Just Peter.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome to the Syfy Sistas podcast where we give you our point of view.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Tamia Harper and I'm joined today by my sisters Sabrina Wood, Yvette Blackman Tom,

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_05]: and Fran T. What's happening? What's happening, Fran, is always what's happening is that we got

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_05]: a fantastic show. We're really, really, really excited. Okay, so Fran is super geeking out right

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_05]: now. If y'all can see, I don't think Fran is going to have a heart attack because we have a

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_05]: brother here on the show with us. He's our first official movie star. And we are so excited that

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_05]: he is joining us. He's an Emmy award winning actor and you guys might know him just from

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_05]: this little role on the Orville or you might have seen him recently. Well, seen heard his voice

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_05]: in the most recent Planet of the Apes movie, The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_05]: We are talking about none other talking to none other than Peter Macon. What's up brother?

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to the show.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Not the hey, hey, hey. I love it.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. How long did we plan this ago? Like, when was that?

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like two years ago. A year ago. A year ago.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe two years ago.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_04]: It was two years ago.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Two years ago.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Was that in Philly, Baltimore?

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_04]: No, it was in Baltimore. It was in Shorely.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Shorely. Okay.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_04]: But the after strike came on. So it was only a year ago. It was a year ago.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_04]: It was a year ago. It feels like two years.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And I have no sense of time anymore.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Y'all, the story goes like this. Yvette and I were sauntering down the hallway

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_05]: at Shorely. Saunter, saunter, saunter, saunter.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You were sauntering?

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_05]: We walked past, there's a table. There's a brother over there. There's a fine brother

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_05]: with this beautiful bald head. Yvette and I saunter, saunter, double take. Who's that?

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_05]: We go over the table. It's Peter Macon. And it was like friendship at first sight.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it was.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know y'all was out there like that. You know what I mean? I thought,

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't know. So that was cool. I mean, it was good. It was great to learn

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_00]: about you guys. And just, you know, just put me on game.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was really excited that, you know, I wish I would have known y'all in high school.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Because I was so lonely in high school.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Lonely, right?

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I was so lonely. I was so lonely.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Lonely little blurs.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God. It's all up in science club and math club.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that guy.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Alone.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_05]: We would have made the dopest posse.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_07]: A.V. Squad.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_07]: Civil Air Patrol.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_07]: All the geek stuff.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Give me the frog. I dissected.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Just that one. That's it.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_05]: I did it once. I was good. I was like,

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And then we found out like it ran deeper because we found out that you,

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_05]: me and Yvette have this love of house music.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Peter was like sending us these all this house music.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, Tamiya, here's some more house music for Peter.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And we're like, oh my God, I never, I didn't even know how that stuff.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Let's be real. She sent it once.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Just once?

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just once.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I could say some more.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_04]: I guess I'm talking about.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I thought I said more than once.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah, you just got that.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's the music that I grew up on in Chicago.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, and then my friend who's a producer now in Chicago is a studio.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But his dad, first of all, I don't know what his dad was doing because in the hood,

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_00]: he had a Lincoln Continental.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: He had a white Lincoln Continental.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a no-is-per-sion.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying, I know he, I mean, but he's honestly,

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I know he made an honest living because his wife did not play.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So I know that there's no fucking business going on.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So they were hard, but they had the first dual cassette recorder.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_07]: Nice and aerial.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It's cool.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So like WVON and WGCI, they used to do like live mixes with like Farley Jack, Master Funk

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and like all these DJs and they'd do live mixes.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And so what we would do is we would go over to my man's house,

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: much probably to the chagrin of his parents because I think down the road,

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we pretty much messed up their system.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But five of us, you know, waiting in line, waiting our turn with our cassettes.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And we would play, we put one cassette in the deck

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and then we have another cassette in the other deck.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And then as the mix is playing, we would hit pause record, like pause record, rewind,

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: rewind, pause record, pause record.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We make our own mixes of the mix, you know, and we do that every day after school.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think I was like nine, nine of ten.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, or I think I was in elementary school.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was, yeah.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So, but yeah, like that's what I just, you know, grew up on it.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when...

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you definitely messed up the system.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, we got kicked out.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: We were banned.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We got banned from the house.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_07]: Nine-year-old mixing the mixes.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Man, five of us, like, you know, every day,

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: like before the parents came home from school and then they probably want to go

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: play.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Luther Vandross on it was like,

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: so that lasted, you know, probably like a cool month and that was done.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, the mixes that they used to play on the radio.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But then, so, you know, the house music, house music, house music.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then, but what really peeled my wig was I was up in

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Southern Oregon at the Shakespeare Festival.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_00]: We went on a show with this group called Universes.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And we're doing this play called Party People about

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was this...

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, in Oregon?

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is the oldest Shakespeare

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: festival in the West hemisphere.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's been there since 1939.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: They do a lot of Shakespeare.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: They also do a fair bit of August Wilson every once in a while,

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: but they'll do like a lot of, they do a lot of new plays.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So, and there was a sound designer there who was from Johannesburg.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, just, I mean, this was like, we were rehearsing for like a month,

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: month and a half.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And we just sat, we're sitting down having a drink talk and I was just talking and

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: house music came up.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, house music?

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, I was like, yeah, house music.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: What you know about house music?

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, bruh.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And he turned me on to a world that I did not even know existed.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So what like house music in South Africa and Josie and, you know, even,

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like Zazabar, you know, just all over the Southern region, like,

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, Kenya.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it's full on.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And I had been to, lived in West Africa and was, you know, studied West African

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: classical music, Jim Bayes and stuff like that.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And just really into music, but I didn't know.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And so since then, and this was like 2012, I sat down and I have been

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: listening to pretty much, you know, nothing but, I mean, of course,

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I listened to a lot of jazz.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I listened to a lot of, you know, all of the, you know, all of the,

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: but pretty much I've been living in South African deep house and what they

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_00]: call like slow jam, 45 BPM, you know, sorts of mid tempo stuff.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Because South Africa is, like, South Africans, like it slaps,

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: like it's like, they like it a little slower.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_07]: You got to send us some of that.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Man, my phone is like just full of just, you know, so I make mixes on

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_00]: mixes.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, but yeah, but so and so, dang that Atlanta Fest, I'm so bummed

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that I missed that.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That last year, right?

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Then when it was like a house fest, like there was here in the park in

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Atlanta.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You were emailing me about it and like there was like, anyway, but yeah.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_05]: That was like, did I?

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_05]: I probably did.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I probably did.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I probably did.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like last June and I was not here.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So I couldn't go.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_04]: I think I emailed you a few things, but I think some of them you already

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_04]: knew about.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe that was one I can't remember.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're gonna make it happen.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm talking out of the side of my neck.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty much a hermit.

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't go nowhere.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_04]: That's why we love music because we want to stay in the house and listen

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_04]: to music, you know?

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Read a book and listen to music.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_04]: That's it.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the times right there.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_07]: I want to take you back to something you just said there.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_07]: You talked about doing the Shakespeare festival and I read in your

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_07]: bio that you had actually done Othello and I said I would pay any kind of

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_07]: money to see you in.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, that play, that play, that play.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I've done that play four times.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_07]: Really?

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and the last production I did was at the National Theatre of Ireland

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: in Dublin which was pretty amazing because it just had a relevancy that

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: that just resonated differently.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I was an American in Ireland and you know, the play is just,

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I have a love-hate relationship with that play.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm actually, funny enough, I'm actually gonna go next month to

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: start shooting my, well, I'm working on a series that's based off of

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Othello but I'm turning it inside out so it's gonna, because I don't

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: know if you're familiar with like there was a black tank battalion

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_00]: in World War II called the Black Panthers.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh yeah, oh please.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So the Black, so what my writing partner and I are doing is we were

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: taking Othello, we are setting it up in 1946.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, my heart is beating.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like London and probably France but like, but everybody's black.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So Othello's black, Desdemona's black, Iago's black.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I just died, right?

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my goodness.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh god.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and that's what I was like doing research when you called

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and because I was just deep into research about the Black Panthers

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_00]: like the tank battalions and then completely lost track of time.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like that play, so the reason why I'm doing this is

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like in literature, because Shakespeare has been weaponized,

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: right?

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it has been, it's elitist.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean my first, the first Shakespeare I did was I played,

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I auditioned for this production of Macbeth and you know,

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't, nothing about Shakespeare so I was like I got it,

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been working for about six years, seven years professionally

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'd never done any Shakespeare.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, well you can't really call yourself an actor

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_00]: if you don't do any Shakespeare, you don't do any August Wilson,

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: you don't do any Susan Laurie Parks, you don't do any,

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: you know what I mean?

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was just like, well let me just try to get down with this

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_00]: because I don't know it.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And at the time, you know, and even still now people were like,

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_00]: oh there was a sentiment that like black people can't do Shakespeare.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is before like, I feel like all the Brits were coming over

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_00]: to the States, you know what I mean?

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Because their training programs are pretty,

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_00]: You got my next question.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, their training programs are pretty rigorous in terms of

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00]: dialect work and stuff like that.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Like because, you know, in order to work in the film industry,

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, you have to be flexible.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, so like they emphasize a lot,

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_00]: the British training programs emphasize a lot with dialect work

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of shape shifting.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of Brits, you know, like Damson,

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_00]: what's his name, my man who did Snowfall, who's amazing.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, my point is,

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Edgars, not Edgars Elba, but

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember his name.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel horrible, but my bandwidth is full.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Damson Edgars.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Damson Edgars, yeah.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's what I'm talking about.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: What the hell was I talking about?

