Courst Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
This is Quest Love and you're listening at a QLs classic. This is from February seventy twenty and eighteen. We talked to our friend Rosario Dawson about our acting career and her political activism. We did this in Los Angeles at Sunset Sound Studios, where a lot of nineteen ninety nine and Purple Rain was reported. So, yeah, it would be a good time to do it back with our friend Zorio Dawson.
Courst Love Supreme Classic. Here we go, sun Sure all Supreme self, bream up self. She's always in my hair. Yeah, she's always on my back.
Yeah, she's uh whatever.
My name is Fante.
Yeah, I do not beg Yeah, Zarios and kids, I have no legs.
I hate road.
My name is Sugar.
Yeah.
And I'm unstoppable. Yeah, just like that train.
Yeah, and unstoppable going off already for the worse in l A.
Yeah, that's the scenario. Yeah, and it's time Yeah.
To interview Rosario. Bring my Road, bring my role.
It's like yeah with the original.
Yeah, my rights yeah, An, let's good in the shower, supre My roll.
Roll and Sea down Avenue X. That's why I flex Brooklyn in the house like Mickey Mouse.
Supra roll Call, Supra Selpreing roll Call, Supremo Sun Sun sup Breing my rod Caremon sure roll.
I seen you sweet feet shower.
She's smart and sexy.
You know.
I'm like, this took me back to like high school because it was like we go out like I used to hear that all the time. I didn't have my like Laisha. There used to be a couple of songs and I.
Was like that kind of rocks.
So thanks y'all, Thank you the kids.
One.
I'm sorry, I don't know if y'all take urm.
Clearly I hate you.
I was going to make like everything.
Did you know how fa You knew instantly that was gonna be your Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You was that quiet. You was too quiet in the corner.
I'm like, what you know?
As soon as we found we were gonna have her. That was my first one. It was either that one. It was going to be a twenty five hour reference because that's like probably one of my favorite movies of yours. I really loved your performance in that crazy how.
Many written on your arm? I think it's Harmony's birthday to day or it was just Yester something like that. Actually now yeah, yeah many.
Actually k okay, I just want to make sure I wasn't saying it wrong for the last fifteen whatever.
You let me let the audience.
In three years.
Wait, ladies and.
Gentlemen, welcome, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Of course Love here with teams Supreme.
It's like you Sugar Steve and Boss Bill and Fantigelo uh and today we have a good friend.
Yes, we have what's up? What's up? Roario?
We have actress, producer and director and singer in philanthropists and and political activists and humanitarian and and Newava New Yorker, New Way yorka a new way.
Yeah that.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rosario Dawson. Thank you for coming through. This is a very last minute request, but you came through. I appreciate it anytime.
Bo love you.
Where are you from in California?
I'm not from in California.
Well, I mean you're here lot though.
Yeah I live here now. Yeah, okay, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm raised in the Lower East.
But are you from New York the way that I'm from Philadelphia?
What does that mean? No, I'm from New York. I'm in New York. I still got my nine one seven. I'm there all the time, the fast the last five shows that I did for Marvel, we're all in New York. I was flying back and forth. It was insane. Man, I'm always there. There's still people who think that I live there.
Okay, but I'm saying, plane out of here, out out of out of your New York residence and your California residence. Where are where's the majority of your undergarments located?
That's a very specific specific question.
What are those.
Very white? Real quick? Sorry? Yeah, what are those? Anyway?
No?
No, for real, Thank you for doing this for absolutely so New York. You said Brooklyn because I thought you would see. Once again, I'm always wrong. I'm always on.
Well, no, I start you always Alphabet city.
Yeah, I was raised there.
So you were born in Cone Yup.
And conceived on AVENUEIX. So he got gain was like home. Yes, I actually I had actually been in Lincoln High School as a little fetus in my mom's belly when she was attending there. Her brothers went there as well, and she got pregnant with me when she was sixteen, and because she got justes stational diabetes, she kept passing out all the time, so she ended up falling down the stairs and having to quit school. And then she got
her what she calls good enough diploma. Here ged and eighteen years later, I'm doing a movie with Spike Lee and I'm in Lincoln High School and I got to be back all those years later, sort of validating her and vindicating her. Yes, you know, and everything and all the sacrifices she went through. It was a really powerful moment.
Actually, how long were you there for? I mean before you moved.
To We moved to Manhattan probably when I was like five or five, but I was always there because that's where all my family still was, so we went back all the time. A lot of my memories are in Coney Island.
Actually, So, okay, can you explain You've talked about living in Lower Manhattan before, But yeah, you just because I never understood the whole squatting thing. So how how did that work in the early nineties or the late eighties.
Well, we moved there when I was around six and lived in this railroad apartment on Avenue A, and it was like rat infested and just like there was a lot of problems with it. And there were a bunch of squats in the neighborhood, a lot of buildings that had been abandoned. And my very tenacious young parents were like, well, we could do something about this. There's a space that's open, there's no other families in there, does no water, heater
or electricity, but Dad does construction. Mom learned how to do plumbing, so they put in a sewage line. The squatters who had been living there for two years were literally pissing in buckets and taking showers with the fire hydrant for two years before we moved in, and we transformed that and that was the building that I was discovered in.
So you guys transformed the entire block, and well.
Bit by bit, a lot of the squatters and people who survived that era. You know, it was a really crazy, scary, beautiful experience of just people who came from all around the world, and artists and struggling artists and just all types of other people who were you know, just really marginalized or people who were really going through it and drugs and all types of things and just you know willing to you know, create a culture in the Lower East Side because no one else wanted to be there.
And so even though there was like one working street lamp on the block and there was no reason to call the cops because they would not come, there was you know, great music and art and personalities and things that were coming out of it that ended up transforming
the neighborhood. So it's the reason why it's so gentrified now because people, you know, the storytelling of that space gave us everything from rent to you know, CBGB's you know, like it's just it's the impact of New York at that time, and you know, Basquiat and all of those different people who in so many different spaces just transformed what the idea of that neighborhood was, which is one of the reason why I'm so proud to come from it. You know, when I grew up, it was the sort
of idea of like get out. But for me, it's you know, I recognize that all of those people, no sacrifices and all that art and all those wonderful things that were created when it was at it's not necessarily its best, but that was the that was the best for me because it was you know, block parties, and so it was a beautiful and powerful experience and place to come from, and I think prepared me for everything else that I've encountered in life.
So how does the so how does.
Legal wise, how does the city acknowlenge that, like years ago?
It became a building that came under you have so a lot of other buildings became co ops or got ownership in different ways. You have took over the building many years ago, but did not fully pay its taxes and do all these different things. So the building was everyone almost was almost evicted fairly recently, about two three years ago, and I got a lawyer for everybody in the building and now they've all just moved in in November as homeowners for the first time after thirty two years.
Well for some people thirty four years.
Wow. Yep, man, you took your action.
Yep.
That's crazy.
So, uh, your story is that that Larry Clark had an harmony together over Yeah.
Larry harmony. It was the it was the cinematographer, it was some of the other crew members. They were scouting for locations on the block. They ended up actually shooting down the block, which is fairly unrecognizable because when you're when they're calling up, Oh my god, I'm a bad one, am I forgetting her name? Darcy? They're in the calling up for Darcy. When you see the you know, the building that she was in that she comes out of
the window is still there. But when you look across at them downstairs calling from a blow, there's this empty lot that's behind her, which is now a building. But so they shot down that block, and had they not shot in the neighborhood, I probably would not have been in that movie. So they were sitting in front of you right now.
They were initially they were initially shooting, and.
They were scouting for locations.
Oh scouting.
Yeah.
And by that point, did you have any acting experience or aspirations to the arts.
Or not so much? I mean, I had written my first song when I was six, and I grew up around artists who are either poets or photographers or actors. My uncle's comic book artist, you know. So I grew up around people were artists, but also most of them having to do another job and it just being this thing that they did because they loved it, but they weren't necessarily financially compensated for it. So when I got actually the opportunity because my when I was discovered, I
was discovered for an audition. I had to audition for the role and I loved it and it was amazing, but I remember just kind of feeling like this is not going to go anywhere because of it. But I had to take advantage of the opportunity because I grew up with people who I knew would have fought and killed. Were not killed, but they would have thought were such an opportunity.
And you know, because because of Larry's unconventional style and the way this art is, how does this fly with your mom?
Oh?
I mean my dad came with me on the audition and Larry leans out and goes, is that your boyfriend? That's dad? And you know, I remember we were doing a rehearsal at Harmony's place or no, it was at Larry's place and harm and and I can't remember, but it was a bunch of photos from from U Tulsa, which was this photography book that Larry had done in a drug den and sort of just being like interesting people,
I'm working with and my parents. I was fifteen. I had just turned fifteen, and my parents the only thing that they balked out was that my character was supposed to be smoking. But they didn't ask to change. They didn't ask to change any lines. They didn't. They let me go to you know, I biked over to White Street to like go and to you know, audition, and well it's like Tribecca. I remember, it was just Tribeca was somewhere like around that area. And I remember my
bike got stolen. I went on the very first day I went to do reversal. I came back out my bike was gone. And then I like walked around trying to see if I needed to like grab my bike out, went to different bike stores see if some junkie had sold it or whatever. And I was like Jesus, like walking on by myself at fifteen, and my parents were like, that sucks. Congratulations you're official.
Yeah, like that.
The movie came out of nowhere and really kind of well one of was it. It was it was a starmaker for you, but just what was what was the effect the after effect of the movie, because.
We'd never now it was unlike anything that we had ever seen before.
I mean that was.
Yeah, No, Clueless was supposed to be the film that was supposed to establish the next generation. But Kids was the film that really established Like.
Kids was Snapchat twenty years ago, like that was what social media looked like with Yeah.
That shit was crazy.
It's amazing how much that movie doesn't work today because I mean, you know, the whole premise of just trying to find someone you would just sort of like see where they're tagged themselves in their last social media post is or But it's a beautiful moment that got sort of captured of what New York doesn't look like that anymore. Kids.
You know, a lot of the same behaviors are going on, but it's just a different energy around it that I just feel so glad that that got immortalized, actually, because that was a lot of what my child had looked like, and it's and there was a lot of beauty to it. It was a lot of you know, did you know those violence and abuse and just dangers and being a
latchkey kid and all these different kinds of things. But the fact that still all these years later, I have parents who come up to me and go that opened my eyes to the world and what my personal experience was. And I did so many things afterwards to protect myself. And this is the movie I decided to sit down with my teenager now to start this conversation. On my daughter's fourteen I can't imagine watching that movie with her.
It's weird now because I mean, it's just back then when you're watching it. It came out what ninety five, like, it's so much more dream now that that kids seems rather a tame in comparison, And well, yeah, it's I mean, it's still real, but I'm just saying that it's even crazier now some twenty plus years later.
That you disagree with me. No, no, no, I'm following you. I see we're going oh oh.
But I'm well, yeah, I'm just saying that, how do you how do you feel that it's faired in.
Time?
Like as I think the reason why it still resonates with people is because it feels so honest and raw, and there was just it was a different time. There wasn't wasn't like the movie was made to be a cult classic or made to make a whole ton of money, or like, you know, it was really about sort of revealing and capturing a moment. And I think that honesty
is something that still resonates to you. I look at Princess Nokia video and I'm like kids, look at you know, like I see how much it's carried on for so long, and it and it it, it's made precious and beautiful something that was not ordinarily looked at as precious or beautiful.
