Right?

00:14:31Marc:All of a sudden, there's this movie, and then all of a sudden, you get this great opportunity to make more movies for Netflix.

00:14:38Marc:And I think for a while, you couldn't even sell this movie.

00:14:43Guest:Well, yeah, it was hard to get people to believe that a movie about a woman living in this environment was worth telling.

00:14:53Guest:You know, when you think a classic fight movie.

00:14:55Guest:Yeah, that's really true.

00:14:56Guest:And being a woman of color.

00:14:58Guest:Absolutely true.

00:14:58Marc:Really, because it just seems like in the culture we live in, people love watching people beat the shit out of each other.

00:15:03Guest:But not women, and not a black woman.

00:15:05Guest:We've never seen that before.

00:15:06Guest:I don't know, I know.

00:15:07Guest:So it was something they'd never seen, and that's the problem.

00:15:09Guest:Because nobody's ever seen it, there was all this trepidation.

00:15:12Guest:I argued, that's the reason you should do it, because nobody's ever seen it.

00:15:16Guest:It's a new version of an old genre.

00:15:18Guest:Why do you want to see the same thing over and over?

00:15:20Guest:Aren't we tired of that?

00:15:22Guest:Can we have a modern day take on this genre?

00:15:25Marc:And the genre is a sort of proven success.

00:15:28Guest:The genre is.

00:15:30Guest:And people love the genre.

00:15:32Guest:They love an underdog fight movie, right?

00:15:33Guest:But my argument was, but let's tell it from a female point of view.

00:15:37Guest:You've never seen a black woman do it.

00:15:38Guest:Let's make it different.

00:15:39Marc:Was it always that?

00:15:40Marc:Was it scripted that way?

00:15:42Marc:I mean, what was the history of the movie?

00:15:43Guest:The history was it came to me and it was written for a 21-year-old Irish Catholic girl.

00:15:48Guest:Blake Lively was attached at the time.

00:15:51Marc:I love these stories.

00:15:52Guest:Yeah.

00:15:52Guest:And it wasn't for me at all.

00:15:54Guest:And I read it and I said to my agent, it was my first script, my new agent.

00:15:58Guest:I just had gone to WME and they handed me this script.

00:16:01Guest:And I read it overnight and said, it came back, I love it.

00:16:03Guest:Let me change it.

00:16:04Guest:And then I want to do it.

00:16:05Guest:And they said, well, urgh.

00:16:07Guest:It belongs to Blake Lively, so you can't actually have it.

00:16:11Marc:As a director or as an actor?

00:16:12Marc:As an actor.

00:16:13Marc:So it just came to you as an actor?

00:16:15Guest:Yeah, but it didn't really come to me because it was with Blake.

00:16:18Guest:They just said, well, we just wanted to know if this is the kind of thing you would like to do.

00:16:21Guest:And I said, this is not fair.

00:16:24Guest:Like, is this how we're going to start our relationship?

00:16:26Marc:You can't do this, but isn't it amazing?

00:16:28Guest:Is this what you want to do?

00:16:31Guest:So they said, we don't know.

00:16:33Guest:I kept saying, I have to do this.

00:16:34Guest:I'm going to die.

00:16:35Guest:I'm going to die if I don't get to reimagine this.

00:16:38Guest:This is cruel.

00:16:38Guest:And they said, well, you have to just wait because Blake was also a client.

00:16:43Guest:And how they handled this was very important to me.

00:16:45Guest:If they backhanded it and took it from her in some way because I was passionate to poach me because I was a new client, I was watching.

00:16:51Marc:Isn't it weird as an actor, and you've been doing this a long time, where you realize these people that are working for you, you've got to second guess everything in a way, like, how is this being used?

00:17:01Marc:How am I being used?

00:17:02Marc:What's the game here?

00:17:03Marc:What are they doing?

00:17:05Guest:Yeah, and you know if they do some shady shit to her, I'm going to be the shady shit person done to in about five minutes.

00:17:12Guest:So I was very keen to watch.

00:17:14Guest:Yeah.

00:17:14Guest:How they handled it.

00:17:16Guest:And to their credit, they said, look, it's hers.

00:17:18Guest:We can't say anything to her about it.

00:17:19Guest:And I suggest you don't even say you read it.

00:17:21Marc:Yeah.

00:17:22Guest:If she passes on it, you know, oh, so she wasn't really attached yet.

00:17:26Marc:She was.

00:17:27Guest:She was.

00:17:28Guest:She was already to do it and she was going to do it.

00:17:30Guest:But they said if some odd chance she doesn't, we'll make sure because we'll have control of it if she drops it, that it gets into your hand.

00:17:37Guest:So I had to wait six months before, you know, she decided that she wasn't going to do it.

00:17:42Marc:She didn't feel like the commitment?

00:17:44Marc:She didn't want to do it?

00:17:45Guest:She just didn't want to do it.

00:17:46Guest:And they weren't going to ask her because they didn't want her to feel like they were trying to get rid of it.

00:17:51Guest:They just said, we have to leave it with her and we'll let her decide.

00:17:54Guest:And so finally, but in that six months, it gave me a lot of time to work on my reimagining.

00:17:58Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:17:59Guest:And I just believed that she wasn't going to do it.

00:18:02Guest:And I have said when she doesn't, I need to be ready with my pitch, my story, have it all flushed out so I can go to those producers and like, bam, all in my head.

00:18:10Marc:What were some of, let me try and guess what the changes were.

00:18:13Marc:Was the trainer always a woman?

00:18:15Guest:Yes.

00:18:15Marc:Okay.

00:18:16Marc:But a different woman.

00:18:17Marc:Not an African-American.

00:18:18Guest:Not an African, obviously.

00:18:19Marc:Yeah.

00:18:19Guest:No.

00:18:20Marc:And what else?

00:18:22Marc:What were the changes you made?

00:18:23Guest:A big change.

00:18:24Guest:The little boy spoke a lot.

00:18:26Marc:a lot in the screenplay that's so heavy man like you know it's like it's so heavy that that that dynamic like i don't i'll tell you like one thing for sure like you you're great uh actor and and you really commit to in an emotional way that's very rare and seems very risky uh to me just do you feel that when you do that when you put it i love

00:18:48Guest:it you do like that that just gets me feeling alive yeah yeah to put it all out there like that and go to those dark places and dare to expose it and expose yourself in the process but also expose these really real emotions that people are really struggling oh yeah and grappling it's real shit it's not it's what everyday people uh struggle with in all walks of life black and white yeah it's the truth of humanity

00:19:14Marc:So the kid talked a lot.

00:19:16Guest:He talked a lot.

00:19:17Guest:And because the original character was so young, she gave up the kid because she was just too young to be a mother.

00:19:24Guest:So I had to rearrange the story and make sense out of why would a woman in her 30s give up a child when she's got...

00:19:32Marc:So you mean to just make it, adapt it to your age?

00:19:36Guest:Yeah, and to make us, like you understand why a young woman would give up a child, not ready to be a mom, but you don't really understand why a 35-year-old woman would give up a child.

00:19:46Guest:We don't do that as well.

00:19:48Guest:So I had to create those circumstances as to why a woman would do that.

00:19:54Guest:So that meant that all had to be created.

00:19:59Guest:And I had to, too, also get with, which he doesn't get credited on the movie, but Stephen Adley Gerges came in, who's, you know, a brilliant playwright.

00:20:08Guest:Okay.

00:20:08Guest:Had to come in and, like, help us with the world, with the coloring of the world.

00:20:13Guest:Oh, really?

00:20:14Guest:And the dialogue.

00:20:15Guest:Yeah.

00:20:15Guest:And, like, Immaculate wasn't Immaculate.

00:20:17Guest:Right.

00:20:17Guest:That's a Stephen Adley Gerges thing.

00:20:19Guest:Yeah.

00:20:20Guest:You know, addition.

00:20:21Guest:Right.

00:20:21Guest:You know, he writes these worlds.

00:20:22Guest:I don't know.

00:20:23Guest:Did you ever see, um, uh, between Riverside and crazy on his Pulitzer floor?

00:20:27Marc:No.

00:20:27Guest:I mean, he writes this world and these characters so beautifully and they're tragic and they're broken and such humanity in them.

00:20:34Marc:And so he kind of went over the script.

00:20:36Guest:Yeah.

00:20:36Guest:He went over the script with me and did a real dialogue pass to help bring out these characterizations of these.

00:20:42Marc:Really?

00:20:43Marc:Yeah.

00:20:43Marc:And, and you had done that already.

00:20:44Marc:Yeah.

00:20:44Guest:I had worked on the story.

00:20:46Marc:Yeah.

00:20:46Guest:But Stephen, you know, and to Michelle's credit, Michelle Rosenfarb, you know, she, this world.

00:20:52Marc:The original script.

00:20:52Guest:Yeah, the original script.

00:20:53Guest:This wasn't her world.

00:20:55Guest:This black inner city, Newark.

00:20:57Marc:Yeah, Newark.

00:20:58Guest:Wasn't her.

00:20:59Marc:Not a lot of Newark movies.

00:21:00Marc:No, not a lot of Newark movies.

00:21:02Marc:Yeah, it's good.

00:21:03Guest:So, you know, Stephen came in to, you know, just color that up.

00:21:06Guest:Color that dialogue.

00:21:07Marc:Who's responsible for, you know, that scene between the mother and daughter where you find out how bad that mother is because of what your character is saying to her?

00:21:19Marc:Yeah.

00:21:20Marc:I mean, that was heavy shit, man.

00:21:22Guest:Yeah.

00:21:22Marc:Was that all in there?

00:21:24Guest:No.

00:21:24Guest:That was all added.

00:21:25Guest:That was all added.

00:21:26Marc:By you and Stephen?

00:21:27Guest:Yeah.

00:21:27Guest:Especially me because that is, you know...

00:21:30Guest:What I know to be true is that so many of these stories, especially with women, which is why the film had to stay.

00:21:37Guest:I wanted a female director before it was me.

00:21:39Guest:It had to be told from this female gaze because so many women have been abused this way throughout families.

00:21:45Guest:You know what I mean?

00:21:46Guest:And we're marginalized.

00:21:47Guest:And so that had to be a part of it for me.

00:21:50Guest:It had to be a part of what their dysfunction was all about.

00:21:54Guest:And when you say that bad mother, I see it differently.

00:21:57Guest:It's not a bad mother.

00:21:58Guest:She was...