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Shakespeare weaponized.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So black people, so yeah, this is before,

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like sort of the British invasion of,

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_00]: because like it was sort of like Edgars Elba,

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Eamon Walker, and Eamon Walker is a British actor

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_00]: who's like on Chicago fire right now.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But he was also like a big stage, you know, stage actor.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And I saw his production of Othello at the RSC

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and they were, they looked tired.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It was just like they probably doing like 13 shows a week

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: or something like that.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the time it was like, it was a sentiment

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_00]: that was sort of, you know,

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, it was prevailing in America,

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in the regional data, the black people couldn't do Shakespeare.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I auditioned for Big Beth

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and thinking that I was going to get like Ross or Lennox

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_00]: or some supporting role.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And they cast me as Macbeth and I'm like, oh shit.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_07]: Of course they did.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, no, but I was three weeks.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to memorize poetry.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you remember?

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh my God.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, um, and then I went outside on a break

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and I was, I was like, I'm going to get fired

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and I was stressed out.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then I took out my sword

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and I started hacking up this poor tree

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and trying to save my lines.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, you got to breathe.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got to breathe.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: That's all you got to do is breathe.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It's written in there for you.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You just breathe.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You say you lied, you breathe.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And then it just clicked.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then I was hooked.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, um, so what the, but, but, but there's this notion.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So Othello, right?

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So Othello is a fictitious play.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's full of holes.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's written by, um, an Elizabethan,

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_00]: um, uh, for Elizabethans who knew very little to nothing

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: about quote unquote, mores.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And so like the whole idea of like the,

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_00]: the introduction of the exotic other, you know,

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_00]: let alone all the racism that's in the play.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but, but, but, but what I think it's done is I think

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: it's tainted in the words, put this toxicity

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_00]: into the zeitgeist of, you know, like, I mean,

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not too far removed in my opinion from birth of a nation

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of like the scary big black man and like, so,

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, and they're like, Sydney Poitier,

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: my man, Harry Lennox, who was a friend of mine.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's like, you know, like I won't do that play,

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like I'm not doing that play.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I totally understand why because it is, um,

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00]: it's really hard to get right.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think one of the reasons why the production

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I did in Ireland was, um, worked, I think,

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, was because Ireland didn't really participate

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in the transatlantic slave trade in the same way

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_00]: that the England did.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, England had its foot up Ireland's ass most of the time.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And the, the, the, the audiences, you know,

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_00]: like there's racism in Ireland, don't get it twisted,

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's different kind of, um, you know,

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_00]: like it's just not off rip.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's just not, it's just, in fact,

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: it was, it was the guy who played Iago was from,

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, I think it was from Belfast.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, he was from Northern Ireland.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, the whole rift between Northern Irish

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and like, you know, every, the whole rest of the country,

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_07]: the whole rest of the world, the UK.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So what he would do is he would,

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_00]: slip back and forth between like a Belfast dialect

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and like a Dublin dialect,

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and it would make people super uncomfortable.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, my black ass,

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: so like it was, so it works really well that way

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_00]: because it was specific and, but, you know,

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and, but I was still like this like generic sort of

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: sub-Saharan, you know,

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: but the, but, but, so then I started doing my research.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've been doing my research a lot about like who,

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: who would Othello have been, you know, in the play,

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: he's like, uh, you know, he's a general in the Venetian army.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The Venetian city state is at odds with the Turks,

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: the Ottoman Empire, like Constantinople essentially,

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: like, uh, uh, modern day Turkey and, uh, well,

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: what is now modern day Turkey?

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I do, which is, you know, uh, Muslim predominantly

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and Christian and Jewish, but like, so, and then,

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: so he flip flops between, uh, like he, you know,

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_00]: he has for Christian shame, but he makes these references.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So we don't know if he's Christian or if he's a convert

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: recently, there's a lot of unanswered questions

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_00]: which lead led this makes me further know,

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_00]: as Steve Harvey would say,

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: that Shakespeare did not know who this, who he wants.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So, and so then there's like,

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_00]: there's like all this contradiction about the

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: handkerchief like, you know, that an Egyptian, my mother give

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and then, and then he says, you know, like,

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_00]: then it came, but it came from a witch, you know, like,

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: so there's just full of holes.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then you only need watch Lawrence Olivia's

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_00]: performance of Othello, which is insulting.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was slapped out, punch him in the throat

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_00]: if I could, if I could, but he gets lauded as the

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh yeah.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_00]: The most prominent.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_07]: The pillar.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was just offensive.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm doing with this, because it started off

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: as a short film, right?

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And I got this image of Othello in a barber chair.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was kind of setting in like the 30s and sort of

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, sort of the gangster, you know,

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Al Capone kind of Chicago, he kind of world.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's in a, he's in a barber chair and Othello,

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Iago is shaving him with a straight razor.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's this scene where he's like, look to your wife,

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like, and, and I'm like this, this,

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: but I was like, you know what?

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to do the, I'm not interested in,

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, this, the topical like black, white racism,

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: whatever, because I'm like, wow, what if, if, if Iago

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_00]: is, if they're both black American,

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00]: because ultimately what I'm trying to really, really

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_00]: dig into is the PTSD of, of, of, of slavery,

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_00]: of hundreds of years of, you know, and, and, and,

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: whoo, it was a lot.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, like reconstruction, right?

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So, so like you look at, and so like the,

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_00]: the parallelisms between reconstruction

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and post-World War II, you know, like the reconstruction

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and the, the, the alliances of the, of the UN

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and you know, now what is, you know, like the,

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00]: of, of, of Israel and of the CIA

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and like all these things forming in like 1949,

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, but like, so that's a sort of a,

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: a neo reconstruction, but it, but,

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm looking at like these, these, like these soldiers,

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_00]: like the red tails and the, and the, and, and,

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and the, and the black Panthers, these soldiers,

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and they had a 50% mortality rate by the way,

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: because they're in there going fighting.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_00]: They, they were, they were, and just like the,

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_00]: the Moors, they, they, they were like ferocious.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: When I say Moors, I'll get back to that in a minute,

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_00]: but like they, they, you know, first of all,

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00]: they, they, you know, weren't allowed to fight forever.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And they, so they were just trained for two years.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then they finally, when they,

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_00]: when they were to Normandy and they stormed,

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_00]: like when they beat, like that tank battalion

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00]: is what basically won the day.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and so then they come back to America

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_00]: or the wars over and they're like second class citizens all over.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So I look at Othello and Othello,

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_00]: so when, when the Bahamas were, was, was sort of forming

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and it was a British, you know,

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_00]: like the Brits were fighting Spain over, over the territory.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the pirates were also like instrumental in that,

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that it was almost like a democracy in and of itself.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And oftentimes pirates would encounter slave ships

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and they would give the enslaved men and women on,

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_00]: on the ship a choice to, because they're like,

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_00]: well, we're going to take this ship

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're going to, we're going to kill them

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're going to take everything that's on the ship.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So you have a choice.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_00]: You can, you can go with us or you can,

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: you can go with them.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of these pirates were like Africans

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: who knew, who were, who were sort of merchant marines.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: They were like, like they were, they were sailors already.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there were people who were out,

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: but a lot of them weren't, you know what I mean?

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of them like wanted to go back

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of them wanted to form a new life

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and until a lot of them became seafarers.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm like, okay.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So again, like back to a fictitious asset,

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Thal'ohu, he's like that since these arms of mine

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_00]: had seven years pith, they, you know,

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm paraphrasing they spent their,

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00]: basically since he was seven years old,

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_00]: he's been embroiled and embroiled in battle.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So what that meant was when,

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_00]: so if you're seven years old,

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_00]: what use are you on a ship?

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they, they, they had what they called deck boys

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and what deck boys would be responsible for

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_00]: was pouring sand on the deck of the ship.

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_00]: So when the ships boarded,

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_00]: like the sand would absorb all the blood.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then I would imagine him going back

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and then he would just hide, you know,

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_00]: but or just seeing war for his whole life.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And what I love about this play is that

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_00]: what it does is it's a tragedy.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And what it does is the tragedy is that

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_00]: there is no room for love and war

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_00]: to exist in the same, in my opinion,

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_00]: in the same sphere.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And so the problem or the hook of the play

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_00]: is that here's a man who's probably been

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in a lot of brothels and done God knows what

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and you know, been sailing around the world

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: but he's never been in love.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And he, so in our story,

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: there were like these nurses that came over

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_00]: in World War II that were,

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and the black nurses would have to be,

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_00]: would have to take care of German POWs.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And America, this place,

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and the more I dig into this,

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to like, yeah, unbelievable.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's unbelievable.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It's unbelievable.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like, what the fuck?

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Like so, I mean, so Desdemona

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: in our story is a nurse and she's,

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00]: she's one of the nurses that have come over

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_00]: to London to care for German POWs.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And Othello in our story is wounded

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and is in a coma because he's one

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_00]: of the Black Panthers and he's a tank.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like a commander.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he's like Brad Pitt in that movie Fury.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you ever saw that.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But so she nurses him back.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I was just watching the game today,

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_00]: but she nurses him back to health

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and they meet and they kind of fall in love.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, that's where we're at.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, but then it's a huge chunk

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_00]: because what, you know, because I mean,

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_00]: we know the play and, you know,

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_00]: like just to be completely honest,

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00]: like I watched my father abuse

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and beat my mother and point a gun

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: to her head and all kinds of crazy,

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, and I'm not the only person.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I grew up around that.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm interested in because I'm like,

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_00]: well, why would a Black man

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_00]: do this to another Black man?

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, why would this Black man kill his wife?

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, why did, you know,

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_00]: so I'm just like, you know,

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a tragedy.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to go down this road

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's very, very dark.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like I'm hoping that

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_00]: it's cathartic enough that what it will do

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_00]: is that it will de-weaponize this play

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and recanonize it in terms of it will make an offering.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe, you know, maybe it won't be the play.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but like that's,

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_04]: you know, that's where you're going with it.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm sure I do too.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_07]: I can see this whole thing.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_07]: I want to recommend a movie to you to see.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if you've seen this.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_07]: It's called Voodoo Macbeth.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I have now.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's about.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I know I've seen it and I'm just,

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but it was I've seen it about like 20 years ago.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen this movie.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_07]: No, no, you could not have.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_07]: It's a 2021.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_07]: Peter, listen.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_05]: You're thinking about the old one.

