The Spirited Actor - Joe Morton (3/19/2024)

Hello, and welcome to the Spirited Actor Podcast with me Tracy Moore. I was a casting director for film and TV and commercials for over thirty years. I transitioned to a celebrity acting coach after I cast a film New Jersey Drive with executive producer Spike Lee and director Nick Domez. I auditioned every rapper from Biggie Smalls to Tupac, and I realized that rappers and musical artists they needed help

I have been waiting for this podcast. I've been praying.

What I do know in this process is that it's all in timing, and timing is always perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to a phenomenal actor.

You all know him so much love When you bring up.

His name, his work, I don't want to. I want to give him every second of this podcast because he drops so many jewels.

You'll need treasure chess to collect all the info that he's giving you right now. So, without any further ado, I'd like to introduce you to my friend, my partner, my ride.

And die mister Joe importantly, Hello, Hello.

Hello, I'm so happy you are here, Joe. I knew that the day was going to come, but I was just patient when that day was going to be.

So and Joe, like people are craving right now.

I just want you to know if I have the black Box every single moment, and that just brings so much joy.

But we're going to talk about that first. I want to start with you.

I want to talk about one of the questions that I asked on the show is that did you choose acting or did acting choose you?

Where did it begin.

It's a little difficult to answer that question only because I entered Hosting University as a psychology major. They took us around the canvas to show us what that was going to be like. And then she goes into the theater and they put on a skit about what our first year was like. I don't remember anything about the skit. I don't even think it was very good. But when that skit was over, I couldn't get up out of my seat. I sat in that theater looked at the worklight.

So I guess the answer to your question is acting took.

Me and what was it?

Because I know I have an experience in my life where at twelve years old, my mother took me to on our Broadway in San Francisco for Colored Girls who considered suicide. When brambo Is enough into Zaki Shange and A Scott was the director changed my life. I was like, whatever they're doing, I want to be a part of it in some way, and then the rest is history.

What was that moment like for you?

The very first play I saw was Early.

Victorious, and at that time I didn't That was in high school and I wasn't thinking about acting at all. I think what changed it for me was the very first acting class I had.

I'd never been an actor before, and I remember sitting down next to this.

Young one young man who showed me his equity card, already showed me his SAG card, you showed me his whatever other union cards he had, and then asked me if I ever had acted before, and I thought to myself, I must be in the class school of professionals.

I'm really really being very stupid right now.

And the teacher got up and she gave us whatever kind of improv that she wanted us to do. And when I finished the improv, I loved every second of it. I thought, Oh, well, clearly this is what I meant to do.

So in training, right, because you dropped so many tools on the show, and just in conversation that I have with you, I want you, from your perspective to tell these actors because what I find in classes and a lot of them my capting director friends, is that like, after the class, you're supposed to get I guess, a contract to an episodic.

Or a leading role in film, and I respect Like.

I grew up in New York City in nineteen eighty three Negro Ensemble Company, National Black Theater, So I grew up around actors that I saw weren't focused on the fame and making it. They were more focused on, you know, Adolph Caesar, the solid work of their Yeah, so can you speak to these people?

Oh?

Absolutely?

I mean, you know, when young actors come up to me. They always, you know, say well how do I get started? I always usually say get some training. Go go someplace and get training. If you wanted to be a doctor, you have to go to medical school. If you want to be a carpenter, or somebody has to show you how to use those kind of tools. The same thing

That they want you to read. It's very It makes absolute sense to me for an actor to say, I'll read the character that they're asking me to read, but really, you know what, I like this character over here much better, and I think I could do a better job and actually pursue both those things. I mean that happened to me. There was a series called Equal Justice.

Thomas Carter was the director producer, and when I went in, they had a character that they wanted me to read, and I said to Thomas, I'll read it for you.

I said, but this lawyer is somebody I really understand.

And eventually Thomas let me read it because they couldn't find anybody else that they liked. So when I finally read it, he took and this was like what nineteen Jesus seventies. And he was having a hard time because his fear was if he takes this television drama and he puts a black man at the lead, that the the audience will will will perceive it as a black show, right, So so that was his that was his problem.