00:21:58Guest:was the kind of mother she was based on the lack of love she received.

00:22:05Guest:So there's no bad.

00:22:06Guest:There's just people trying to survive the damage that's been done to them.

00:22:09Marc:I guess I don't mean morally bad, but I mean she was not a good parent to me.

00:22:14Guest:No, no.

00:22:15Marc:Her parenting sucked.

00:22:16Marc:Right.

00:22:17Marc:I think that's what I mean.

00:22:18Marc:I know that you were careful to exude and capture empathy on all sides, really.

00:22:26Guest:Yeah, because I don't think they're bad, good people.

00:22:29Guest:We're all people trying to survive and struggle and survive the wounds of our past, what we were given and not given.

00:22:37Guest:The love we got, the love we didn't get.

00:22:38Marc:I know.

00:22:39Guest:Right?

00:22:39Guest:The things that were poured into us and the things that were spilled into us.

00:22:42Guest:It's not always within our control.

00:22:44Marc:I get that.

00:22:45Marc:But lately, I've just been a little nutty about people who don't take responsibility for their fucking mental illness out in the world.

00:22:54Guest:Yes.

00:22:54Guest:Then it is your responsibility because when you grow up and you realize you had a fucked childhood and you didn't get all the love, then you have to do something about it.

00:23:02Guest:You can't stay stuck on using that as an excuse.

00:23:06Guest:I 100% agree.

00:23:09Guest:And I think what Jackie was doing, she was holding her mother responsible.

00:23:12Guest:At that point.

00:23:13Guest:Don't tell me you didn't know.

00:23:14Guest:I know you knew.

00:23:15Guest:Face it.

00:23:16Guest:And so healing only comes when you force somebody to face their dysfunction.

00:23:21Guest:And so you feel that the mom kind of softens towards the end.

00:23:23Guest:And you want to believe that maybe this is a first step in the healing and her taking responsibility.

00:23:29Guest:That's so...

00:23:29Marc:Yeah, I want to believe that.

00:23:31Marc:And it was definitely a touching moment.

00:23:32Marc:And, you know, sort of like because of the genre, you kind of know you're hoping for like, oh, I remember I texted my producer.

00:23:39Marc:I'm watching the thing.

00:23:40Marc:I'm like, this better not go down like Million Dollar Baby because I can't take it.

00:23:46Marc:Like if she ends up in a wheelchair, I'm not going to be able to fucking deal with this movie at this pace.

00:23:52Marc:And he said, no, I think it's I think it's going to go the other way.

00:23:54Marc:But yeah.

00:23:55Guest:Thank God.

00:23:56Marc:Yeah, but that moment, well, I mean, I've seen a lot of movies lately where, you know, you get the underdog remains the underdog.

00:24:02Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:04Marc:And I felt that moment, you know, where she's watching the fight and you feel like, and also when you go get the kid at the end.

00:24:09Marc:But I had this argument with Benedict Cumberbatch, and I guess it's a movie argument where,

00:24:15Marc:Does that woman become a better person?

00:24:19Marc:I don't know.

00:24:19Marc:In my experience of people, and the reason maybe I judge harshly, is because most people, even if they know, they stay in their shit.

00:24:28Marc:This has got nothing to do with the movie, obviously.

00:24:31Marc:It's just the idea of empathy.

00:24:33Guest:It's true.

00:24:34Guest:It's true.

00:24:34Guest:And they stay in their shit.

00:24:36Guest:But sometimes the idea of movies and art is to get people to look at it more closely.

00:24:41Guest:Do we have to stay in our shit?

00:24:43Guest:Or can we make small steps that evolve us to a place where we do have more understanding with each other?

00:24:51Marc:We do.

00:24:51Marc:We can.

00:24:52Marc:Yeah.

00:24:52Guest:And we also saw that the mother, when the fight was going on, we saw that there's love.

00:24:56Guest:It's hard for me to believe that you birthed a child and you don't have innate love in your heart for that.

00:25:02Marc:Of course.

00:25:02Marc:And she's also a drug addict and made compromises and can't live with herself.

00:25:06Guest:Yeah.

00:25:07Guest:It's human.

00:25:08Guest:It's what we do as humans.

00:25:10Marc:I know.

00:25:11Marc:It's what we do.

00:25:12Marc:I think that a lot of times I get judgmental and I get angry because in moments I don't want to deal with my own shit.

00:25:18Marc:So it's easier to go like, nah, fuck that person.

00:25:21Marc:You know what I mean?

00:25:23Marc:But that's just the nature of it, too.

00:25:24Marc:That's the ebb and flow of it.

00:25:25Marc:You grow, and then you drop back a little bit, and then you grow.

00:25:31Marc:The one question I have, because I like the movie, and I don't watch a lot of movies like that, and I don't know if there is a movie like that, but I don't generally watch action movies.

00:25:40Marc:Right.

00:25:41Marc:But yeah, how can you not like that movie?

00:25:43Marc:And it's doing very well, right?

00:25:44Marc:Yes, it is.

00:25:45Marc:People are getting off on it.

00:25:46Marc:Because I think a lot of it has to do with, because I thought, is this just a fight movie?

00:25:50Marc:But it's not.

00:25:50Marc:It's all the things you're talking about.

00:25:52Marc:Right away, it seems like very real stuff.

00:25:54Marc:And you don't even know.

00:25:56Marc:Just the little suggestions about what happened to the kid's father and that song.

00:26:00Marc:It's just heartbreaking.

00:26:01Marc:It's so heartbreaking.

00:26:02Marc:And what about that choice you made on the street?

00:26:05Marc:You know, when you guys come across that speaker playing that song and that kid curls up, but you chose not to hug him.

00:26:11Guest:Yeah, because she's not there yet.

00:26:14Marc:But you knew that, right?

00:26:15Marc:I knew that.

00:26:16Marc:That was a choice.

00:26:16Guest:That was a choice, yeah.

00:26:17Guest:You're not instantly a mother when you give up a kid and you don't know the child.

00:26:21Guest:When he returned, he was a stranger.

00:26:23Guest:She gave him up at birth.

00:26:24Marc:Right, but you were also very selfish, right?

00:26:26Marc:Yeah.

00:26:26Guest:Yeah, selfish, but also not knowing what to do.

00:26:31Guest:She doesn't know that's what she would do.

00:26:33Guest:She doesn't know that's what a... She's not a good mother yet.

00:26:36Marc:That's a painful choice, man, to sit there as an audience member.

00:26:39Marc:I'm like, really?

00:26:40Guest:But she knew she had to let him grieve.

00:26:42Marc:Yes, I got that.

00:26:43Guest:She knew taking him to the side and letting him deal was important.

00:26:46Marc:As opposed to rushing him on.

00:26:48Guest:Right, but she didn't know what to do with that.

00:26:50Guest:That was a lot for her in that moment.

00:26:52Marc:Yeah.

00:26:53Marc:So what...

00:26:55Marc:When you took this on, this is the first movie you directed, and it's really good.

00:27:00Guest:Yeah, thank you.

00:27:03Marc:Thank you.

00:27:04Marc:So let's get back to the history of the movie.

00:27:07Marc:So she gives up the movie, you get the movie.

00:27:10Marc:How do you end up directing the movie?

00:27:13Guest:Well, it's not something I wanted to do.

00:27:15Guest:Really?

00:27:15Guest:To shoot you straight.

00:27:16Guest:No.

00:27:17Guest:I mean, I had a big acting role, you know, to play a fighter.

00:27:20Guest:I spent two years training.

00:27:21Marc:But did you always want to direct, or you never wanted to direct?

00:27:24Guest:Maybe, but I was going to do a little short first.

00:27:27Guest:I was writing a short on plastic surgery, and that's what I thought I was going to do.

00:27:32Guest:Wrote it, got it ready to go.

00:27:33Guest:What was that about?

00:27:33Guest:It's just about plastic surgery and my take on what's happening to women and the absurdity of it all.

00:27:39Marc:A fiction?

00:27:39Marc:Yeah.

00:27:39Guest:A comedy?

00:27:40Guest:Yeah.

00:27:41Guest:Tragic comedy.

00:27:42Marc:Okay.

00:27:43Marc:That's interesting that that was the approach of a woman of your stature and your experience in acting.

00:27:48Marc:You're like, I'm gonna make a short and maybe see if I get it to festivals.

00:27:51Guest:Because I just want to go to festivals.

00:27:54Guest:Like I'm dreaming to go to a festival.

00:27:55Marc:But also I think it comes from maybe a little insecurity.

00:27:58Guest:Yeah, and not being so bodacious to think I can just go do a feature.

00:28:02Guest:You know, just because I'm an actor doesn't mean I should be able to direct a film.

00:28:06Marc:But it's interesting as an actor, you know, you've been watching people direct you for like 20, 30 years.

00:28:11Guest:Yes, yes.

00:28:12Guest:But I have so much respect for what a director does that I didn't think initially.

00:28:16Guest:And I think many women, especially women of color, I don't think...

00:28:20Guest:There's nothing that's ever been shown to me that made me think, sure, I can do that.

00:28:25Guest:And I think as women, we often don't think we can.

00:28:28Guest:I know as a man, you probably don't see it that way because men are men.

00:28:33Guest:You guys think you can do everything.

00:28:35Marc:I generally don't think I can.

00:28:36Guest:I know you do.

00:28:37Guest:Yes, you do.

00:28:38Marc:I think we have opportunities.

00:28:40Marc:I don't know that every man thinks they can do it, but we know we could if we wanted to, probably.

00:28:45Guest:I think so.

00:28:46Guest:And I think as women, we don't grow with that knowing.

00:28:50Guest:No, I never thought I could.

00:28:51Guest:I thought I would have to prove myself every step of the way.

00:28:53Marc:What an exciting opportunity.

00:28:54Marc:You must have freaked out.

00:28:55Marc:So how does it happen?

00:28:56Guest:I did freak out because I went to the producers.

00:28:58Guest:I gave them my pitch, my reimagining.

00:29:01Guest:They said, great.

00:29:02Guest:We love this reimagining.

00:29:03Guest:Now go find a filmmaker to tell the story.

00:29:06Guest:And I said, okay.

00:29:07Guest:I knew that I wanted it to be a woman, keep this female gaze.

00:29:10Guest:And I met with some people.

00:29:11Guest:And the problem was, is that this reimagining wasn't on the page yet.

00:29:16Guest:It was only in my head.