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Wasn't there an older one though?

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm screaming.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_07]: No, let me.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Voodoo Macbeth is about the staging of Macbeth

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_07]: by a black theater company in 1939.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so okay.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_07]: I know.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, I have.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_07]: It happened in 19.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_07]: Right.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_07]: And the director was Orson Welles.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_07]: This is true.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_07]: What?

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_07]: They made a movie out of it, Peter.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_07]: So take a look at it because it is the same thing

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_07]: you were talking about everybody saying that

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_07]: black people couldn't do Macbeth.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_07]: They I mean they couldn't do Shakespeare,

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_07]: but blah, blah, blah.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_07]: They didn't believe themselves and it's the mounting of this play.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_07]: And then it became a huge success.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_07]: Of course, when it came such success,

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_07]: the people that were financing it,

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_07]: which was like the government,

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_07]: you know during the war,

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_07]: or the government whatever that program was

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_07]: that was going around funding all the different plays.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_07]: One of the old white men decided that,

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_07]: you know they're not gonna have them or this

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_07]: because it was so successful they pulled the financing.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_07]: But the movie is phenomenal.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_07]: It didn't get a lot of buzz,

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_07]: but I loved it and it was something I never heard of before.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_07]: So I think you would enjoy it.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I haven't seen that,

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00]: but I did see a documentary

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_00]: or I feel like I've seen something about that production

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_00]: that Orson Welles did.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00]: It did all kinds of things were going wrong with like,

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_00]: you know with that production.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, I'm gonna thank Orson Welles

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and he takes a lot of liberties

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and rearranges scenes and does all kinds of stuff.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But like I will definitely check that out.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_07]: Lou Macbeth.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_00]: God, I've been in that place seven times.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_04]: When she said it, I was like, oh, oh.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, right?

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_00]: That's on my list.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but like it's just taking a back seat.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But I love that's my favorite Shakespeare play.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And I had like this concept of like a post-apocalyptic,

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, sort of Shogunny, you know.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Like Afro futuristic.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the words with the words.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I know because I'm a painter and like that's where my work

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of lives is like, you know, Afro futuristic.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: After all, before, before, and I love the Afro.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that the Afro punk movement is up and all.

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, I feel like that this is another way

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I alienated myself.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Making this crazy like futuristic Maasai,

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, like what is wrong with this fool?

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Even your best life man.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Right, all alone, you know.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, I always when we first formed,

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_05]: when the sci-fi sisters first formed,

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_05]: we talked about like, you know, Afro futurism,

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, as our big guiding word.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was like really resistant to it at first

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_05]: because I was like I existed before this term ever came around.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't need a term to define me.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Like it's just me.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_05]: But I get it and it's useful and I don't resent it anymore,

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_05]: just to be clear.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I know, I was a little stank about it myself.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but I mean, I was like, I'm like,

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, you know, like all these people like,

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_05]: oh, you're Afro futurist.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, no, I'm a black nerd.

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was this way when you guys were teasing me

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_05]: and calling me names and didn't want to let me sit with you at lunch.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Now you gave me a 10-letter word.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And now it's supposed to be something like,

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, like, and now like, you know,

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_05]: and I have a thing about 10-letter words,

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, like sometimes because, you know, academia,

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_05]: like it could take things away from people in a way.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_05]: It does, I mean, at the same time you're doing work,

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_05]: at the same time you're trying to talk about work,

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_05]: trying to dig into it.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_05]: It also puts a distance between people,

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_05]: unless people are talking about it in a way

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_05]: that's actually communicating to people

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_05]: without having to use $10 words all the time

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_05]: to describe what they're talking about.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's from experience and it's not like something like that.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_00]: They've it's almost like it's not a hat that,

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm glad that it's acceptable now.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, because I started growing, right?

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I started growing dreadlocks in 1986.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And at the time-

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, nobody liked you then.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_00]: There you are, right?

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, I remember being on the train platform

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_00]: with my grandma in Chicago and this dude wanted to fight me.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_02]: He was like, why don't you comb your hair?

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you comb your hair?

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because there was crazy, sprouty kind of bust guys.

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And then like De La Soul, thank goodness,

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_00]: finally came and I was just like, ah, great,

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_00]: the pressure's off right now.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, leave me alone.

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would go into auditions and, you know,

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: and it was like, that was really great, Peter.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, and it's great.

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about cutting your hair?

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Before you even offered me a job,

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_00]: you asked me to come.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, I'm out.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm glad that like they've caught up.

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad that the world, like, you know,

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_00]: like that there's this plurality that, you know,

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_00]: because I was like, I can't, I wished that, you know,

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_00]: that I had that peer group around at the time,

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_00]: but I don't know that I'm who I am.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_00]: You did.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I did, but then again, who knows?

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't matter.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_03]: You don't know?

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just, I'm going to keep it positive and just be great.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad that, you know, and plus there's like

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_00]: the whole crossover between, you know,

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_00]: like the queer community and just like this,

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_00]: this is just like, it's just, I just love it.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, just like, it's, there's no,

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_00]: there's no, there's no bounds.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I think in it, it's given a lot of people

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of breathing room, which thank goodness,

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like we need that, you know, especially like,

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, cause we'll see.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I could go a whole nother route and because I'm just

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_00]: deeply disgusted about it.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_07]: Let's get to what Fran wants to talk about.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you want to talk about Fran?

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I know you can't give specifics, you know,

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_03]: or anything like that.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a huge, huge Orville fan.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I can give specifics.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_03]: It's over.

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_03]: You heard anything about, you know, when season four,

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_03]: are you going to look at it?

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Your guess is, I, it's,

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I know that Seth really enjoyed doing that show

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: for a few different reasons.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Like one, I know that he enjoyed it because

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_00]: it allowed him to get out of the family guy

[00:35:17] [SPEAKER_00]: American dad box and even, you know, like,

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think that what, what is it?

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_00]: A million ways to die in the West that really

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_00]: wonderful Western movie that he did.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, just his brand of like,

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_00]: just sort of growing his brand of humor

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_00]: out of the high school locker room kind of,

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like growing the humor,

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_00]: making the humor a little bit more sophisticated

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and then walking the line also with drama.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know he wants to, or at least I felt like,

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's a part of him that,

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_00]: that wants to be like wants to, if he wants to,

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_00]: when he wants to be considered to be able to do,

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_00]: to see it like do straight like drama, right?

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_04]: He wants to be taken seriously.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And so that, that, that Showtime thing

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that he did about the Fox network,

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I forget what it was, but he did that like

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_00]: after the first season.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And so like, I'm saying that to say that

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_00]: he's an artist and every artist wants to grow.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I know like,

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's also a huge Star Trek fan, right?

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And that he built like, like a scale model.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was probably maybe two or three feet long

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_00]: of the enterprise out of cardboard and Christmas lights.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So I just know that he loves, you know,

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_00]: so the Orville is love letter essentially to Star Trek,

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_00]: which is why I feel like a lot of Star Trek fans

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_00]: really accept, like I was just at this convention

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_00]: in Germany last month and they have Federation FedCon.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And they were like,

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_00]: that was the first time they had another show

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_00]: that wasn't a Star Trek show.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So they've really accepted the Orville as like, you know,

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_07]: like a cousin of the body.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_07]: It's got Star Trek DNA in it, you know?

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_07]: I know. It's an homage.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It definitely is in the simplicity and the sort of like,

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not dystopian.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's also unique because it has humor.

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what sets it apart.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I say all that, no, and he loved it

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's made Fox network billions of dollars.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So there was like one of our sets,

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_00]: the bridge, which is like this huge three,

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_00]: like well, it's two stories,

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_00]: but there's a whole other sub story

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that goes down a floor to support it.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_00]: That thing was sitting unused on one of the stages

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_00]: on the Fox lot for like a year.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's unheard of.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And so they finally tore it down.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But he's like, and then they destroyed all of the molds

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_00]: for Bordas and for all the others

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_00]: because he was like, I don't want anybody else to have it.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Things tend to disappear.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But that, you know, he's like,

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but we'll just make it again and that's okay.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's the way he thinks.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that like he had a really good time doing it

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and I know that he wants to do more.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_00]: We talked about a movie we talked about like,

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and before the strike there was a tentative deal

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_00]: on the table with Disney for,

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there was a discrepancy

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_00]: over the number of episodes.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I think he wanted to do more

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and they want to do less,

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's also a very expensive show to produce.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_03]: You can tell by looking at it,

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_03]: it's not a throwaway.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the last we talked, he's like,

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm interested in doing more of like chamber episodes,

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_00]: like some more character development

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and less space battles,

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_00]: but more about like smaller,

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and then season two of Ted just got greenlit.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So like, I don't know.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it will be,

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean in the industry so funky right now,

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_00]: it's so funky.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, like the post strike,

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_00]: like I was talking to my manager today

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and like after the strike was a first time

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of in history or probably since like the 2008 strike

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_00]: where everybody is available.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_00]: This little buddy was working for a long time

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and the studios, they slashed,

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_00]: they cut a lot of shows

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and they're really being cheap

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_00]: with what they're paying people now.

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's funky.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But people are working,

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_00]: but you know, like there's less,

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, there are fewer shows being done

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_00]: compared to, because it wasn't sustainable.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I mean,

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_00]: it wasn't sustainable for the strike.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_00]: There was just like too many projects.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like not enough money

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_00]: to pay for them all and whatever,

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_00]: but like everything they were crying broke.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And so now they're, you know,

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_00]: like not crying broke per se,

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_00]: but like they're not doing as much.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_07]: I say you.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_07]: We ain't dealing like they were before the strike.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll get started with them.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_03]: But I have to ask you about,

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I got my answer there.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_03]: The character art about the gender reassignment

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_03]: of your character's baby.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_03]: You see because they, you know,

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_03]: what you said his comedy where it is,

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_03]: that was a pretty serious thing

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_03]: because I thought the show was a dramedy.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't all everybody thought

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_03]: it would be all out comedy,

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_03]: but it wasn't right.

