Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / John Clarence Stewart & Alex Newell, Melissa L. Williams, Isaac Wright Jr., Dr. Vernard Hodges & Dr. Terrence Ferguson
Transcript
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- 1:22Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
- 1:24Speaker 1: has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
- 1:27Speaker 1: Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's given me
- 1:30Speaker 1: advice on many occasions. In occasion didn't notice, I'm not broke.
- 1:34Speaker 1: You know. He'll be interview with celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and
- 1:37Speaker 1: industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do, it's
- 1:40Speaker 1: what he likes to share. Now it's time to hear
- 1:42Speaker 1: from my man, Rashan McDonald money Making Conversations. Here we go.
- 1:47Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. I'm your host from Sean McCone.
- 1:50Speaker 1: You heard the main each money Making Conversation talk shorts
- 1:53Speaker 1: about entrepreneurship and entertainment. I provide the consumer and business
- 1:56Speaker 1: owner access to celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and engine street decision makers.
- 2:01Speaker 1: It is important to understand that everybody travels a different
- 2:03Speaker 1: path to success. That's because your brand is different. The
- 2:07Speaker 1: challenges you face in your life are different. So stop
- 2:09Speaker 1: reading other people's success stories and start writing your own
- 2:12Speaker 1: Now you can be motivated by your success because your
- 2:15Speaker 1: stories can offer direction and help you reach your goals
- 2:18Speaker 1: through your proper planet, and you're committed effort. The Money
- 2:21Speaker 1: Making Conversation interviews provide relatable information to the listener about
- 2:25Speaker 1: career and financial planning, entrepreneurship, entertainment, motivation, leadership, overcoming the odds,
- 2:32Speaker 1: and more importantly, how to live a balance life. That's
- 2:35Speaker 1: what this show is all about. I got two incredible guests.
- 2:37Speaker 1: They're live in studio. Let me introduce the first time meeting,
- 2:40Speaker 1: but I feel like I know him because I've seen
- 2:42Speaker 1: several episodes. It's not new series on NBC. The next
- 2:46Speaker 1: two guests are a live in studio. Like I stated
- 2:48Speaker 1: from the look, I'm just giving like one credit and
- 2:50Speaker 1: attach it to their names. From the Luke Cage of
- 2:52Speaker 1: Netflix series, he plays Simon on the NBC midseason drama
- 2:56Speaker 1: Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist and from the Glee TV Serious He
- 3:00Speaker 1: plays mo on NBC's new mid season drama Yeah Okay,
- 3:08Speaker 1: mid Season drama Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist. They are both talented entertainments,
- 3:12Speaker 1: but they're also driven by their causes to create change.
- 3:15Speaker 1: Alex Newell is a powerful voice and the LGBT Team
- 3:19Speaker 1: community worldwide. And John Clarence Stewart is an advocate for
- 3:23Speaker 1: the evolution of black and brown man and the innocence
- 3:26Speaker 1: and education of black and brown boys. Please work with
- 3:29Speaker 1: The Money Making Conversation two of the stars of Zoe's
- 3:32Speaker 1: Extraordinary Playlist that air Sunday Night on NBC, John Clarence
- 3:36Speaker 1: Stewart and Alex Newell. So, how do I learn how
- 3:40Speaker 1: to make money? Because I'm not I'm not broke. I
- 3:45Speaker 1: already tell you about my bag three from London. You're
- 3:51Speaker 1: not just gonna go to Macy's and get that back.
- 3:56Speaker 1: You just keep going, You keep going. But getting on
- 3:58Speaker 1: the plane, I know somebody I don't. I get all
- 4:06Speaker 1: my as they say, my suspenders they come from London,
- 4:11Speaker 1: as you can. I love my clothes. That's one of
- 4:15Speaker 1: my cities. Paris is another one. I said. If I
- 4:18Speaker 1: ever had to do it all over again, Team, I
- 4:20Speaker 1: probably would live in Paris because I love New York
- 4:23Speaker 1: and Paris reminds me of New York. It's fast, it's
- 4:25Speaker 1: great food, as feels very community driven, and so I
- 4:29Speaker 1: probably would have lived my life out in Paris. So,
- 4:32Speaker 1: but I've lived my life out in the United States.
- 4:34Speaker 1: I love it here all right. Lived in Chicago, That's
- 4:36Speaker 1: why I did Steve Harvish talk show, or we launched
- 4:39Speaker 1: it up there there for five years. I love the Cold.
- 4:41Speaker 1: Lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years, and I'm a Houston,
- 4:44Speaker 1: Texas home board straight out of the field Ford. We're
- 4:47Speaker 1: now based in the Atlanta doing this incredible money making
- 4:51Speaker 1: conversation talk show. One of my clients you heard him
- 4:54Speaker 1: earlier than Stephen AA Smith, businessman and everything. He's ito
- 5:00Speaker 1: so so when I bring in the individuals on the show,
- 5:03Speaker 1: then they love about both you guys and your your
- 5:05Speaker 1: dynamically different individuals, but you're achieving the same success changing
- 5:08Speaker 1: the world, and you're from an entertainment perspective the show.
- 5:13Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about the show, Zoe. He's extraordinary played
- 5:15Speaker 1: this which Arizon NBC. I've seen the first three episodes
- 5:19Speaker 1: and Simon your character, you know, um, you know with
- 5:22Speaker 1: which I love about it. I'm gonna tell you a
- 5:24Speaker 1: little bit back by me. I'm an old school guy.
- 5:26Speaker 1: I love I grew up watching the Oklahoma Stars day.
- 5:30Speaker 1: I love to death these are so I'm a big
- 5:33Speaker 1: musical guy at heart. You know, and in middle school
- 5:36Speaker 1: I played this saxophone for like paren that. So I
- 5:39Speaker 1: have a music background. Now I can't sing. My daughter
- 5:41Speaker 1: is taking singing lessons. I don't know where she got
- 5:43Speaker 1: that from. She said, Dad, I'm gonna take singing lessons. Okay.
- 5:46Speaker 1: She when he took a singing lesson, the guy said
- 5:48Speaker 1: come back. I said, okay, that's good. He said, come on,
- 5:55Speaker 1: come back. So that my daughter inside my daughter. So
- 5:58Speaker 1: both you guys, I have to say professional singers. So
- 6:00Speaker 1: starting with you, John, uh leading that you have done
- 6:04Speaker 1: a lot of physical activity, a lot of action shows.
- 6:07Speaker 1: How did you get involved with this series? Um? I
- 6:09Speaker 1: got involved with the series through Jane, she plays lead autem.
- 6:14Speaker 1: We worked on the show together called what If in
- 6:17Speaker 1: the cast At that time, we were all out having
- 6:20Speaker 1: drinks one night and um she brought up this show
- 6:22Speaker 1: that she was working on and she said that they
- 6:25Speaker 1: were looking for a guy to play this role. And
- 6:27Speaker 1: then a friend of ours said, John, do you sing?
- 6:29Speaker 1: And I said yeah. She said you sing? I said yeah,
- 6:32Speaker 1: and then she wrote something on her phone. And then
- 6:34Speaker 1: the next day my agent reached out to me. It
- 6:35Speaker 1: was like, John, do you sing? I said, yeah, you resume.
- 6:42Speaker 1: Singing is not on your resume. I mean, it's just
- 6:45Speaker 1: it's just not at the very top. Um. And so
- 6:48Speaker 1: it's really because I'm a farmer actor, So I know
- 6:52Speaker 1: you put all those skills down there Spanish. You know.
- 6:54Speaker 1: I can psycho motorcycle and did singing. Its singing. I
- 6:58Speaker 1: sing this on the resume because I've done a few
- 7:01Speaker 1: I've done a musical or two. UM, not in a
- 7:04Speaker 1: grand sk I haven't done Broadway. UM. I did a
- 7:06Speaker 1: show called Quired Boy here in Atlanta back in the day. UM.
- 7:10Speaker 1: But uh, at that time, my agent sent me the script.
- 7:14Speaker 1: And when my agent sent me the script, I read
- 7:15Speaker 1: the pilot and it moved me. UM. I lost my
- 7:19Speaker 1: my pops thirteen years ago. And so for me, the
- 7:23Speaker 1: concept of the show UM Zoe played by Jane being
- 7:27Speaker 1: able to hear people's heart song and know what they're
- 7:30Speaker 1: emotionally going through UM really connected with me. Uh and
- 7:34Speaker 1: Simon going through this grieving process is something that I
- 7:38Speaker 1: feel is so unique and so specific and something that
- 7:40Speaker 1: I could bring something to. UM. It's something that black men,
- 7:44Speaker 1: black boys, UM, black and brown like men in general,
- 7:48Speaker 1: everyone needs to have more examples of people giving themselves
- 7:53Speaker 1: permission to feel and UM with this, with this construct,
- 7:58Speaker 1: you know, there is no mask, you know what I'm saying,
- 8:02Speaker 1: And so much of what we do in the world
- 8:04Speaker 1: is wear masks. UM and Austin brilliantly created this, this
- 8:10Speaker 1: show where we're getting to the heart of everyone, which
- 8:13Speaker 1: is the thing that connects us all. I think the
- 8:15Speaker 1: emotional world true. I'm gonna just let you know that
- 8:18Speaker 1: I am thoroughly impressed with the script. At first when
- 8:21Speaker 1: I got into the series, initially I went okay, But
- 8:24Speaker 1: after the third episode, I am I want to see four.