00:29:18Guest:So I had to sit down with filmmakers and say, okay, here's what it is.

00:29:21Guest:And the problem I ran into was...

00:29:23Guest:They either liked the indie art house feeling of the dramatic story and the smallness of that, and they didn't quite get, but why does it have to be a fight movie?

00:29:31Guest:Can we just tell the story of these fractured, broken people?

00:29:34Guest:Or the other directors would say, I just want to do a straight up fight film.

00:29:38Guest:Like, I don't want all this drama.

00:29:39Guest:I just want to do a simple story about a woman getting her kid back, and then that's just it.

00:29:45Guest:And I knew that those two were connected for me.

00:29:48Guest:You can't have the drama without the fight.

00:29:50Guest:And the fight was only happening because of the drama.

00:29:53Guest:So I couldn't find someone that saw the totality of the vision that I had in my head.

00:29:58Guest:So I finally went home, and I was talking to my producing partner, Elaine Goldsmith, and she said...

00:30:04Guest:Why don't you just do it?

00:30:05Guest:And I said, are you high?

00:30:07Guest:Are you smoking?

00:30:09Guest:Bring me some of it.

00:30:11Guest:I know I can.

00:30:12Guest:She goes, absolutely you can.

00:30:15Guest:You just don't think you can.

00:30:16Marc:Oh, she's the trainer.

00:30:17Guest:Yeah, she was the trainer.

00:30:19Guest:She was the trainer for me.

00:30:20Guest:She said, you absolutely, you love this story.

00:30:22Guest:You know it.

00:30:22Guest:You've imagined it now for six months.

00:30:25Guest:You've been training.

00:30:26Guest:You can pull off this role.

00:30:28Guest:Like, yes, you can do it.

00:30:30Guest:And I smoked on it.

00:30:32Yeah.

00:30:32Guest:For 48 hours.

00:30:35Guest:And then said, you know what?

00:30:37Guest:Yeah, I'm going to go to the producer and I'm going to say, hey, what about me?

00:30:40Guest:And I fully expected them to shut me down and say, and I was prepared to give them smoke on this.

00:30:45Guest:You might be clearer.

00:30:46Guest:Yeah.

00:30:47Guest:And to my surprise, he said, yes.

00:30:49Guest:He goes, yes, yes, yes.

00:30:50Guest:You do seem to get it, so yes.

00:30:53Marc:Wow.

00:30:54Guest:And then I had to go do it.

00:30:55Marc:Now, who were these producers?

00:30:56Guest:Basil Iwanek from Thunder Road.

00:30:58Marc:Okay.

00:30:59Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:30:59Guest:Brad Feinstein from Romulus and Guymon Cassidy from 360.

00:31:04Marc:Three different places.

00:31:05Guest:Three different places, yeah.

00:31:06Marc:Three different dudes.

00:31:07Guest:Three different dudes.

00:31:08Guest:Three different dudes.

00:31:09Marc:And they were like, why not?

00:31:11Guest:Why not?

00:31:12Marc:It's interesting, man, because it must have been like a thrill.

00:31:17Marc:I mean, it's such a great opportunity for something you were nervous about, and then you just got to dive in and do it.

00:31:23Marc:And you know, that's what's curious about the DP thing, because you know, you've been on enough sets to know, like, yeah, directors are great, but DPs are...

00:31:30Marc:They're the ones.

00:31:32Marc:You need a DP.

00:31:33Guest:So imagine how I felt when they came to me and said, okay, DP leaving at the end of day, a new one coming.

00:31:41Marc:Halfway through.

00:31:42Guest:Exactly halfway through.

00:31:44Marc:But the new DP could look at the dailies, right?

00:31:46Marc:And you could see the tone.

00:31:47Marc:The tone was set.

00:31:48Guest:The tone was set.

00:31:49Marc:Yeah.

00:31:49Guest:The problem was I just never had a conversation with the new DP.

00:31:53Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:31:53Marc:Did it work out all right?

00:31:54Guest:Yeah.

00:31:55Guest:Yeah, ultimately.

00:31:56Guest:I mean, I feel like it did, but it was still very unsettling.

00:32:00Guest:I'm a first-time director, and to have this happen because I had built a relationship with my first DP.

00:32:05Marc:Right.

00:32:05Marc:We'd watch movies together.

00:32:07Marc:Right.

00:32:08Marc:You trusted him, and you felt supported.

00:32:10Marc:Yeah.

00:32:10Guest:And so to lose him was destabilizing, to say the least.

00:32:14Guest:But it turned out okay.

00:32:16Guest:But I can't say I didn't vomit that whole weekend.

00:32:21Marc:And also the acting and directing at the same time is crazy.

00:32:24Marc:It's crazy.

00:32:25Marc:So were you looking at shots right after?

00:32:28Marc:Did you have a playback machine?

00:32:29Guest:I played back.

00:32:29Guest:And I had a handheld that was attached to my hip.

00:32:32Guest:Oh.

00:32:32Guest:You know, it slowed down our process, which for a small movie like this, you know, could be very detrimental.

00:32:38Guest:It meant we didn't get to do as many takes as because I always had to take time to go back and look.

00:32:43Marc:I don't know how the hell you did that, because with the emotions of that particular character, how are you?

00:32:47Marc:How are you in that?

00:32:48Marc:You had to go look.

00:32:49Marc:How are you going to be in the moment and direct other actors and still be in character?

00:32:54Guest:Yeah, which was difficult.

00:32:56Guest:I had a woman with me who was our dialect coach for everybody, and she proved to be very helpful because I would find myself in the scene, and I'm talking to the other actors, and I'm getting them set, and I'm listening to what they're having to say.

00:33:08Guest:And so we'd run the scene, and I'd be watching.

00:33:11Guest:Like, I'm watching the other actors, and I'm listening, and I'm trying to figure out if what they're doing is actually working.

00:33:18Guest:And so my little angel, I called her Denise, would come up to me, and she would say, okay, okay.

00:33:23Guest:The actors are all great.

00:33:26Marc:Yeah.

00:33:26Guest:How you act.

00:33:27Marc:Right.

00:33:27Marc:Stop directing.

00:33:28Marc:Oh, good.

00:33:29Guest:You're in the scene with them.

00:33:30Guest:And then I would go, oh, shit, you're right.

00:33:33Guest:I'm acting too.

00:33:34Guest:And then I could, you know, forget about them and drop into my character and forget and just do my part in the scene.

00:33:41Marc:They actually were all pretty great.

00:33:43Guest:They were amazing.

00:33:44Guest:And I didn't know most of them.

00:33:46Guest:Well, they're from the stage.

00:33:48Guest:Makes such a difference.

00:33:48Guest:Stephen McKinley.

00:33:49Guest:You know Stephen McKinley.

00:33:51Guest:The guy who played your... Pops.

00:33:52Guest:Yes, he's... Oh, yeah, that guy.

00:33:53Marc:Yeah, of course.

00:33:54Guest:He's been around forever.

00:33:55Guest:Oh, my God.

00:33:56Marc:He played the old trainer.

00:33:57Marc:You got to have an old trainer.

00:33:58Marc:You got to have the old, soft, good guy.

00:34:00Marc:Yeah, in the boxing movie.

00:34:02Guest:Sheila A. Tim, she's a British actress.

00:34:05Marc:She's great.

00:34:05Marc:Quick question.

00:34:06Marc:I just want to know from my own mind...

00:34:08Marc:Was there ever a conversation where you didn't consummate that relationship?

00:34:13Guest:Yes.

00:34:14Marc:Yes.

00:34:15Marc:Why did you choose to?

00:34:17Guest:Because I felt like the character of Jackie needed love like the air to breathe.

00:34:24Guest:Didn't know how to take it though.

00:34:25Guest:No, didn't know how to take it because she's never had it really.

00:34:28Guest:Right.

00:34:28Guest:Okay.

00:34:29Guest:But she needed it like the air to breathe.

00:34:30Guest:And I didn't believe that she could go on and stay in that fight without getting that, without having some relationship with someone that got her, that validated her, that affirmed her in some way, that gave her strength to go in that cage and realize she belonged there.

00:34:45Guest:She deserved success, you know?

00:34:47Guest:Right.

00:34:47Guest:I think it's hard for broken people to realize they believe good things without some form of love, some form of support.

00:34:53Guest:So that had to happen in my mind to make her stay, not run.

00:34:58Marc:It was just sort of an interesting choice because in my mind, just from the genre, I'm like, she's going to show up in the corner.

00:35:05Guest:I know.

00:35:05Guest:See?

00:35:06Marc:I know.

00:35:07Guest:I didn't want to do that.

00:35:08Marc:You didn't want to do it.

00:35:08Guest:No, I didn't.

00:35:09Guest:And I wanted the message to be she did that all by herself.

00:35:15Guest:And the fact that, you know, the movie ends like it ends.

00:35:17Guest:We need to feel like that she's going to be able to go back, get her son, and she's going to be able to handle it all by herself.

00:35:23Guest:It's not going to be about a man.

00:35:24Guest:It's not going to be about this woman.

00:35:26Guest:It's going to be about her standing on her own two feet, believing that she's strong enough.

00:35:31Guest:Yeah.

00:35:32Guest:Because, you know, that's half the reason we don't do things in life.

00:35:34Guest:It's just we don't believe we can.

00:35:36Guest:Right.

00:35:36Guest:So like now that I've directed my first movie when I didn't think I could, I now believe I can do this again.

00:35:42Marc:Well, you're gonna.

00:35:43Guest:I know I can because I've done it now.

00:35:45Guest:Right.

00:35:46Marc:Well, that's a beautiful, weird, happy ending.

00:35:48Marc:Not just a movie, but just the fact that like now you've got a deal to direct how many more?

00:35:54Guest:I don't know.

00:35:56I don't know.

00:35:57Marc:But what is this?

00:35:59Marc:It seems to be some sort of coalescence of a lot of the work you've done, but honestly and openly focusing on broken people, right?

00:36:10Marc:Thinking about broken people.

00:36:11Marc:How many broken people have you played?

00:36:14Guest:My best characters have been the most broken, put it that way.

00:36:17Guest:That's where I live.

00:36:18Marc:I watched Dorothy Dandridge.

00:36:20Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:36:22Guest:Broken.

00:36:22Marc:Very broken.

00:36:23Marc:I know.

00:36:24Marc:It's so strangely... Because I remember watching that when it came out, but then I was still watching it again, and I was like, oh, my God.