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, with all that,

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, with the trans thing,

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, trans thing,

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_03]: gender reassignment,

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_03]: all that stuff going on.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_03]: What did you,

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_03]: because it started from an egg,

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, literally from an egg.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And it finally got to,

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_03]: and if I'm gonna give out a spoiler,

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_03]: if people haven't seen this,

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_05]: you're so nice friend.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_04]: You were getting ready to spoil something

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_03]: that was one day old.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_04]: You talking about three years.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm saying, you know,

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_03]: people say, oh,

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know that happened with shit.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_03]: You should have looked at it.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Three, four years ago.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_03]: It starts off as an egg,

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_03]: you sitting on it.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you were so fun.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_03]: You were so funny to me.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_03]: But you know,

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_03]: she starts out and the baby is born,

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_03]: a female, you know,

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_03]: and they do the gender reassignment

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_03]: and it goes all the way from then.

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And you think the thing is over with

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_03]: they go through all these trials.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_03]: It's something.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And then they bring it back.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_03]: This little,

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_03]: this child sitting on the bridge

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_03]: saying, I just don't feel right.

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_03]: There's something wrong.

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and you like,

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_03]: and then you think of,

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, people now who,

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, the trans community

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_03]: that go through,

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I just don't feel right.

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I feel differently inside

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_03]: what I appear to be.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was so,

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03]: you know what I'm saying?

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_03]: It was the drama of that.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_03]: The way that he told the story.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03]: But she, she,

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_03]: she becomes a girl.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_03]: But it goes through all these steps.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: What did you think about?

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Because, you know,

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_03]: you had a reaction from your spouse,

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_03]: from your own work.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Because they asked the doctor

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_03]: to do the gender reassignment operation.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And she refused.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_03]: She said, no, I'm not doing it.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Can I take it back?

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It was, it was something.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And this was a whole arc.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And they,

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Martin showed up.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, it's, it's,

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_03]: what do you think about that?

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Crazy brain.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I mean,

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and thank you for asking that.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And let's not forget that Clyde and my partner,

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_00]: my mate, he was born a female.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, and so a part of that was the soccer.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, and, and my parents, you know,

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and like, so, so he's coming at it from,

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it was a really well balanced bit of writing

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00]: because part of the, part of the, the,

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_00]: the hard thing to do when you write science fiction,

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_00]: because it's written by human beings for human beings,

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_00]: but not about human beings per se.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a little bit like, you know,

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_02]: it's a little bit, uh, in the sense that like,

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_00]: because it's like, someone asked me at FedCon,

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_00]: like what would you like to see?

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I would like,

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_00]: if there were more episodes and I said,

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I would like to see the human beings learn,

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_00]: something more about,

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_00]: because the moral compass tends to land

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in the human point of view.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you can't be mad at Clyde

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and you can't be mad at Moklans for that's their cult,

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_00]: that's their, that's who they are.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And so if you're going to be honest about writing about other

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_00]: people, you cannot judge them.

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_00]: If you, if you are writing about,

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_00]: if the, if the, the true experience is different

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and opposing cultures clashing or coexisting

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_00]: or figuring out how to live together or not,

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_00]: you, you, you gotta let the, the, the, the,

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_00]: the people who don't share your worldview have a voice

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and a three-dimensional voice.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise it's, it's leaning toward like,

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, well the, the human sensibility is failing,

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like, and that's, that's, I don't know,

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_00]: that's boring.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So, and so I thought that it was really well,

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_00]: well balanced in terms of, and I liked that,

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and I never would read ahead.

[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I would always just read one episode at a time.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And I liked that, that at the end of the trial,

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_00]: he doesn't win.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, they're not, they're not fucking around here.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, they're like, because this is like, why would he win?

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Why would, that's so Hollywood.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_00]: That would be so, why do all this?

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, it would be for nothing.

[00:46:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So then, so then the story tumbles forward, right?

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is season one and it kind of coasts along.

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then what that does is that created a rift

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_00]: between my marriage, right?

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So then that takes us to this crazy zany thing

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_00]: that happens where Bortis in one episode,

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_00]: you find out he has a porn addiction.

[00:47:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was funny.

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Oh, I watched that show.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I watched that with my mama and that was,

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I never felt more 13.

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting on the floor and she was sitting behind me

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and she didn't say nothing.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And my mama didn't talk that much anyway.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, I want to look back over my show.

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I didn't even look back.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I had to do it at that episode.

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But so he develops a porn addiction.

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But he says, you know, like I was a bad mate.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I went inside myself instead of trying to,

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and they go to therapy and same episode.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So he develops a porn addiction.

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: He almost, he gives a ship a virus

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_00]: because he gets some dirty porn

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and the ship almost gets sucked into a star

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and they have to rescue some people

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and they can't rescue everybody.

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So they have to rescue only like only some people.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a full ass episode.

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And then go to therapy, you know what I mean?

[00:48:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Aliens go into therapy.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Like what, come on.

[00:48:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Like what are we doing?

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So like over the place.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And so again, more balanced writing.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But again, it's still, it's very universal

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_00]: in the sense that it's earnest in the fact

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that like we're talking about some real issues

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and this is like a couple of episodes down the road

[00:48:46] [SPEAKER_00]: from the episode of the gender reassignment episode.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So you find out the reason why he's, you know,

[00:48:52] [SPEAKER_00]: sneaking around in the simulation chamber

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_00]: is because he's still processing

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's still upset that his mate chose

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_00]: like the sort of macro cosmic philosophy

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_00]: over their family, right?

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And so this is real.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so this is really, really great.

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, and again, like, you know,

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_00]: like the fact that my family is,

[00:49:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a science vessel, you know,

[00:49:21] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not a warship.

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, but nobody else,

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Fenn's family is like the fact that,

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_00]: so every time that the ship is, you know, being attacked,

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, and I'm at my post and I'm like,

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, shields up, da da da da.

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_00]: In the back of my mind, I'm like,

[00:49:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I can't fuck this up because my family is on board.

[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so, you know, like,

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_00]: so there's all of that that's in there.

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then, you know, we go to find out

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_00]: that not only are there female mocklins,

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_00]: but there's a whole colony of them.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And that their greatest writer that they,

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_00]: that the mocklins read turns out to be a woman

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_00]: or a female mocklin.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's peel the bandaid off this a little bit.

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_00]: When Seth, when I first found out about

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that there were gonna be female mocklins,

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_00]: because if you notice,

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_00]: if you look at like all the mocklins that,

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_00]: like for the most part,

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_00]: there were only, I think, two non-black men

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_00]: who were playing mocklins.

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, and I love me some Rena

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_00]: who played, who played, what's her name?

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_00]: The female mocklin.

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_00]: The writer?

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_03]: The leader?

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, all the other, yeah.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_00]: That's, God, I feel horrible.

[00:50:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Like people are gonna listen to this

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's like, you know, you know, but.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_03]: You can't remember everything.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It'll come back to me like tonight when like I'm,

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_00]: but anyway, but I got it.

[00:51:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, you know, so since like,

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, mocklins, you know,

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_00]: the characteristics of mocklins are like,

[00:51:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess modeled after me,

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, deep voice, blah, blah, blah.

[00:51:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like big black men that,

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like they should be some big black women.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I mean?

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_00]: You should be like,

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you should go out

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and find some female bodybuilders

[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and they should be, you know,

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_00]: like that's what's telling Seth.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it should be like,

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and so I was, you know,

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_00]: low-key disappointed that, you know,

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and Rena is amazing.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_00]: She's a phenomenal actress from New Zealand

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and she was in that movie once we were warriors.

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like if you ever seen a movie a long time ago,

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_00]: she crushed him.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_00]: She's amazing.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But I was just like, dude,

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand.

[00:51:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is where it got a little funny

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_00]: because I don't even think that he thought

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_00]: about it at all.

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't get it.

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is,

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is where it gets into like the idea,

[00:51:57] [SPEAKER_00]: like the privilege of being a white man

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_00]: where you don't,

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like you sort of subconsciously,

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_00]: you cast like these aliens to be like these big ferocious dudes.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's some big,

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been to Eastern Europe.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_00]: There's some big ferocious white men.

[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, yeah, and women.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm saying like you,

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but when it came to like the woman,

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_00]: like to introduce the female woman,

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, you cast this woman who's from New Zealand.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, that don't even go like,

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like that, like I don't,

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_00]: but okay, whatever.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Let me just, you know, stay in my lane.

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And then eventually like,

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and then so like when they did have some other

[00:52:46] [SPEAKER_00]: mocklins that were female mocklins,

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_00]: they were like some sisters that were there,

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, but I was like,

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_01]: man, you should just listen to me

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_01]: and hire female bodybuilders,

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_01]: like black women, female bodybuilders

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and give them a shot.

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_01]: But because I thought that would be like,

[00:52:58] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, like that would make more sense.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It makes sense.

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if I'm doing a show,

[00:53:02] [SPEAKER_00]: that's what it'll be.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_00]: But, and so then, you know,

[00:53:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you find out that, you know, that there,

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_00]: that there's females.

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then,

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and then the go to the next transformation of,

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_00]: like as you said, when she,

[00:53:20] [SPEAKER_00]: when she, when Topa is, you know, older,

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_00]: played by Imani,

[00:53:28] [SPEAKER_00]: missing her last name,

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_00]: but like she was amazing.

[00:53:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And so she played,

[00:53:33] [SPEAKER_00]: she played him as a boy for a while.