- 8:26Speaker 1: I want to see five? You just wait. I'm just
- 8:29Speaker 1: blown away. And then Alex, the next door neighbor who
- 8:32Speaker 1: plays the music loud the every episode you have a
- 8:35Speaker 1: different hashtag, every scene, I have a different I go
- 8:40Speaker 1: through five or six weeks and as the DJ, the eccentric, eclectic,
- 8:47Speaker 1: loud mouth who has But how I got onto the
- 8:50Speaker 1: show was UM and you from Glee. I come from Glee,
- 8:53Speaker 1: and so with that, the casting director of Glee UM
- 8:56Speaker 1: pitched me for this show, and Um I had an
- 8:59Speaker 1: audition for it, and then it got canceled, and then
- 9:01Speaker 1: I went straight to test and then I read the
- 9:03Speaker 1: script and I was just like, oh my god, this
- 9:05Speaker 1: is me because it was all about what my love
- 9:08Speaker 1: of music is. And I've been singing since I was
- 9:10Speaker 1: two years old. Um and in Boston, well Boston, Alabama.
- 9:15Speaker 1: My mom and my daddy from Alabama, and so when
- 9:17Speaker 1: my grandfather, my grandfather, my father died when I was six,
- 9:19Speaker 1: my mother used to shipped me to Alabama each summer.
- 9:22Speaker 1: So I really learned my roots and um it, spirity
- 9:28Speaker 1: culture shot going from Boston to the Cottondale, Alabama. Hello Cottondale,
- 9:34Speaker 1: not even in the whole waffle house, but um my
- 9:45Speaker 1: love of music, I've grown up in church and doing
- 9:47Speaker 1: Broadway and being a recording artist. It really spoke to
- 9:51Speaker 1: that side of me. Especially after Glee ended. Now You're
- 9:55Speaker 1: Interesting thout, I saw a video I tried to do
- 9:58Speaker 1: even I try to learn more about individuals who I
- 10:00Speaker 1: talked to. Like in one interview, you listed Jane as
- 10:03Speaker 1: your friend you know, and as a relationship that started
- 10:07Speaker 1: on the show. Talk about that. You said you knew
- 10:09Speaker 1: her from another show and you guys were out and
- 10:13Speaker 1: she told you about the series. And I always talk
- 10:14Speaker 1: about relationships, How did I did your relations friendship with her?
- 10:18Speaker 1: Jane being lead character on the show, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
- 10:22Speaker 1: and Alex Your characters more more on the show that
- 10:25Speaker 1: they collected the outlandish over the top djes. How did
- 10:29Speaker 1: their relationship move off the off the I guess the
- 10:32Speaker 1: screen into real life. I guess it started off screen
- 10:35Speaker 1: before it went to screen. I mean when we were
- 10:37Speaker 1: in Canada, we spent more time together outside of the
- 10:41Speaker 1: show than we did on the show because we don't
- 10:42Speaker 1: spend a lot of time with each other working all
- 10:45Speaker 1: the time and we aren't in the same scenes all
- 10:47Speaker 1: the time. And I think that's how we cultivated, uh
- 10:50Speaker 1: working friendship. I think I've had so many dinners outside
- 10:54Speaker 1: of the show with just Jane and just talking and
- 10:57Speaker 1: getting to know each other, and it makes everything on
- 10:59Speaker 1: screen not much better authentic. Yeah, because I'm hang out
- 11:03Speaker 1: with my friend and we're just saying lines. And that's
- 11:06Speaker 1: what I take away. John, I look at you, your
- 11:08Speaker 1: player kind of semi love interest because she doesn't well no, no, no, no,
- 11:13Speaker 1: to come on now. And I know you, I know
- 11:14Speaker 1: you're the referee. You know, she goes from you know,
- 11:17Speaker 1: sign into a max right, you know, you know she's
- 11:21Speaker 1: you know, let's le's let's talk about that, because you
- 11:23Speaker 1: don't because you have a fiancee on the show, so
- 11:26Speaker 1: you know this is the semi you know, you're right right,
- 11:28Speaker 1: so you don't really know what's going on, but Mo
- 11:31Speaker 1: kind of knows what's going on here. So so you're
- 11:34Speaker 1: the innocent bystanding there, because like I said, let's let's
- 11:37Speaker 1: let's set up the series correctly. Okay, because Zoey's character,
- 11:41Speaker 1: she goes in for an exam, I won't give it
- 11:43Speaker 1: the series away, and out of the exam, she's she's
- 11:46Speaker 1: struck with the ability to be able to hear people's
- 11:49Speaker 1: songs that are affecting the emotionally at that moment. They
- 11:53Speaker 1: can break out in the dance. They can break out
- 11:55Speaker 1: into a solo, the whole coffee shop can just start dancing,
- 11:58Speaker 1: the whole street can just break out into a whole number.
- 12:01Speaker 1: And but nobody's seeing it but her, and when they stopped,
- 12:04Speaker 1: they just start walking off, and so so she's really
- 12:07Speaker 1: caught up in that moment, and so so that's really
- 12:09Speaker 1: important when you once you're buy into that, you see
- 12:13Speaker 1: it's important because the way her family dynamic and structure
- 12:16Speaker 1: with her father, his disability, her mom and it established
- 12:21Speaker 1: lands of communication, but it also established the relationship she
- 12:24Speaker 1: starts with Mo and then when he starts breaking out
- 12:27Speaker 1: just in a solo at the desk, that that builds
- 12:31Speaker 1: the relationship there. And so with that being said, John,
- 12:34Speaker 1: how does that play out for you? Because you know
- 12:36Speaker 1: your your plan a character, you don't know what's happening
- 12:39Speaker 1: and you just being you, but but you you kind
- 12:43Speaker 1: of can do you Are you sensing any type of
- 12:45Speaker 1: emotional connection other than work or she relates to your
- 12:49Speaker 1: sorrow with your dad passing in the series, or what
- 12:52Speaker 1: I think the way that comes to mind is intimacy,
- 12:55Speaker 1: And I think it's an intimacy is sometimes born over
- 12:58Speaker 1: a long period of time, and some time is born
- 13:00Speaker 1: in a moment when people when someone has an experience
- 13:03Speaker 1: that's very unique, like losing someone and being in the
- 13:06Speaker 1: process of losing someone or having lost someone themselves, there's
- 13:09Speaker 1: a there's It's like being in a dome and no
- 13:13Speaker 1: one else is in the dome but you, Um, no
- 13:15Speaker 1: one else is life is different but yours. And then
- 13:18Speaker 1: when Zoe um confides and when Zoe says what's going
- 13:22Speaker 1: on with her father, Um Simon feels like there's someone
- 13:25Speaker 1: else in the dome with him, right though he has
- 13:27Speaker 1: a fiance, she's never lost anyone and that's a very
- 13:30Speaker 1: specific kind of uh. And it was suddenly said there,
- 13:34Speaker 1: you know, like because when you meet the fiance, she
- 13:38Speaker 1: mentioned the word weddy and then all of a sudden,
- 13:40Speaker 1: that little couple of sentences that you have with make
- 13:42Speaker 1: it feel like that relationship is kind of shaky. That
- 13:44Speaker 1: was good writing right there. You know. It was like
- 13:47Speaker 1: it was like the door was open. Oh, maybe maybe
- 13:51Speaker 1: she might be sliding over the Zoe Dory might have
- 13:54Speaker 1: a shot. But because I thought Zoe heard that in
- 13:57Speaker 1: a series, because you go okay, because but she you know,
- 14:00Speaker 1: she had the two ice cream cups and she threw
- 14:02Speaker 1: them in the trash. When she realized that she was
- 14:05Speaker 1: a fool for thinking there was an option here, because
- 14:07Speaker 1: it wasn't an option. She's overthought the situation. She runs
- 14:09Speaker 1: to dear friend Mo over there, who kind of trying
- 14:14Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on with this music thing.
- 14:18Speaker 1: Why do you believe her? Um? I think Mo at
- 14:22Speaker 1: first thought this was just like a fun game. Genuinely
- 14:27Speaker 1: think that this is like a fun game, Like, oh
- 14:30Speaker 1: my god, come here, crazy white girl, Like, oh, I'm
- 14:35Speaker 1: really high and this is funny to me, but I
- 14:39Speaker 1: think and then as it grows, you learn that everything
- 14:43Speaker 1: that Zoe is going through and it's saying telling Mo
- 14:46Speaker 1: is very true. Like it's not like she's making things up.
- 14:50Speaker 1: She's like hearing these songs and then it's correlating to
- 14:53Speaker 1: the person, and so you can't help but believe her.
- 14:58Speaker 1: And I think that Mo knows that without Mo, Zoe
- 15:03Speaker 1: would be very lost in all of it, because there
- 15:06Speaker 1: is she. Zoe doesn't have a relationship with music, so
- 15:09Speaker 1: she doesn't know which which is actually funny, Yeah, you know,
- 15:13Speaker 1: because she claims she screams at you about you playing
- 15:16Speaker 1: loud music, but she doesn't know anything about it, especially
- 15:19Speaker 1: when she said that she's giving his gift. You see
- 15:22Speaker 1: people singing on the wasted, wasted, wasted, and you say
- 15:27Speaker 1: that too, I do. That should be the blessing should
- 15:31Speaker 1: have been passed and it should have been bestowed onto
- 15:33Speaker 1: not a tone deaf person. Let's talk about Glee, because
- 15:37Speaker 1: Glee was a groundbreaker. Yeah, I watched Glee. I'm watching Zoe.
- 15:41Speaker 1: I will tell you I love Zoe, enjoy Glee, and
- 15:45Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you why the characters have so much pain.
- 15:51Speaker 1: And then you have uh it was Lauren Graham, she
- 15:54Speaker 1: from The gil More Girls, a character you get it
- 15:57Speaker 1: exposed and Mary's team with Mary, she plays the mom
- 16:05Speaker 1: James mom on the show. If the father he's ah,
- 16:09Speaker 1: here's a neural illness where he can't speak. Along the way,
- 16:14Speaker 1: he starts to communicate much much better in the series.