00:36:35Marc:She's got a mentally challenged kid, and she was abused as a kid.

00:36:40Marc:I'm like, wow.

00:36:41Marc:And then you think about the other one, the one you won the Oscar for, was it Monster Ball?

00:36:45Marc:Monster Ball, yeah.

00:36:46Marc:That's not a healthy person.

00:36:50Yeah.

00:36:50Guest:You know, I love digging deep.

00:36:53Guest:I love going to those dark places.

00:36:54Marc:You can get raw, man.

00:36:55Guest:Yeah.

00:36:56Guest:And you can do it.

00:36:57Guest:So liberating.

00:36:58Guest:It's so freeing.

00:37:00Guest:You know, like one of the things I loved about even in bruised is that however I showed up every day is great.

00:37:06Guest:Right.

00:37:06Guest:You know, it's being being our truest selves.

00:37:10Guest:Those are the characters that really resonate with me.

00:37:13Marc:Yeah, but it seems like you can also do the superhero stuff and the action movie stuff.

00:37:17Marc:Yeah, and those are fun.

00:37:18Marc:Because those are release.

00:37:20Marc:Someone told me I need a physical release for my anger.

00:37:23Marc:Maybe that's why you do those movies.

00:37:27Guest:Well, I punch a pillow.

00:37:30Guest:Or punch a boxing bag.

00:37:31Marc:Yeah?

00:37:32Guest:Do you box?

00:37:33Guest:Kick some shit.

00:37:33Guest:Of course, you had to train.

00:37:35Guest:Yeah, I learned so many disciplines now.

00:37:37Guest:Jiu-jitsu, taekwondo, judo, wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai, kickboxing.

00:37:42Marc:Really?

00:37:43Marc:Because you had to do it for MMA.

00:37:45Guest:Yeah.

00:37:45Marc:And now you can do it.

00:37:46Guest:Yeah.

00:37:47Marc:And do you use it to train?

00:37:48Marc:Do you use it to exercise?

00:37:50Marc:What's the primary exercise?

00:37:51Guest:I do.

00:37:51Guest:I'm still studying jiu-jitsu.

00:37:52Guest:I'm working to get my purple belt right now.

00:37:54Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:37:55Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:37:55Marc:So like, where does this all start?

00:37:57Marc:I mean, what do you come from to have this deep understanding of the broken among us?

00:38:01Marc:Where'd you grow up?

00:38:04Guest:I'm broken.

00:38:07Guest:Let's be honest.

00:38:09Guest:I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, in the inner city when I was young with a white mother, black father.

00:38:14Guest:My father was an alcoholic and wildly abusive.

00:38:16Marc:Really?

00:38:17Guest:So I'm broken.

00:38:18Marc:Yeah.

00:38:19Marc:And you saw that.

00:38:19Guest:Yes.

00:38:20Guest:And I understand where it lives and I understand what it takes to rise up out of that.

00:38:24Guest:I understand how hard it's been.

00:38:25Guest:Do you have siblings?

00:38:26Guest:I have an older sister.

00:38:27Guest:Yeah.

00:38:28Marc:With the same parents.

00:38:29Marc:So like how long did they, were they together your whole life or?

00:38:33Guest:No, no.

00:38:34Guest:They divorced when I was three, but my father stayed in our life.

00:38:38Guest:And he came back in 1976 when I was 10.

00:38:40Guest:And my mom thought, my kids are going off the rails.

00:38:43Guest:We need a man around here.

00:38:44Guest:So she brought my dad back.

00:38:46Guest:Really?

00:38:46Guest:He was now more abusive than he ever was.

00:38:49Guest:And more in his alcoholism and addiction and his raging.

00:38:53Ugh.

00:38:53Guest:It was probably one of the worst years of all of our lives.

00:38:57Guest:At one point, my dad threw our dog against the wall and the dog bit its tongue off.

00:39:02Guest:And it was horrific when you're that little.

00:39:06Guest:And it was frightening.

00:39:07Guest:And that's probably why I'm drawn to these.

00:39:11Guest:I know where this lives.

00:39:13Guest:I know the reality of how some people live.

00:39:16Marc:But how long did it take you to develop some sort of empathy for that?

00:39:20Marc:I mean, how long were you angry and fighting your own demons?

00:39:24Marc:A very long time.

00:39:26Guest:But my mother, who was a psych nurse at a VA hospital on the psych ward for all of her career,

00:39:32Guest:She had the clarity of thought to put me in therapy that year after my dad left.

00:39:40Guest:When you were like 11?

00:39:42Guest:I was 11, yeah.

00:39:43Guest:She put me in therapy so that I had a healthy place to deal with all of this.

00:39:47Guest:And she knew that it wasn't with her because she was part of what allowed this to happen to me by bringing him back.

00:39:53Guest:And I can't say she really protected us.

00:39:56Guest:So she knew that the conversation didn't lie with her, so she got me someone to talk to.

00:40:00Guest:That really, I think without that...

00:40:02Guest:I don't know what path I would have taken.

00:40:05Marc:Really?

00:40:06Guest:Yeah.

00:40:07Guest:And that's been a part of my life since then.

00:40:09Guest:Not that I'm in therapy constantly, but I learned at that early age that I have a place to go when the shit hits the fan or when I'm feeling like I need some place to talk and get recalibrated.

00:40:21Guest:I have some place to go that's safe, that helps.

00:40:24Marc:And you didn't end up an alcoholic?

00:40:26Marc:No.

00:40:27Marc:That's good.

00:40:28Marc:Did you end up like a control freak?

00:40:31Marc:Maybe.

00:40:34Marc:Maybe.

00:40:36Marc:It's like my armchair psychology is sort of like if you grow up in an erratic alcoholic home, you're either going to end up an alcoholic or you're going to end up like somebody who just wants to control the environment.

00:40:49Guest:I want to control my house.

00:40:53Guest:That's my environment.

00:40:53Guest:I like to say not controlling.

00:40:58Guest:I like to say someone that knows that I have to create my reality.

00:41:03Guest:It's not going to just pop up.

00:41:05Guest:I learned earlier that I have to create my own circumstance.

00:41:08Guest:If I sit back and I'm just a victim of it, then that's a problem.

00:41:11Guest:I have to create it for myself.

00:41:13Marc:And how vigilant do you have to stay on top of all of this shit?

00:41:17Marc:Like in terms of like, you know, just like drifting back into whatever, you know, bad behavior.

00:41:23Guest:Um, what's the bad behavior?

00:41:26Guest:Can my controlling?

00:41:27Marc:Well, no, I mean, just like in general, like from, from what you come from and from therapy, like, cause like, I don't know what, what after the therapy, when you were 11, you know, how did, how, what, how did it affect your life?

00:41:40Marc:The way you brought up like your relationships and stuff.

00:41:44Guest:Well, I think it made me someone who looked for love in all the wrong places.

00:41:50Guest:I needed love so badly, just like the character, like the air to breathe.

00:41:54Guest:I needed it.

00:41:54Guest:So I wanted a man to love me.

00:41:57Guest:I always wanted my dad to love me.

00:41:59Guest:I always wanted that.

00:42:00Guest:And my dad was super handsome.

00:42:04Guest:He could sing like Johnny Mathis.

00:42:06Guest:He had white teeth like chiclets.

00:42:08Guest:I could never understand why this man couldn't love me

00:42:11Guest:Why did he have to be a monster?

00:42:13Guest:Why did he have to be a maniac?

00:42:16Guest:His physical self didn't equate with who he was.

00:42:19Guest:So I grew up wanting a man like my dad to love me.

00:42:26Guest:And I realized that I was looking in all the wrong places.

00:42:30Marc:And you found them.

00:42:31Guest:Yeah, I found them.

00:42:33Marc:Right.

00:42:34Marc:They weren't capable like he was.

00:42:36Guest:I didn't go about it the right way.

00:42:38Guest:So I didn't find people that were right for me.

00:42:41Guest:I'm not smashing the people.

00:42:42Guest:It's just they weren't right for me.

00:42:44Marc:It's the worst.

00:42:44Marc:It's the worst feeling to be kind of emotionally hobbled in a particular way.

00:42:52Marc:Because a lot of times, because I'm the same way.

00:42:54Marc:It wasn't as abusive my background.

00:42:56Marc:But if you have that weird, you don't know how to love or be loved because of what you were brought up in.

00:43:02Marc:Even when you think you got a good one, all of a sudden you're like, it could turn bad.

00:43:08Marc:All of a sudden it becomes exactly like the other ones.

00:43:12Guest:Because consciously we send our representatives into the relationship.

00:43:17Guest:But subconsciously we're our real selves.

00:43:19Guest:And that real part of you comes out eventually.

00:43:21Guest:Right.

00:43:22Guest:Exactly.

00:43:22Guest:You realize, oh, shit.

00:43:24Guest:And until you really get the healing, you keep choosing the same kind of person over and over and over.

00:43:30Marc:Right.

00:43:30Marc:Well, I guess that's what I was asking about vigilance.

00:43:33Guest:I was doing that.

00:43:34Guest:And I've worked I've worked really hard at it with all the failed relationships that I've had.

00:43:37Guest:I've had some good ones along the way, too.

00:43:39Guest:Yeah.

00:43:39Guest:But the failed ones that I've had, I've done lots of work around that, trying to figure out why do I keep calling in the same.

00:43:47Guest:What do I have to learn here?

00:43:49Guest:This goes back to not just staying stuck in that brokenness and being a victim, but I play a part in this.

00:43:54Marc:Right.

00:43:54Guest:And I need to understand what that part is.

00:43:56Marc:Responsibility.

00:43:57Marc:Take responsibility.

00:43:58Guest:It's going to keep repeating itself.

00:44:00Guest:Right.

00:44:00Guest:So.

00:44:00Marc:Yeah, and it's hard because sometimes you get to a point where you're like, I don't want to do it anymore.

00:44:05Guest:No, I'm just tired.

00:44:06Marc:Yeah.

00:44:07Guest:And you don't think you should have to anymore, but the truth is you do have to until you figure it out.

00:44:10Marc:Really?

00:44:11Marc:You need the love?

00:44:12Guest:You do.

00:44:12Guest:You need all of it.

00:44:13Guest:And you got to figure it out for yourself.

00:44:14Guest:You do.

00:44:16Marc:No, I don't.

00:44:17Marc:Yes, you do.

00:44:18Marc:All right.