That is now I think continued after all of these years, just feeling like something really authentic and powerful and just as necessary as sort of like the super filtered way of looking at things that we have now where everything is so like glossy or whatever.
How much of that is important, how much of it was like scripted, and how much of it was kind of ad lib because it feels it part I think why it resonates so much is because part of it feels like a documentary, like some of it.
Is like.
Based on like Harmony wrote at that when he was nineteen. He locked himself into a room for about two three weeks and wrote it out, and it was based on all of the experiences he'd had with all of his scared of friends and just folks and washed Ustar Park and all just the people that they knew, how was he and so they just put it all nineteen So they put it all together as one story in one day,
which is that's what makes it so outrageous. But almost everything that happened in the movie is actually stuff that actually had happened to one or himself or his friends, and then he just dramatized it. But that's why I think it also resonates because there is truth to it. And then on top of that, everyone was a non actor. I'd never acted before. Chloe, Chloe had Chloe was his best friend. He'd written it for her. They had cast someone else who was an actual actress that then they
fired and then hired Chloe. Like the weekend before we started shooting, it was just everyone, you know, just real skater kids, Harold, everybody just justin. It was just all of us just like chilling and hanging with each other. And the language was written by a friend who you know, spoke like a teenager, and so we all it just felt really like there wasn't anything about it that felt really inorganic. I was in high school. This is how the kids were talking. It made sense, so it didn't
feel like acting. It had been in Shakespeare, I think everyone would have been sweating.
She said that Harmony was four years older than you at the time at the time, That's what I meant, like I needed to reference for how much older than he was in the actual cast he was writing for.
Okay, so he was a teenager himself.
Do you guys still have a relationship everybody, like, you know, at least the team who was together most every day, especially like Chloe, and see each other.
We like some some folks more than others. I mean, unfortunately, we've also lost quite a few people justin what Yeah he killed himself. Yeah years ago.
Oh shit, I didn't know.
Because then he was in the other one, Ken Park that I think Larry directed.
Tiff.
Yeah, I'll see Leo, I'll see you know, you see people, and it's awesome that, you know, so many of them are still working or doing different things and becoming parents or you know, it's just it's a pretty wild journey. I have to say.
It's interesting foundation to start relationships with.
The soundtrack for that movie was really great too.
Daddy never understood.
So how uh, how did you jump start your actual career in from that film? Like did you instantly just get an agent and like, Okay, why this isn't a one off for me, I can do this for real.
Like, well, I'd only worked on the film about four days and then I got what yeah, and then I got like a thousand dollars I think from working on the movie. But of course my parents took it right and because I was fifteen. And then we went to Texas because my dad's extended family was there and he hadn't seen them for years, and my mom would go on vacation. It was the summer, so we ended up going on vacation and moving to Texas because my mom was always trying to get out of New York City
to Garland, right outside of Dallas. So I ended up like two weeks, three weeks after you know, wrapping movie to Garland, Texas and then doing all of that and you know, glamour shots and you know, winter Ball and all of that interesting stuff. And I took a theater one on one class because I, you know, it was like I did this movie and it was kind of cool.
I didn't tell anyone I did the movie, but I had had this experience that I really liked that I thought maybe I should explore some more, and then I got this call from Larry and Harmony saying that they had a photo shoot with Harper's Bizarre and that they wanted all of us to come back to New York for the shoot. And I didn't realize they had put me as the k and the kids in posts and the on the poster, so they really wanted me back, and it had taken them a really long time to
track me down to Texas. They're like, what you're doing in Texas? And then they'd had this already done, this midnight screening at Sundance that had just made everyone super excited about it, put a lot of buzz on it.
So then they flew me out to New York. I was now sixteen, and I did this photo shoot for Harper's Bizarre, and then I had decided I did not want to go back to Texas, so I convinced my parents to let me stay in New York without them, and got roommates and finished up high school, and I ended up getting an agent from conversation my parents.
See.
The reason why they even let me do the movie in the first place is I had already been babysitting for years. I had been tutoring for years. I ended up becoming a pre calculus and calculus tutor. I took civil engineering at Columbiuni at a I. Yeah, I took civil engineering clumb University. I had taken pre calculus and calculus did at the Cooper Union. Yeah, it was a
Really I was a smarty pants. I didn't. I mean, my family knew very well that I was not interested in having a boyfriend and having sex and doing any of that kind of stuff. Because my mom had got pregnant with me at sixteen. I was like new to control. Yeah, and I was also kind of not always no no, no, no no no. Like my daughter was like, oh cool, So grandma was a teenage mom and then she had you. That's awesome.
I'm like, no, wow.
So how much time laps between Was he Got Game? Your second film?
He got Game? No? But he Got Game was my senior film. So I did that film when I was eighteen. That was the film I did getting out of high school. So it's just a couple of years later. I turned eighteen. On one of my auditions, like Spike made me audition for that movie like fifteen twenty times. Really, I had to keep going in because he was having me read with a bunch of different people, So I don't I
don't even know who I was up against. I just know I read with like a ton of different basketball players, and I remember I was still at the it was at the last couple of months of high school, and I'd be going, I'm like, I just read with Alan Iverson today and they're.
Like, oh, yes, I would.
Read read.
I'll be do we talk about practice.
Bazario between starting in Kids and then your next situation was Spike in retrospec Looking back, how did how did that help you in your career? Because it seems like those are like some real into trenches experiences, especially for the beginning, like how did how did do you look back at that and say, Okay, well, now I was prepared for this.
Well, I mean when you start off with Kids and the Kids is such an incredible film because it's so raw. It's kids, and it's you know, it's honest and it's vulnerable and it's stark, and you know it's about HIV and AIDS and latchkey kids and what are kids up to when their parents aren't looking and society isn't caring and I mean it was so powerful and provocative and important to and still resonates today. That's how authentic and
remarkable it is. That like the bar was set really high, and that's the reason why I was even visible to someone like Spike. And then I remember when I got cast and he got came. Spike's like, yo, so you got to help realin out and I'm like, dude, like, I don't, i don't know what I'm doing, Like I just I'm just starting off myself. Have him like you know, Denzel around and he's like no, and Spikes whole thing is like, if I've cast you, I don't make mistakes, so do the job I hired you for. So it
was interesting. It was sort of like this reverse sort of confidence builder of just going well, I trust him and I believe in him, and I love Spike's work. So if he's saying I can do it, then I'm guessing I'm gonna have to manifest how to do this and acting and show up, you know. So it was really interesting. And he would leave sometimes like he'd literally be like, Yo, the game's about to start. Peace, you can finish this, he laughed. When we were doing the
Wonder Wheel scene. Oh he laughed and Spike and and Ray was sick because he we'd already done the cyclone. We'd have massive headaches and he's guzzling pepto bismol on this wonder Wheel. I'm by myself with this like vombity guy beautiful, awesome, remarkable, vomity guy trying to do this sexy scene and Spikes live piece.
I got a game.
Game it was ninety seven. Yeah, yeah, my thoughts where he was watching Jordans or something. But was it intimidating because I also know that Denzel is a very even though you had a few scenes with him one or yeah, then that one with the karate chap to the next scene.
Same thing with Unstoppable one scene. I've got to do a movie with Denzel that actually has me have more than one scene with him. All of my stuff and Unstoppable is on the is over the phone, and it was literally this other dude who we called White Denzel, who sounds just like Denzel but is not Denzel, but he would do his voice and innotations. So all of my acting stuff except for the actual day I was on set with Denzel white.
Room talking about you'll see about that.
We're training day three with you.
There.
That's not like, you know when people come up to me and go, I really liked you, and Alexander I have to say oh, because you only oh and I like you? Thank you?
So uh anyway, anyway, we're back. So yeah, so you're saying that, how how awkward or intense was that film?
Because I felt as though.
That film and a lot of our eyes we're seeing you as la la.
Oh.
Yeah, I still got called cast la la people screaming down the block. I'm like, why why would you be in love with that girl?
And the first time I met you, I was like, man, she's the furthest thing from I know.
I remember Derek Jeter, I think hit up Spike and was like, y'all I want to meet or whatever, and Spike was like Juter and I'm like, I'm going to show up in sweats and that's exactly what I did. And Derek was like and I was like, I am not laala, like even remotely, not even a little bit. And you know, because how many times did we hang out during that time? I never like, did I wash my hair?
Yes? Who is human?
Nice? What are you gonna doa Can I just meet see her?
I actually thought was cool. I was like, oh, okay, she's a nerd.
Okay, nice to meet you. But actually we met the weirdest circumstances was Tarik's party the first time we met.
I think so actually, and I was just thinking about recently this time that we went to mister Chows together. Yo, do you remember that?
You don't know the half of it.
I remember we went there and I was there and everybody's still sarted, launching into these stories about like y'all remember that time your mom's attacked you with the knife getting and it turned into this crazy conversation about mama, bases about mama and like how your family members. So were like, I'm gonna make you more scared of me than the drug dealers, keep you in check.
No harsh love, all right. So the thing is this, this is one of the Knights where d pool day, I can't sing like whatever.
We was at like Radio City Music for a week, so to these nights he canceled sickness or whatever, so we had the night off.
So and most was also on the show.
So we thought, okay, let's go to mister Chiles and you know I was not on mister Childs's budget, So I'll explain the second half of.
This dinner thing.
Anyway, So we're sitting in this back then, mister Chiles was the standard, you know, the illustrio. You know, you go to mister Child's. I think like Leonardo was there at night. He ignored us and just said he said, I to most and maybe Brazario, but everyone else.
We were like minions.
So it was like ten of us and me and Moses brothers. Like you know, like when when black people get together, we share the worst whooping stories ever, that's like our favorite thing, like to share.
Who has the worst tragedy.
Yeah, we bond, right, But like my my boyfriend at the time was there, and he grew up in Hawaii, barefoot surfing and like with hippie parents. So he walked out of their traumatized, like, oh my god, that's abuse. That was his mother did that? Why were they laughing?
It was like the worst the abuse, the funnier the story.
Yeah, and everyone wanted to one up each other like.
Yeah, but most of those brothers, oh god.
Umi, yeah yeah yeah, mom. I never mean his mom. She's quick with the switch. Anyway, So the check right, and this is the first.
Time I'm looking at a four figure check because I made the mistake of in typical mirror fashion, I was you know, I showed up late. So Most was like, oh, it's cool, I'm gonna take the liberty and just you know, I'll pre order for everyone. So I was like, cool, because I'm not thinking that I'm ever going to be subject to a meal that's going to cost twelve hundred dollars. So Most just ordered one of everything off the menu.
On top of that shit, he ordered you a birthday cake and it wasn't even your birthday.
I'm like, nigga, you're trying to stump on my dollars.
Wasn't one of the moment where it's like, let's just split this equally, no matter or whatever.
So something happened.
Something happened, and I knew something was up when four people.
Brought check and the check looked like four people.
It looked like not even war in peace. The shit looked like the Koran like it was a check, and.
It looked like a mile long, and it looked like the damn when you go to CVS to print out that you get with.