- 16:19Speaker 1: And that's why this music plays a such a vital
- 16:22Speaker 1: role because it forces people who you thought you had
- 16:25Speaker 1: no way of communicating or understanding them and guiding them
- 16:28Speaker 1: through the right paths to you mostly get them right
- 16:31Speaker 1: on the right path. That's why falling in love with
- 16:34Speaker 1: this series because you know you can you know, because
- 16:38Speaker 1: let's let's put this way, if you just did to
- 16:40Speaker 1: show at the office, it'll be a good show. Is
- 16:43Speaker 1: when you go to her family, when you go to
- 16:47Speaker 1: her her mom and and um, you know, you know,
- 16:50Speaker 1: I've dealt with my mom passing away. You knew what
- 16:53Speaker 1: best people get older, they never passed away away or
- 16:55Speaker 1: you want them to pass away because they physically, you know,
- 16:58Speaker 1: they diminished physically, and so and knowing that I've seen
- 17:02Speaker 1: how how that it affects people. And then in this
- 17:05Speaker 1: situation that affects her mom and even though she's in denial,
- 17:10Speaker 1: and I think that is really important. It's fear relatable.
- 17:12Speaker 1: I think to anybody who would watch the show, the
- 17:15Speaker 1: music is just a bonus. But the storyteller is amazing.
- 17:19Speaker 1: So each one you can talk about that. We start
- 17:22Speaker 1: with you, John, they move with dialex because the storyteller,
- 17:24Speaker 1: that's that's such a beautiful story. You guys can tell
- 17:26Speaker 1: it every Sunday night on NBC. Absolutely. And you know
- 17:30Speaker 1: the credit for that is that's Austin Man. That's the
- 17:32Speaker 1: that's the creator of the show. And and he I
- 17:36Speaker 1: mean the show is based on his life, right, And
- 17:39Speaker 1: and I think there's a there's a specificity and an
- 17:43Speaker 1: authenticity to the story because it's coming from that soul space.
- 17:48Speaker 1: And you can't you can't mimic that. You can't um,
- 17:51Speaker 1: you can't conjure that up. It's just it's there or
- 17:53Speaker 1: it's not. And when something is so specific, I think
- 17:55Speaker 1: it makes it universal. Um. And it hits the vein
- 17:58Speaker 1: or the cord or the nerve. And I think that's
- 18:00Speaker 1: what you feel, Yeah, that's that. That's the same way
- 18:03Speaker 1: that um, that's the way that like looking at my mother, right,
- 18:07Speaker 1: after my father passed away. Um, looking at the way
- 18:10Speaker 1: that she is, her life is being, how she's navigated things,
- 18:15Speaker 1: how she's held us together, how she's tried to maintain
- 18:19Speaker 1: a some sense of normalcy, and then finding a new normal.
- 18:23Speaker 1: You know, it's all of those things that's that's important
- 18:25Speaker 1: because that happens with Mary's character. It's it is accepting
- 18:30Speaker 1: the responsibility that she can't let go and she can't
- 18:34Speaker 1: ask for help and not feel like she's diminished her responsibilities.
- 18:38Speaker 1: And there's a very key moment in episode three that
- 18:41Speaker 1: that plays out that definitely uh, such such the course
- 18:45Speaker 1: of that relationship in a very positive direction because it
- 18:48Speaker 1: was spirer spiring down here and in a horribly bad
- 18:52Speaker 1: way for the family dynamic, you know. And I, like
- 18:55Speaker 1: you said, there's some some scenes, some episodes coming up there.
- 18:58Speaker 1: I'm gonna get even more either about in the future.
- 19:01Speaker 1: So so for so that's your character that Alex did
- 19:05Speaker 1: you play? You play the character mo? The DJ tell
- 19:08Speaker 1: us about would somebody gives you a character like that
- 19:11Speaker 1: to play? Do you do? Do you do you limit
- 19:15Speaker 1: what you can do with it? Or you say are
- 19:17Speaker 1: you go to the producers and say, Okay, what do
- 19:19Speaker 1: you What do you want? What do you want me
- 19:20Speaker 1: to give you? With this character, I think it's a
- 19:22Speaker 1: combination of both. I always want to be like, what
- 19:25Speaker 1: do you need from me? After I give them what
- 19:28Speaker 1: I can give them, and then change whatever they want
- 19:32Speaker 1: depending on the scenario or the topic. I think, Um,
- 19:37Speaker 1: when I first had a meeting after the show got
- 19:40Speaker 1: picked up, Um, it was so we have this confident character,
- 19:45Speaker 1: very very confident. Where is the flaw? Where is the
- 19:49Speaker 1: humanistic quality? Where is the realism? How do we make
- 19:53Speaker 1: this character more relatable other than just being at ten
- 19:56Speaker 1: and confident all the time? And I gave them a
- 19:58Speaker 1: plethora of ideas of things about where my flaws personally
- 20:03Speaker 1: come in about being confident all the time, but I
- 20:06Speaker 1: mean I am when I'm handing handed a character that
- 20:10Speaker 1: is so larger than life. It's it's always a challenge,
- 20:13Speaker 1: mainly because it's so hard to be at a ten
- 20:16Speaker 1: a majority of the time and not be like a
- 20:19Speaker 1: trope or a Jimminy cricket or a magical Negro. So
- 20:25Speaker 1: it's it's nice to like go in with the expectation
- 20:28Speaker 1: of I can do all of that, but I would
- 20:31Speaker 1: like more of than that. And I, and what are
- 20:35Speaker 1: the ways that we can get there? Do an interesting
- 20:37Speaker 1: thing about your character, were both of you guys character
- 20:39Speaker 1: characters because they're they're distinctively different, but they play important
- 20:43Speaker 1: roles in the series. One one is emotionally guiding, that's
- 20:46Speaker 1: your character side, mostly guiding potentially James character Zoe into
- 20:51Speaker 1: a direction where she doesn't even know she's just trying
- 20:54Speaker 1: to find us because she's in denial with another lead
- 20:56Speaker 1: actor on the show, one of my favorite guys from
- 20:58Speaker 1: the Pitch Perfect series. I saw him out well, I
- 21:01Speaker 1: like this show because I really like it. He's a
- 21:02Speaker 1: very talented guy as well as an outstanding singer. And
- 21:06Speaker 1: then and then you have your character mode where you're
- 21:10Speaker 1: trying to figure it out too girl, make a decision,
- 21:13Speaker 1: you know over here this is not And then and
- 21:15Speaker 1: then this third episode third, the episode three ended with
- 21:19Speaker 1: this his team Simon. Now, you know, because of the
- 21:22Speaker 1: fact that you're playing a referee. And then when I
- 21:24Speaker 1: look at your characters, it's always on ten. But he's
- 21:27Speaker 1: always on ten. But because you're never right all the time,
- 21:30Speaker 1: you know, so that's your flaw. You know, you give
- 21:32Speaker 1: information that means the right information, So that's a flaw
- 21:35Speaker 1: when you walked in the room talking about got these
- 21:36Speaker 1: three ideas and all three of them are crazy. No
- 21:40Speaker 1: I made anything, especially number three. I thought, what she
- 21:44Speaker 1: think a number three? Well? And so these are the
- 21:46Speaker 1: way I can't give away the serious. I'm just like
- 21:48Speaker 1: I'm talking and I gotta talk to Eric. So everybody,
- 21:53Speaker 1: I gotta look at the episode three to find out
- 21:55Speaker 1: what number three years. I had to find out what
- 21:56Speaker 1: team Simon is. I gotta who is that other dude?
- 21:58Speaker 1: She pitched perfect ausally talking about that. That's right on
- 22:02Speaker 1: Sunday Night season Zoe's starting their playlist. It's an incredible
- 22:07Speaker 1: serious starting. Two of my friends here to me, we
- 22:10Speaker 1: keep elevating. Yeah, good friends, friends, you know. I can't
- 22:13Speaker 1: wait SA family, get your backs. We're not getting that.
- 22:20Speaker 1: We're not getting it will beat me up. So let's
- 22:24Speaker 1: talk about I started the show talking about what you
- 22:28Speaker 1: guys do off you know, I think in your real world,
- 22:31Speaker 1: you know, and that committed effort. I'm a passion guy,
- 22:35Speaker 1: you know. I always feel I always paying forward. Uh,
- 22:38Speaker 1: I'm being I'm being honored in my school this Sunday
- 22:41Speaker 1: at halftime because making a big endowment where every year
- 22:46Speaker 1: you know it's uh, three African American students. We have scholarships.
- 22:50Speaker 1: Uh and in the STEAM programs forever. You know, it's
- 22:54Speaker 1: set up that way. I died and through a lot
- 22:56Speaker 1: of dirt in front on my face and that's still
- 22:58Speaker 1: be giving with these three scholarships. And so that's part
- 23:01Speaker 1: of the process. That's one of the things I do HPCU.
- 23:05Speaker 1: You know we set up last year we were registered
- 23:08Speaker 1: students on the spot, gave way almost four million dollars
- 23:10Speaker 1: and scholarship. So when I hear individuals who we know
- 23:13Speaker 1: how busy each one of your lives are, but still
- 23:16Speaker 1: stop pumped the brakes to go, you know something I
- 23:18Speaker 1: gotta do more. What drives you John and your cause
- 23:22Speaker 1: or causes, well, I think for me what drives me
- 23:28Speaker 1: is the things that have been struggles in my own life. Um,
- 23:31Speaker 1: and realizing that I want to be able to give
- 23:35Speaker 1: boys the thing that I didn't have. Right. Um, and
- 23:37Speaker 1: you're Atlanta bar right, an Atlanta bar. Yeah. And my
- 23:40Speaker 1: father was also he was steeped in the community. I
- 23:43Speaker 1: mean he started up a chapter of the a CP
- 23:45Speaker 1: in Gwinnette County. Um and my mother still runs it
- 23:48Speaker 1: and she works at Emory right now. Um, But growing up,
- 23:53Speaker 1: I think that I didn't have There wasn't a focus
- 23:56Speaker 1: on emotional intelligence growing up as a young black boy
- 24:00Speaker 1: and as a black man. I think a lot of
- 24:02Speaker 1: my process, through going to therapy and different things like that,
- 24:05Speaker 1: has been acquiring the vocabulary for my inner world and
- 24:10Speaker 1: learning how to make changes that are sustainable in my life.