00:44:19Marc:So, how's your older sister?

00:44:23Marc:Is she alright?

00:44:25Guest:She's okay.

00:44:26Marc:She's struggled.

00:44:26Guest:She's struggled with alcoholism and her issues.

00:44:31Marc:You guys get along alright?

00:44:33Guest:We're okay.

00:44:34Marc:And your mom?

00:44:34Marc:Is she around?

00:44:35Guest:My mom is around, yes.

00:44:36Marc:How's that?

00:44:37Guest:That's okay.

00:44:41Marc:So you feel, thank God for the therapy.

00:44:46Marc:When did you start getting involved with acting?

00:44:51Guest:Not until I was probably 19 years old.

00:44:55Marc:Oh, really?

00:44:56Marc:Yeah.

00:44:56Marc:What were your interests before that?

00:44:58Guest:I wanted to be a journalist, a writer.

00:45:00Marc:Yeah?

00:45:01Marc:Yeah.

00:45:01Marc:Did you do that in high school and stuff?

00:45:03Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:45:03Marc:Where you wrote for the paper?

00:45:04Guest:I was the editor of the paper.

00:45:06Marc:Really?

00:45:07Guest:Yeah, that's really what I thought I would do.

00:45:09Guest:And I wanted to see the world.

00:45:10Guest:So I thought I could like travel and be a journalist and I could see the world and report and like, you know, I was going to.

00:45:15Marc:Lucky you didn't get into that racket.

00:45:16Marc:That's a bad thing to be.

00:45:18Marc:It's hard.

00:45:18Marc:It's a hard game now.

00:45:20Guest:I know it is.

00:45:21Guest:So yeah, you're not mad at how it turned out.

00:45:23Marc:No.

00:45:24Marc:So you're 19.

00:45:25Marc:And what, what, what, what does it?

00:45:27Guest:I am living in Chicago.

00:45:29Marc:That's where you went to school?

00:45:31Guest:I went there to model for a little bit and I met a woman there.

00:45:37Marc:Is that when you became a big time model?

00:45:38Guest:No, I was never big time because I was always too short.

00:45:41Guest:So it was just something to do until I decided to go to school.

00:45:44Guest:I was having a gap year and I went there and I met a woman who said, you know,

00:45:51Guest:you could really do this professionally if you really wanted to do it, but deep down I knew that that really wasn't what I wanted to do.

00:45:57Guest:The modeling.

00:45:57Guest:Yeah, I knew I was too short.

00:45:58Guest:It was before Kate Moss.

00:45:59Guest:I knew I wasn't going to be very successful at that.

00:46:03Guest:But because I was in Chicago all by myself, I went to a class at night.

00:46:08Guest:I went to Second City.

00:46:09Guest:Oh, really?

00:46:10Guest:And I started taking classes there.

00:46:11Guest:Improv classes?

00:46:12Guest:Improv classes.

00:46:14Guest:Not because I wanted to do anything with it.

00:46:15Guest:I thought I needed to meet people in the town.

00:46:18Guest:I needed to make some friends.

00:46:19Marc:That's what improv's good for.

00:46:20Marc:A lot of people go for those kind of reasons now.

00:46:22Guest:That's why I went.

00:46:23Marc:And are there any people that were there that we know that are like big comics now or big comic actors you don't remember?

00:46:29Guest:Not in my class that you would know today.

00:46:33Marc:So were you funny?

00:46:35Guest:I think so.

00:46:35Guest:My teacher there said, you know, you really should have you thought about doing this for a living?

00:46:39Guest:I said, oh, God, no, I can't do this for a living is another one of those.

00:46:43Guest:Are you high?

00:46:44Marc:Yeah.

00:46:45Guest:And he said, I really think you should consider this.

00:46:47Guest:There's something very natural about what you do and your timing is pretty good.

00:46:51Guest:I think you should consider this.

00:46:52Marc:Who was that teacher?

00:46:53Marc:You don't remember?

00:46:54Guest:Yeah, Jeff Benson.

00:46:55Guest:And I said, I don't know.

00:46:58Guest:I finished out the course.

00:46:59Guest:And after that, that stayed in my mind that he thought, hmm.

00:47:04Guest:And I thought, I'm only 19.

00:47:07Guest:What would be the harm in just seeing...

00:47:09Guest:And then out of the blue, a guy called me up on the phone and said, hey, are you Halle Berry?

00:47:14Guest:I said, yeah.

00:47:15Guest:He goes, my name is Vincent Cirincione.

00:47:17Guest:I represent a girl that you know from your beauty pageant, Sandra Ferguson.

00:47:22Guest:I said, yeah.

00:47:23Guest:He goes, I'm looking for a black girl on a soap opera and I want someone kind of like her.

00:47:27Guest:So she said to give you a call.

00:47:28Guest:And then I thought, oh God, this is a sign.

00:47:31Guest:I've got a manager calling me up out of the blue.

00:47:33Guest:Right.

00:47:33Guest:And the moment I've decided I should give this a try.

00:47:37Marc:Okay.

00:47:37Guest:So I flew to New York.

00:47:39Guest:He said, come for this audition.

00:47:40Guest:I said, on the way.

00:47:42Marc:Did you get it?

00:47:43Marc:No.

00:47:44I didn't.

00:47:46Marc:So you didn't take that as a sign.

00:47:47Guest:No, I didn't take that.

00:47:48Guest:But he even said, you've never auditioned.

00:47:51Guest:You're a little green, but I also think you've got talent.

00:47:54Guest:I think you should consider coming to New York and let me work with you.

00:47:57Guest:So I went back home, thought about it for a month.

00:48:00Guest:Back to Chicago.

00:48:00Marc:How long did you live in Chicago?

00:48:01Guest:Two years.

00:48:02Marc:It's a good town, right?

00:48:04Guest:It's a good town.

00:48:04Marc:Yeah.

00:48:04Guest:Yeah.

00:48:05Guest:I loved it, actually.

00:48:07Guest:But I went home, and then I came back, and I said, okay, I'll come.

00:48:09Guest:Then I moved to New York.

00:48:11Marc:And did you start classes?

00:48:12Guest:Started classes.

00:48:14Marc:What'd you do?

00:48:14Marc:Where'd you go?

00:48:15Guest:Studied with Esper.

00:48:17Marc:Go Esper?

00:48:17Marc:Yes.

00:48:18Marc:Everybody studied.

00:48:18Guest:Meisner.

00:48:19Guest:Yes, everybody.

00:48:20Guest:And I studied for a good year, and then little by little I started getting little jobs, little jobs.

00:48:27Marc:But it's interesting that that guy, the first guy, the second city guy, because what he said about you, that you have a naturalism, is really true.

00:48:35Marc:And it's a different thing than most people have.

00:48:38Marc:You know, because there are people, you know, you can...

00:48:41Marc:You know, actors make choices.

00:48:42Marc:I get it.

00:48:42Marc:But like with you, like you're emotionally it's so visceral, visceral and so present.

00:48:48Marc:So immediately, it's just it's a rare thing.

00:48:51Marc:And it's very it's human.

00:48:52Marc:And it sort of stands out in a way for me.

00:48:55Marc:Like when I when I see you, I'm like have an immediate emotional response.

00:48:59Marc:And then when I see other people, I see the choices they're making.

00:49:01Guest:Ah, well, I'm going to take that.

00:49:04Marc:Do you know what I mean?

00:49:04Guest:Yes.

00:49:05Marc:Thank you.

00:49:06Marc:So you're doing the Meisner?

00:49:08Guest:Yes, study Meisner.

00:49:09Guest:Yes.

00:49:11Marc:And you're in it.

00:49:12Guest:I'm in it.

00:49:13Guest:And studying.

00:49:14Guest:And now I'm really wanting to do this.

00:49:17Guest:I'm really now wanting to do it.

00:49:18Guest:I believe I can do it.

00:49:20Guest:I'm enjoying it.

00:49:21Guest:I'm loving it.

00:49:21Guest:It's a conscious choice.

00:49:22Guest:And then I get a job on a television show called Living Dolls, which moves me from New York to L.A.

00:49:28Guest:because it was shot in L.A.

00:49:29Marc:How was that?

00:49:30Marc:What was that?

00:49:30Marc:It was horrible.

00:49:31Guest:It was a sitcom about four girls.

00:49:33Guest:And I get on the show and I realize nothing could be worse in the sense that I was happy to have a job.

00:49:40Guest:I had never, but I didn't, you know, I was the token black girl.

00:49:45Guest:Yeah.

00:49:46Guest:I started every scene, hey, everybody, and ended it with, come on, let's go.

00:49:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:49:50Guest:You know, and I was just, I was bored.

00:49:53Marc:Yeah.

00:49:53Guest:And I thought, oh, my God, it's got to be more than this.

00:49:55Marc:Yeah.

00:49:55Guest:This can't be what I've signed up for.

00:49:57Marc:Did you do any stage work?

00:49:59Marc:No.

00:50:00Marc:No.

00:50:00Marc:Interesting.

00:50:00Guest:No.

00:50:01Guest:No.

00:50:02Marc:Ever?

00:50:03Guest:A little bit, you know, a few little small productions, but not real stage work.

00:50:07Guest:So my bucket list.

00:50:09Marc:Yeah.

00:50:09Marc:I mean, it's interesting when I'm older.

00:50:11Marc:Yeah.

00:50:12Marc:Like you said, in this movie, you use a lot of stage actors.

00:50:14Marc:It's a different game, right?

00:50:15Guest:It's a different game.

00:50:16Guest:But at the same time, you know, I wanted actors that were just right for these parts.

00:50:21Guest:And it so happened that the actors that I gravitated towards were stage actors.

00:50:25Marc:Were they New Yorkers?

00:50:26Marc:Yeah.

00:50:26Guest:Most of them from New York.

00:50:28Guest:Well, Stevens worked a lot.

00:50:29Guest:No, Sheila's from London.

00:50:31Guest:Oh, right, right, right, right.

00:50:32Guest:Adrian Lennox, yes.

00:50:34Guest:Yeah.

00:50:34Guest:But what I liked about them, even though they were stage, you know, stage actors are often bigger.

00:50:37Guest:Yeah.

00:50:38Guest:What I loved about them is they had the ability to take all of that stage, that history, and make it small.

00:50:45Guest:Yeah.

00:50:45Guest:Like they were able to still make it small and fit their talent into this world.

00:50:50Marc:How many kids do you have to look at before you get that kid?