So wait, I need you to dissect this moment because at this moment, all of y'all a still at a certain tax bracket.
So how long do you look at the check?
Because you know you don't want to look too long. I want to want to.
Cool, But motherfucker, I had diarrhea. I played.
Because I mean back then in two thousand, you know, like I was probably on an allowance that between my record habit and my sneaker habit, you know, a twelve hundred dollars dinner check could wipe me out.
You're on top ramen for the next three weeks.
Yo. I was living off of the d and the tour bus and anyway.
So I went to the bathroom, and you know, Most was like all trying to gauge you in another abuse story, kind of behind your back. I was like, Yo, the bathroom now, so me, Most and his two brothers are now in the bathroom.
Fighting over twelve hundred dollars.
DM, Like we're counting it in the bathroom, and the bill was twelve hundred and I think we collectively scrapped together like eight hundred and nineteen dollars and we're like, yo, that.
I can't do. So I begged.
I begged, and Tina at the last minute shout out to Tina Fairs. I said, Tina, do not tell Shuan g don't tell Rich Please swipe the roots card on on this thing and get us out of this predicament. And I just prayed, and she picked up and came to the last minute and saved us.
Amazing never again.
Most Oh, y'all dinner, it's like for real, like most.
Probably that's the last you get in line.
Yeah, and you were none the wiser I got invited, dog was I got a birthday cake.
I was like, that's when I got married because I looked at him like, yo, dog, is not even her birthday, but you know what the cake was like one hundred and nineteen. But like, yo, dog, I hope it was the best cake you have. Eight No, I couldn't eat.
I lost.
I was trying to regurgitate the food and give it back to them. How bad, you know.
But I think about that story a lot because I think about like it's it took that comes up for me over so many years, especially at this moment that we're in right now. I mean for so many years, like you know, we got this times up thing that's happening right now, which is really powerful, and all of these people who are coming out about harassment and abuse and just you know, we've got sexual predator in chief in office, and like just so many different things that
are kind of coming on. And after years of being on the board of v Day and Lori's Side Girls Club and so many organizations and traveling around the world to places like Congo and talking to people from abuse and having been abused myself as a kid, and you know, just so many different things and recognizing how often we really do marginalize the pain that we've gone through and how we excuse the harsh sort of realities that we
sort of live in. And it's been really beautiful to see over the years people get their come upance and be able to kind of grow past that and become incredible, wonderful, beautiful people who are championing light and love and compassion and empathy and just seeing people like knowing fully well what they went through to get to this position, Like even watching jay z and concert just talking about like, yo, I came from ugliness and I did ugly things to
get here and now I'm here because I kept speaking into the future what I wanted to create because I didn't how many people when I was a teenager, I went to their funerals, And there are a lot of people whose funerals that I went to, and there's a lot of people who have who are really tortured and traumatized from not just the neighborhoods and the circumstances they grew up in, but from the harsh love that their parents and grandparents felt that they needed to wield in
order to quote unquote protect them and that stuff really, you know, And and it was just interesting because we were right in that moment. It was still something that was kind of really blind to me how much we tolerate because it's our normal and how you know, like as a parent, now that's just not something that's acceptable parents.
How do you guys view you know, corporate punishment.
Well, not just corporate conversation has changed now.
It's not as acceptable to see people talking about that loud, like it is.
Like we would laugh at you know, white people saying like oh, time out, you know, that sort of thing.
But it's like, how do you how do you.
Minister that now so that you don't traumatize your kids and.
I think for me, I mean, I got boys, so you know, it's I think some with boys, there is a little particular raising young black boys, like you have to let them know that the world is not gonna be fair, and that generally my message to them.
I have.
My boys are seventeen and twelve. But I remember telling my twelve year old, I'm like, listen, your childhood is gonna end in like another year. Like that's pretty much when black childhood ends. Once you're no longer cute and cut lee and all that stuff, homie, you're a threat. You get a little height on you, your voice, get a little deeper, your you know, hands, get a little big Like, dude, you're not the same. So versus when you're eight and nine and it's you and your buddies at the mall
or at Chuck E Cheese or whatever the fuck. It's all these cute little boys. But take thirteen year olds and it's for y'all. Now, y'all are game, you know what I mean, So you just have to be cognitive of that. So to me, I in terms of just beaten, that's something that I mean, I definitely got a lot of beatens as a kid.
My boys.
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I ever had to spank them, like ever, you know what I'm saying throughout their life. For me, it's just more so just a thing of just having conversations with them and just trying to understand that you know, you can talk to me about anything. If you bring something to me, you won't get in trouble for it if you get out ahead of it. But if I find out some ship, that's your ass. So that's what I mean. Growing Yeah, I mean, that's that's how it
is me. And then too, I think we have to think of for me, a big thing was like just just as black Americans or just all people of color, I think you have to think about where our shit comes from and all of it.
That ship comes from slavery, you know what I mean.
Like I remember being a kid and like my grandmother making us pick switches, you know what i mean.
I'm sure, like you probably.
Sure that in the village that we never put our hands on you.
But that picking on like some slave ship, nigga, Like that's because that's not that goes beyond discipline, that's human, you know what I mean, Like that's I'm gonna fuck with you and make you pick your own punishment, you know what I mean, Like that's psychology, that's some psychological abuse shit.
So even think about like, damn.
Exactly, King Leopold never stepped a foot in the Congo, and they that's exactly what they would do, is have slaves beat other slaves, you know. And that's this how they created apartheid, Like they went and looked at what worked in multiple different countries and places around slavery to compile something together that would exactly gaslight people and have
them turning against each other. And I feel like that's the moment that we're in right now, where those device, those those tools for divisiveness are being exposed, and we're recognizing how much we've been siloed from each other and and being in competition and creating violence and being marginalized so that we actually think we're the minority, but we're not.
We're not right at all, and the world around and you know, and that part of that was exactly those things of like you know, my family members who martyred themselves and sacrificed, and it was all about, you know, forfeiting needs for these other strategies and I was raised in that and it was incredibly corrosive to the spirit and energy. And it's never mind all the stuff that you see in culture that also demoralizes you and puts
you down and marginalizes you. But you got to recognize that, like that hate and that fear and those traumas also came from your family and that they didn't know any
better because that's how they were raised. Like it's just like the fact that we're at this point right now where we can really break that cycle, and a lot of that is like I love the conversation I was talking to people like Patrit's Colors, who's like, going, we need to have self care and it's not about me, just as you know, one of the founding members of Black Lives Matter, going, I need to take care of myself because you know, look at Erika Garner just dying
right now from an enlarged heart. You know, like that's that's a broken heart and someone who didn't get the chance to morn, who's been fighting and fighting and fighting and now can't raise her child. It's like, you know, we have to take care of ourselves. But also we didn't hurt ourselves, and we also need to have a
conversation that where we're really taking care of ourselves. So I go back to that conversation often because in that when we made light of all of that abuse and trauma, and I feel like the conversation that's happening now is going really investigating it and going was that good? Was that necessary? I mean, it made sense for that time, but it no longer works. It's not and not even that it necessarily really made sense for that time either,
but it's no longer excusable. But we truly know better because I hear y'all and it makes sense.
But then there's something inside of me just having an AMA's moment that makes me go, I was a child who got beatens right, not just the switch moment, but and it used to be a moment where I was proud to say, yes, I got beat and I'm a proud child that I'm not going to do the same to my children. But now it's so weird because those
words coming out of your mouth are now offensive. It's not politically correct to say like, but I remember ten years ago talking to peers and being like, I got beat them and beat my kads yeah, of course, it's just we we thought.
It was normal and we knew the thing and I complated is that there was love behind it, right, And that's what I said. It wasn't like I was there.
And it's a certain pride and me not I don't want to say me being fearful of my mother, but it's a certain respect level because although she is two feet shorter than me and one hundred pounds smaller, I'm not fucking with her. But that's not my best friend. But I think it some of that was because of the beating.
It's just a weird.
But there's a way you have to.
I think there's a way you can establish, you know, respect and establish those boundaries that may not necessarily involve hitting your kids, you know what I mean. You know, for me, I've just never had that issue with my boys, you know what I mean.
They just don't.
And so I remember when Tamia Rice got killed and I sat my son down at the time, who was eleven, I think or ten, and I was like, this, this kid, you will be twelve in two years, you know what I mean, And they just shot and killed this kid, just so he was aware of the world that he's living in and so just having those kinds of conversations just help you to understand that. It's like, listen, I'm telling you these things because I care.
You know what I'm saying.
And if you do something that is out of pocket, yeah, I'm a scream on you, but it's because I'm trying to save your fucking life, you know what I mean. Like I'm being hard on you because I'm trying to protect you, and I may not that may not necessarily mean I gotta, you know, put hands on you. And as long as they understand that. With my boys, they get it. So I just personally haven't had a lot to do that.
I think that's just the tools just keep getting refined. The relationship you have with your mom is because you two love each other and you're both good people and you want to have that dynamic. Did it have to go and be created in the way that it was.
That's arguable it, you know, because you're I'm seeing now I can have a relationship with my kid that doesn't involve those things and I can still get that same thing and without having to excuse some laps of judgment and art, you know, and violence and abuse because that
wasn't necessary. It was an avenue. We grew up in it. Though, Like that's why I keep going back to that conversation, because it was like, these are all really good, really talented, really smart people, but we're all tolerating this thing because it's our normal. Is what it is, what it is, it's it's part of culture. And now the culture is
really transfer formed. And like that's the thing where it's interesting where I don't necessarily agree about how outrageous young people are, and I think that's always sort of been there, But there's this other beautiful and I get it because there's a lot of argument against calling with millennials and young people about entitled, but there is something really empower amazing about how entitled young people feel like they have a voice. They have twenty four hour channels dedicated to them.
We didn't have that. We had a couple of cartoons and then that was it. It was an adult world. And now kids are catered to. They have access to information that doesn't have to come from their teachers or their parents or their neighborhood. They can really and so at a very younger age, they're expressing themselves and feeling entitled to those opinions, and so like, you know, you're getting a different pushback than just like a sassy teenager talking
to you. You're getting this really young person who feels like they have to they can express themselves, which was not the same thing. But my mother or my grandmother went through in it was like yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, that.
Did not exist. They are they're more informed.
Are information is power, and so that's.
More informed than we were at that age.
I mean for sure, you know, and it took us a long time for us to get to like this level of you know, non violent communication and all of this stuff is happening to us in our twenties and thirties and forties, and that's happening in teenagers now and younger and that that's pretty and seeing them assert themselves and going, don't you like you're gonna you don't talk to me that way, you don't hit you don't hit
me like that. Like it's not just that we're deciding that, you know, we've decided we want to change, it's these kids going, what do you think put your hand down?
Well, well, now they ain't never said that to me. Now that'll get you fucked up? Yeah, with your hand, nigga, what you got on this mortgage? Nigga about that?
I still have. I take that from the will Smith thing where you tell those kids all, he said, used to tell us kids all the time, like clean my room. That's my room. No, you ain't paying no rent, that's my room.
Yeah.