- 24:13Speaker 1: And I think a lot of boys don't have permission
- 24:16Speaker 1: to do that because there's this idea of manhood that
- 24:18Speaker 1: they're trying to hold up, which means they sacrifice parts
- 24:21Speaker 1: themselves along the way, and they just a lot of
- 24:23Speaker 1: times they just need to know it's okay. They just
- 24:26Speaker 1: need to see someone experiencing a thing that they feel
- 24:29Speaker 1: and see that, oh, it's possible to do that. I'm human.
- 24:32Speaker 1: I'm not less of a man that which is awesome now, Alex,
- 24:35Speaker 1: when you look at your life, I mentioned, uh, but
- 24:37Speaker 1: also I'm a cancer survivor and when I read about you,
- 24:41Speaker 1: you're involved with the American Cancer Society. World connects you
- 24:44Speaker 1: with the American Cancer My father died of cancer when
- 24:48Speaker 1: I was six, and so it's just always been a
- 24:50Speaker 1: part of my life. I just um recently lost my
- 24:54Speaker 1: best friend's mother to cancer at the beginning of the
- 24:57Speaker 1: year um and the pastor of my church died of
- 24:59Speaker 1: camp to My best friend's mother died of cancer right
- 25:02Speaker 1: around the same time as my father died. And it's
- 25:05Speaker 1: just always been this luminous fear of what cancer is.
- 25:09Speaker 1: And I never wanted to have that fear followed me
- 25:13Speaker 1: the rest of my life, so I got very involved
- 25:15Speaker 1: in at all. When you say fear, what do you
- 25:17Speaker 1: mean when you say fear, the fear of it? Just
- 25:19Speaker 1: what cancer is and just being so scared of it
- 25:21Speaker 1: rather than trying to beat it. It is. I always
- 25:24Speaker 1: tell people when I was informed I had cancer, you
- 25:27Speaker 1: know it's you know, it's immediately the word death domination
- 25:32Speaker 1: your conversation because I don't you don't hear about You're
- 25:34Speaker 1: not gonna turn about survivor you's just worried about it.
- 25:37Speaker 1: That's a finite moment in your life. And I tell
- 25:39Speaker 1: people all the time, you know, just be prepared, live
- 25:42Speaker 1: your life. That's why I'm telling them. That's why I
- 25:44Speaker 1: love talking to you too, because you know, I go
- 25:46Speaker 1: through the resume I got the success as an entertainer,
- 25:50Speaker 1: like success entrepreneur, I always like to dig deeper and
- 25:52Speaker 1: what are you doing? What's the balanced part of your life?
- 25:55Speaker 1: And you guys have a balanced life, and so and
- 25:57Speaker 1: we know we're all gonna go. And so when it oppums,
- 26:00Speaker 1: how do you feel? And I tell everybody when it
- 26:02Speaker 1: was when the doctor announced it to me, I was shocked.
- 26:05Speaker 1: But you know I didn't I did to tell my family.
- 26:08Speaker 1: I just I just I just took it all in.
- 26:10Speaker 1: And when I when I finally took it all in,
- 26:12Speaker 1: I was comfortable if this was it. I was comfortable
- 26:15Speaker 1: because I know what life I had, lad, I knew
- 26:17Speaker 1: the type of people I affected. You know, I drunk
- 26:19Speaker 1: all the water. You know, you gave me a glass
- 26:21Speaker 1: of ward. I dropped it. I didn't leave no water.
- 26:23Speaker 1: You're trying to get drink after me, and usually when
- 26:24Speaker 1: we're drinking, okay, and so and that's why I tell
- 26:28Speaker 1: people to live your life. And so so I just
- 26:30Speaker 1: wanted to you know, we're here to promote the show,
- 26:32Speaker 1: but I wanted to tell you both, don't stop, you know,
- 26:35Speaker 1: don't stop. Don't they're draining, you know, squeeze it and
- 26:38Speaker 1: live the life and be you. And it's important and
- 26:41Speaker 1: and it's always great to have when I have to
- 26:44Speaker 1: opposite individuals who are doing doing things from different perspectives
- 26:48Speaker 1: but achieving the same goals. And that's changing this world
- 26:51Speaker 1: because we need so much help. And you don't have
- 26:54Speaker 1: to put names on who's altering the cause of it,
- 26:57Speaker 1: because it's sometimes it's so it's so again, there's somebody
- 27:00Speaker 1: right next to you that needs that support. And so
- 27:02Speaker 1: don't change. Don't change, really, don't change. You know you're
- 27:06Speaker 1: not family yet. So you know that was a good speech.
- 27:11Speaker 1: I gave y'all want enough to get a bag, I
- 27:15Speaker 1: can tell you that. But you know how didn't look
- 27:19Speaker 1: frozen fingers she getting up? You know? Interviews? Okay, I
- 27:23Speaker 1: got my two of the stars, my man jump Alex
- 27:27Speaker 1: Well we're just out here. I still want my bag.
- 27:32Speaker 1: If you because your hand styles was amazing, thank you,
- 27:36Speaker 1: But you didn't change it. But you didn't change your
- 27:38Speaker 1: house stout in this interview. If you would have changed
- 27:40Speaker 1: your housetown because you change it ever eppisode. You change
- 27:43Speaker 1: it every scene on that show. You know that nothing.
- 27:45Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I know that. I know that. Okay,
- 27:48Speaker 1: cool so easy started past. I got two of the stars.
- 27:52Speaker 1: Guess what a big time in the community, A big
- 27:54Speaker 1: time on the screen. Every suthingday I check it out,
- 27:57Speaker 1: I will be watching it. It's my show. It's a show.
- 28:00Speaker 1: It makes me feel good, makes me think about my life,
- 28:02Speaker 1: also gives me values that guess what, it's gonna be
- 28:05Speaker 1: all good. It's finally here the season of celebration, and
- 28:09Speaker 1: no matter how you celebrate with family and friends, whether
- 28:12Speaker 1: you're preparing for Reis Magos or Karamu lighting the Manura,
- 28:16Speaker 1: are going to midnight mass, Coals has just what you
- 28:19Speaker 1: need to make those traditions special. Plus you'll find gifts
- 28:23Speaker 1: for all your loved ones. Send warm wishes with cozy fleeces, sweaters, loungeware,
- 28:28Speaker 1: blankets and throws. Support minority owned or founded brands by
- 28:32Speaker 1: giving gifts from human Nation and shame moisture, or treat
- 28:36Speaker 1: them to everyone's favorite activewear from top brands like Nike, Adidas,
- 28:40Speaker 1: and under Armour. And in the spirit of giving, Coals
- 28:43Speaker 1: Cares is donating eight million dollars to local nonprofits nationwide
- 28:48Speaker 1: committed to the health and well being of our communities.
- 28:51Speaker 1: No matter how you celebrate, when you shop at Coals,
- 28:54Speaker 1: you're right where you belong. So this season, give with
- 28:57Speaker 1: all your heart, with great gifts from cos or coals
- 29:00Speaker 1: dot com. Whether your event needed one room or an
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- 29:08Speaker 1: With Hoppin, you can host a fully fledged digital meet up,
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- 30:02Speaker 1: E R dot Ai. My next guest. They are on
- 30:05Speaker 1: the phone right now, coming all the way up. I'm
- 30:08Speaker 1: based in Atlanta, but they're coming all the way up
- 30:10Speaker 1: from South Georgia. Are starting in the new TV show
- 30:13Speaker 1: on National Gel entitled Creative Fixers Country Veterinarians. The show
- 30:18Speaker 1: follows the lifelong friend their lifelong friends who happened to
- 30:21Speaker 1: be veterinarians and who happened to be African American veterinarians
- 30:26Speaker 1: who operate Creative Fixer Veterinarian Hospital, located one hundred miles
- 30:30Speaker 1: south of Atlanta. I told you they're coming up. They're
- 30:32Speaker 1: moving on up for this interview. Please welcome to money
- 30:35Speaker 1: making conversation, my friends. I'm calling my friends doctors Hodges
- 30:39Speaker 1: and Dr Ferguson. He'll have to be here. Well, okay,
- 30:43Speaker 1: now you know we all know. Let's first of all
- 30:48Speaker 1: to my understand is you have to go to medical
- 30:50Speaker 1: school to be a vet. Is that correct? So so
- 30:56Speaker 1: it's really harder to be a veterinarian than just to
- 30:59Speaker 1: be a general doctor. Huh, we're already get in there.
- 31:03Speaker 1: There's only only thirty ones in their schools in the
- 31:05Speaker 1: United States. So you know here in the state of
- 31:07Speaker 1: Georgia there's only one and they're about a hundred slots.
- 31:12Speaker 1: So you know, I mean you think about it. If
- 31:14Speaker 1: in the whole state of Georgia. UM, you you you
- 31:17Speaker 1: you're competing with with the whole state just to get
- 31:20Speaker 1: those hundred Scotts slot. But Dr person Enough attended the
- 31:24Speaker 1: only HBCU in school with the Tuke University. Now here's
- 31:30Speaker 1: the thing about its TuS Key University is in Alabama.
- 31:34Speaker 1: It's a HBCU school Historical Black College and University. That's
- 31:38Speaker 1: what HBCU stands for. UM and I am on a
- 31:43Speaker 1: mission a part of this just campaign just to bring
- 31:46Speaker 1: more attention to hbc used to let people understand that
- 31:50Speaker 1: the value of of this quality education to being provided
- 31:54Speaker 1: by HBCUs. Tell us your take on your HBCU experience
- 31:59Speaker 1: started with you for Dr Ferguson and then Dr Hodges. Yes,
- 32:04Speaker 1: we were definitely value HBCU because we went to two HBCUs.
- 32:09Speaker 1: We attended Sport Valley State University undergrad and we attended
- 32:13Speaker 1: uh Tuskee Universe School of in their medicine for our DVM.