00:50:53Hundreds.

00:50:53Guest:100 probably.

00:50:54Marc:Really?

00:50:55Marc:That kid really nailed it.

00:50:56Guest:Yeah.

00:50:57Guest:He was amazing.

00:50:58Guest:Yeah.

00:50:59Guest:He was a revelation when he showed up.

00:51:01Guest:A revelation.

00:51:01Marc:But it's weird when you see these kid actors, especially at that age, they all know more than they should to begin with.

00:51:06Marc:They all come in like geared up and their parents are geared up.

00:51:09Marc:Yeah.

00:51:09Marc:Right?

00:51:10Guest:But he wasn't.

00:51:11Marc:That's why I chose him.

00:51:12Guest:He wasn't.

00:51:13Guest:He was such a kid.

00:51:14Guest:And he had such a wonderful mom that kept him grounded and centered.

00:51:21Guest:And he was just a kid.

00:51:23Guest:He wasn't one of these precocious little kids that, you know, it's kind of like too much to be so young.

00:51:28Guest:He wasn't like that.

00:51:29Guest:He was just a kid.

00:51:30Guest:And when I would say cut, he wanted to just go jump on the bed and like jump up and down.

00:51:33Guest:And like do what kids do and go grab some candy and like shove it all down.

00:51:37Guest:Like he was very childlike.

00:51:39Marc:But he really got it.

00:51:40Guest:Yeah.

00:51:42Marc:And he was able to stay.

00:51:43Guest:He's very bright.

00:51:45Guest:He's very bright.

00:51:45Guest:Still a child, but he's very bright.

00:51:47Marc:So when you were in New York, was there tough times?

00:51:52Marc:I mean, were you waiting tables?

00:51:54Marc:What was the job?

00:51:55Guest:There were tough times.

00:51:56Guest:I did tables.

00:51:58Guest:I was a bartender before I was 21.

00:52:00Guest:Yeah.

00:52:01Marc:Yeah.

00:52:04Guest:Yeah.

00:52:04Guest:There was sometimes, there was one little stint where I found myself with no rent money and nowhere to go.

00:52:10Guest:And I had to go to the YMCA and be in the shelter for a little bit.

00:52:16Guest:Which one?

00:52:16Guest:Near Gramercy Park.

00:52:17Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:52:18Marc:Yeah, the big one, McBurnie's?

00:52:19Guest:The big one, yes.

00:52:20Marc:Was it over, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:22Guest:Near the park.

00:52:23Guest:And...

00:52:24Guest:That was a rough little patch.

00:52:28Guest:And then my manager at the time, then he finally let me come sleep on his couch for a while.

00:52:32Guest:And I got through it.

00:52:35Marc:And then the roles started coming.

00:52:38Guest:And then I got that television show that I told you about.

00:52:40Marc:Oh, that was right before that.

00:52:41Marc:And once I got that, then my everything went... Yeah, when did the first movie come?

00:52:45Guest:That was Spike Lee's Jungle Fever.

00:52:46Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:52:48Marc:By a drug addict?

00:52:49Guest:Yep, I did.

00:52:52Guest:Crack Ho, to be specific.

00:52:53Marc:Was it Crack Ho number one?

00:52:55Marc:Crack Ho number one.

00:52:56Marc:Number two, number three?

00:52:58Yeah.

00:52:58Guest:Yeah.

00:52:59Marc:Do you remember working with Spike?

00:53:01Marc:Do you remember the excitement of all that?

00:53:02Guest:Oh, I do.

00:53:02Guest:Oh, my God, yes.

00:53:03Guest:I remember that.

00:53:04Guest:Spike didn't want me for that.

00:53:05Marc:No?

00:53:06Guest:No.

00:53:06Guest:He said I didn't look like a crack hoe.

00:53:07Guest:And I said, what does a crack hoe look like?

00:53:09Guest:He said, not like you.

00:53:10Guest:I said, I am a crack hoe.

00:53:11Guest:Yeah.

00:53:13Yeah.

00:53:13Guest:I am a cracko trust me yeah and he goes no no no I want you to play the character of his wife and I said no no no I am the cracko let me go in the bathroom wash this makeup off and you'll see I'm a cracko so I came back and he let me read it again and he was like shit you are a cracko that's great he didn't want to be the wife

00:53:34Guest:I didn't want to be his wife.

00:53:35Guest:I knew that I had to.

00:53:35Marc:Whose wife?

00:53:37Guest:It was his wife.

00:53:38Guest:Oh.

00:53:38Guest:And Veronica Webb got the part, and she's beautiful in it.

00:53:40Guest:But for me, I knew that I needed to shed my physical self and be taken seriously.

00:53:45Guest:And I knew that I needed to start taking on parts and fighting to get parts that relied on my talent, not my physical self, or I would be put in this box forever.

00:53:56Marc:You knew right away.

00:53:57Guest:I knew right away that I had to dispel that.

00:54:00Marc:and fight to dispel that.

00:54:01Marc:That's ballsy, to use a word probably not correctly.

00:54:06Guest:It's beautiful.

00:54:07Marc:Yeah, but you know what I mean?

00:54:08Marc:I mean, to make that decision, to protect your future.

00:54:11Guest:I knew that I had to do that, or I would just be the pretty girl in all the things, and that was the last thing I wanted to be.

00:54:18Marc:So when do you feel like... Because, I mean, you went back and forth.

00:54:21Marc:You did a lot of TV, and you did a lot of movies.

00:54:24Marc:What did you feel was the role that you really were like...

00:54:29Marc:This is it.

00:54:32Marc:This is the role that is going to define me a bit.

00:54:37Guest:It's hard to know.

00:54:37Guest:I thought Jungle Fever defined me a bit.

00:54:40Guest:I got to play so opposite what people would typecast me as.

00:54:44Guest:So that defined me.

00:54:45Guest:That was my first role out.

00:54:46Guest:I did Alex Haley's Queen.

00:54:49Guest:I played his paternal grandmother.

00:54:50Guest:That kind of defined me in a way as an actor, you know, as a talent, not just what I looked like.

00:54:59Guest:Movies like Losing Isaiah also did that for me.

00:55:02Marc:Wow.

00:55:02Marc:Yeah.

00:55:03Marc:I remember that movie.

00:55:04Guest:Dorothy Dandridge, even though it was about playing a starlet, she was a broken starlet that there were so many layers to her and to her life.

00:55:10Guest:She was complicated.

00:55:11Marc:Yeah, that Dorothy Dandridge thing is like, I didn't know much about her.

00:55:16Marc:And it's like, it's one of those stories where you read the real story and then you see the movie and it's like, this doesn't end well.

00:55:22Guest:Yeah, no.

00:55:23Guest:Well, it couldn't.

00:55:24Guest:I guess.

00:55:25Guest:She was way before her time.

00:55:26Guest:Hollywood created this starlet, but there was no place for her.

00:55:31Marc:Yeah.

00:55:31Guest:At that time, there was no place.

00:55:33Marc:And when you got that role, what led up to that?

00:55:38Marc:How did that happen?

00:55:39Guest:My manager, that same guy that's couch I used to sleep on, he said, what role do you want to play?

00:55:45Guest:And I said, Dorothy Dandridge.

00:55:46Guest:I mean, she was one of my heroes growing up.

00:55:48Marc:Out of nowhere without a project existing yet?

00:55:51Guest:Yeah, no.

00:55:51Guest:We put that together for HBO.

00:55:53Guest:We produced it together.

00:55:53Marc:You did?

00:55:55Marc:Yeah.

00:55:55Marc:Oh.

00:55:56Yeah.

00:55:56Guest:I've always had to sort of make my own opportunities.

00:56:01Guest:And so this was the first time I said, this is what I want to do.

00:56:04Guest:And we put that together.

00:56:05Guest:Shonda Rhimes wrote it before Shonda Rhimes was Shonda Rhimes.

00:56:08Guest:She wrote it and we took it and shopped it to HBO and they picked it up and he and I produced it.

00:56:13Marc:Yeah, there's one turn in that where you see just... Because I always associate you with this kind of rawness, but that's a very composed role because of her and her life.

00:56:27Marc:And the time period, yeah.

00:56:28Marc:Right.

00:56:29Marc:But that scene where you're not going to perform at Zero's, and then you just turn on that showbiz juice.

00:56:37Marc:I was like, wow, she's really got that in her...

00:56:41Marc:Where's more of that?

00:56:42Marc:Where's the song and dance, Allie?

00:56:46Guest:It's in there.

00:56:47Guest:It's in there.

00:56:49Marc:Did you like doing that?

00:56:50Guest:I loved it.

00:56:51Marc:Yeah.

00:56:51Guest:I loved it.

00:56:52Guest:Yeah.

00:56:52Marc:Why don't you do a musical?

00:56:53Marc:Have you done any musicals?

00:56:55Guest:I haven't.

00:56:56Marc:I haven't.

00:56:56Marc:You got to do stage work.

00:56:58Marc:You got to do a musical.

00:56:59Guest:Yeah.

00:57:00Guest:I'm going to do stage.

00:57:02Guest:When I'm older, I want to play Mrs. Robinson on stage.

00:57:06Marc:Really?

00:57:06Marc:Is that in The Graduate?

00:57:08Guest:Yeah.

00:57:09Marc:Oh, that'd be great.

00:57:09Guest:That's my dream stage role.

00:57:11Marc:Well, you can make that happen.

00:57:13Marc:You're the producer.

00:57:14Marc:So I didn't realize that Monsters Ball was after the Dorothy Dandridge.

00:57:17Guest:Yeah.

00:57:18Guest:Yeah.

00:57:18Guest:It was after.

00:57:19Marc:Well, how did that come together?

00:57:21Marc:That crazy movie.

00:57:22Guest:Uh, I, my agent at the time told me about it.

00:57:26Guest:I of course loved it.

00:57:27Guest:And then the minute they all gave it to me, they said, no, no, just kidding.

00:57:30Guest:That's probably going to ruin your career.

00:57:32Marc:Really?

00:57:33Marc:That's what they said?

00:57:33Marc:Yeah.

00:57:33Guest:And I thought, but I love it, but why?

00:57:35Guest:And they thought, well, it's, you know, it's so, it's racially charged, you know, what it was about.

00:57:39Guest:That was 20 years ago.

00:57:41Guest:Yeah.

00:57:41Guest:And there's this love scene.