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think he offered her voice

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: or something like that to make it.

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But she, but, but, but, but her physicality,

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_00]: she was very, and they changed the mask

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_00]: because there was like that whole masculine mask.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And then like when she had the,

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_00]: when she had her sex change,

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_00]: like she, there was a softer,

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_00]: more feminine, you know, mask.

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But, but like her transformation

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_00]: in that whole episode of, of her,

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, confronting us

[00:54:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and, and me giving her the codes to,

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, to discover for herself

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and find out, you know, that,

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, that, that, that she,

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_00]: the trial and like seeing the trial

[00:54:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and her story just to,

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_00]: to, so, so she's not suffering with,

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_00]: because I mean, as a parent,

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, I have two, two small boys.

[00:54:26] [SPEAKER_00]: They're six and eight.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And watching them grow

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and grow into their own identity

[00:54:32] [SPEAKER_00]: because they're vastly different.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And wanting to support,

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I just can't imagine what that would be like

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_00]: to feel different

[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_00]: or feel like I don't,

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_00]: like I'm not, I'm some,

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not validated as who I am.

[00:54:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And like that pain of Bortis watching her

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and seeing her just spin and be like,

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like I am who I am.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know why.

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And not like, just like that just killed me.

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So again, back to the writing of that,

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_00]: like it was so that storyline

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think was the storyline that,

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_00]: that I think is the most memorable

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of the drama, you know,

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_00]: because that's what Bortis feel like the most,

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_00]: most boxes, you know,

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and that's what that storyline put us on the map

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_00]: as being like, oh wait, this is not jokes.

[00:55:30] [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing funny about this.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_05]: That's when everybody,

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_05]: that storyline was when everybody like sat up

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_05]: and paid attention.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_04]: That's when I tuned in

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_04]: because I wasn't tuning in

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_04]: and then I heard, I was like, what?

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Same here.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm checking this out, you know.

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I knew off rip that I like laid,

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to lay an egg

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm like, well, I'm in, I'm hooked.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, whatever.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_00]: When I read that episode,

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. This is this.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_00]: This is actually going to be something that,

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_00]: that I really like work on.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_07]: And it was a cute little baby ever.

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I know.

[00:56:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, look at her.

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So funny.

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_00]: We had a real baby.

[00:56:19] [SPEAKER_00]: We had an animal and we had a puppet,

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_00]: you know,

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_00]: because it's like the babies can only work.

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So much.

[00:56:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then they, they, you know,

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_00]: then they use the, it was,

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_00]: they spent so much money on that damn show.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And the little, the little boy who played

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Topo when he was, you know,

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_00]: like a young boy,

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_06]: I was like blessing.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And he was like this,

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_00]: he was such a sweetheart,

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you know what I mean?

[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Just like a little athlete.

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and then the boys on the show were little.

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Now these dudes are grown ass men.

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the older son,

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_00]: he is like six three.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_00]: That is tall.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, thanks, dude.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_02]: What's up?

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_02]: There goes the continuity of that.

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_02]: We definitely, it's definitely not the past.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_02]: If we come back because you got tattoos.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_03]: One more thing, speaking of black boys,

[00:57:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Jay Lee, you know, his character,

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_03]: what'd you call him?

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Call him shining man.

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Was really funny and flippant in the beginning.

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:57:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And then come to find out, you know,

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_03]: this guy is a brilliant engineer.

[00:57:53] [SPEAKER_03]: He was the pilot of the ship.

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And he becomes this brilliant chief engineer on the ship.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And I saw that and then we found out later on

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_03]: that he didn't want his peers to know

[00:58:08] [SPEAKER_03]: that he was that smart because he was in fear of being ostracized.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Sounds familiar.

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_03]: In our community,

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, they'll say, oh, you think you acting white?

[00:58:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, how are you going to be if you're smart?

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Shit.

[00:58:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I got that.

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Peter, you talk white.

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, what?

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_02]: What?

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you get it.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_00]: You get it from both sides.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, well, yeah, like John Lamar's character.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And then this is, I think, you know, Seth, Jay Lee,

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm not putting this business in the street.

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Jay Lee is a phenomenal man in that he is a virtuoso classical piano player.

[00:58:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like playing Radio City Music Hall when he was like 19.

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_00]: He does concerts in LA.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_00]: He's about about he's such an incredible prolific writer.

[00:59:12] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, he's written tons of screenplays.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I think he might be in Chicago right now shooting another movie of his.

[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But he's got a movie called A Typical Wednesday that he did.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, he's produced like.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Write it down, Sabrina.

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's cool.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Like so and he was like president.

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_07]: We talked a little bit about his screenplay.

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER_07]: So yeah, go ahead.

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Like president of his frat, you know what I mean?

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like a basketball player, does stand up.

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, oh, like, you know, takes care of his dad.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_00]: He's just like, I love I got so I saw he we were in Germany

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and I just got just so much love for him.

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he got up and I had jet lag and he got up and went to Beethoven's house.

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I was just like, damn it, I was going to go.

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_07]: So I exhaust you talking to him.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_07]: But we just you got to keep up.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, yeah, but he we every time we get to hang out is always just fueled with energy.

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So much so that I want him to be to play Casio in my.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I see that.

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That's like because I think he's just so dynamic

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think that that would just set up like a great thing between

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_00]: myself and him and just like what does jealousy look like between like,

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: you know what I'm saying?

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's anyway, we're talking about that later.

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, John Lamar being like the smartest other than Isaac, who's not,

[01:00:54] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, he's a he's a he's a, you know, he's a robot.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's being, you know, he's a robot.

[01:00:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, yeah.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Robot.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: He's a robot.

[01:01:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And but Lamar, John Lamar is smart as you know, shit, you know what I mean?

[01:01:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, you know, like, and that was I think something that, you know,

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: he, you know, talking about he's like, I don't what is what's happening with my character?

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know that Seth, you know, I think that Seth had to sort of stew

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: with with what to do with him.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, I don't know that he knew what to do because it's like,

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: because you know, like, they're in a lot of then, you know, like,

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, like, I mean, you look at Seth is from Rhode Island.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You explained it all.

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Explained it all.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_04]: We got it.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, like, I mean, I mean, you know, I say that, I mean, like,

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I do play Peter's boss on Family Guy, right?

[01:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And Preston Lloyd, he's he's on the spectrum, you know,

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: weird guy.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm not saying that Seth doesn't know how to write for black people.

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: There's very specific kind of there's very specific kind of people that live

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: like people that live in Rhode Island or Boston or, you know, saying it's like,

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: okay, okay, okay.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Like,

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave Boston alone.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_07]: I'll leave Boston.

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_07]: No, no, go ahead.

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_07]: Say it.

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know.

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, I'll leave Boston alone.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave Boston alone.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Go back to Rhode Island.

[01:02:30] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I just say I'll stay in the land of Rhode Island.

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what I'm talking about.

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_07]: Providence people,

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_07]: Providence.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_07]: Providence.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_07]: You know who you are.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, you know.

[01:02:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh my God, please send the mail to Sabrina Wood.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_05]: And Peter Macon.

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_05]: I ain't trying to like that.

[01:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to like that.

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I'm just my experience.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm just saying.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Providence, you know we love you.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for that.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_05]: We love our listeners in Rhode Island too.

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying it's different.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I ain't saying it's different.

[01:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It is different.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm saying.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_05]: I've got to put Sabrina down.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_05]: That's all.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I've got to pick that Boston back in check for a second.

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm just speaking.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_07]: You're going to roll down the road of Providence.

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_07]: For what?

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: What I've been through.

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_07]: That's all.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Right.

[01:03:17] [SPEAKER_07]: That's my story.

[01:03:18] [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, I'm telling you my story.

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: That's how I usually.

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_00]: You know.

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:03:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, and I just think that like I just can't wait to.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I just there's such, you know,

[01:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that, you know, knowing Seth, he he he he's probably one of the most brilliant.

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Hard working people that I've ever come across.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I swear to God, I was like, are you a robot?

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Dude, I'm I'm a kid in that battery one time because, you know,

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he started off as an illustrator, you know,

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: went to RISD and, you know, got really successful,

[01:03:57] [SPEAKER_00]: really young and didn't turn into a douchebag.

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, like still like he's still a generous, smart, well read,

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, interesting, accomplished, like composer, like, you know, musician, singer, crooner.

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_07]: You're saying he can sing.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_07]: He can really sing.

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's and he's funny and he's, you know, he's, you know,

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: he works really hard and he doesn't, you know, like I've never seen him like really lose it.

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I've seen him angry, but like, but but but it's it's witticism.

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Like you like I can see it like can tear tear like it like a situation that is like

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_00]: malfunctioning or like someone's, you know, fucking up or being inadequate

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and it just sort of dressed him down, you know, or like bless him out.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Like with like but with a, you know, with a calm, you know, calmness.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So like and just like again, super, super, super generous.

[01:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't know if you've ever been to one of his parties, but like,

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_07]: people in Rhode Island.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing now, right?

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: That's that's that's gonna stick.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Apparently, apparently.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I got tripped up at his party, met Quincy Jones and was like,

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: yeah, right.

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: What do you say to Quincy Jones?

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: What do you say to Quincy Jones?

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Give me a fist bump.

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, OK, I'll leave, you know.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: That's I mean, you know, it's but I think that like if I know Seth, he is,

[01:05:54] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, writing.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I know that he's I don't know.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But if I if I if I understand what our conversations have been about

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_00]: is that like I would I would put money on that there's something in the hopper.

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, absolutely.

[01:06:14] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, but he but I know that he's like.

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like when we part of the reason why the Orville took so long in between seasons

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is because he was the kind of person that wants to write everything first

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and then shoot as opposed to write as you go.

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, he likes to have it all done and all, you know, I mean,

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: that takes a lot of time, you know.