- 32:18Speaker 1: Sometimes you need that that HBCU. Sometimes you need that
- 32:21Speaker 1: little extra nurturing and you know, support in order for
- 32:25Speaker 1: you to reach your dreams. You know, everybody has not
- 32:28Speaker 1: cut out or everybody may not want to go to
- 32:30Speaker 1: the larger universities. You may not get the the love
- 32:33Speaker 1: and the hug and the extra support that you need. Myself,
- 32:37Speaker 1: I have a family that has a history of HBCUs or.
- 32:41Speaker 1: So for me it was a no brainer because I
- 32:44Speaker 1: could see the things that they had to cheeth and
- 32:46Speaker 1: and where they got their start, and I knew define
- 32:49Speaker 1: that was something that I needed and wanted as well. Okay, now,
- 32:53Speaker 1: Dr Ferguson, I can I can hear the southern drawl
- 32:56Speaker 1: in your voice, because you're a Southern boy, you know,
- 32:58Speaker 1: straight out of Georgia. You know. Now your side kick,
- 33:01Speaker 1: their doctor Hodges, he's out of Connecticut. Let's let' let's
- 33:04Speaker 1: hear talk a little bit and see if he's picked
- 33:05Speaker 1: up that Southern draw to it. I've even done your research,
- 33:09Speaker 1: I got to I can this is hold you right
- 33:13Speaker 1: there right there, that voice difference, voice, high words, a
- 33:17Speaker 1: lot clearer. Yeah, that's Connecticut, right, the Connecticut right. I
- 33:22Speaker 1: did all of about a month in Connecticut A card
- 33:25Speaker 1: and my mom, so I love it. I love it.
- 33:30Speaker 1: I love it. So so you made your way down
- 33:33Speaker 1: to the South and and and I've been a country boy.
- 33:37Speaker 1: Ever since you know, and uh speaking about HBCUs, Fort
- 33:40Speaker 1: Valley and tous Key, they prepared us for the world,
- 33:43Speaker 1: I mean, and that's the beauty of it because you know,
- 33:45Speaker 1: as a student, I wasn't quite ready to uh to
- 33:48Speaker 1: kind of even maybe even be a college student at
- 33:50Speaker 1: the time. So you know, they have they have people
- 33:52Speaker 1: who will reach out at Fort Valley and kind of
- 33:54Speaker 1: give you the the learning and give you the tools
- 33:57Speaker 1: so that you can realize what it takes to becoming
- 33:59Speaker 1: college student in ain't go ahead and um and be
- 34:02Speaker 1: a success store. So you know, I can't say enough
- 34:05Speaker 1: about Skegee and four of our now now, now, Dr
- 34:09Speaker 1: ferguson the name of your city, I don't want to
- 34:11Speaker 1: mess up that name. It was that tow Botten, your
- 34:14Speaker 1: native was that toal Botton for now Carverton, Okay, I'm sorry.
- 34:19Speaker 1: Most people don't know where, don't you know. I don't
- 34:23Speaker 1: care what I ain't about five hundred people that will
- 34:27Speaker 1: know it. So you couldn't let me roll every small
- 34:33Speaker 1: When when I talked to kids about I always asked
- 34:35Speaker 1: what Talton. No one knows, of course, but I always
- 34:38Speaker 1: tell them it's it's near Columbus. Georgia. We have we
- 34:42Speaker 1: have two tracks, we have two traffic likes to the costume. Right,
- 34:47Speaker 1: I love it, I love it, but I love the
- 34:48Speaker 1: way you corrected me. No, you couldn't let that road through,
- 34:51Speaker 1: you know town. We have to get our due when
- 34:53Speaker 1: we can get it. Man. You know, we don't get
- 34:55Speaker 1: into lave like too much, so we want to make
- 34:57Speaker 1: sure when we get it we can we can we
- 34:58Speaker 1: get it right. Well, you know this is what I
- 35:00Speaker 1: love about you guys. Okay, first of all, personalities just
- 35:03Speaker 1: just ooze through the airways. So and now, now you're
- 35:06Speaker 1: dealing with animals, you know, and you're dealing with horses,
- 35:09Speaker 1: You're dealing with cats, you're dealing with you're dealing with pigs,
- 35:12Speaker 1: you're dealing with dogs, you're dealing with cows, You're dealing
- 35:16Speaker 1: with all kind of animals come to them. So, so
- 35:19Speaker 1: the show that we're talking about, that's why we have
- 35:21Speaker 1: you on the TV on my show to talk about
- 35:23Speaker 1: your show that's gonna be premiering on the National Geo. Now,
- 35:26Speaker 1: I watched the National Geo anyway because they have a
- 35:28Speaker 1: show in there called The Fish Tank Kings. I love
- 35:31Speaker 1: those guys. So it's that Gal wild. So we make
- 35:34Speaker 1: sure we get that deal wild, that deal Wild. So
- 35:38Speaker 1: I'll make sure you can correct me. Now this is
- 35:40Speaker 1: your show, this is your moment. Now they're on the
- 35:43Speaker 1: right channel. I won't make you they feel right, you
- 35:45Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Don't let me shot may don't
- 35:47Speaker 1: give that bad information. People looking at mit. No, no, no, no,
- 35:49Speaker 1: I didn't mean now opportunity. We want to make sure
- 35:53Speaker 1: they don't. You're used to correct the people. I ain't
- 35:55Speaker 1: a pig. Now you just gave talk to me and
- 35:57Speaker 1: they kind of way. Now I'm not just r we
- 36:01Speaker 1: can we can't do the like we do it in
- 36:03Speaker 1: the right right right, squeeze my tail. I'm gonna well
- 36:09Speaker 1: you you you look at this episode we capture at
- 36:12Speaker 1: the count on now we we we can do it all.
- 36:15Speaker 1: I love you guys. So so here's the here's the
- 36:18Speaker 1: fun part about it, Okay, because I don't want to
- 36:20Speaker 1: brush over what you guys have accomplished before we get
- 36:22Speaker 1: to the TV show. Because you know, we talked about
- 36:25Speaker 1: you know, Tuskegee a school. Would I would not have
- 36:28Speaker 1: a thought to be a school. But it isn't. It
- 36:32Speaker 1: isn't agricultural college. Correct, it is it is. You know,
- 36:36Speaker 1: here's here's a story, right, here's a story. And we
- 36:39Speaker 1: hadn't talked about this much, so we don't kind of
- 36:41Speaker 1: give you exclusive. I want to talk to a couple
- 36:43Speaker 1: of kids. So here here's the thought. So Booker T Washon,
- 36:47Speaker 1: we all learned about Book of the Peanuts back in
- 36:49Speaker 1: the day. Book of t knew that a position, you know,
- 36:53Speaker 1: white positions treated white people, black positions treated black people.
- 36:57Speaker 1: He knew that a white farmer wouldn't let you treat him.
- 37:02Speaker 1: But he also knew that the most important thing to
- 37:04Speaker 1: a farmer was his mule. So if if you so,
- 37:09Speaker 1: if you're trying the ven name, because if we didn't
- 37:11Speaker 1: have comebins and track this, but if ben name was there,
- 37:15Speaker 1: he would let a black vennar and tweet his mule.
- 37:17Speaker 1: And that was the most important that you know, if
- 37:20Speaker 1: he started that best school in the big South, he
- 37:23Speaker 1: could be there is all over the country and they
- 37:25Speaker 1: can help these farmers and earn a great living, right,
- 37:28Speaker 1: And that's what that's what has happened. Now, that's I
- 37:33Speaker 1: always say that because now let's talk about this whole process.
- 37:36Speaker 1: Because of the fact that like, like we spoke earlier
- 37:39Speaker 1: about you have to go to medical school, to go
- 37:41Speaker 1: to vennarian school. Now what what what? What? What's the
- 37:46Speaker 1: drive to to take care of animals or to see
- 37:49Speaker 1: animals healthy, to make sure that you know, because my daughter,
- 37:52Speaker 1: my wife, you know, she her first dog died of
- 37:55Speaker 1: cancer and it just knocked her out due I mean,
- 37:58Speaker 1: she was done, know for a while, and because I know,
- 38:02Speaker 1: you know me, you know my I'm gonna just be
- 38:04Speaker 1: honest with you. When my dog died when I was sixteen,
- 38:07Speaker 1: I don't get attached to animals anymore because that hurt
- 38:10Speaker 1: me so bad. I walked out there and Skippy with
- 38:11Speaker 1: laying in the yard. He was dunb I know, I'm
- 38:15Speaker 1: not gonna cry like that no more. So I don't
- 38:17Speaker 1: get attached so so, but I know that there's an
- 38:19Speaker 1: emotional attachment. There's a work part of the relationship that
- 38:23Speaker 1: you can have an animal. There's also that that that
- 38:26Speaker 1: child like, that family like attachment. So when you and
- 38:29Speaker 1: when you're dealing with the care of these animals, just
- 38:33Speaker 1: talk about that process there. Yeah, that there's something that
- 38:36Speaker 1: we learned in school that's called the human animal bond,
- 38:41Speaker 1: and it's real. There's a bond between your pets or
- 38:45Speaker 1: your animals and us. There's a bun there's unconditional love
- 38:51Speaker 1: that you get from your pets and your animal and
- 38:53Speaker 1: it's something that you know. It's it's not necessarily tangible
- 38:56Speaker 1: you can put your finger on, but it's definitely there.
- 39:00Speaker 1: We see it every day. So when we see our
- 39:02Speaker 1: clients and our patients, they're not like animals that are
- 39:05Speaker 1: just coming in. There are members of the family, and
- 39:07Speaker 1: that's how we treat them, and that's how our clients
- 39:10Speaker 1: treat them. There are members of the family and they
- 39:13Speaker 1: will do anything for them, and of course we will too.