Fortunately he gave me the part. We did two seasons.

But again I made the choice in terms of saying them yes, I'll read this other character for you, but this is a character I'm really interested in.

And then brought that to.

Four So you said something I love.

You said contribution, you know, and making decisions as an actor to the work. What is the contribution that this for you? What was the contribution in A Brother from Another Planet?

Because I mean, you know, for me to.

As an audience, because that you know, I was it was early in my casting career.

But watching that film, there's.

Certain films in the history of filmmaking, American history of filmmaking that's Edge in Stone, and that's a film that's edge in Stone. Generationally, you know, that's I'm sure ninety nine percent of the time, that's the first thing people hit you with where they talk to you, right, So that is beyond legendary. What what was that film like for you? Because we had never seen anything like that before.

No, when I when I was told about the script, it was described in a way that didn't make any sense to me. And then when I was actually given the script and read it, I thought, oh, my goodness, John actually has written a character that is black but knows nothing about what it means to be in the United States in Harlem and be black.

So what he's allowed the audience.

To do is go into a community that they also don't know and learn as he learns. So that was that was for me, the big contribution of this film and of this character that this guy had to learn as he went along.

He had to learn.

I mean, the one thing that I do with that character is he never understood the handshake. Every time somebody extended a sand with the handshake, he had no idea what to do with that. It didn't make any sense to him. But on the other side of things, he was also looking for his own people who had also escaped.

For those young people who don't know the film. Basically, the film.

Is about a black slave that runs away from his planet and makes his way to Earth as an escaped slave, and is then pursued by two characters, one played by John Sales, the other by David Stetherin in order to recapture him and take him back something that's very familiar to us in our history, which is again what John was doing. And so that to me was the hope

Right, wow, right, that's true to.

Have a black to have a black man.

Because at one at one point in the film, he discovers that these kids who live in his building are are shooting dope, and he doesn't understand one why you would do that, So he actually shoots up some step himself to understand what the experience is. And then once he understands the experience, he then sets out and and kills the dealer. So again he becomes someone who he goes from someone who is learning about the world that he's in to someone who actually becomes active in that world.

And ladies and gentlemen, what's so brilliant about the film is he does not speak at all.

He does not speak at all, right, not a single word here is because you.

Know, when when when I imagined.

You know, when I first saw the film and I was sort of going through and didn't even know you but going through the process, and like what I you know.

Was there someone you know?

How like when you are speaking to another actor and it's your point of view, they're shooting, they have the actors standing by the camera.

You got something that bite off? How was it?

So?

You know what was you know what does that make sense?

Yeah?

I mean what the two things that well, what I kept doing is I was to is looking for any any person, anything that was learning for the first time. So babies were really important to me. Dogs, animals, anything that was learning for the very first time in their environment was it was important to me. And what John did when we he never gave the whole script to anybody else. So when they when they came on the set, they only had their scene, and all John would tell

So that's so fierce because it was genuine, it was authentic.

It was just it was absolutely authentic.

Yeah, oh my god, and before your time, because curb your enthusiasm, you know what I.

Mean, like before Yeah, exactly exactly in.

Terms of improv and not having a structured script.

I mean, there was a structured script, but they didn't have the entire blueprint as you will. Only I did, which is something actually similar that we did in a way with Scandal.

Harry.

None of the other actors is knew where we were going, including Terry Washington. Wow, because I remember when I got the job. She was so excited. She said, oh, you're one of my favorite actors. She said that you're the only one of the few actors that I've called my parents to say he's going to be on the show.

And then she said, and I hope we have some scenes together, and I said, yeah, I do too. Let's see.

And you know what, it makes so much sense because I mean, I love Carrie as the actress.

She's Phidoulgal.

Because there are seeds right where there is sheer terror in her eyes and it's and and when you think about like what you're saying now, you know every actor has the hebgb's and gets nervous, but she's authentically playing in those moments.