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, and he's like I said, he's in Ted world right now.

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, who knows?

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Like what was like?

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I wish that well, you know, if we'll see, you know, but I would I would

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: it would be it would be it would be sad if there were no more.

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_07]: But, you know, it'd be something more.

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I do, you know, like, you know, I don't know.

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_07]: It's loved, you know.

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_05]: So before I know, like your time, you're being really generous with your time.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_05]: And we love you for that.

[01:07:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, we really want to talk about Planet of the Apes for a little bit, you know,

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_05]: and just tell us like a little bit about what that was like to play that character.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I know you've done voice work, but this particular world is like,

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_05]: I love these stories.

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_05]: I was telling me we're talking like a couple of shows ago about the Planet of the Apes

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_05]: world and talking about the newer renditions of the story, but just the story itself,

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_05]: like it strikes home to in so many ways.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And I have a hard time watching those movies because they hit a nerve.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_05]: They hit a nerve.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they hit a nerve a lot of times.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_05]: And they're really successful in that.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know what nerve you're talking about, but

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: the nerve that it hit with me when I was like, I think I saw the 68 movie when I was about six.

[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was like, wow, and it was confusing, but exciting.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And also, like, like, you know, the like the damn dirty ape.

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It resonated with me.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_06]: That's right.

[01:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds a little familiar.

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was difficult to process really, because, you know, like, I come like, you

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: know, my grandmother, my great grandmother were, you know, maids, domestics, you know,

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: in Chicago.

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, my grandmother was notorious for saying honky honky honky, this honky.

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, because of the way that like, you know, they were treated by white people.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, so I grew up in a very, you know, like, pretty much all black world

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: until I was like 11 or 12.

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And then then I moved to Minneapolis and was an all white world.

[01:09:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was very, very, very strange.

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But so when I was like watching that movie in Chicago, not really ever having

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: experiencing any white people except for on TV.

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, I think a couple of my teachers were white in my school.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But and so the way that I processed that, you know, like it was just like it just

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: didn't didn't didn't sit right.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like this don't and the fact that like, you know, like, you know,

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: the racism that, you know, like black people being compared to monkeys and all

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[01:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Hard to like separate.

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But then they were talking apes and I was like, what the fuck?

[01:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So like I would go to the zoo and I'd be like, you can't you I know you can

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_01]: just say one thing don't tell nobody.

[01:10:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So that was like, you know, so that's how my six year old brain was processing all

[01:10:13] [SPEAKER_02]: this stuff.

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so, you know, cut to, you know, what is it bowling for Columbine?

[01:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I think with Michael Moore and like he had that sort of painful interview with

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Charlton Ashton.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, all that stuff was still in the back of my mind.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, you know, from my cold dad hands and like all the, you know,

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: like the NRA business and like all that stuff.

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just like, you are John Wayne and all them can kiss my ass.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like thank you two times.

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, but yet you lauded as like, and then my dad would like watch all these

[01:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: crazy Westerns and stuff like this.

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of processing going on.

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, cut to, you know, I get we just moved to Atlanta and, you know,

[01:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: from L.A. because the Orville was done and I was the my wife was where I get

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: the hell out of here.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, L.A. right.

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And get that TV money.

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's let's let's let's go make our dollar stretch.

[01:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it was time to go anyway.

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And the schools were like not great.

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And like the health care system was not great for my mom.

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's all better here now.

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Schools are better and the health care system better for my mom.

[01:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Blah, blah, blah.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, and so that came down the pike, like the pipe with

[01:11:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the audition for Apes.

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh damn, they're making another Planet Apes movie.

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And like Andy Serkis, who played Caesar in the last three movies.

[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_07]: Amazing performance.

[01:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Is like from Lord of the Rings, like from Schmiegel to King Kong

[01:11:59] [SPEAKER_00]: to like all these other roles and like that that he's done.

[01:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Like but the performance capture, you know, technology.

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: He's the he's the godfather of all that.

[01:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And so he's actually they're actually I don't know if they started production yet,

[01:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: but like he's directing the next Lord of the Rings movie.

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's about really about Gollum and he's playing Gollum.

[01:12:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's directing it.

[01:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I mean, I mean, I'm like, call me up, dude.

[01:12:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Because when I was in Sydney shooting this movie,

[01:12:38] [SPEAKER_00]: like I got to chop it up with him a few times.

[01:12:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And just like the sessions that we had were,

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: that's what it's like to be under the tutelage of somebody who really,

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_00]: really, really knows what they're doing.

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's super, super nice and super, super attentive and super generous

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: spirit and his energy and his time.

[01:12:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like so specific about like as we were doing,

[01:13:00] [SPEAKER_00]: because what was hard about this,

[01:13:03] [SPEAKER_00]: because we had like six weeks of ape school, right?

[01:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So we, six weeks, we would, we studied the physioanatomy of apes.

[01:13:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Different skeletal systems between apes, chimpanzees.

[01:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, between chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, bonobos,

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and how they were different and human beings.

[01:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And we were learning about like the apes have different anatomy for

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_00]: their vocal, I mean, like their larynxes are shaped different.

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why they don't speak.

[01:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And so like the whole trajectory of Caesar speaking and learning to speak

[01:13:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and apes learning to speak.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_06]: They stood up.

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like in walking more upright and quadrupedal, like, you know,

[01:13:47] [SPEAKER_00]: quadrupedaling and that was the, but so the challenge,

[01:13:52] [SPEAKER_00]: there was, it was so layered in terms of like the challenges because

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like the assignment is to be a talking orangutan now.

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And also like this is 300 years of evolution that's happened since

[01:14:08] [SPEAKER_00]: the last movie, right?

[01:14:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you have to consider like since, you know, like the first one where

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Caesar, you know, speaks because the virus and whatever, I don't know what

[01:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: does, but the need to speak.

[01:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And then that grows to the second movie and then that grows the third movie.

[01:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you have to think about it.

[01:14:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, so those movies, there's only about that.

[01:14:32] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the span of what 20 years maybe like the movies.

[01:14:37] [SPEAKER_00]: If I'm doing the math, but now it's 300 years later.

[01:14:41] Right.

[01:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the challenges was, okay, not only do I talk, but I'm pretty chatty.

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he's a bit like, so he's kind of like, like a little bit of like

[01:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: a crazy uncle who's an anthropologist, like an anthropologist

[01:15:06] [SPEAKER_00]: or who's like, oh, come on, boy.

[01:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to show you all the pictures, family history and all.

[01:15:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Your uncle is a Star Trek fan.

[01:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: My mom smoked weed, daddy smoked weed, everybody smoked weed.

[01:15:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the only one who smoked weed.

[01:15:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'm going to tell you the truth.

[01:15:27] [SPEAKER_00]: He's a little bit like, and like orangutans are very solitary for the most part,

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: except for when they're in like sanctuaries and stuff like that.

[01:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Out in like Borneo and like Asia and stuff like that, they tend to just

[01:15:41] [SPEAKER_00]: not hang out with a lot of other apes.

[01:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas chimpanzees are very societal.

[01:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: They're very political.

[01:15:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And gorillas are like silverback gorillas, male like the male gorillas.

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: They typically die of heart disease or heart attacks because they're so stressed out all the time.

[01:16:10] [SPEAKER_00]: They have to look out and protect, you know, like they're very, very calm until they're not.

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. But there's an order to how they, you know, there's a hierarchy and all that stuff.

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But orangutans are just super chill for the most part.

[01:16:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the hard things to manifest was like, okay, so it's 300 years down the road.

[01:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: How have my vocal cords developed to the point where I can speak?

[01:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so I would have to go through the script and I did this with Andy a lot,

[01:16:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and sort of break up my text because I'm like, this sounds way too human.

[01:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't sound like it sounds like a human wrote this and a human is speaking it and that can't stand.

[01:17:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's going to, if it's taking me out, it's probably going to take the audience out.

[01:17:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, God damn at the end of the day,

[01:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I had to just let all that go and go with a lot like Shakespeare.

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: After the first five minutes, we just talking fucking apes.

[01:17:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean? Like we're just, we just go it and that is what it is.

[01:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, because the way in like I've heard the feedback that I've

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: gotten a lot from the film is like, it starts off very slow.

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, like there's some sign language and it's fairly innocent.

[01:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when my character is introduced, it's sort of a, there's a note shift

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and there's a little bit of humor that comes along.

[01:17:48] [SPEAKER_00]: But then, but I speak and I'm like, you know, so people are like, oh, okay.

[01:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, I feel like I give like a bit of relief to the audience.

[01:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just different. I mean, I'm different.

[01:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a different character in all four of these films.

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Like Maurice, you know, super compassionate, but sign language and like,

[01:18:10] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like in the noises and the sounds that Maurice would make.

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, but Rocca is like this strange bridge between the new world and the world.

[01:18:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And the irony and see these are the things that like, you just,

[01:18:28] [SPEAKER_00]: there's nothing in that thing is ever going to be perfect.

[01:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, so I was like, wait a minute, he can, he can talk,

[01:18:33] [SPEAKER_00]: but he can't read. You know what I mean?

[01:18:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, but that makes sense to me because books are obsolete and like oral,

[01:18:41] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like things are passed down and like, because the irony of, you know,

[01:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: him not understanding what, how humans, because he's like, you know,

[01:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, apes together strong, apes shall not kill apes,

[01:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: apes together strong, and humans and apes live side by side.

[01:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And the whole thing with Proximus is that he has been, you know,

[01:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: he's being read Roman history. He's being read history by Bill Mase's character.

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And he understands, he understands the history of man in a way that Rocca does not.