00:57:43Guest:There's this, it's, it's nudity.

00:57:45Guest:It's gratuitous.

00:57:46Guest:They felt, and they thought this is just not where you should be after Dorothy.

00:57:51Marc:Isn't that interesting?

00:57:52Marc:Because they were afraid of doing what you like to do, which is expose that raw vulnerability, take the risks.

00:58:00Guest:Yeah, take risks.

00:58:01Guest:Yeah, I've always known if you don't risk big, you're never going to win big.

00:58:04Marc:And yes, you knew it would make people uncomfortable.

00:58:07Yes.

00:58:07Guest:And it made me uncomfortable, which is why I wanted to do it.

00:58:11Marc:How could it not make you uncomfortable?

00:58:12Guest:Yeah.

00:58:13Guest:And it's like I'm a moth to a flame that way.

00:58:16Guest:I love to sit in that.

00:58:18Guest:I just love to sit in it and challenge myself and challenge the others and see what's going to happen.

00:58:25Marc:Yeah.

00:58:27Marc:What's going to happen?

00:58:27Marc:It's nice that there's a healthy context to do that.

00:58:30Guest:Yes, yes.

00:58:31Guest:And this is it.

00:58:32Guest:Right.

00:58:32Guest:Well, that explains it.

00:58:33Marc:Think of a healthier way.

00:58:35Guest:Yeah.

00:58:35Marc:Deal with these demons.

00:58:36Marc:Keep it in the fictional zone.

00:58:38Guest:Yeah.

00:58:39Guest:Yes.

00:58:40Marc:And like Billy Bob was like, you know, out there.

00:58:42Marc:Like that must be like, you know, the level of commitment both of you had to kind of pull off for that.

00:58:47Guest:Yeah.

00:58:48Guest:And we were committed.

00:58:49Guest:We were both extremely committed.

00:58:51Marc:But in between takes, was it sort of like, how you doing?

00:58:55Guest:Okay.

00:58:55Guest:Yeah.

00:58:56Guest:Well, we had talks about, you know, how far we would go and what we would do.

00:58:59Guest:Like, we were very comfortable.

00:59:00Guest:We had to be, had agreements.

00:59:03Marc:Yeah.

00:59:04Guest:About certain things, you know.

00:59:06Marc:Sure.

00:59:06Marc:So it was a safe set.

00:59:07Guest:Yes.

00:59:08Marc:Yes.

00:59:09Marc:And Bullworth was before that.

00:59:10Marc:My producer said he just rewatched Bullworth.

00:59:12Marc:And he said, like, it definitely, like, holds up.

00:59:15Guest:I think Warren, he was, when you think of what happened in the world since then, I think he was ahead of the curve on that one.

00:59:24Marc:He's interesting, man.

00:59:25Marc:I've never talked to him.

00:59:27Guest:Warren?

00:59:28Marc:Yeah, I've talked to Annette Bening.

00:59:29Guest:Yeah.

00:59:30Marc:And I've met Warren a couple times, but I can't seem to get him to do an interview with me.

00:59:35Marc:But that guy knows it all.

00:59:36Marc:But the weird thing about him...

00:59:38Guest:He knows where all the bodies are.

00:59:40Guest:He's so, so smart.

00:59:42Guest:Yeah, he's, yeah.

00:59:43Marc:Yeah, but like he plays as sort of almost a doofus sometimes.

00:59:46Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:46Marc:Like, you know, he's got this weird way about him where you wouldn't know just how smart he is, how political he is, and all this other stuff.

00:59:55Marc:Did you get to hang out with him a lot?

00:59:56Guest:Yes, I love him dearly.

00:59:58Marc:Yeah?

00:59:58Guest:Always be a friend, yes.

00:59:59Guest:Yes.

01:00:00Guest:Yes.

01:00:00Guest:He's a good guy.

01:00:01Guest:He's been always supportive in my corner.

01:00:04Guest:Great person to talk to.

01:00:05Marc:Yeah.

01:00:06Guest:Whenever I want to know anything, call Warren.

01:00:08Guest:He knows.

01:00:08Marc:Oh, really?

01:00:09Marc:And he does.

01:00:09Marc:And you do it?

01:00:10Marc:Yeah.

01:00:10Marc:You guys are still?

01:00:11Guest:Yes.

01:00:12Marc:Okay.

01:00:13Marc:Talk to me about superheroes.

01:00:15Marc:Okay, outside of the Catwoman debacle, which I think you handled well and you've discussed it.

01:00:23Guest:Yes.

01:00:24Marc:What do you think?

01:00:25Marc:What happened there?

01:00:28Guest:It didn't work.

01:00:29Marc:But it wasn't on you.

01:00:30Guest:No, but here's the thing, though.

01:00:32Guest:I have unfairly, I believe, carried it as if somehow I directed it, I wrote it, I produced it, and I starred in it.

01:00:39Guest:You know what I mean?

01:00:40Guest:I worked hard at doing my part as the actor to become a cat and do what I had to do.

01:00:44Guest:But I also believe that, you know, because it was a woman for a superhero.

01:00:49Guest:Yeah.

01:00:49Guest:by making the storyline by making cat woman in that version just a woman that was saving women from having their faces crack off it she wasn't saving the world like superheroes do right the story was small small and and didn't transcend like all the superheroes do and i thought that was a big part of it but back then the idea was but if you're making a woman movie about a superhero woman that it has to deal with

01:01:14Guest:women's issues like it wasn't possible for a woman to save the world right thinking wasn't there yeah time right okay i think that's what happened with that and what in in these other superhero movies x-men and those movies do you like doing them are they fun

01:01:30Guest:They are fun.

01:01:30Guest:You know, it's a good, you know, it's a nice break from, you know, the other things that I really like to do.

01:01:39Marc:And it's physical.

01:01:40Guest:It's physical.

01:01:40Guest:And I love physical.

01:01:41Guest:I love, like I did John Wick before I did this, and it was just a great physical movie where I got to just, you know, use that part of what I do.

01:01:51Guest:I was a gymnast as a kid, so I get to use all of that.

01:01:53Marc:You were?

01:01:53Guest:It's still in my body.

01:01:54Guest:Yeah.

01:01:55Marc:It's still there, the muscle memory?

01:01:56Marc:Yeah.

01:01:56Guest:All of that.

01:01:57Guest:I love it.

01:01:57Marc:Can you do those flips?

01:02:00Guest:I can do some flips.

01:02:01Marc:Yeah?

01:02:01Marc:What are they called where you just keep bouncing?

01:02:03Marc:Back handsprings.

01:02:04Guest:Yes, I can.

01:02:05Marc:What else?

01:02:06Marc:Can you do parallel bars?

01:02:09Guest:I don't know because I haven't been on any in a long time.

01:02:12Guest:I can't do that in my backyard, but I can flip in my backyard.

01:02:14Marc:You can do cartwheels and flips you can do?

01:02:17Marc:So how's that Keanu guy?

01:02:19Guest:Great.

01:02:19Marc:Yeah?

01:02:20Guest:Yeah, he really is.

01:02:21Marc:What a mystery that dude is.

01:02:22Guest:Yeah, he is a mystery.

01:02:23Guest:He is.

01:02:24Guest:And he'll forever be that, I'm sure.

01:02:26Marc:Two major Matrix franchise, now this John Wick thing.

01:02:30Marc:Just keeps churning them out.

01:02:31Marc:Billions of dollars.

01:02:32Guest:Billions.

01:02:33Marc:No one knows what the fuck's up with that guy.

01:02:36Guest:He's a good guy, though.

01:02:38Marc:No, he seems like a good guy.

01:02:39Marc:But it's one of those things where I'm sure you've worked with a lot of people where you're like, what's the magic?

01:02:44Guest:Yeah.

01:02:45Marc:Some people, they're just magic.

01:02:47Marc:I don't know what that is.

01:02:49Guest:I'm not one of those people.

01:02:51Marc:No, no, I think you are.

01:02:52Guest:That's never been my story, so I don't know.

01:02:55Guest:I've had to work very, very hard.

01:02:57Marc:But the thing is, is that you can't help but be yourself.

01:03:00Marc:True.

01:03:01Marc:Right?

01:03:01Marc:True.

01:03:02Marc:So all that talent and all that stuff that's in you is going to be there.

01:03:05Marc:You're not hiding it.

01:03:06Guest:No.

01:03:07Marc:The magic people, you're always like, what the fuck is up with them?

01:03:11Marc:You know?

01:03:12Marc:I can't hide anything.

01:03:15Yeah.

01:03:15Guest:I'm not interested in hiding.

01:03:18Marc:The only bad thing about not hiding is more people than you might want to know about you know about you.

01:03:26Marc:Yeah.

01:03:27Guest:But that's okay.

01:03:28Marc:Yeah, no, it's okay.

01:03:28Marc:But then there's a familiarity that people think they know you.

01:03:32Marc:And a lot of times you're like, you do kind of know me, but I don't know you.

01:03:36Guest:That's the thing.

01:03:37Guest:You don't know them, but they do know you.

01:03:39Marc:Exactly.

01:03:40Guest:They do know you.

01:03:40Marc:And it's a little weird.

01:03:41Marc:And now with all these social media platforms, there's very few people, if they want to get to you, they will get to you.

01:03:47Guest:Are you on social media?

01:03:48Marc:I am.

01:03:51Guest:Are you?

01:03:51Guest:Yeah.

01:03:51Guest:I should follow you.

01:03:53Marc:I'll follow you.

01:03:54Marc:Yeah, I did a live Instagram this morning.

01:03:56Guest:Oh, you did?

01:03:57Marc:Of me doing the, I have Jennifer Hudson on the podcast tomorrow that we're releasing.

01:04:02Marc:So usually I play guitar at the end, just dick around on my guitar.

01:04:05Marc:But like I'll sit here and I'll do a live one of me playing and talking to people.

01:04:09Marc:And I've gotten very snippy at them.

01:04:11Marc:I only get a few hundred people watching, but over time a few thousand people look at it.

01:04:14Marc:But I'll do like an hour and a half sometimes.

01:04:16Marc:Just sit there and like yell at people when they're trolling me.

01:04:21Marc:What are you doing?

01:04:23Marc:I'll look at the comments.

01:04:24Guest:I don't get into the fights with the people.

01:04:25Guest:I refuse to.

01:04:27Marc:What do you do on yours?

01:04:29Guest:With the fans?

01:04:30Marc:With the social media.