But I struggle, I mean I struggle with that though I do. I struggle with it just in the sense of like I'm always thinking about I don't know if you will remember. It was like some experiment that some scientists did like years this, like in the sixties and seventies. But it was basically this experiment where they took these
fish and they had them in the bowl. They had them the fish tank, and so they put the fish in the fish tank, and they had one side of the fish of the tank closed off, so the fish can only go into the bowl into like this little border or whatever. So then they remove the border, and the fish still stayed on the side, you know what
I mean. And so for me, that's kind of the thing with what it was raising like you know, black boys, it's like I look at like white kids, like if you've be in the airport and you just see white kids just be everywhere, just be running all the funk around and they mamas don't stop them, They just let them go.
And we're always as a kid, not like that.
On the plane to Africa, the kids are running around. Oh wow, us in our place y place. Again, it's culture, right, and what's what's what's accepted and what's and the fear that's built into it and you know all of those things where we do that, we put up that border ourselves and don't step out. But if you see that difference in people you know over there, then that's what's the difference between them and US America.
They different.
I'm just saying, yeah.
So of course you're legendarily known for your political activism. What made you, yeah, I believe it or not. I don't know if you know this, what made you want to step into that realm? Because nine times out of ten, you know, once a person reaches a certain place in their their career, their profession, they might get in a comfortable place where it's like, well, I don't want to
rap my boat. And you know, you have this sort of Harriet Tubman thing about you where it's like you you ride for your people, and every time I turn around, you're either you know, doing some girls club thing or you're always i'd see you do more social work than I do your professional work. But then again, you know, you know, if you're getting Marvel money, then I'm getting.
Like, okay, we're getting money. You know.
I'm sure that affords you, you know, time to balance. Yeah, like, how do you balance your professional career? And you know, why do you feel it's such a need to be politically and socially involved in the lives of the uh I guess disenfranchised or.
Well, I grew up before you know, Kimblee Crenshaw sort of coined intersectionality with her remarkable ted talk and work. I grew up understanding the intersectionality of my mom being a teenage mom and lack of education and home and security and jobs, you know, and like, you know, the voice my mom would put on, Hi, I'm Isabelle celest Dosan, you know, and to try to get a job, and then suddenly she'd show up and the job was no
longer available and the apartment was no longer available. Because she's a six foot tall Puerto Rican from the Bronx and she sounded different on the phone, but you know, and and growing up in New York with a you know, housing crisis and AIDS and HIV and and you know, this heroin and crack epidemic and just so many different things that it's like, you know, my mom worked in organizations and she used to campaign, and so many other people that I grew up with, and there were also
broken people who could also really be you know, abusive and terrible and traumatized. And so it was like this weird dichotomy of people. But it was always still people that I saw who were not perfect, who did not have it all together, who were also still going, I'm going to help. You know, these are people who didn't
have anything, and it was poor people helping people. So and then the very first movie I do is about HIV and AIDS and rape and kids in New York City and it's you know, and it shot up and it made an impact, and I had so many incredible conversations with people who had revelations about their behavior from watching the movie. And so for me, it was always intertwined.
I grew up around activists. I went into film through sort of advocacy, and so I recognized really early on that the more I kept myself quote unquote relevant doing work consistently, the more I could continue to also promote the heroes and heroines that I grew up with, who were the ones who were pushing back against discriminatory housing laws and you know, working to get drug addicts off the streets and making better school programs for kids and
so just it was always something that I did forever. But it's it's interesting now being you know, in sort of like this times Up group with all these amazing actresses and women and you know, over just a couple of months and all these different people who've put out their stories so bravely, and you know, the whistleblowers who have lost work over it, and now it's time to
celebrate them. The Rose McGowan's and the Annabelasias and the you know, Anthony Rafts, Terry Crews, Corey Feldman, you know, Ashley Judd, Olivia Munn, Like it's important to say these people's names because they lost work, they mire Sorvino like, their careers were attacked and I you know, and and someone said something really beautiful yesterday of just talking about how because of the way she grew up, she self soothed and was able to sort of find other avenues
to express herself and to have success or just to be working or you know, keeping herself busy and finding you know, vitality in her life when that work did dry up. And but when she did that, she was also marginalizing her talent and her access because suddenly that worked right up. So rather than really address how it cost her her career, she just was like, I don't really want to do it, or you know, oh it's
totally cool, or maybe actually I can't do it. And the psychological sort of abuse that that was, and I look at it as well, because it's like, you know, I see certain performances or I see certain people now, and I see characters out there that look like me, that were roles that I never would have had access to over so many years. And I've always worked, but I had to do a lot of independent work, and you know, and it's and so I very often did
not get paid. I got paid scale when I was on both Spikeley movies, you know, and Denzel getting you know whatever how many millions or whatever he was getting. You know, it's like and it doesn't mean, I didn't do great work, and it doesn't mean you know, how many stuff, but I didn't get I don't get nominated for stuff. And I don't know if that has to do with anything, but I know I'm one of the few who's always pushed back and been very radical about
a lot of different issues. And people have always asked me for years, has that cost you work? And since I've always worked, I never really thought about it, but I haven't had access to the work that I really want to do necessarily, And it's interesting to me to kind of think, like, has it affected my work? Like I don't. I don't know, Like I don't has it
Has it stopped me from getting on certain lists? I know for sure, you know, sort of being a Bernie person didn't make a lot of people in Hollywood very happy with me, you know, And and so I wonder what that effect is, you know, necessarily for speaking up on behalf of trans rights and you know, gay rights and children's rights and anti abuse and education and housing all the different things that I've you know, fought for
for so many years. You know, I don't, I don't know if it's cost me anything, but I do know I have constantly redirected my energy and just kind of kept moving forward rather than really kind of look at, well, why didn't that turn into more work? Actually I got a lot of praise for that, Like, I know, I did a really great job in that, like seven pounds was really powerful or this was really powerful? On how
come that? Like, and I'm working with people who I also know didn't get recognized because Will wouldn't get that attention, Spike wouldn't get that attention. I'd see their frustration as well, being the huge names that they were and how often their work was marginalized. So it's like you see a
pattern that's definitely there. Whether it's because you're outspoken, or because you're of color, or because you're a woman or whatever it is, but they're are a lot of voices that have been marginalized for years because of discrimination.
What is that?
I just I was just curious, what is that role? Because when you think back of all the roles you have played has been very diverse, But what is that role? Did you think that you're missing out on in that way?
Like, I mean, I I the opportunity, No, I mean I can definitely see there's you know, I'm not. I don't you know that when I look at what things I have, Like I auditioned for seven pounds, I auditioned for Sin City, I auditioned, Like these are roles that I fought for. These are not like, you know, and so there's this impression that like, I get offered all this stuff all the time, but actually fight for a
lot of the stuff. But it's it's you know, so it's interesting, like you know, there's sort of this idea of what that looks like. And then I meet other people in my peers and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm turning on this moment. I'm like.
Saying that even at this this stage in your career twenty plus, that you're still.
Yeah, and I still I guess it's not to say I don't like don't get offers or this or that, and I'm very grateful for like the position that I'm in, but I have to you know, it's it's just it's really interesting to recognize how, especially as women, you know, to be in this group of women now who are talking to each other and to see across the board how significant it feels for all of us, because you know, there aren't like those men's groups, there's this confidence like, oh,
you're a Chris too, You're Chris. You're Chris, You're Chris. You all get franchises, you know. And it's like all of us ladies are like pitted against each other. And how many times have I auditioned against Kerrie Washington and Lucy Low and whatever? And it was like, oh, this is the diversity character. So we're all in competition with Sea. Yeah, we're all the we're the like, so there's one of
us and then all men. And so like it's we're always taught where we're given this idea like you're you're welcome, even though you're doing just as much work and for a fraction of the pay. But like if you say anything, you know, know that you're replaceable, which doesn't feel like the same thing that we're hear from our male counterparts.
And so like that's and and so there's like that's where there's a lot of anger from a lot of especially the women who are coming forward right now and have been coming forward for years, because it absolutely cost
them work. I don't know that I can definitively say that for myself, but I know I have been a very outspoken person for a lot of years and yeah, and that capacity, but at the same time, like I don't know what that's cost me or not, Like I don't know if I had only specifically dedicated myself to acting and performing and doing the parties and doing the you know, all of that and playing that game, if I had, but instead I took I did a job. I was like, great, now I have press and I'm
going to talk about this issue here. Thank you for that, and you know, and you know now it's so beautiful now to see these people who are are making really good money and aren't having access to social media, which I didn't have at that time to be able to really speak out to people and still grow their success at the same time as talking about these issues. That wasn't an option for me.
Go ahead, wait, let me just get this kind of a three part question.
But how did you because I know that no woman in Hollywood is unscathed, Yeah, but.
How do you deal with.
Whatever the Weinstein's or the Rattiners of Hollywood, which I'm sure there's a lot of them and some that haven't been touched yet, But.
How do you navigate your way through that landmine?
Well?
What's the difference between you know, Okay, I get creepy vibes from this one and oh this one has such a claim and it's such an honor to be in this one's movies because of his legacy and his lineage.
But I don't know, like, how do you.
I mean again, because I didn't ever really play like that game. You know, there are people I avoided in general, or I did what I had to do work wise. I always treated it like Okay, I got to come here and do this party or do whatever, and then I'm out. Like I never I didn't do hey, let's
go to dinner. Yeah, I very much avoided that. And if anything, that was one of the things that I thought about yesterday is like because I was I was raped in lested as a child with you know, with one with a family member and one with the babysitter. So for me, it was I grew up with this sort of understanding that the world isn't safe, and so I have going into this industry of course, I mean from kids, you know, and like how old are you, Larry? Why are you shooting these kids that dress like or
not dressed like this? You know, I've I've definitely just had for a very long time. I just assume all everybody has some sort of dark potential story. So I walked into most And so did I excuse or did I ignore or did I as just navigate around all of that? Yeah, because it was it's except quote unquote tolerated. It's what's been passed down by family members who go that happened to me too, Baby, should be just gonna move on. You know, I said to me, see what I'm saying.
My mom said to me, every woman in your life has been raped oresectually assaulted at some point.
Now happening. We're taught like that's just how you got to deal with it, you know, like we're you know where we were sitting in one of these meetings and it was saying, you know a lot of people's first jobs is going into the waitressinger industry and that's a two dollars I think thirteen cent an hour pay, so basically the first job out of the house. Whatever trauma or not trauma you experienced there. Now you're going into
the space where you're being told we're revealing clothes. Deal with that scumbag because maybe they'll give you a good tip. So now pussy grabber in chief is potentially the good tipper. Yeah, and you know so how do you then go to hr How do you then when you start building up ever go Those power dynamics are always exploited. You saw it at home, you saw it in your community, you saw it at school, you see it all. It's pervasively all around the world. At what point do you have
the gumption to go no where? Like I know that most of the world's enslaved, but underground row would road later we're gonna say this isn't okay. It doesn't matter if it's the law, it's not okay. And the reason why people can be fired like this and all the stuff that's going on right now is because people behind the scenes for many years have been working to put those anti discriminatory you know, laws in place and in contracts for so long that they all need to be bettered.
NDA's got to go, Like all these different things have to happen. But like this moment was a long time building and coming from a lot of heroes and heroines that'll never be recognized. Who did that dirty work when no one cared, when it was totally like where the story was. You know, we're not going to talk about what Bill cos Beer, Woody Allen did because they make great projects and this generation is going, uh no, you ruined those projects for me because you did bad things.