[01:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and, you know, that, that picture of that they find the children's book of,

[01:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: the, the, the gorilla in the cage. Like that Rocca doesn't really,

[01:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, he didn't say, I guess he didn't see that book, but like, but he collects stuff

[01:19:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and he just, you know, just so happens to not have seen that book because then it

[01:19:43] [SPEAKER_00]: undoes all of the logic that, but he's at an airport and he sees like this sort of like

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: art deco, you know, like very almost like rote, like Russian, you know, like industrialist,

[01:19:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, sculptural, you know, like, you know, carvings in the, in the airport of like,

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, man going to space and da da da. And he's like, this must be a place where they,

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, he's trying to do all this, this, this guesswork about human beings.

[01:20:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was a whole scene that was cut out of the movie that he was like setting fruit traps,

[01:20:21] [SPEAKER_00]: not traps, but like he would set out like fruits and then moldy fruits. And like,

[01:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: he was always trying to like lure human beings into study them. But you know,

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and so then, you know, then, and I had to like, just let go a lot of, of that,

[01:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that Charlton Heston, like the earlier movies, you know, like Roddy McDowell,

[01:20:45] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, I had to let go. But it was because at the time, you know, like it was very, very,

[01:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, progressive or like the, and the makeup was very like,

[01:20:58] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, ahead of its time or it was as a very like,

[01:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought they all looked alike though. Well now, yeah, like I look at it now and I'm just

[01:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: oh yeah, but like then I was like, I just like, they did all look like the apes,

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, I didn't see the human being underneath. Right. Look at it now and it's

[01:21:22] [SPEAKER_00]: like, oh, that's clearly, you know, even like the one that Tim Burton directed with Mark

[01:21:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Wahlberg and where Paul Giamatti is playing. He plays it, yeah. And you can see that it's

[01:21:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Paul Giamatti. Like it's amazing, the makeup of the effects are just, you know, phenomenal for

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the time. But now with this performance capture stuff, which was another hurdle,

[01:21:46] [SPEAKER_00]: right? Because when you watch like even when I was shooting the Orville, if I,

[01:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and normally I don't go back unless I'm trying to figure something out technically or if there's

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: like, I'm trying to find and see if I hit an emotional quality. I don't normally go back

[01:22:02] [SPEAKER_00]: to the, to the, to playback and watch to video village and watch the playback,

[01:22:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, because I'm just, it just puts me in my head and I'm just like,

[01:22:12] [SPEAKER_00]: makes me feel like I'm being vain. But with the performance capture and a lot of like a lot,

[01:22:19] [SPEAKER_00]: 70% of what we shot for Kingdom of the Pliny Apes was on location, right? So we'll be in

[01:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: the bush like with these snakes, with the spiders, with everything in Australia wants to

[01:22:31] [SPEAKER_00]: kill you. Yes, that's truth right there. The leeches, like the birds, the kangaroos,

[01:22:40] [SPEAKER_00]: like I'm just saying. So once you're out there with all this equipment on and like you

[01:22:44] [SPEAKER_00]: have like this, this, this helmet with like this, this high definition camera right here

[01:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: in your face that you have to, took me a month to not bump it, but like, and you bump

[01:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: it and the guys come over and have to adjust it. And but like, you just have to forget

[01:22:58] [SPEAKER_00]: about all that. And like, if I were to go back and look at the playback, what I would see is

[01:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: myself in this crazy getup and there's no information really to be garnered from that

[01:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: either. So it took me back to the theater in a sense is like you just have to be in the

[01:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: scene with your scene partner and trust that the director is getting what they want and

[01:23:17] [SPEAKER_00]: that you that your scene partner is getting what they need and keep it moving because,

[01:23:22] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, there's a whole other life that the film has after we finished shooting it like for

[01:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: like a year. Like we started editing it. They started editing it and we finished shooting mid

[01:23:38] [SPEAKER_00]: February of what? Last year. And then they started editing it in April in LA and they

[01:23:49] [SPEAKER_00]: were editing it all the way up until. And so the premiere was May 2nd and they were like,

[01:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Wes called me the director. He called me about a month, three weeks before the premiere.

[01:24:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God.

[01:24:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, the last, Raka's last line is not, it's just not, it's just not landing

[01:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: right. It's just not, you know, because it was the last line was the work continues.

[01:24:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. And then off he goes into the water and he's like, it's just not, it's just not landing.

[01:24:23] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, what about like, what if we came up with something, you know, like,

[01:24:26] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, something about like this together strong trauma. And I was like, okay, let me

[01:24:30] [SPEAKER_00]: think about this, maybe stronger together, stronger together, strong. So, so, so I, so I

[01:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: sat in this room that I'm in right now with my phone. And because of my, for some reason,

[01:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: my microphone wasn't working to make, you know, technology. I'm an analog man.

[01:24:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Double tapes.

[01:24:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I took my phone and I like, I like, I approximated like the position that I was in the river.

[01:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I did about 1520 takes of like, eight together strong, stronger together together,

[01:25:13] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, and just didn't get just threw a bunch of stuff to Adam. And then it,

[01:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that's what wound up in the movie. So they look, and this is like the crazy thing

[01:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: about like these animators, they took the video from my phone and made it and it

[01:25:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and did all the things they did with it. And that's what was in the movie. And it was like,

[01:25:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and I was like, Oh, this is so cool. Like I have to, but, but that's, that's how

[01:25:40] [SPEAKER_07]: on it until I would have been like, but why did I have to go to Australia with all

[01:25:44] [SPEAKER_07]: the things that were going to kill me?

[01:25:45] [SPEAKER_07]: Right.

[01:25:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Boston kangaroos. They are frightening.

[01:26:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yo, those things they walk around like if Mike Tyson was a kangaroo,

[01:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: like this is the, did anybody know where the waiting room is? They, they, they, they,

[01:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: literally charge because they're very territorial and you're driving and like

[01:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Australians drive very, very like speed limit because they have cameras everywhere. It's

[01:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: very draconian, but like, well in the city, yeah, like no, like you lose your license for,

[01:26:31] [SPEAKER_00]: they have cameras that can tell if you're like on your phone or if you don't have,

[01:26:35] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, both hands on whatever it's super draconian, but like they drive the speed

[01:26:39] [SPEAKER_00]: limit. Right. So they're driving like, you know, 50 miles per hour, like the think it's

[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_00]: one of the kilometers, whatever, but like, but the kangaroos because of that territorial,

[01:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: if a car is driving, they'll run at the car and hit the car and the car up and the

[01:26:57] [SPEAKER_02]: kangaroo was fine. I mean, they're like, they're really like, you know, no neck and just

[01:27:02] [SPEAKER_00]: like, yeah, they're scary.

[01:27:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Sound like Mike Tyson.

[01:27:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, they totally look like they're juicing.

[01:27:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Kangaroo imitation.

[01:27:17] [SPEAKER_05]: The kangaroo standing on the side of the road like I wish a motherfucker would.

[01:27:25] [SPEAKER_05]: But she would come down my road. Come on.

[01:27:32] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what made it, that's what made that movie so lush. You know what I mean?

[01:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that we were shooting in those places and then we were like, yeah,

[01:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: cool, undisturbed rainforest and some of these places were privately owned. I'm like,

[01:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: God damn it. I don't have money. And like, you know, some of these places were bought.

[01:27:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you know, Australia, man, like they,

[01:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like the, you could have been like, you could be a criminal in England

[01:27:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and they're like, well, you can grow some sheep and you can have this land

[01:28:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and you can stay here. I'm like, all right, I'll do it. And like, you know, grow can be

[01:28:09] [SPEAKER_00]: a criminal and a millionaire in the same lifetime.

[01:28:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But people bought up like this land out there and like, I'm talking like

[01:28:21] [SPEAKER_00]: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres of rainforest that they bought,

[01:28:26] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, in like the sixties or seventies for, you know, stupid cheap money.

[01:28:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean? Like 50, $60,000 something like that. You know what I mean?

[01:28:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Criminal money. But I'm just saying we were out there riding horses

[01:28:42] [SPEAKER_00]: in the bush and, you know, it was just, it's to date one of the most incredible

[01:28:49] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, uh, experiences, um, of my career and going to watch it was like, what?

[01:28:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I, you know, I asked my son if he wanted to, my sick, like that's the boys,

[01:29:04] [SPEAKER_00]: if they wanted to see it. So I was going to take them today just because I was like,

[01:29:07] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah, we'll go today. And my six year old is like, there's too much fighting in that.

[01:29:10] [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no. Like Prince reincarnated and just like, he watches, he does this crazy,

[01:29:22] [SPEAKER_02]: like he just like sometimes the most violent shit I'm like, you of all people

[01:29:27] [SPEAKER_02]: should not be freaked out by this. But like for the eight year old, he's like,

[01:29:30] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah, I want to go see it. So maybe I'll take him tomorrow.

[01:29:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Cause that's gonna be cool.

[01:29:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, yeah, I mean, I would love to go to a movie that my dad's in and like,

[01:29:37] [SPEAKER_00]: see it with him. Um, just for that before it leaves the theater.

[01:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:29:41] [SPEAKER_05]: That's how I think that's so cool. I think that, um, like one of the reasons

[01:29:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I've just been dying to say this, I'm so from my heart, so grateful for you

[01:29:51] [SPEAKER_05]: spending this time with us because, you know, I mean, it was really important for us to

[01:29:56] [SPEAKER_05]: have you, this is why we exist, you know, is to show, but like, what do we say?

[01:30:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Shine a light on, on black thought and black creativity and black creators,

[01:30:06] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, and like, and you're, you're the very much that reason why we exist and to give

[01:30:11] [SPEAKER_05]: a platform because especially in our world, which coming from like a truck world and a

[01:30:16] [SPEAKER_05]: fandom world, you know, we get pigeonholed with people. People remember the character

[01:30:21] [SPEAKER_05]: and then they don't know much else about the person who brought the character to life.