We didn't we didn't know what their relationship was, so that when we shot the end of season two, we shot it at least five different ways because we didn't know how a strange were they. Did they like each other? Did they not like each other? Hawpen was the last time they saw. We didn't know answers to any of those questions. So we had that to establish. And then at the beginning of the very first scene in season three, when we pick up from that point, yeah, we're sitting

Yeah, I mean I was addicted, Like I had already been watching the show, but when you came on, the one of the things that I feel was, I know that I'm entertained. When I don't see a boom or I don't have anything going on in my inner.

Voice, I'm actually entertained.

So I was entertained one but two Emotionally, You and Carrie took me on emotional roller coasters when you showed up, like I literally would jump like, oh.

My god, why here, what's he going to do?

Now?

Somebody's gonna die, you know. And then it was just you know, knowing you, not knowing you.

How I know you now, but I didn't know you at that time, towards the end, it was like, here, where did you find him? Because I cannot fight if he like evidence in your dn DA of this villain.

Where did he come from?

Well that's an interesting question because that particular year of the there the end of their season one, I went out to LA for you know, pilot season uh, And I thought to myself, up until that point, I played very deliberately, very purposely good guys, because when I started in this business, it was mostly black guys playing drug dealers and goo whatever, just.

Bad guys of all kinds.

And I said, I kept saying, no, I'm not going to do that, and I played other kind of characters. I went out to LA that particularly a purposely looking for an intelligent bad guy. So I had I had heard of Scandal, I hadn't seen it. So I sat there when I got to LA and I watched season one on my computer and thought, Wow, this show is fantastic. Maybe I'll call my agent and have them give ABC a call and maybe we can work out some kind

We just got a call from ABC. They'd like to talk to you about scandal.

I got the call from the producer, and the producer started off the conversation by saying, by the end of season two, the lines will clearly.

Be that you are her father. I said, I'll take the job.

So Joe. The most played I guess add to.

Story on my Instagram is when you talk about manifestation, can you share.

That with the audience?

You when we run inside the black Box, We're going to go into that.

Right, I mean I think, well, just using inside the black Box, right, you had something that you you had something that you wanted for eighteen years. You wanted to find a way to put that on the screen and put that out in front of people.

And look what happened.

Eighteen years later, you, you and doctor Day and Spruce and all the rest of you got together. You put together a pilot and invited me onto the show. I went on the show simply because I thought, well, this is a great idea. I love this, this is fantastic. I would love to come on the show and talk about all the kinds of things you guys wanted to talk about. Later on, it turns out that you and I are then the the co hosts of that show.

Off Broadway, it was amazing. It was amazing.

And then to be on the telephone with Dick to talk with funny because when I first got the gig, I said, I want Dick's phone number so we can talk.

And of course, usually in those circumstances, the producers always say no, no, no, no, no no, you shouldn't talk to us. No no, no, I'm going to.

Talk to him.

You give me his number. I'm going to find his number. We got on the phone together and we talked, not about the play, we just talked about each other's father for about two hours. That's all we talked about. And that's the low that I mean. And then during the course of rehearsal, I never heard from Dick again, although we sent him all of the be rights as we've went along, and didn't see him again until opening night. I just knew that, I just knew that he was going to be in the audience.

It wasn't a very large theaters, and I knew he was going to be the audio in the audience. I didn't know where.

There was a section of the play where I'm talking about Emmitt Till and when I when I'm sitting on the aisle facing the audience, and I turned and who am I looking at but Dick Gregory.

And it's as if we had this.

Very personal privates, as if the rest of the theater kind of disappeared and we just had this private conversation. But again, looking for someone looking for an iconic character to play, and there it was offered. So you know, it's you know, it's that old saying that everybody says in the street, right, what goes around comes around, So what you put out there comes back.

Absolutely.

I wanted to ask you about because theater is my number one love and then TV and film? How important it is what type of discipline that actors would gain through the working in theater, because even working I can only imagine, you know, as a one man show with Dick Gregory, the stamina that you needed every night to do that. You know you you normally you have a cast, you have some quote unquote relief, but that was all you.