That's actually how that story is told, and that's really that's a huge transformation from how I grew up. When I grew up, it was like, it is what it is. It's been secret, and you separated and it's totally fine, and to finally be in so my activism really felt separate, you know, like it like I do this over here and I try to help with the girls, and I try to make the inroads that I can, but I understand that I have to navigate this really carefully in
my industry. And now that's starting to change, which is really powerful.
All right.
Part two, that sort of question is, all right, knowing that you are now in this community of actresses that are in conversation and you know, you guys are talking to each other daily, is there a general awareness because I know that well, you know, I know that you are in the minority of this, being a woman of
color and not white. Is there a general understanding that there's still a harder level for women of color in the acting community to even get fair you know, basic treatment, not even fair treatment, but basic treatment.
A million Oh they do, Yeah, because we are we are definitely pushing for that. When we're saying like fifty to fifty by twenty twenty, trying to change the boards, trying to change all the different power dynamics. It's not just going white cisgender women. It's understanding that that needs to be inclusive of lgbt t Q, LGBTQ i A people.
It needs to be down because so many letters been added, I.
Know, it's so much the intersectionality. Yeah, so you know, I think it's it. I think it's just you know, this idea of like that representing people of all that's disabled persons that like, it's it's much bigger than even just brown and white and black, you know and Latina an Asian, like it's it's a bigger it's a bigger issue.
But it's also you know, we got this beautiful letter from the farm workers who you know, they are picking our food and vulnerable to rape daily because they're out there in the fields on their own, and they were so moved by so many of these stories that they wrote a letter in solidarity with us, and we wrote a letter back, and one of the things I pushed back on it was like, you know, they really made
it much more inclusive. It's not just women, so Times Up is women, but the legal defense fund that we're funding that goes for you know, quote unquote low wage or some you know, kind of workers across the nation, male and female. Beyond the binary of understanding, like the fact that women have come together, which I think is really important. We do need women to be able to feel we've been so cut off from each other. I think it's really powerful and really beautiful, and there's so
much healing that needs to happen among women. But I love that women came together to tell these stories and are also recognizing the men who've come forward and are recognizing that with the money that we're raising to help people to push back against their predators and hold them accountable legally, that they need those funds. And the fifteen million dollars that have already been raised in just the past couple of weeks, nine thousand donations goes to disabled
persons LGBTQI. Hey people, men and women, like I mean, it's it's really beautiful that like, women are coming to the rescue, but we're inviting them, our male allies to help us out, but we're not waiting for them. And that's that's to me, one of the most provocative things.
And to build on what Amir said, though, is there a conversation because I feel like, especially now with an understanding, that we don't understand each other as much as we think. You know what I mean, especially me too, means very different things, but especially for people of color. You know, as people of color in this country, we've been we have to know some basic things about white folks.
It's in our history.
For the first eighteen years of our lives, we are taught about white folks. White folks have the option of learning about black people right So on the hills of what Amir said, you know, I always find it interesting with white women how it's a woman's movement, it's women.
Got their right to vote.
But there is a whole disconnect of talking like I hate when I hear women talk about women's suffrage and white women seem to forget that women of black women could not vote until nineteen sixty five, where you were voting eighteen sixty whatever.
Also the Native American women who were the models for the suffragette movement who never who never get recognized. That's right. So like it's you know, like the it didn't like have a bunch of people leaving from England and showing up here and going I'm gonna create three branches of government. No, you got that from Natives if you were living and have and had an incredible democracy. That was the first democracy. These were not just people walking around with you know,
fingers up in the air like this. This was These were whole communities with leadership where the women were recognized, men were recognized, trans people were recognized as having two spirits and considered valuable to the community.
Like that is still that's an added on a conversation. I'm just saying it's not at the beginning of the conversation.
So absolutely it's been That's why I'm in that space, right, Okay, That's why Gabrielle Union's in that space, and Rashida's in that space. In America's in that space, and all of us are being really assertive about you know, making sure like and we're going just going we have to have fifty to fifty by twenty twenty, Well, what does that exactly mean? You know, like, how many of those how
diverse does that fifty to fifty look? You know, and really making sure that that's really understood that if we're talking about having a world and that that reflect you know, having an industry that's reflective of the world, that means we got to look at the statistics of what this world actually looks like. And right now those numbers don't exist.
And what's one of the things that's interesting of like doing the research on this is like, if there's one woman out of ten on a board, three quarters of men think that it's diverse enough, and a third of women think it's diverse enough. But there's actually, you know, or a little bit more I think, actually think that, okay, well we've got a diverse board. Now there's one out of ten, you know, and never mind that if she'll ever be or whatever.
You know, and that one woman does she underdo what do women understand at that point? Though? That diverse doesn't just mean one white woman sitting there? Are you happy now that you see one white woman sitting there? But do you even notice that there's something else missing?
Absolutely? And so like and that's again goes back to the psychological stuff of like what we are conditioned to believe we can have and how much we we we get so excited about the little bit that we get that we celebrate as opposed to cantinuing to push for what we actually need, let alone deserve or want.
But like need and how do you see this translating, especially since it's Hollywood, how do you see this translating to the everyday person, especially when we're talking about like, I mean, do we even does lily lead better even matter anymore? Like how you see this translating into fair pay for women period?
You know what I mean?
It's not basic.
This is like we're raising you know, we're trying to change code of context. We're trying to change laws, like we're trying to change the lay up the you know, we're talking about changing the people are at the top, the studios and the agencies, the ones who do all that hiring. You're never like agencies will poach other people to meet their quotas. They will poach other women or people of color from other agencies, which means you only rob them and create more disparaty in those other spaces.
As opposed to growing them and going I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna start with the interns and grow this talent and make sure it's diverse from the get you know. Like that's the conversation that we're having, and right now we're getting people going like, yeah, we'll do it, and it's like, I don't think you understand what we're saying the people we want to see on this board, because if we change that, If we change that, then we change the hiring practices, we change the stories that we tell.
When there are a majority of women on a set, suddenly women aren't geting, Like it erases a lot of the sexual harassment and abuse that exists right now. Like we can do all we want to change the laws about like going after perpetrators, but you got to start where we gotta, we gotta you know, we're and we're
doing that and that's why that fund is there. But at the same time, if we don't really address what creates those environments to begin with, we're just going to keep putting a band aid to try to stop this bleeding wound. And we have to change that, and that's not gonna go very easily. I mean I'm sure, Like
that's an interesting conversation. I've talked to a lot of people, especially at our age, where it's like, you work so hard in your different industries to get to the top, and then you recognize when you when you're really successful, white women included, you're like, I'm surrounded by older white men,
like that's the top. Like and then people and I think like that moment where people get so like disinterested or unhappy in their thirties and forties is not like just like age, but literally because you realize you sacrificed your whole life to get into that room, and you realize that room is not someplace that you're is and not comforting and not like and it's not something that like because that's where the keys have been held, you know, like getting an education as a woman or a person
of color that was illegal. So like, bit by bit, over many years, we have gotten ourselves into all of those spaces, but there are still some spaces that have really siloed from us, and we are trying at this point to break into those spaces. And once you get up there, that's the world. That's the world that creates all the rules and the laws and the stories and the culture and whatever, and that's so far the keys are still very tightly kept.
Well that sort of leads to my part three question is Okay, so I guess twenty seventeen was the purging period build and destroy whatever or destroy and rebuild. So the you're saying that twenty twenty is kind of the in game goal to set these things in place.
Or that's where we're you know, it's not an impossibility to think about having there's there's It's like, what was it Chris who made that joke about Barack being Like, it wasn't that suddenly, for the first time in American history there was a black man who was capable of being president. It was just that this was the first time that we allowed a person of color to be president. You know. So it's like, I feel like that's the space that we're in right now. The conversation's really pushing
and going. This could have changed a long time ago, and now it's time for it to change. And the only way to do that is to push for it. Like you if you don't reach for it, if you don't push for it, if you don't organize and strategize and do all these different things. That's the long game, you know, it was it was you know, I forget her name, which is unfortunate. Is a white woman who paid for you know, the Montgomery bus strike to last
for a year. She had volunteered and said, you, okay, I know you guys can't lose work over this, so and the strike is really important, so I'll pay for it as long as it lasts, not knowing it was going to last a year, and she passed her word and continued to pay so that they really after a year, we're like, damn it, you guys are really not going
to take these buses. We need to work like So that's the Those are the stories that we're not told of how long it takes, the kind of allies that we need, and this is like so it's great, there, everyone's going to wear black at the Golden Globes and do all these different symbolic things. But we are really truly of the understanding that this is the long game and we have to an election.
Will you guys unionize? And I mean not that I want all the information spilled or whatever, but.
Saga is a union. We have a union, and it needs to be better. Women, woman's been president before. So yeah, it's not it's not it's it's it's but you know, there's just just you know, I think as we were saying, you know, it's like it's interesting, you know, having been a burne person and then last year and then getting like ostracized and like a targeted and attacked for you brought us Trump and don't even think about talking about
DACA because you brought us Trump. And I'm like, I don't remember you being there on the streets with us when we were fighting under Obama to get DACA pasted. You know, Like, so this idea that you know now that you're angry, now that you're showing up, that that suddenly erases all of the work that other people did
is crazy. But and so I get a lot of the anger from even a lot of the women who are like, what's up with this moment that everyone's capitalizing on me revealing my story that cost me work and now you guys are all going, yeah, and we're gonna raise a bunch of money and do like it's like, you know, does that without really recognized maybe how that makes them feel is going, well, I get that, and how can we fix it. How can we make it
better because people are showing up. I don't know what would have happened had the election gone differently, had the primaries gone I don't who knows all those different things. But what I do know right now is that people around the world are pushing back because of Brexit, because of all of these different things that are going on
around the world. We have tens of thousands, tens of millions, you know, refugees around the world, and and a female robot that just got citizenship in Saudi Arabia and know Sophia the robot, and and also as a female, while people are fighting to have their gender recognized. Like that's a really like even as we're starting to catch up on our upsets and our issues of now it's about to go down in the next few years in a really, really big way, and we're still fighting for minimum wage upens.
Like there's a lot of work to wrap our heads around, and we cannot keep looking past. And I can recognize I could have absolutely been more constructive in my communication. I was very angry during the election because for me, I saw an opportunity to take money out of politics. That's what it was that the corruption that exists. The only way to change it is to take money out of politics. It's the it's the it's everything, and now it's that here and now it's here. So like, how
do we work together? And if you're saying you were a united, you know together, stronger together kind of person, then that's then we need to do that right now, because this is we cannot keep being divided and angry and making this blue red whatever, you're deplorable, you're you know whatever, like, we cannot keep doing that. We are we are hurting ourselves. And the reality is most of us really want to see true progress. We want to
see the environment change. We want to have we want our children to have access to things that we didn't have access to, and right now they're looking at less. It looks like twenty twenty, okay, And twenty twenty is gonna be the year of fixing everything that he took us five ten years back on.
And looks like as well, like the progress might.
Twenty twenty, twenty twenty this midterm.
Time, but the midterm time, yeah too. But when it comes.