[01:30:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Right? Like forever in our minds, some people will forever be their character, even though

[01:30:30] [SPEAKER_05]: we know that they are complete human beings and it was a character. I cannot separate

[01:30:35] [SPEAKER_05]: sometimes. I still can't separate sometimes the people from the role because the role was so

[01:30:40] [SPEAKER_05]: important to me, you know, the role meant so much to me, you know, and I feel like it's

[01:30:45] [SPEAKER_05]: really important for somebody like you to come on the show because you're like a

[01:30:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Renaissance man. Like you're, you know, you know, like, and the depth of knowledge that you

[01:30:53] [SPEAKER_05]: bring just to a conversation like this, I've had so much fun listening to you. I'm learning

[01:30:58] [SPEAKER_05]: from you, you know, and I just feel like you are the man that more people need to see and

[01:31:04] [SPEAKER_05]: hear. So I'm really glad that you're on with us, you know, and that our listeners have a chance

[01:31:10] [SPEAKER_05]: to hear you, you know, not the character, but you.

[01:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Listen back, you know, back at you, I really, talking about this film,

[01:31:24] [SPEAKER_00]: in particular, like just over the last five, six months, whatever, I've had a lot of chats

[01:31:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's been great. And some of them have been better than others. And what I am really,

[01:31:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I was very excited about this before, because when we agreed to do this, I didn't know that I was

[01:31:44] [SPEAKER_00]: going to be doing like the Planet X. Right. Right. Let me just talk about the Orville,

[01:31:48] [SPEAKER_00]: which is cool. But with this, the excitement of being able to, because I figured there's a lot

[01:31:55] [SPEAKER_00]: of crossroads and a lot of common

[01:32:01] [SPEAKER_00]: places or common things to talk about, given just what we were just talking about,

[01:32:06] [SPEAKER_00]: this growing up the way we did and feeling like, you know, like being a black nerd,

[01:32:12] [SPEAKER_00]: you know what I mean? Like what, like just, and now I feel like because

[01:32:17] [SPEAKER_00]: of the, because information is so hard to come by from like a legitimate source. It's like, I just

[01:32:26] [SPEAKER_00]: like, it's almost like sometimes I just stop reading stuff and I just read autobiographies,

[01:32:33] [SPEAKER_00]: you know what I mean? But I feel like this kind of information, like I would listen to

[01:32:38] [SPEAKER_00]: this, do you know what I'm saying? Because it's like, I feel like this conversation,

[01:32:43] [SPEAKER_00]: it's would be, I want to hear this conversation. Right. Alone half the conversation. And I'm

[01:32:50] [SPEAKER_00]: deeply appreciative of that because I feel now more than ever we need this kind of discourse,

[01:32:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you know? So and it keeps me going. So, you know, anytime, anytime. Thank you.

[01:33:07] [SPEAKER_05]: All right. We gonna hold you to that.

[01:33:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's all you got, you know? And so, you know, and I'm sure this won't be the last

[01:33:26] [SPEAKER_00]: time that we get to rap. And I'm serious, like anytime for whatever subject if you do it,

[01:33:32] [SPEAKER_00]: it don't have to be, I mean, I'm happy to participate in any kind of panel or whatever.

[01:33:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm going to Nairobi in September, like late September to mid October to teach a

[01:33:48] [SPEAKER_00]: master class, which I call it workshop, they call it master class. I got to call it master

[01:33:53] [SPEAKER_00]: class, but like, to try to create like a space for actors to have like a sort of like

[01:33:58] [SPEAKER_00]: actor because it's called a YORRA summit. You can look it up. It's Y-O-R-A

[01:34:04] [SPEAKER_00]: summit. And they just launched their thing today. But like after all these protests that

[01:34:09] [SPEAKER_00]: were going on and like what they did to, you know, like to then the president did not

[01:34:14] [SPEAKER_00]: sign like that this tax increase bill and something like that. But like, you know,

[01:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: so basically I'm going there to try to create a space for actors to have. And so it's a

[01:34:29] [SPEAKER_00]: conference that they'll be like, they're trying to build a million businesses in like

[01:34:34] [SPEAKER_00]: certain amount of time, but there would be like entrepreneurs, sports figures,

[01:34:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I forget some other components, but like people there with money and wanting to

[01:34:48] [SPEAKER_00]: build businesses. And so one of the businesses, one of the models I'm trying to create is

[01:34:52] [SPEAKER_00]: space, a sustainable space for actors to write pieces and workshop, just an actor's

[01:35:01] [SPEAKER_00]: workshop. I call it an actor's workshop. But and there's Comic-Con coming up and I'll be there

[01:35:08] [SPEAKER_00]: for that. But if there's, so if there's conventions or whatever, just like this,

[01:35:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm down. You know what I mean? I don't, like I said, I don't really leave the house

[01:35:20] [SPEAKER_00]: unless I go work or whatever. I still don't got a lot of friends.

[01:35:28] [SPEAKER_00]: You got four here. Yeah, we love that. You know, I mean, that's, I mean, I think it's

[01:35:40] [SPEAKER_05]: important that, you know, the world hears more positive Black voices, you know, and especially

[01:35:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Black men, you know, and brother, like I can't tell you how blessed we feel right now,

[01:35:56] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, to have shared this time. Yeah, I appreciate that.

[01:36:00] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, it's good stuff. And so much stuff, man. I got like two pages of notes over here.

[01:36:07] [SPEAKER_04]: I've seen that a fellow on my right, Black Panther.

[01:36:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I really do hope that you will consider me, you know, an ally or just, you know, a

[01:36:22] [SPEAKER_00]: brainstorming springboard. I'm here and I want to be here. And this means a lot to me.

[01:36:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And I really appreciate what you guys have been up to and holding it down,

[01:36:33] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, all this time, you know, for us and for myself to be able to just be able to,

[01:36:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, share and break bread and just chop it up and laugh and talk because it's so

[01:36:44] [SPEAKER_03]: necessary. It is. It really is. Next time we see you, we're going out the dinner.

[01:36:52] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a dollar bet right there.

[01:37:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah.

[01:37:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, where you gonna be soon? What's happening? Where you gonna be?

[01:37:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Next thing next for us is, um, stock check Las Vegas.

[01:37:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, Vegas. Yeah. Okay.

[01:37:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. And then, um, I think we're Jersey, right?

[01:37:15] [SPEAKER_05]: New Jersey. Yeah, New Jersey. The mission. What is it? The creation.

[01:37:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Creation. Yeah.

[01:37:28] [SPEAKER_05]: And then hopefully, maybe, maybe if we could fingers crossed, maybe that creation Charlotte.

[01:37:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. I've never been there for the Southern girls in the house.

[01:37:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Southern girl.

[01:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Baby.

[01:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Every time.

[01:37:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah. I read the collection back out.

[01:38:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Not the records.

[01:38:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[01:38:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Now you got me like wanting to go, um, do some good reading.

[01:38:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, I need to, there's a lot of history. I need to be reading.

[01:38:12] [SPEAKER_05]: I got all these books sitting over, like I'll never, I was a bookseller in my former life

[01:38:17] [SPEAKER_05]: and I know what it is to my, my happy place is having far more books in my possession than

[01:38:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I would ever be able to read. I'm the same way I go to, I was, I did a talk at, uh, Morehouse,

[01:38:32] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, like a few months ago, I went into bookstore and just got stupid.

[01:38:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I just fucked them on the bookshelf before my wife came home.

[01:38:47] [SPEAKER_00]: All right, y'all. We're gonna wrap this up.

[01:38:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. Let me know when this is going to play. Like,

[01:38:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and um, I want to, you know, I'll listen to it like and criticize myself the whole time, but.

[01:39:00] [SPEAKER_04]: I'll definitely let you know.

[01:39:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:39:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:39:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Do you want to do the outro?

[01:39:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[01:39:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you can find us at sci-fi sisters.com. That's S Y F Y S I S T A S.com.

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[01:40:30] [SPEAKER_05]: the baddest engineer in any and all universes. That's Dose the anonymous one. He's responsible

[01:40:36] [SPEAKER_05]: for all the music you hear on our show as well as for production services. And if you

[01:40:41] [SPEAKER_05]: are in need of his skills, hit him up on Instagram. That's dose underscore the anonymous

[01:40:46] [SPEAKER_05]: underscore one. That's the number one. And that's it for us this week, everybody. Thank

[01:40:51] [SPEAKER_05]: you so much for listening. We thank you, Peter, for being here and catch you on the

[01:40:56] [SPEAKER_05]: flip side people. Peace, love and hair grease. Love and hair grease. That's right. That's right.

[01:41:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Hi everybody. Sister Tamiya here with the shorty shout outs for this month. We'd like to thank

[01:41:10] [SPEAKER_05]: the following patrons for your continued support of the sci-fi sisters. Allison Lillie-J Hyde,

[01:41:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike and Kristen Holton, Ayanna Mae Tom, Casey Schafsky, Mike Nower, Cassandra Girard,

[01:41:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Bruce McMillan, April Meade, Domestic, LJ, Tara Jefferson, Holly Smith, Bernadette Garcia-Galvez,

[01:41:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Rhonda G, Cathy D, Rita Persant-Nethersoll, Marcus Bigum, Mark Richmond, Bill Erickson,

[01:41:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Zakiya Graham, Linda Anderay, Travis Taylor, Jeffrey Cochran, Old Kline, Peter Heisler,

[01:41:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Olga Krapczyk, TJ Jackson-Bey, Liza Albright, Kalea Zawacki, Sam Drogue Dickinson, Stephanie

[01:41:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Baker, Sailor Marge, Stephanie Dole, Starbase Centaur 4210 Productions, Jamal Taylor,

[01:42:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Scott Jensen, Anne Bradley, J.R. Poole, Howard Hogan, L.M., Timothy Baum, David Gregory,

[01:42:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Eve England, David Balston, Karen Jermara, Sue Kaye, Mohamed Noor,

[01:42:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Susan V. Gruner and Anna Post. Thank you all so much. We love you!