Well, I'll do it the other way around. So it's theater is enormously important. I think for actors. My son at one point wanted to be an actor, and I said, so if you do this when you come out of school, you cannot go. I will not I will not support you. If you decide you're going to do TV and film right away, you have to do theater. Because if you can do theater, if you can play a character for three months, six months out of the year, eight times a week and keep that character fresh, then you can

Again, he gets back to that original question of training. So if you've been trained and you've been in the theater, the rest of it is easy. There's lots of actors that we've seen over the course of the years who are TV and film actors who try to do the stage and the first thing that happens is what what did they say? Can't hear them? Can't hear them because they're not used to projecting their voice. They're used to

Who had mostly done TV and film, and what he did, I think it was some thoughts of a colored Man.

Was that? Was that the name of his show? Yes, he said that.

When they started telling him to be bigger, he said all the things that he had been trained not to do with something of the things that he had to do. And that's I think what happens to a lot of actors. Suddenly they realized, oh my gosh, no, no, no, I have to figure out a way how to fill this theater with not only my voice, but with my body as well.

Yeah.

So so that and the other question.

Was smina of a one man chef.

So you know what, maybe I'm just a fool. I didn't even think about what that was going to be.

Like we were We rehearsed it vigorously.

I also know that I have a tremendous amount of energy, and so we rehearsed it, and it was It was draining because it's very emotional. It's not just it's not just the lengths. It's a ninety minute show, but it's but you go from being a stand up comedian to someone who loses his child, to someone who does interviews in terms of the movement, to someone who loses which

And it was Edgar.

Medya Rather who invoted it and come south. And so the last words that Medgar Ever said before he died was turn me loose. And that's why we call the show turn me Loose. So there was that emotional content to it as well, that the whole show was in a way a kind of homage to Medgar Evers, which is interesting because his wife had not seen the show

So that's beautiful. Well, Joe, the times spit by like we have seriously three minutes.

So I want you, I just wanted you to give actors advice from an actor's point of view, and also for those of you who don't know. Joe is also a director and he has been directing. He did episodes. I know people have talked about are kind of people are missing it, but he directed some episodes there, So.

Joe, can you give them some tips from that perspective.

You know, again, just to kind of go over a lot of the things that we've been talking about. I mean, for young actors, I think number one, keep in mind training is of the most important. Number two things don't happen overnight. That that careers are just that they take time to develop. And in that regard, the more you are clear about what it is you want from your career,

And then don't be afraid to experiment.

I mean, I know a lot of actors have tried directing and they don't like it. I, on the other hand, tried directing and just a door of directing and just a door being able to I mean, then the episode becomes like building a character. But it's not just my character, it's all the characters in that in that particular episode.

It means who am I? Excuse me, who am I? In the depth of my soul?

Right?

Where am I going doesn't necessarily mean just physically where am I going? It also could mean psychologically where am I going? And then, of course what do I want? To what extent am I willing to go to get what I want? Those are clear because that is finally what the actor's job and even the director's job.

What What do I want out of this, out of this scene?

What do I want?

What am I trying to achieve? What part of the story am I telling trying to tell? And the same thing for the For the actor, what is it this character wants?

And to what extent?

Given what the what the script seems to outline, what extent is he willing to go to.

Get what he wants? And those those are the most important part of those questions.

Mm hmm, sooe, my heart is full. I am so grateful for all this information. I know that my actors appreciate love this more than anything.

I'm going to bring on two of our actors right now, who I have questions?

For you.

Well, and.

Let me see.

Let's Deborah and Yolanda. You guys can come on. And Joe, this is Deborah Spears. She went for wearing all black Joe in my classes and I was like, you got to color in your life, but I love it. Devra Spears, Joe Wooden, Hey, Deborah, Hey, thank you for being here.

It's such a pleasure in taking my question.

And special thanks to you and Tracy for the Inside the Black Box because honestly, I wouldn't be here on this podcast if it.

Weren't for that show.

I literally sent her an email.

After watching that show, she replied, and I've been taking training from her ever since, and before that I was going in a whole nother direction.

So thank you.

Well, you are in good hands. Let me tell you, Oh my.