To the to start twenty eighteen, we.
Got to start right now. That's the whole point. And a lot of people have not paid attention to the local elections, which are where these people get their power first, and they get their relationships, and they get their networks, and they get their lobbyists, and they get their revolving door and their corporations and all this kind of stuff, and it removes them from the process. Because of all the developed countries in the world, we do not vote,
we don't show up. That doesn't that doesn't exist in Australia and all these other places around world. It literally is baffling to see how many people pay attention and.
Our credit is, like, we did well this this first primary that went on in New York, it went on New Jersey. Some things are changed, yes, and they're and they're continuing to do so. And that's what makes me so excited and and and and just so blown away by this moment. And I you know, and I'm and I want to keep pushing for more because I know we need it, including from myself.
You know. So I took a non violent communications course and I like, well, I don't mind getting locked up for a cause. I did that for you know, democracy awakening and pushing back to get money out of politics and to you know, to overturn the overturning of the Voting Rights Act, and like those are I'm always happy to be arrested for stuff like that is still act exactly. But you know, I think that there's there's just so many I mean, like young people and like just people
in general. There's just access to information that you know, that other people just did not have before. We don't need This is a leader full moment, specifically because for the first time we don't need an individual leader. We can go and go to YouTube and watch Martin Luther King speak like we don't like, we don't we're not not right now. This is the moment where no one's waiting.
You don't like, there's no excuse for your saying I'm waiting for this person to you know, move me and and make me feel like I need to get off my butt and vote or register or organize or do whatever. It's like look it up on YouTube and it's and you're watching it like that in the same way there you're watching something live, so it feels the same, like a better view and it's powerful. Like you know, but we've you know, those stories have been told in a way.
You know, you look at you know, the the march on Washington and everyone's black and white, and everyone's so beautiful and dressed in suits, and like, you know, and and you know, we we have a day that recognizes it that we forget what a huge act of civil disobedience that was, you know, like we forget just how dangerous that actually was, and that that's actually required to really move forward. So uh so, Luke Cage, Actually the second season is really going to be amazing.
I know, I know, I got finished finished taping.
Okay, you can't tell us nothing, of course not.
I'm trying to go.
Around when is it? When is it premiere? I don't know, actually really.
Really can't tell us nothing. No, I actually really just don't know. And you're on your computer, you can look it up.
Okay, powerful you know.
What I mean? Like I love that show. Yeah, I mean, are good now.
I was just gonna say, it's nothing like seeing a superhero and Harlem and seeing just those moments between the meth demands. It's just dope to have a hero as hip hop, yeah, and.
Walking around being bulletproof and the hoodie's like participate in his community and doing it for hire too, Like that's like one of the interesting things about going is like I could why don't I get paid for this, like you know what I mean? And compensation and like people who sacrifice and martyr themselves so much for the greater good and that's how we're raised to do. We forget to take care of ourselves. And it's like that. I
really love that. Actually, the hero for higher kind of idea, Like that's all well and good, you can fly, but I'm down here fighting petty crimes. I ain't no Batman sitting on a bunch of millions, you know what.
I mean, like CrossFit, Bill Gates and ship.
Because I didn't know that. But Black Panthers the richest character makes he's a prince because because of the what you call it, got more money, the metal that they make the I think that's so human.
No, I forgot the name, the fictional name of it, but it's the medal that they have in Wakanda that that's how that's where the comes from.
Not diamonds but metal metal.
Yet, gotcha?
So yeah, I feel like by twenty twenty eight or twenty thirty two, you're probably going to run.
For office hmmmm, is that what you want? I mean, it's as president? Why not?
I don't know what if she wants it? But we had the governator. I'm really hoping Dwayne the Rock Johnson runs. We already have a wrestler as a governor, so why not John?
Yeah, I feel like, you know, in about fifteen years, you're going to just be full time. You got to jump in the pool to clean out. Yeah, I don't really clean out this one.
Would you be local? How you I would do? I want to thank you, my love, senator, like congress woman. Probably at some point, I mean down the line. If that it's something that shows up, I could see doing
it right now. I'm more I'm still wanting to be in this space of storytelling and hiring and you know, working with really remarkable people and stretching myself as an artist and like maybe directing and producing and like being part of that shift of consciousness of storytelling and and who we you know, lift up in those stories.
You know.
I think that's really really important because the culture I think needs a dramatic shift, and that's that's a really important access point. But I could see, like when I get a little older running for the office.
I'm calling it now your victory party.
I am, well, you know, I gotta be you and Babito because I gotta lie right.
Alternate, Fine, Okay, we're still a pop culture podcast. Yes, we're serious and we're political. So just in these final minutes, just damn now, I feel.
Like because has been in like two different well three different worlds for real, for real, but even on the music industry side of things, because you've had, like you said, you've had a friendship with jay Z for over two decades, the same thing with a mirror. It's been an interesting ride for you in that way as well, Prince Prince as well.
So that's funny. I had a whole question, well, so.
On the strength of the sexual assault though, that's kind of I was going to go back to that and say, you know, do you see the differences and how long it's going to take on that side of things versus the music part of things, like the movie versus music.
You know, it's kind of like a time for the music industry, and do you see R Kelly's already getting and has been getting a lot of flak for a long time. Enough it never does anything, But I think that I mean, we're seeing it in so many different capacities because it's political, it's in the film industry, it's with farm workers, it's with you know, our TV personalities.
It's like, you know, I mean, I think there's a lot of spaces that are that are now being uh you know, looked at and transformed, and so no, I don't I don't think that there's any space right now that's invulnerable to being kind of held to a different standard. So I think that's actually really important. But again, that's our media and so many other things, and you know,
it's people's bread and butter. That's the reason why so many of these producers got away with this behavior for so long, because even though they make all their money from those actors and directors and all those different people, Like the producer is the one that's there for thirty years, So the agent's like going to deal with that producer knowing full well they're giving up this actress to some
predator because they can replace her. That's do with the money, you know, Harry Weinstein paying for the Golden Globes for how many years, you know what I mean, and developing them specifically so that you know it was a gateway into the oscars.
You know, on the flip side on the music business, which is kind of built on the backs. I mean, I think I say built on the backs, but in the last twenty thirty years, it's kind of been built on the backs of women in a way of looking at them in a certain way. To change the culture in the office when the music and the visuals saying something different, it has to kind of bring the music industry back on a little further back than the movie business.
To me, Yeah, but that's why some people a chance to rapper are so provocative and interesting right now, and Princess Nokia and people who are pushing back against that. That's why. You know, there's a history in that with music for a long time. How many incredible musicians from Motown times and whatever who were not paid even though
they were the amazing singers. They were the ones that got people turning on their radios and paying attention, but they didn't write the music, so they ain't get any money. And how many of them, you know, La Loupe died alone penniless, you know what I'm saying, like pennyless, Like that's not okay. And these are some of the heroines and heroes of our culture that you know, has provocatively transformed all of us, but did not get recognized at
the time. So there's there's a long history of that that has existed, and I think that's a big part of it is having not you know, again, not siloing ourselves to this generation and going this is just what it looks like here, but really seeing the history there so that we can really learn from it and go no more, you know what I mean. It really it
really takes that. But if you kind of keep us passing it on and accepting it and just kind of going that's just the way it is, then it'll continue to perpetuate.
But prior to prior to this, to the met Too movement, were there conversations between actresses that, hey, you know, don't work with so and so, or if you work with so and.
So aware.
Years ago, you know what I mean. Like so, yeah, there's some of that and not as well, you know what I mean, because again we're really of kept from each other. We only see each other these awards shows oftentimes.
You know, it's top of that, Like I mean, Harvey was serious with this defense system and like you thought your life was on line.
So still to this day, there are a lot of people who are really scared of like you know they have you know there are people there are because of all of these stories coming out. There were people being called by fake reporters, people who have been abused or raped or attacked who were being called by fake reporters just to see just like not talk, you know what I mean, Like that's crazy, people who are being followed.
H Argenta had to leave Italy. Like the idea that like this is still like just because we're in this incredible moment, like that these women who are coming forward to men who are coming forward or safe is still not I mean, we're in the thick of it.
So have you prepared yourself for the Savannah Guthree moment? I like to say, because as we as more people are getting exposed, we are saying that they are closer and closer to us, or people that we might not have suspected, or just just more so eventually, if not have already happened to you, somebody clothes may be accused or you know, may have a story.
How do you handle that?
As Rosario, because you are such a mouthpiece for this movement.
I have been on the border of Videre, which is going to be twenty next well this year, and you know, the statistic is one in three women will be rape, killed, or beaten in her lifetime. So that means you know people.
But how do you deal with knowing the person who's the rapist perpetrator?
Yeah, I know a lot of you perpetrators and rapists. Like that's just that's theory. I grew up around that, you know what I mean, Like, it's what I would like to do is be able to get comfortable with
the idea that they don't exist. But I've always suspected them, Like you know, that's the thing about trauma and abuse is that like it puts you in a position where I just especially because what do they always say when it's like the person who's raped their child or you know, blocked up some kid in a basement, they are the
nicest person you never would have suspected. So even if they're nice and they're great and they seem to have a happy marriage and wonderful children, I'm still suspecting that. That's how I just grew. I grew up as an abused person. So like I you know, for me, it's you know, it's I'm I'm. It doesn't mean like I
didn't know. I've worked with almost so many of the people who've already been named, and I didn't know the capacity to which a lot of them regardless of it, but I suspected them, even the ones who didn't seem skivier were like quote unquote the I just I pretty much suspect everybody because that's just most of my time is spent when I'm not working in activist circles, so I'm with women and children and men who were abused
by the people who love them the most. No matter how much like I would, I would really like for me to to get to to exercise that demon for myself where I can actually just be with someone and not suspect them of something horrible, you know what I mean, Like I, you know, to just to to have that likeness, you know, to to to not have to bear that birden all the time of like having it's it is really heavy, and I know I recognize that in so
many different people. And that's what's like. People want to just work. They don't want to be victims, they don't want to be so vivers. They want to just work, you know, and for some reason, these perpetrators go out there and then they kind of like lay low for a little bit and then they come right back up
and make their money. But these women disappear, you know, these men disappear, and it's like that's not okay, Like that's the the whistleblowers need to be championed now, and that the conversation needs to be changed so that we can't just do really good work like one Billion Rising, which has been going on for a few years now with V Day is about celebrating the one billion women who are rape killed or beatn in our lifetime and going and the very first one was about dancing, like
let's just have What would the world look like if women could go and get fetch water in Africa or go and be a you know, a waitress or change you know, change the linens in a hotel without fear of being raped. What would that look like? What art
would be created? What harmony and beauty and love and celebration would we exist in vibration where we live in all the time without this understood accepted idea that we're vulnerable, Like, what would that look like, and let's show what that looks like rather than just being out there screaming like, oh we got to stop does violence. Let's dance and
like transform from that way. And I think that's what's really beautiful, is like there's a lot of people were coming together because how many activists die alone, how many of them get cancer and do all these different things because they're so traumatized and they and it's horrible and it's not okay, and that needs to transform. There needs to be a lot more health. I know that for myself, how much how sick I was getting in the past couple of years, put myself in the hospital over it.