01:04:32Marc:What do you do?

01:04:32Guest:I do all kinds of things.

01:04:33Guest:I do Instagram, Twitter.

01:04:34Guest:Do you do TikTok?

01:04:35Guest:I really like my Twitter.

01:04:37Guest:I haven't done the TikToks.

01:04:37Marc:Me neither.

01:04:38Marc:I don't understand it.

01:04:40Guest:My daughter, my 13-year-old keeps saying, Mommy, please let's do TikToks.

01:04:43Guest:Let's do TikToks.

01:04:43Marc:We should do them together.

01:04:45Marc:Maybe do them with her.

01:04:47Guest:Well, but I don't want her on the internet.

01:04:50Guest:I fought to keep my kids out of that.

01:04:53Marc:Oh, has that worked?

01:04:54Guest:It has.

01:04:55Marc:Oh, that's good.

01:04:55Guest:Yeah.

01:04:56Marc:Yeah.

01:04:56Marc:TikTok, there's certain things I have to hold fast and say like, I'm too old for that.

01:05:01Marc:And I'm going to, that's, I'm fine with that.

01:05:03Marc:I'm just, I don't need to do it.

01:05:04Marc:I don't even want to be on Twitter.

01:05:06Guest:You're not on Twitter?

01:05:07Marc:I am.

01:05:08Marc:But nothing comes good from it.

01:05:10Marc:Nothing good comes from it.

01:05:11Guest:Yeah.

01:05:11Guest:Well, it's not the real world.

01:05:13Guest:It's Twitter world.

01:05:14Marc:Yeah, the real world is like, it's very kind of slow and paced well, but as soon as you open your phone up, it's like, it's terrible.

01:05:25Guest:And where do you think it's going?

01:05:27Marc:No place good.

01:05:30Marc:Well, I don't know, where do you think?

01:05:31Marc:I mean, I think,

01:05:33Marc:My concern is that the world, reality gets more and more sort of compromised by people engaging with social media and using and playing, seeing it as some sort of video game.

01:05:46Marc:The thing I've noticed is that my life is relatively small, it's kind of slow, and it's okay.

01:05:52Marc:But you get addicted to the pace of engaging.

01:05:55Marc:on social media or on your phone and stuff.

01:05:58Marc:But like you said, and other people have said, it's not really reality, but eventually it starts to define reality.

01:06:04Marc:And what reality is is sort of sad and lonely and isolated and weird.

01:06:08Marc:It becomes not enough.

01:06:09Guest:It becomes oddly not enough.

01:06:11Marc:Well, it's that dopamine trip, man.

01:06:13Guest:You know what I mean?

01:06:14Guest:And I worry about that for my daughter, for the kids.

01:06:17Guest:We didn't grow up in this world, so we can kind of see the difference.

01:06:21Guest:This has kind of been her world.

01:06:22Guest:She's 13.

01:06:23Marc:How many do you have?

01:06:24Marc:Two.

01:06:24Marc:How old was the other one?

01:06:25Marc:Eight.

01:06:26Marc:Wow.

01:06:27Marc:Yeah.

01:06:27Marc:So, yeah, you got to manage that.

01:06:31Guest:And it's hard.

01:06:32Marc:Yeah.

01:06:32Guest:But they also have to be of their generation, too, and of their time.

01:06:37Guest:You know, I can't turn them into dinosaurs where I don't allow them to partake.

01:06:40Marc:Lock them up.

01:06:40Marc:Yeah.

01:06:41Marc:Give me that phone.

01:06:42Guest:Yeah.

01:06:42Guest:You know, so it's... I can't imagine.

01:06:44Guest:It's scary.

01:06:44Guest:Yeah.

01:06:44Marc:yeah it's got to be and also just scary like how how do you like like i don't have kids and and oddly it's one of the greatest things

01:06:56Marc:I've never felt better about a decision.

01:06:59Guest:That's real.

01:07:00Marc:Yeah.

01:07:00Guest:That's really real.

01:07:01Marc:I just knew I was too panicky, too aggravated, too impatient, too selfish to do it.

01:07:07Marc:I've been married twice.

01:07:08Marc:Really?

01:07:08Marc:I've got no kids.

01:07:09Guest:But you know what?

01:07:09Guest:Bravo.

01:07:10Guest:You knew that about yourself.

01:07:12Marc:Yeah.

01:07:12Guest:Then bring a kid here and just really fuck them up and give them a shitload of problems to have to go deal with.

01:07:18Marc:I'm not going to do it.

01:07:19Guest:I really, really respect that.

01:07:21Marc:But you overcome a lot of problems.

01:07:25Marc:What made you want to have kids?

01:07:29Guest:Who's to say what makes people want to have children?

01:07:31Marc:No, I get it.

01:07:32Guest:I just knew I was meant to be a mother.

01:07:34Guest:I just knew it.

01:07:35Marc:And do you feel like in parenting you're able to sort of go like, all right, you stop yourself sometimes and there's that part of your brain.

01:07:44Guest:Yeah.

01:07:44Guest:I find myself being my mother or doing something dysfunctional.

01:07:47Guest:And what I've learned to do, though, is one, go easy on myself when it's happening.

01:07:52Guest:But then also, in that moment, be able to go to my kid and say, I'm really sorry.

01:07:57Guest:Let me have a redo.

01:07:58Guest:Let's talk about this another way when I fall into some behavior that I'm hardwired to do that, as we said, you have to work on your whole life.

01:08:06Guest:It doesn't magically go away.

01:08:08Guest:But at least I'm aware of it.

01:08:10Guest:And I can go to them and say, I didn't handle that right.

01:08:13Guest:let's let me walk out and let me walk back in and let's do it and like my kids find it funny now but they appreciate that i'm you know apologizing and kids always love when as a parent when you say you're sorry that you screwed up yeah but they're also patient with me they know that i'm trying to get it right yeah yeah you know that's a funny one in those moments where they become the parent although i know i know it's true

01:08:37Marc:That's okay.

01:08:38Guest:That's true.

01:08:39Marc:So, what are you doing now?

01:08:41Marc:Just running around promoting this movie or are you working on something?

01:08:46Guest:I am not working on anything right now.

01:08:47Marc:Is that good?

01:08:48Guest:That's really good.

01:08:49Guest:Yeah.

01:08:49Guest:I feel like I'm taking a little break.

01:08:52Guest:I have another movie coming out, ironically, in February, so I'll be on this again.

01:08:56Guest:And then I'm going to go away and work till spring.

01:09:00Marc:Really?

01:09:00Marc:Yeah.

01:09:00Marc:Like a big movie?

01:09:02Marc:Yeah.

01:09:03Marc:We can't talk about it.

01:09:04Guest:Yeah, it's with Mark Wahlberg.

01:09:05Guest:We're going to go do a sort of an action comedy together.

01:09:10Marc:Oh, really?

01:09:10Marc:Yeah.

01:09:10Marc:Pete Berg movie?

01:09:12Guest:No.

01:09:12Marc:No.

01:09:13Marc:Who's directing it?

01:09:14Guest:Not one is set yet.

01:09:15Marc:Oh, okay.

01:09:17Marc:Well, he's a hard worker.

01:09:19Marc:He is.

01:09:19Marc:And he can be a very funny guy.

01:09:20Guest:He's very funny.

01:09:21Guest:And in this role, he's going to be very, very funny.

01:09:23Marc:I had a little part in that movie, Spencer Confidential, for Netflix.

01:09:28Marc:But he is a funny guy, and he's a good actor.

01:09:30Marc:He's very consistent.

01:09:32Guest:Yes.

01:09:32Marc:Steady.

01:09:33Marc:Yes.

01:09:34Marc:Yes.

01:09:35Marc:Well, this has been great.

01:09:36Marc:I'm so glad we talked.

01:09:38Marc:Thank you.

01:09:38Marc:Do you feel good about it?

01:09:39Guest:I do.

01:09:40Guest:You're not going to play the guitar?

01:09:41Guest:You just told me that's what you do.

01:09:43Marc:I do, but it'd be weird, and it'd make me all vulnerable, and I'd be wondering if you liked it.

01:09:48Marc:We've just talked about that.

01:09:51Marc:I know, but maybe off the mic.

01:09:52Guest:Well, that's not the way it goes.

01:09:56Guest:You said you play for people.

01:09:57Marc:Maybe the next time we hang out.

01:10:02Marc:I play for people on my phone.

01:10:03Marc:This sucks.

01:10:04Marc:I don't play for people in real life.

01:10:06Guest:I mean, I drove all the way out here to your house.

01:10:09Marc:You want me to serenade you?

01:10:11Marc:I just play like, you know, like kind of dirty.

01:10:14Guest:Just play me a little something.

01:10:15Guest:Dirty blues licks.

01:10:16Guest:That's fine.

01:10:17Guest:Just come on.

01:10:18Guest:Come on.

01:10:19Guest:Thank you.

01:10:19Guest:Yes.

01:10:24Yes.

01:10:24All right.

01:10:27Guest:You've got like six of them over there.

01:10:31Marc:I know, I know.

01:10:31Marc:It's going to get loud.

01:10:34Marc:Let's see.

01:10:36Guest:.

01:10:43Guest:.

01:10:44Guest:.

01:11:08Guest:Nice.

01:11:16Guest:You been playing your whole life?

01:11:17Marc:A long time.

01:11:18Guest:Really?

01:11:19Guest:Yeah.

01:11:19Guest:Self-taught?

01:11:21Marc:No, I took lessons when I was a kid.

01:11:23Marc:And then people have taught me things here and there.

01:11:26Marc:nice that made me very nervous put me on the spot nice i think i did okay you did great yeah i got it took me a second but yeah yeah i'll tell you next time i'll prepare something okay nice talking to you thank you you too

01:11:43Marc:Great.

01:11:45Marc:Great to meet her.

01:11:46Marc:Great to be with her.

01:11:47Marc:Great to talk to her.

01:11:48Marc:And I enjoyed the movie Bruised, which is on Netflix now.

01:11:52Marc:She directed it, starred in it.

01:11:54Marc:We just talked about it.

01:11:55Marc:Also, shows were added for the This May Be the Last Time tour.

01:12:00Marc:In San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts, January 29th, there's a second show added.

01:12:06Marc:And in San Diego at the Observatory North Park.

01:12:09Marc:Late show has been added on February 11th.

01:12:12Marc:Tickets are on sale now for all of them at wtfpod.com slash tour.