God, oh my god. Yes.

So my question is have you what experience have you had in your career that has been a challenge for you and what did you do to overcome that challenge.

It is going to saund maybe a little bit strange, but most of my career has been a challenge. As I said, I started off by turning down roles because a lot of those roles were pimps and drug dealers and sort of bad guys of old kinds of description at a time when that's pretty much all you saw male actors doing, either on stage or an in film or whatever.

So that became a thing.

The other part of that, my particular challenge was because I could sing. I found my way into the theater by doing musicals. I start off by doing hair and then that seemed to me to be to have a kind of dead end to it.

You're only taking.

But so seriously as an actor when you're doing musicals. So I stopped doing musicals and then started doing regional theater in order to put together a dramatic resume, and then trying to turn that around and come back and say, right, somehow I want to be looked at in a different light. So I think the challenge I think probably is not too dissimilar for most other performers or other.

Actors or other artists in general.

You know, if you or Van Goh, you spend your entire life painting beautiful stuff that nobody recognizes until after you die. So you have to sort of be willing to take that challenge and understand that you have a point of view which needs to be pursued.

It's important to you.

You have something you're trying to say, and then in doing so, people are going to say, as they do in this business very often no, and you have to be able either to accept that, reject it, or push them inside and said, well, I'll talk to you another time and move straight ahead.

Thank you, thank you so much.

That was great.

You're well.

And Elsa Lathan she's back, so I'll let you take it away.

La Helloo, welcome Landa.

You are up next.

Almost the more and it's so nice to see you on screen. I have seen you many years on the ski. I have witnessed your amazing talent.

My question for you is me.

And Debor was thinking the light along the same lines. My question is, throughout your acting career and your theater career, what has been your most challenging role and how did you prepare to embody the difficult role?

Probably Brother Another Planet being the first, because, as Tracy said, he didn't speak, so I had to learn how to communicate in a number of different ways without repeating myself. I'll tell you another quick, short, little story. The production designer had designed a kind of alphabet and the way that you know, however, they structure their sentences, and she wrote this beautiful cardcase.

At one point in the movie, I have to answer.

Somebody's what looked like graffiti on a wall but actually was from our planet, and I wanted to answer it. So she wrote it, this whole thing, and I said, oh, well, let me take it home so I can actually personalize it, decide what these letters are for myself, and blah blah blah. Did that, went home, did all this work, decided what these letters were, came back and showed it to her and said, so this means this, and this means that, that means that the other thing. She said, That's terrific,

That was huge.

I mean, when I discovered how to do it, you know, I would go home and go yeah, finally got that right, because it was all part of who he was and could not should not have been taken for granted. So at one point in the play, it's one of his first appearances on TV.

He was an athlete, he was a.

Runner, and so I have him in the dressing room and he's warming up to do this bit, and so he's running in place and blah blahlah blah, and in the course of kind of talking his way into doing this stand up, he picks up a cigarette, and he picks up a drink and realizes, oh, that's something I haven't seen before, And without saying a word, he put

So, but it's those kinds of things.

I think that that become the challenges in our lives to find a way to tell the truth. We're finding that out more and more just in living our daily lives. That truth is now a matter of opinion as opposed to simply being a truth.

Wow, that was beautiful.

Thank you, Elsa, thank you, absolutely, thank you, and I want to thank the actors Deborah and Yolanda. Thank you so much. You guys, hold tight, sit back. You're blessed. Joe is going to hang out with us a little more when we come back to the Spirited Actor Podcast. Meet Tracy Moore. We're gonna do class in session all right, Yeah, yeah, that's how we're doing. Welcome back to the Spirited Actor Podcast with me Tracy Moore, and you should be so happy.

We do, we do, Thank you, Tracy. And so today on class and session we have a very special monologue by mister Sam Bryce. Welcome Sam, one of our faves.

Pleasure to be here for sure. Thank you.

So when you already Sam and Action, Oh you're funny, yes, funny, funny man?

What should I say?

Boy?

You're a boy. You've been coddled and aired for, pampered and hugged for you, it's always summer time and the living is easy. Daddy's rich and your mama's good looking.