You know, how many relationships and things that became really bad because I got more caustic and angry and resentful. And you know, I know, and I'm fine literally and even just the past couple of months of my learning to do that and what that truly means. And it doesn't mean that I haven't told that advice to other people, but I actually it just wasn't I didn't know how
to do it. I've talked to this amazing transactivist Bambie talk about intersectionality, you know, and she was a sex worker, she's Latina, she's trans, she's I mean, so many different things. And then she's going, you know, I get a massage every two weeks, and I was like, that's that's not
something to skip over. That's a really big deal. Because even with all the success and things that I've had, getting a massage, going on a nice vacation, doing anything, I had a hard time, even on social media, saying I'm doing this awesome thing because I grew up with so many people and I still know so many people, including family, that are struggling to just put food on
the table. And it just I grew up with martyrs, you sacrifice, you didn't eat, shame, guilt, like you just grew up with that, and to like to be able to push bast that and just go, well, i'm getting sick all the time, I'm in pain all the time, and I do need to sleep, and I do need to eat well, and I do need to take care of myself because I can actually do all that other work better if I prioritize myself. And that's not something to feel bad about. But I didn't grow up that way.
My grandmother didn't eat for you. She literally looked like mahogany. You actually would actually know that reference. I tell people do and they're like, what does that mean. I'm like, she looked emaciated for years because she all she did was drink bustello and smoke cigarettes because she had five kids and she was a single parent and she had to make sure they ate. And my mom like took years ago to realize that the reason why she likes burnt meat and like the burnt rice is because she
was always fed last. Wow, even though she had four brothers and it was a matriarcha household with her mother and grandmother, they always sped themselves last because of that sort of traditional men first kind of the psychological kind of insanity that that was. So it's like that's that was passed on to me, that that that idea of behavior. And this is the first time because I don't want my daughter to sacrifice herself.
How it is why Uncle Rad, I'll have to wash dishes. I don't want to stay.
He just easy sits. You know, it's not my first job. Fifteen here's my money. Take it. I worked for that. That's my money. And you're a movement has to Texas almost ruin my whole last but like you know what I mean, Like it's it's it, but you just so
that's what you're taught and raised. And I'm really pushing for a whole other Like it's beautiful, Like Climbing Poetry just got this incredible, huge parcel of land upstate New York and they've been working for five years with this like curriculum that they're building so people can learn about activism and advocacy and all these diferent kinds of things, but also built into it as health and wellness and care and they have spaces for our aging activists to
come and live and live out their time because they recognize climbing poetry. Is it beautiful? No, I'm just gonna look it up, but I think everybody else. Yeah, And it's really like there's stuff like that that is coming up that where people are really recognizing we can't keep sacrificing and martyring ourselves, you know, for Lacausa, like we actually have to really take care of usselves. We we
want to have our elders. So have a trans person be older than thirty five is a revelation to have, you know, the different activists that we have be in their eighties, like the Lord is a revelation because they don't normally.
Exist, right, you know, it's a miracle. Wow, we got it earful, like.
We need Like you dropped a couple of organization names and things that I feel like people need.
Yeah, and also just because literally like coming here and made me again think about that dinner and like how much I've been reflecting on that lately, about like and I love how the story is so different from you, but I go back to that story all the time.
I was just like walking out of there and it was the first time like I remember walking on and being like that was just abusive, that's terrible, And I was like wait what oh wow, like it like the fact that that didn't like I didn't even appre like I was like, I just accepted it, like that was
just normal. Members. This was a fun night that we all had dinner and laugh like I'm talking about And then I was like, yeah, maybe everybody's showing each other's scars from being hit with a or a cast I heard pot from across the room at Charming.
Yeah.
Boy, okay, so uh for of course you don't don't know when season two.
Is coming over.
You got your computer?
What else are already googled the dates? Night out there yet? Okay, I'll hit up chair. See.
Uh it happens here frequently.
So what do you what do you have coming up in the future as far as projects are concerned, God, damn it, there's so much we didn't asked. We didn't ask about the Prince the nineteen damn it, let's ask.
My weird question was about some.
Won't Yeah, wait for us to do it anyway, our rapid fire last minute questions.
Uh, yeah, how did you do that? Nineteen ninety nine? Uh? The poetry thing, Well, you've done a lot, you.
Did because I talked to you about it at that time.
Yeah.
At the time, I was like seen, I was shooting a film with Usher and Chicago, which I remember. I remember that.
You probably see it. Yeah, film, I I've seen that one in the mix where he was the d J.
Got that.
She's all right, he was he was the DJ and she's all that. That was fucking funny though Little Kim was in that as well. She was the black she was the diversity higher Little Kim got that one. But yeah, you were Yeah, that's right. You weren't like, because that was the one where we were a cop, right or you were the girlfriend of Usher.
I thought like nineteen he was okay.
Again, that was the one where like his dad was a cop or was a firefighter and died.
Thing of like the Canada school was homeless school. Yeah, and then they got there was a you know, the it was the like shut down the space of security guard.
Fort Whittaker was the cop. That's I remember that. All all Usher moves.
Ran Vanessa Williams like the principal william like, I hang on her daughter. You know you guys like lyon babe.
Oh yeah, So the nineteen ninety nine they called me.
He called me out of the blue and said, I wrote, I'm doing the nineteen ninety nine remix album and I want you said you're the voice of a generation, and I want you to read this poem or piece because it would sound weird if I said it, so you should read it. And I was like, huh, exactly, la la, of course that makes sense. And then you know, so I got to go.
To Paisley Park and everything was pretty Did marry him a basketball player?
Did not? She did?
Yes, Anthony.
It was a joke. I'm sorry I.
Was lost in my hand, but for the last reason, give me a reason to press this button. Amazing you were in Now I'm thinking about lighting up. Now watch I might have to watch. Was there soundtrack to it? Was a usher movie?
A good soundtrack?
Was right? Yeah, I'm gonna tell mynother to the check double up? So yeah. Like and also with how did you get on she Lives in My Lap?
That was interesting because Andre three that wasn't ask me to be in a music video for that song, and I said sure and he was like, cool, So we're still doing some stuff on the song. Do you want to come by the studio? So then I came by the studio and he was like, you know, did you jump on the track? So then I jumped on the track and then we never did the video. I'm on the track.
Interesting, okay, okay, So yeah, but I was going to say, have you did you have any aspirations to.
Sing and do that? Because you were also you did Shakespeare in the Park?
You did which version of it? Yeah, two gentlemen of Verona.
I wanted to see that.
But Rent and yeah, I love singing. Actually, that's the thing I always wanted to do was sing And so when I did rent and I'm on set and I'm singing and dancing and I'm getting paid for it, I was like, this is the most remarkable thing in the entire world. I can't even believe it. This is incredible. So yeah, I still really love that. There's that's that's a that's the space where it's like, you know, part of that think part of the healing thing is just
doing things that you actually love for no reason. I don't know I want to be like doing big tours or like, it's not like a career that I want to exploit that, but I just love singing, love dancing.
You went to music music camp, No no, you told me wait when you did Josie and the Pussycats, like they were teaching you how to.
Do play the base a little bit of electric.
Bash, right, Okay, I thought they put.
You through like a no, that would have been amazing, But that was one of those ones that are more like eighties movie where they were like you're cast and then here's the band that's actually going to be Now you're gonna lip sing too well. Rents was actually us singing, which was really amazing.
Okay, okay, no, I not the same thing.
I liked Josie because it was real and you're thinking, you're saying Josy.
Ahead of its time.
Did y'all see the new Josey? Y'all see what they look like on Riverdale?
Hell?
Yeah? Do you watch Netflix? Like, do you have every shows on Netflix? Obviously? Yes? I just finished watching Sensate that I met right every everything I want my seven other person to so mad they missed they switched to African do but yes, it's everything. I want that so bad. I heard they just made like a big special like movie whatever, so they canceled it and then but they did shoot something to kind of because it's kind of
a cliffhanger that just left us song. But that is like probably one of the most interesting kind of stories that I've seen in a long time. That wasn't like a Black Mirror episode or Twilight Zone where I just got really Dugley art like it's so amazing, but like this was like really different, but like like I want that, like is that possible?
Like mostly evoking like I was moved and that sex looked so amazing.
See that sex where I'm like, yeah, this is just totally exploitative because it's the sexiest I mean, it's really they have an actual transactress, Like I mean, it's like so it's diverse, it takes place over different parts of the world. There's accents in different languages and and like
it's it's beautiful. It's kind of sense. It is like, I think my favorite thing that's existing out there in that sense I've ever seen I sci fi kind of idea like or whatever, Like you know, it's just, you know, I think that we could tap into that part of ourselves that we could you know, psychically connected and be bonded to other people in the world, and then we
could tap into them. So it's like I don't need to know kung fu or this or that, but like when I need that capacity and it really I think the message so beautifully of that is like really recognizing who you are and your value and doing that really powerfully and beautifully, and then sharing your space with the other interconnected people that you're in so that when like it doesn't matter if you can't do that thing, because you know someone who can.
That Korea moment was so amazing. Like her story.
The spoilers sorry, the.
Story not just saying her storyline was on that it is. It's really powerful, beautiful.
On the trigger.
That's what happened. Nobody watched you.
One question we were talking about sex scenes.
A question I always had for you was about Trance, which I really loved that movie, Like I really I really enjoyed that movie.
The nude scene.
What is an interesting contract? Yeah, going through that my lawyer and then being like, okay, so they cannot show the literal hood, like this is a very interesting conversation. I haven't even gotten.
On set yet.
Yeah. No, it's uh, you know, I'm I'm all for hair. So it made me mad that like it came off y you know, so like you know that's but that's the whole thing in the movie.
Yeah, and so how many times did you have to take that?
And how is it you in a room full of people or what's that like?
Yeah, I mean it was as many people as like barely needed to be in there, you know what I mean. It's always you know that that kind of stuff is usually done pretty well. Though it's not to say that you know, on many different sets, many different people including myself, or not taking advantage of like changes on the day that are actually illegal, but some oftentimes we don't know.
H So you know, that's that's some of the interesting things about sitting down with Sag of just going, well, we need to have this on the books, and like that does exist, and you're like, we don't know that the novice actress or actor going on set does not
know that they have this right or not. You know, but yeah, no on that one, I mean, it's it's I mean, that was definitely one of the most remarkable experiences I'd ever had, you know, when you think about Danny and the work that he's done, like going back to kids, like that was an amazing moment for Robert and Danny, and like there was just a group of like that that was the a era of independent film and like this complete provocation of storytelling that hadn't existed before,
and that definitely was built off the backs of people like you know, Cassavetti's and all that kind of stuff. But like it was a huge turning for you know, filmmaking. And I got to work with that person. Wow, And like you know in the and I've gotten to work with a lot of those people, you know, so it's
like everyone to Kevin Smith. You know, like, so you're on set with these folks who have really totally different kind of you know, like who came there as like nerds and like film lovers and like you know, really changed storytelling in a lot of ways. And so you're on set with Spiker this you know, like I got to be on these sets with people who were you know, really created an environment where you're showing up and you're rehearsing and you're taking it super seriously, like and they're
established and they've done something. So it's not the same thing as like a lot of you know, first time directors or the things that I've worked with, which is a whole other experiences was really powerful and you know,
pushes you to and challenges you in different ways. But this one is like, you know, these are people who you know, can say we're going to have a couple of weeks of rehearsal and we're going to do this and this is what we you know, and like get like incredibly, you know, I'm on on you know, on on twenty fifth hour Man with some of the most amazing actors and like people and their process so different and like that's you know, that's been my acting school.