- 39:16Speaker 1: And I think it's something that we're born with, you know,
- 39:18Speaker 1: the love for animals. And I want to make sure
- 39:21Speaker 1: that we we're got to take care of people and
- 39:22Speaker 1: we're gonna take care of animals. And that's why he
- 39:25Speaker 1: and Ore are in the profession that we're in today.
- 39:27Speaker 1: We know it's a beautiful profession. Like I said that,
- 39:29Speaker 1: that's why I'm will willing to share my journey, you know,
- 39:34Speaker 1: my attachment to my dog. You know, when he died,
- 39:37Speaker 1: it just it shook me up so bad. I said,
- 39:39Speaker 1: I've never so We've had several dogs and my wife
- 39:42Speaker 1: I was why don't you play with us? No, no, no,
- 39:44Speaker 1: that's your dog because I'm not gonna go there. I'm
- 39:46Speaker 1: not gonna go there no more. I take care whatever
- 39:49Speaker 1: you need, dog food and all that. He can hop
- 39:51Speaker 1: on my lap, but uh please get him off because
- 39:54Speaker 1: I'm not gonna because I know what it can do
- 39:55Speaker 1: to you, like that bond that you can create. And
- 39:57Speaker 1: I saw how it shadowed her when he when he
- 40:00Speaker 1: died from cancer. You know, the dog died from cancer.
- 40:02Speaker 1: So that's that journey of that attachment. So it was
- 40:06Speaker 1: when I was going through your bio, it was an
- 40:08Speaker 1: interesting story. You know, you get you get to learn
- 40:10Speaker 1: more about your guess when you go through the bio, like,
- 40:12Speaker 1: for instance, uh dr Hodges, he wanted to be jack Cousto.
- 40:17Speaker 1: Let me just help you, but let me explain to
- 40:18Speaker 1: everybody Jackson's coach. Jack So was a man. He he
- 40:22Speaker 1: dove in the water so much his skin got wrinkly.
- 40:24Speaker 1: You didn't recognizing the more he would. He was an
- 40:27Speaker 1: underwater guy. He would go out there see the whales,
- 40:30Speaker 1: the sharks, the little fishes and everything. Jacko Sto was
- 40:34Speaker 1: my man. I'm gonna lie to you. Jacko Stole obviously
- 40:38Speaker 1: in high school. I wanted to work all shore because
- 40:40Speaker 1: of Jacko Stole. So when you when I saw Jacko
- 40:42Speaker 1: Stole and your in your bio, Dr Hodges, I fell
- 40:45Speaker 1: in love with you. I said, he I'm playing after
- 40:47Speaker 1: my heart Jack. I'm I'm just because people don't know
- 40:51Speaker 1: about Jacko Sto. Because see, you just can't have a
- 40:54Speaker 1: Jack cou Stole conversation unless somebody loves Jack Cousto. I
- 40:58Speaker 1: loved me some jock stoke. So Dr do Do Hey,
- 41:02Speaker 1: that's gonna say. I have I have done those things.
- 41:04Speaker 1: I have my scoober license. I went in and swam
- 41:07Speaker 1: with fish and the whales. I also went over to
- 41:10Speaker 1: Nepal and developed the whole fish project for a whole
- 41:14Speaker 1: city in a city called Poker and Nepal when I
- 41:16Speaker 1: was nineteen. So now I've I've had a fish farm,
- 41:19Speaker 1: I've done all stuff with fish. I ain't a fish guys. Uh,
- 41:23Speaker 1: you know I thought that was gonna met me, but
- 41:26Speaker 1: you know, I end up being a critic. So at
- 41:29Speaker 1: work that's just as good. But who knows, I might
- 41:32Speaker 1: pull out the old scoop again. Are you gonna pull
- 41:35Speaker 1: the scooby? A kid? I just saw Alabama Columbus, don't
- 41:40Speaker 1: the river. I'm gonna tell y'all some be Catholics. I'm
- 41:43Speaker 1: gonna go, I'm gonna going to my my, my, My
- 41:46Speaker 1: job was so more. Don't be like him. That's when
- 41:49Speaker 1: that New York that Connecticut's gonna come out and say, Hi,
- 41:52Speaker 1: I'm doctor, and you followed me to these mud puddles
- 41:57Speaker 1: of Central Georgia and we're gonna kiss them. Dr Ferguson,
- 42:03Speaker 1: please please stop letting your doctor be stupid on my show. Okay,
- 42:12Speaker 1: he out there, he out the scooler diving and two
- 42:15Speaker 1: ft of water, sliding on the mud, grabbing catfish with
- 42:19Speaker 1: both hands. That's what he trying to tell. No, no, no,
- 42:25Speaker 1: that is not new You do not no, no, no,
- 42:29Speaker 1: you do not knew that I'm gonna cut your boy.
- 42:31Speaker 1: You do not new to scoopy gear. You take your
- 42:33Speaker 1: butt down. That. Let me tell everybody, new to Newland
- 42:41Speaker 1: is the craziest fishing in the world. What you do
- 42:44Speaker 1: is you're going the water by by a little bit
- 42:47Speaker 1: bigger than Waiste deep, and then you just stick your
- 42:50Speaker 1: hands in the banks and you just be Newland for
- 42:56Speaker 1: a fish, a fish that was probably bigger than your own,
- 43:00Speaker 1: and you grab that fish and you pull it out.
- 43:03Speaker 1: That's what noodlond is? Is it? Women noodles, guys noodles,
- 43:07Speaker 1: kids noodles. That is a sport that I could never do.
- 43:11Speaker 1: But he's talking about he gonna go Scoopler guy, scooper
- 43:14Speaker 1: diving in Newland. You do not noodle with snorkel fins,
- 43:18Speaker 1: snorkel mask, snorkel tank, none of that I know. Not
- 43:22Speaker 1: sin is a snorkel tank. I care, I'm sorry. I
- 43:26Speaker 1: think he might have a good country card about country
- 43:29Speaker 1: board mellond. He know a lot about being a country ball.
- 43:36Speaker 1: Your country card to you back. Now let me go
- 43:38Speaker 1: with you, Dr Fergus, because I didn't find nothing interested
- 43:40Speaker 1: in your bio. You know, maybe you're just holding out
- 43:43Speaker 1: on the brother. I know your family man and all
- 43:45Speaker 1: that good stuff. But please let me know what is
- 43:48Speaker 1: so interesting about you that they put your TV against
- 43:51Speaker 1: the very interested Dr Hodges. He's a personality, he got
- 43:55Speaker 1: all the good stories. He's a funny guy. What you have.
- 43:58Speaker 1: He from off north to you don't stay there for
- 44:00Speaker 1: a month, but he came on with out here and
- 44:02Speaker 1: joined the southerns. Tell us about it. Let me let
- 44:06Speaker 1: me ask you a question you ever you ever seen
- 44:08Speaker 1: a black guy on Kodiak Island honey for bears and
- 44:12Speaker 1: fishing and staying out there for a month in a
- 44:14Speaker 1: remote area and with no water, no running water, no electricity,
- 44:20Speaker 1: just on the island with the largest bears in the world.
- 44:23Speaker 1: That's you. That was me. Now what we what woud
- 44:27Speaker 1: you crazy be had doing out there? Okay, okay, So
- 44:31Speaker 1: in undergrad we talked about HBCUs and the opportunities that
- 44:36Speaker 1: m and the nurturing they give you. Well, summer and um.
- 44:39Speaker 1: When I was in undergrad, I worked for the U
- 44:41Speaker 1: S fishing Wildlife. Great great right right right that bio
- 44:44Speaker 1: I did read that near bio so um. One summer
- 44:47Speaker 1: I worked in Alaska and I was in Keena, Alaska
- 44:50Speaker 1: and saw doctor Alaska and on Kodiak Island. But what
- 44:54Speaker 1: we did was we had a fish weird um on
- 44:57Speaker 1: Kodyak Island and we were studying family. And the big
- 45:01Speaker 1: deal is, you know, when salmon are born in the
- 45:05Speaker 1: little small streams, they lived that for a few weeks
- 45:09Speaker 1: a month, they go in the lake, they go in
- 45:11Speaker 1: the ocean, and they stay in the ocean for three
- 45:12Speaker 1: or four or five years. After that they come back
- 45:16Speaker 1: to the same stream they lay eggs, and they died.
- 45:22Speaker 1: But what we were trying to figure out is how
- 45:24Speaker 1: do they know where to come back to? There? There
- 45:26Speaker 1: are several lakes. There are a lot of lakes. There
- 45:27Speaker 1: are a lot of streams. Now. When I say stream,
- 45:30Speaker 1: it's not as wide as a car now, I don't
- 45:31Speaker 1: mean a big river. But they find their way, but
- 45:34Speaker 1: all the way back to that area to spawn with
- 45:37Speaker 1: his lay eggs, and then they died. So I was
- 45:39Speaker 1: out there for a whole month, and we were studying
- 45:42Speaker 1: bears and wolves and eagles while we were out there,
- 45:44Speaker 1: and I'm all the little black guy out there, you know.
- 45:47Speaker 1: And I didn't know until later on. My mother was
- 45:49Speaker 1: kind of nervous when I went, and I just I
- 45:50Speaker 1: couldn't understand why. I'm not in I'm older, I understand why.
- 45:54Speaker 1: I want to know why it was her bathing way
- 45:56Speaker 1: up in a last You can't put her hands on him.