You're a grant.

You got money in your blood. You are a boy. I'm a man. I worked for every single thing I've ever received. I thought, bled and scraped for every inch of ground that I walk on. I was the first person in my family to go to college, and my daughter went to boarding school with the children of King. I made that happen. And you, well, you quiet yourself to sleep because daddy hurt your feelings, because Papa banked the secretary, and it hurts. It hurt to have so

Mm hmmy, So Joe, I don't have I don't have anything to say.

I want to give it on you.

First of all, that was fantastic. That's not an easy speech to do. The one thing that I enjoyed about it the most is it wasn't over overlaid with anger because it wasn't about anger, it was about something else.

The things that you did I thought were fantastic.

If if you were to do that speech again, what I would ask is that because you understand everything in I mean, you clearly understand what that speech is about, I would just make more out of the contrast between boy and man, without without over without pushing it too hard.

I would just say, deepen those moments in the speech.

Not that you're I mean, you're in a good place, but I would investigate making those places deeper only because that is the heart of the speech, is the contrast between who Rowan is and who this white southern president is and the fact that you're even in the white T shirt. I mean, that was part of what that moment was about. Is noan was if you remember he was, or I don't know if you ever saw it, but he's in a T shirt chained to a chair.

So I even like the fact that you were looking up at at him.

All I want to say is Tony because I don't remember the president's name. But but but those are the moments I would look at again, just go a little bit deeper in terms of the contrast between boy and man, to look a little bit deeper. When you talk about my daughter, what I made, These are things that you made. These are things that you've accomplished, and you're saying you

Oh Spirit Actor alumni, thank you so much, Sam.

I thank you Sam, absolutely yes.

Yeah, and thank you Elsa, and we could just bring on Deborah and Yolanta.

You guys can.

All come on and thank you again for your questions.

And I cannot just like, I.

Feel like I don't know how I can ever repay you for being my partner on The Spirited Actor. I mean, I'm inside the black box and your support. You guys, we were together four years before the show, we even signed that deal. First season, first show walking out the door.

Spirit was like ask Joe, It's like, Joe, how are you still here? Right?

Well, because what we were doing was important, you know what, what what you had envisioned was important. You know a lot of the actors that we talked to, you know, I mean you saw one of them on the Oscars on Sunday Night, you know, Jeffrey right there he was.

Yes, that's beautiful. Well, Joe, I want to just give you mad love. Matd Hug, thank you so so much for coming on the podcast. Yay, and you guys stay tight, hold on because we are coming back season three.

We will be back and we will let you know when we'll be back.

But thank you for your support and I know that you're going to hold on to this and replay this because you missed Joe.

I know you miss Joe. We miss you, guys. Okay, all right, thank you so much Joe. Everybody put your hands.

Together for You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It's been a great pleasure.

Thank you, Thank you, Joe.

And when we come back to the Spirited Actor Podcast with me Tracy Moore, I'm going to give you love.

Thank you.

Welcome to Kudos Corner. Kudos Corner is where we come together and celebrate a spirited actor, their work, their current work.

We just overall want to celebrate you and give you a big mad love.

This week's Kudo's Corner puts a spotlight on spirited actor Devon Niki Thomas. Theater goers in DC area have been graced by the talent of Devon Nikki Thomas in numerous plays, including Helen Hayes nominated production of The Bluest Eye and The Trip, and this June, she will lead the cast of Is God Is at Washington, DC's Consolation Theater. Law and Order fans recently saw her share a scene with the show's new Da played by Tony Goldwin in his

It's not about actors being like anyone else. It's about you.

Embracing the beauty and the uniqueness that you have. No one out there is like you, no one can be you. Therefore, or when you are in a callback or when you're in your submitting to the casting director, instead of thinking there's so many people out there that.

I'm competing against, there's so many people that are better than me.

Instead of thinking that way, think about how when that casting director sees your unique submission, how pleasantly surprised that they're going to be that you don't look like everybody else, or you don't do the same performance that everybody else does.

Thank you,