I've learned so much from so many of the people that I've had the opportunity to work with.
So a question about twenty fifth hour. I need to know the part where you're on the couch and you're eating cheese whiz.
Was that scripted or.
Honey cheese with Was it?
Was it.
Whizz?
I think she would know. No, no, no, I'm trying to remember.
Was it was the Maybe it looked like the container was cheese whiz. It might have been honey in it, but I can specifically remember it was.
I thought it was cheese whiz.
An important moment in that movie.
It's very important.
I mean, whether it's a cheese wiz or honey.
Well, no, no, Well, this is why all these years I thought the ship was All these.
Years I thought you had actually you met home where recently I saw one of your story, Yes, I thought.
Yeah, he was, he wasn't.
All these years I thought it was cheese whiz, and I thought it was a great detail because I thought.
I've seen the movie in a long time.
I'm pretty sure. But I love the fact that was honey.
And if it's not, it was. But I'm pretty.
Random detail of yo. But that's the type of duty is.
I love it like.
No, because what it resonated me, like the message that I took from it or that the time was that you can have like a woman that's like as fine as your dawson, but she cheese was out the jaw and she can steal something disgusting like that.
That ship is horrible.
It is horrible.
Jesuis is not a food like that ship is a that's a let feeling.
Man, No, I hear you. Yeah, y'all got that. But I thought it was I thought it was cheese was all these years amazing? But I thought that was just a great to go back. I'm pretty sure it was now i'm watching today.
Maybe maybe peanut butter, but I can't imagine it was.
Okay, So yeah, I are you singing fame right now?
Singing peanut butter, jelly Pi, That's what I thought.
Singing a song from fame.
As far as your your your acting career or your entertainment career, like, are there anything? Are there anything? Is there anything left that you've yet to conquered that you wish to do?
I always film or behaving chest of Corset drama, heaving, heaving, chests. Yo, that's so funny because it's a classic piece of every I want to do some really dope, like fun comedy stuff as well. Like I really love that I got to do that with Top five, and I've had some opportunities and stuff like that, but like you know, like I love I love that world. It's such a different timing and energy and kind of pushing myself in that way.
You do that.
I love, I love top Did you already have your haircut like that?
Or was it.
Was like, I'm not one of the things. I was like, I am not as New York is gonna be one hundred and eight degrees, I am not wearing a wig. I will be miserable you and he was like, if you do this movie, I will be fine with your hair like that. And then it was interesting. I remember I had wanted to cut my hair like that for a really long time, and then I ended up doing it for Sin City two and then thinking this is going to cost me a lot of work, and then I ended up being able to wear it in Top
five and in dareduble Oow. It was a whole big thing with Marvel for a really really long time about what to do with my hair And then they were like who cares? And I was really surprised. And then I realized how dark they were shooting it and you don't even notice it.
That's something I've never even thought about, Like you do you have to warn your agent like I think I want to go blind today or oh yeah.
They were like everyone was freaked out because it's like, you know, I you know Sin City two. I think I shot like three days on.
They were like, you're.
Cutting or shaping your head for three days? Do you know how long that's gonna take to How long is it? But you can't fake that? Like it's gotta wanted to show up and do something fun for the movie?
How long does it take to grow back to it.
Actually grew for me. My hair grows really fast, so it was like another in like a year, my hair was already half.
As long as a black girl. That's gonna take another ten years they come back.
All right? So you want to do a comedy and an a period piece with I want.
To produce more. I want to tell stories that I'm not necessarily acting in.
What is the story you want to make?
First? I am telling you, Okay, let somebody else it.
Yeah, that's just.
Totally the way that it is. But I have like shows that I want to create and and and all types of things. I think it's just really important because again, like to see the movies and the reflection of the type of storytelling and the casting that I want to see, and to just wait around for someone else to put that together not gonna happen. So like you have to make it happen. And that's what I really want to do.
We're power to you. Thanks from your enough to your ears.
When I call you for that soundtrack.
That I just want to, I just want to.
I know you long since passed the balking out of Ford.
I just want to j K. T. Raley on Black Streets.
I just want to tell you again, going back to Trance, you set a line in there that like really changed my life.
I'm serious, man, it's real ship to be angry, it is to be a victim.
And like that totally changed my outlook on like the way I look at anger, like we never have to pull myself getting angry.
I think myself, like, am I really victim and the ship? No? I ain't no victim?
That well, Marvin said that best you know, destroy yourself, you children for rage. Okay, so I'm just I'm taking it's a sin to treat your body bad. Yeah, I I really I've been listening to that song and I said those lines, and I still succumbed to the devil of anger really, really fiercely these past couple of years.
And I think it's just because I did not actually really have the access or words to really understand the space that I was in and what I needed to do to meet my needs so that that wouldn't happen.
Do you go to therapy?
I've taken some, and but really I have to say the Non Violent Communications book that exists has been really powerful to recognize what are faux feelings like disrespect, Like you can't feel disrespect, you can feel anger because your need for respect is not getting met, and like those are different things. So, like, you know, it's not about blame or judgment. The only thing that's kind of hokey about it is like they have they say it's either
jackal speak or giraffes speak. So internally your inner critic, or how you yell at someone else, or how you self empathize, you give other empathy jackals because you know the spitting, biting are and then the giraffe because they have perspective and they have one of the largest hearts in the animal kingdom to reach all of those extremities. But otherwise, it's about needs and really recognizing what true
needs are, like for respect and community. And it goes beyond for me what I was taught survival, especially growing up in a spot. It's about food, water, sheltering, but like love, friendship, shared reality, connection, community, compassion, those are needs. Like a child will die if it's not touched, you know,
it needs. We need each other, and those are the things that I've always forfeited for these strategies, and I finally learned that I need to warn when something's not getting met, not just keep bashing my head at it and trying to make it or force it to happen, or sacrifice to make it happen. It's about going, Okay, the strategy isn't working, and I have to figure out another avenue to get my need men. And that's that's something I've just picked up in the past couple months,
which has been really life changing. Thank you for nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, who died unfortunately, but he would. Do you know conflict resolution? I mean like you're talking about with like tribes that had been generationally fighting each other and you killed my son, so I killed your son and being able to sit there and go, Can you at least both agree that your need for safety is not being met, which is why then you're being
violent with each other. Can we just agree and then just to that so that we could see each other as our humanity and we can figure out a way to communicate and negotiate for both of our needs to be met rather than just beating each other and fighting each other indefinitely. And there is an audio book, So thank you for You're very welcome. Wow, man, that the more you know and knowing us at the battle, Jeffrey aid Joe.
All right, So any more questions about.
Isaac Joe Jeffrey is Yeah, Joe was Jeffrey Isaac Joe?
He wasn't.
Did you know that gullible isn't in the dictionary? Family?
Now, wait a minute, before we signed off, this one question I have to ask, how in God's name did you get pre we're going to play nice and friendly with each other?
Guns and roses?
How did you get them motherfuckers to play your birthday party at that club.
Like Axel Axel, Yeah, and it was incredible, like for your thirtieth absolutely no, it was like twenty seventh or twenty eighth.
Birthday because your mom hit me up.
It was like something the Roses going to play at the at the and I was like, wait, the club only holds, like I know, it was really several hundred. I was like, I think about this something. I think a fight happened between Tommy he Will figure and some and they.
Were sat at the same booth and like Tommy's girlfriends got like offended because I think Axel sat down and moved her drink or whatever, and Tommy like leapt over the table. Mom mom was standing there and watching. She was like, yo, he tried to eat Axel.
Rose would have.
Never thought that for him.
And then and then the security threw him out because it was like, sorry to break it to you, but this is Axel's night, like he's gonna perform, and it was amazing because I remember we asked and then of course he said no because it was it would be an acoustic performance and he'd never done an acoustic performance and then he came back and was like, you know what, Actually, I've never done an acoustic performance. That would be really cool.
And it was his idea to put the lyrics of his music like karaoke styles scrolling in the back because he didn't go on until super late, and he knew everyone was gonna be really drunk, stupidly horribly inefficiently screaming the lyrics into his face and it's so small, they would all be like right on top of each other. He was like, I am not going to painfully go through that. And then it was like he dedicated. He
sang to me, he's saying happy birthday. He dedicated sweet Childmund to me in November.
I mean, it was like, amazing, I'm gonna ask again.
My friend Jamison was had they were doing something in town. He was like, should I ask? And I was like yeah, And then I guess he was just the timing. He just thought, and he came out and he was and he was corn roll. That was amazing. That was like childhood like amazing.
Oh boy, yeah, I couldn't believe that happened that night.
I love you, this is fun.
Well, I need you to throw parties from me nobody will come.
You got a couple months. I'm inviting you. You need to come through when we yo. So I have a fashion line based in Ghana. We're across we do all our teasonal stuff and we've been doing this for a few years now and we just did an awesome fashion show in September in New York and it was incredible. One of my friends invited Paula Aduwel and it was like incredible. Jojo Abbott performed I.
May.
It's called Studio one eighty nine. And our whole thing is fashion Rising, so going and getting people work so that then they can put their own kids through school, so it's sustainable, you know, activism and advocacy, and it's been amazing. We're based in a crowd. We have a store in New York and Elizabeth Street and between Houston and Bleeker and we do men's and women's and home
and indigo and bautique and it's really beautiful. And someone invited Paula Abdul and our whole like fashion show is like a dance party. It was incredible and like everyone like Jesse Boykin's at Third was in it. And we've had like Delphine Diala's taken photographs for us and like Lion Babe is shown. I mean, we've had like incredible people who are you know, young Paris and people over the years. Princess Nokia just came to our spot in
in in a larda and I came through. Most has come through and like thrown on some of our you know, indigo kimonos and stuff and that's really dope. But like you know, I want you to come because I think
you'd really love it. And it was amazing because we had this dance party and then Paul Abdul was there and she started dancing with me and I was like, oh my god, who would have known I needed to create an artisanal African clothing brands and got to live about my childhood dream of dancing with these clothes.
Are amazing.
Thank you, Brima, I will tell her Brima you said some Okay.
Well, thank you very much of Rosario for coming on Seal. We appreciate it.
We learned a lot, and I still say a lot to think about. I still say that you're running for president?
I would I really the idea of being president is so scary to me because the second art work. You've got let on your hands the second you start as a senator or congress person, though, I could be start fighting from day one because war is not peace, so I could be fighting against having that. So that's why that looks interesting to me.
Okay, congress Woman Dawson, Senator Dawson, Senator Dawson, and uh DJ and that after.
Party, that's the first one to be DJ wika DJ.
Senator Dawson.
I want to be like a hype woman. Yeah, y'all.
Anyway, after party, anyway on behalf of Fonticolo, Boss Bill Sugar, Steve sweet Feet and.
Thank you Rizario quest Love signing off and we'll see you in the next Cora. Thank you.
West Love Supreme is a production iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.