- 45:59Speaker 1: He's in the bushes running while I with bear. You know,
- 46:01Speaker 1: it could have been the last time she saw me. Absolutely,
- 46:03Speaker 1: I agree with her on that. I agree with on that. Now,
- 46:06Speaker 1: let me ask you this, did you figure out why
- 46:08Speaker 1: they have the ability to do that? Because I've seen
- 46:11Speaker 1: that docmmunity several times on how something. A couple of
- 46:16Speaker 1: reasons were the really the researcher was still ongoing. But
- 46:19Speaker 1: one is moon phase. The other was what we call
- 46:22Speaker 1: the salinity of the the the basically ingredients that thing
- 46:26Speaker 1: that's in the water UM draw them back to that
- 46:29Speaker 1: certain area. It's a that's really amazing because they have
- 46:33Speaker 1: to fight through bears, they have to fight through they
- 46:36Speaker 1: swam up stream, correct, correct, you're correct, And I just
- 46:40Speaker 1: watching they go out stream to go to the ocean,
- 46:42Speaker 1: but they had to fight their way back upstream to
- 46:45Speaker 1: get to um, to those little creek. And because I
- 46:48Speaker 1: I spent some time in Alaska, so I know that's
- 46:51Speaker 1: a that's a you know, because what man, you ain't
- 46:53Speaker 1: spend no timing all out door. I'm talking to Dr Ferguson,
- 46:57Speaker 1: See how are you going to bust in that conversation?
- 47:01Speaker 1: Like that doctor? Just a TV We have you known'
- 47:06Speaker 1: you go with your little corn fish, little car fish
- 47:08Speaker 1: over there, they're gonna play with your little car fish
- 47:10Speaker 1: or look, cord your little property right there. We're talking
- 47:13Speaker 1: about playing over here. Yeah, we ain't paid a bunch
- 47:17Speaker 1: of money for a little fish it just went two
- 47:18Speaker 1: feet to one side of the two ft one side,
- 47:20Speaker 1: two ft other side. I didn't you point over there?
- 47:22Speaker 1: You see my card, you see my car? A little fat,
- 47:25Speaker 1: ugly fish. I love y'all. Vote. Well, let's let's let's
- 47:30Speaker 1: talk about the show. Tell us to tell us about
- 47:32Speaker 1: the show. Sell us all up, because we're not through yet.
- 47:35Speaker 1: I'm just gonna just talk about the show. Make sure
- 47:36Speaker 1: we get some time so people understand, you guys are
- 47:39Speaker 1: big personalities, You're very talented. How did they discover you
- 47:42Speaker 1: guys to put you in a television series? So yeah,
- 47:46Speaker 1: I mean the big thing we are in rural Georgia.
- 47:48Speaker 1: But the thing about about with social media is it
- 47:52Speaker 1: doesn't matter where you are. If you're good, people will
- 47:54Speaker 1: find you. So this got restopped to me from New
- 47:56Speaker 1: York with the product with the productive company that he
- 47:59Speaker 1: didn't run and said, hey, doc, uh I want to
- 48:02Speaker 1: put you on TV and uh, you know, make and
- 48:05Speaker 1: and and share your story. And I ignored them. Of course,
- 48:08Speaker 1: bees I thought it was spam. But you know, after
- 48:11Speaker 1: while we didn't get a dialogue and talk, and then
- 48:13Speaker 1: I was like, of course, you know, critfishes me and
- 48:16Speaker 1: my partner and crime He's like, of course, and I
- 48:19Speaker 1: called out the person and I did the same thing
- 48:22Speaker 1: he did. I ignored him. Why am I surprised? That's
- 48:28Speaker 1: what I said, y'all, boss it with them animals, just
- 48:31Speaker 1: just that's what we do. That's that's that's the time
- 48:34Speaker 1: of God gave us that we could take care of
- 48:36Speaker 1: some animal. It doesn't matter. We criticised and we tackle
- 48:39Speaker 1: them off small, it doesn't matter. Did you not use
- 48:44Speaker 1: the did you use that said the word camel? Camel? Yeah?
- 48:47Speaker 1: The next episode this Saturday night at ten on that deal.
- 48:50Speaker 1: While people would be able to see a camel, uh,
- 48:54Speaker 1: this camel was used if used in um nativity scenes.
- 48:58Speaker 1: And he was getting a little frisky and they kim
- 49:00Speaker 1: of the thing. So we had to remove him home.
- 49:07Speaker 1: Now y'all took away his man hood, that's what you're saying. Yeah,
- 49:12Speaker 1: he was really going away in amazing he was. Yeah, exactly,
- 49:17Speaker 1: So we have to stop that. What you do? What
- 49:23Speaker 1: you doing, mama? What's going on with the camel? Yeah exactly.
- 49:29Speaker 1: You know we need The last thing you need is
- 49:31Speaker 1: something dangling in the maazed off cap camel. I cheered
- 49:37Speaker 1: that Capital can talk. He has something to say right now,
- 49:41Speaker 1: he was trying to talk to it. In he's trying
- 49:45Speaker 1: to talk to us. Then every day before we did
- 49:49Speaker 1: it every day for that camel was day. I love it.
- 49:56Speaker 1: I love it. So so now that's the biggest animal.
- 50:00Speaker 1: So what is the smallest alium you guys are gonna
- 50:02Speaker 1: work with on the show? A spider? Huh? Did you
- 50:09Speaker 1: you heard that right? A spider? Okay, I see, I
- 50:13Speaker 1: would never think that would be something that event would
- 50:16Speaker 1: work on, would be a spider, because I would think
- 50:18Speaker 1: that if you start working on it, he's so small
- 50:20Speaker 1: you would kill him. Now we I mean we did.
- 50:23Speaker 1: We did. This was more husbander how to take care
- 50:26Speaker 1: of the spider because you know, people pay a lot
- 50:29Speaker 1: of money for these big spiders and so you gotta
- 50:31Speaker 1: see them sometimes. This simple spider wasn't eating as much
- 50:34Speaker 1: as the guy thought, but he was doing the web.
- 50:36Speaker 1: But the big thing is he was in the smaller
- 50:38Speaker 1: and closes so he didn't need to eat much. So
- 50:41Speaker 1: after explaining that, spider still doing well. Okay, So so
- 50:46Speaker 1: so so you guys do like a nutrition? Yeah, nutrition
- 50:50Speaker 1: everything Nutrition is is a big part of everything. So yeah, right,
- 50:54Speaker 1: and so when you look at when you let me
- 50:56Speaker 1: ask you this where you're located there right now? Why
- 50:59Speaker 1: didn't you pick that? Okay, so we're both country boys.
- 51:02Speaker 1: I mean literally, you know you could have done right
- 51:08Speaker 1: it is, yeah, we could have, but I mean, I'm
- 51:11Speaker 1: being honest with you. We was poor. We tried to
- 51:13Speaker 1: get Harris what was the name of that place, American
- 51:15Speaker 1: Harri it was? What was it was in Snailville. So
- 51:20Speaker 1: we tried to get um cleaning here in Snailville. Um
- 51:26Speaker 1: and uh, I mean unfortunately, you know, we went to
- 51:28Speaker 1: we didn't have much, We didn't know much about finances
- 51:32Speaker 1: at the time. We didn't know how to box. We
- 51:34Speaker 1: had no credit, no finances, no money, and of course
- 51:37Speaker 1: you denied for that loan. That's the best thing ever happened.
- 51:40Speaker 1: So we end up going back home. We were in
- 51:42Speaker 1: an eight hundred square foot can't shop, eight hundred square
- 51:46Speaker 1: feet a hunter square feet. We went about wood from
- 51:50Speaker 1: home depot. I just tell you, guys, my first apartment
- 51:53Speaker 1: was seven hundred square feet, so I know exactly I
- 51:56Speaker 1: was a hundred square feet in my studio apartment, right, okay,
- 52:00Speaker 1: And we we built that place out. We built two
- 52:02Speaker 1: exam rooms, were built a little surgery room, and um,
- 52:06Speaker 1: we just used our skills. I mean we went around
- 52:08Speaker 1: were big guards. Something we bought like use equipment. We
- 52:11Speaker 1: went over to what was that hunt gas? We went
- 52:15Speaker 1: the gas and right, and we bought from cages. I
- 52:17Speaker 1: guess the guy felt sorry for and he gave us
- 52:19Speaker 1: an X ray machine because we didn't have one. This
- 52:22Speaker 1: X ray machine was a World War two X ray
- 52:24Speaker 1: machine world War two. But it worked, but it worked.
- 52:28Speaker 1: I love it, but it worked. Though. As long as
- 52:30Speaker 1: it worked, we could we could. Now I'm trying to
- 52:32Speaker 1: figure because I just told everybody I know exactly how
- 52:35Speaker 1: big eight hundred square feet is because my first apartment
- 52:37Speaker 1: were selling a square feet. Now, he didn't put an
- 52:39Speaker 1: X ray machine in there from World War two. He
- 52:42Speaker 1: didn't put a little surgery room in there. Now they
- 52:44Speaker 1: didn't win and got some cages. Now, did the people
- 52:46Speaker 1: just walk through the front door right through the surgery
- 52:48Speaker 1: because I don't see no area for a little reception.
- 52:51Speaker 1: We had a very very small reception area, maybe two chairs,
- 52:55Speaker 1: two chairs. So they come in sitting in there with
- 52:58Speaker 1: the chickens sitting in there, with the dogs in there
- 53:00Speaker 1: with their little pigs. So that's how they all started that.
- 53:03Speaker 1: When you're using credit cards that they did they bother
- 53:06Speaker 1: you for food or what was going on in those
- 53:08Speaker 1: early years. We have very humble beginnings. I can I
- 53:13Speaker 1: can remember when Dr Hodges and I got our first check.
- 53:16Speaker 1: It was less than a hundred dollars, but if you
- 53:18Speaker 1: saw the smile on our face, it was worth a
- 53:21Speaker 1: million dollars because that was our beginning. Um. But things
- 53:25Speaker 1: did move pretty fast forwards because within the four months
- 53:28Speaker 1: we started a second location franchise franchise. Things moved fast.
- 53:33Speaker 1: You know, God was good, He blessed us. And we're
- 53:36Speaker 1: we we love our community. Our communities are small, but
- 53:41Speaker 1: we are members of our communities, which means that we're
- 53:45Speaker 1: a family. They treat us like family. We treat them
- 53:48Speaker 1: like family. Have been awesome to us in our area
- 53:51Speaker 1: and that and and it shows in the growth that
- 53:53Speaker 1: we've had. So it's a trust though it's like like
- 53:57Speaker 1: you were staying earlier. Is like you learned that in
- 54:00Speaker 1: school the bond between an animal and human and that
- 54:05Speaker 1: it's and it's an honest bond because I always treated
- 54:08Speaker 1: like you know when you because both of you have children,
- 54:11Speaker 1: so you know what I'm talking about. You know, I
- 54:13Speaker 1: always your child, you know, they're born, and and you
- 54:16Speaker 1: just see them physically and they you barely. You don't
- 54:19Speaker 1: want to hold them because you feel it might break them.
- 54:21Speaker 1: And then they started crawling and then they wanted to
- 54:25Speaker 1: they start trying to talk, you know. So just look
- 54:28Speaker 1: at an animal right there. Stop stop it right there.
- 54:31Speaker 1: So you have you have somebody that just has unlimited
- 54:34Speaker 1: love for you and wants instructions, wants instructions. You throw
- 54:38Speaker 1: a stick it for a dog, That dog will get
- 54:40Speaker 1: that stick. I okay, how many times you throw that stick?
- 54:42Speaker 1: That dog will get that stick. You did it for
- 54:44Speaker 1: a child two years old. They do the same thing
- 54:46Speaker 1: you You can You can put the same TV show
- 54:49Speaker 1: on in front of a child and then look at it.
- 54:51Speaker 1: They just keep it. That's what you want me to watch.
- 54:53Speaker 1: I watch it. That's what that's what they do. I
- 54:55Speaker 1: watch it one more time and Ladder Latin for the
- 54:58Speaker 1: third year time. I'm gonna watch it. And that's what
- 55:00Speaker 1: you get in an animal, and that that you that
- 55:03Speaker 1: you believe in your care. I don't care if it's
- 55:04Speaker 1: a horse, I don't care if it's a cow, a bull.
- 55:08Speaker 1: It is that that that process. So because I am
- 55:10Speaker 1: an cut your bar I'm from Houston, Texas Field Ward.
- 55:13Speaker 1: But I'm a bank fisherman. Okay, so you know, so
- 55:17Speaker 1: y'all could just stop talking to me. I'm a bank fisherman.
- 55:19Speaker 1: Now you don't know something about you know what talking
- 55:21Speaker 1: about the cane pole. I know about the cane pole.
- 55:23Speaker 1: You know with the little bob. That's what I started.
- 55:25Speaker 1: You know, perch and large mall, small mall bass. You know,
- 55:30Speaker 1: stand on the side, slip the coop. Ain't no bar
- 55:33Speaker 1: said the word go. I was born in the city,
- 55:40Speaker 1: y'all need to stop, man. I was born in the city.
- 55:47Speaker 1: It was you come out, you come down. Yeah, I
- 55:50Speaker 1: will come down here to catch a little person like
- 55:53Speaker 1: what spending on. So calfish, That's when I learned about calfish.
- 55:59Speaker 1: My dad pull all the guts out of the cash
- 56:02Speaker 1: fish and it was still swimming. I went, oh my god.
- 56:05Speaker 1: So catfish, they're the hardest fish in the world to kill.
- 56:10Speaker 1: It's a catfish. That's why you gotta cut the That's
- 56:12Speaker 1: where you gotta cut the head off a calfish. You
- 56:14Speaker 1: cut all you and they know I'm talking to fats.
- 56:17Speaker 1: They know what I'm talking about. And the catfish if
- 56:20Speaker 1: you grab it wrong. You might want just grab a knife.
- 56:24Speaker 1: We will put something on you on it. Well, my goodness,
- 56:26Speaker 1: you put something on you for real. So I just
- 56:28Speaker 1: gotta get my country license with my boys, you see.
- 56:31Speaker 1: So I can't let them get off the phone, you know,
- 56:33Speaker 1: letting them think they just got some little regular old
- 56:35Speaker 1: Atlanta ball on the phone, because see, you do a
- 56:37Speaker 1: country people, they act like their own country. I can
- 56:41Speaker 1: stand off of the like their own country, but they
- 56:44Speaker 1: like they like they're patting it like they trade more country. Now,
- 56:47Speaker 1: I got country to now. Now you might want to
- 56:50Speaker 1: be Jocko stowing up Inka up there in Alaska trying
- 56:54Speaker 1: to shoot bass and your mama worried about you because
- 56:56Speaker 1: you don't know where you're at because you ain't have
- 56:58Speaker 1: no cell phone back then, trying to watch fish go upstream,
- 57:03Speaker 1: been slapped down by bears and all that good stuff.
- 57:06Speaker 1: You are there, the only black dude looking around going
- 57:08Speaker 1: what's wrong? Everybody gonna you're the wrong? What are you
- 57:13Speaker 1: doing up there? But I love it, man, because y'all groundbreakers. Man.
- 57:19Speaker 1: And when I say groundbreakers, I mean you guys are
- 57:22Speaker 1: leaders in the game because you're human and you don't
- 57:25Speaker 1: see color and that that is what I wish the
- 57:29Speaker 1: world will do more of it. And like you said,
- 57:32Speaker 1: you know book with you Washington started a long time ago.
- 57:35Speaker 1: You show people value, they will treat you for your value.
- 57:41Speaker 1: That is what you guys are doing every day. Tell
- 57:42Speaker 1: us everybody one more time about your show and how
- 57:45Speaker 1: we can watch it on National g O Wild. But
- 57:50Speaker 1: the country that we're gonna be on every Saturday night
- 57:53Speaker 1: on that deal while at pendleclock. And if you don't
- 57:56Speaker 1: have that deal while we gotta everybody has on Prime,
- 58:01Speaker 1: you can get the whole series on Amazon Prime for
- 58:04Speaker 1: nine nine. So either way it kiss the country of it,
- 58:07Speaker 1: either on that you know while or Amazon Prime. I
- 58:10Speaker 1: love both of you guys, I always do. You can
- 58:12Speaker 1: come on my show. Now. I have a little lake
- 58:15Speaker 1: outside my yard, in my backyard, so what I'm gonna
- 58:18Speaker 1: do is when my wife get back in town, we're
- 58:20Speaker 1: gonna bring the family up, do a little barbeque, and
- 58:22Speaker 1: I'm gonna do some country stuff with y'all so y'all
- 58:24Speaker 1: can feel comfortable. So we can come. Fish long as
- 58:28Speaker 1: you're gonna bring them core and fish long as you
- 58:30Speaker 1: donna bring no. I'm telling in my school, get though
- 58:36Speaker 1: I'm gonna push your behind right in that lake to
- 58:40Speaker 1: hey fellas, I hope he has joy. The interview has
- 58:42Speaker 1: been amazing to get good luck your your family man,
- 58:45Speaker 1: and keep those HBCU strong and keep winning and letting
- 58:48Speaker 1: everybody know how great they are. Sticky notes, email alerts,
- 58:52Speaker 1: a string around your finger. They're just not big enough.
- 58:56Speaker 1: So here's a big reminder from the California Lottery. Tomorrow's
- 58:59Speaker 1: making millions of jack million play now, please play responsibly.
- 59:03Speaker 1: Must be eighteen years older to purchase player. Fire. Hi everyone,
- 59:06Speaker 1: Al Roker here, as a guy with his own catchphrase,
- 59:09Speaker 1: I appreciate that Smokey's only said only you can prevent wildfires,
- 59:13Speaker 1: But I'm filling in because there's a lot more to report,
- 59:16Speaker 1: like when they're parched or windy conditions out there. You've
- 59:19Speaker 1: gotta be extra careful with things like burning yard waist.
- 59:23Speaker 1: After all, wildfires can start anywhere, even in your neck
- 59:27Speaker 1: of the woods. Go to Smokey Bear dot com to
- 59:29Speaker 1: learn more about wildfire prevention brought to you by the U. S.
- 59:32Speaker 1: Forest Service, your state Forrester and the ad Council. Adoption
- 59:36Speaker 1: of teams from Foster Care is a topic not enough
- 59:39Speaker 1: people know about and we're here to change that. I'm
- 59:41Speaker 1: April Dinuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented
- 59:45Speaker 1: by adopt us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling, real
- 59:49Speaker 1: life adoption stories told by the families that lived them,
- 59:51Speaker 1: with commentary from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org,
- 59:55Speaker 1: slash podcast, or subscribe to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt
- 59:59Speaker 1: u s Kid, brought to you by the U. S
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families,
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: and the Council. My next guest is in studio. He's
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: ready to go. He's an attorney, entrepreneur, philanthropists. He was
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: on top of the world when he was Falster accused
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: and convicted of being a drug kingpan in nineteen eighty one.
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: He was sentenced to life in prison plus seventy two
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: years on other drug convictions. He is now the executive
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: producer of the new ABC fictional legal and family drama
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: series For Life. Please work with the money making conversations.
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: Isaac Wright Jr. Glad to be here. How are you
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: pretty good? How do you feel, my man? I feel great.
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: It's a good time. It's a good time in your life. Yes, indeed,
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: well you know I always you know, I get up
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: at four o'clock every day, and uh we do that.
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: That didn't freeze you how you know? That throws to
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: me a little bit. What time you get up, Isaac,
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: come on that. Well, sometimes I'm still up at four o'clock.
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: It just depends on it just depends on, um, you
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: know what what's on my plate for the for the
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: following day of the following week. Um. I try to
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: get up as early as I possibly can, but I
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: get to bed so late trying to trying to catch up.
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: I mean I've been playing catch up lately, especially with
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: the with the show and uh, you know, my my
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: career and my obligations, responsibility to the court, and so
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: I've been juggling, you know, all these responsibilities and so
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: it's it's been a little bit more hectic. But I
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: try to get up. I mean I could never get
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: up at four o'clock in the morning. I mean if
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: I went to bed earlier to that. But I try
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: to get up at least between seven thirty and eight
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: o'clock every morning. Now, I had a intro was pretty dramatic,
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Uh, you know, in one
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: you were sentenced to life in prison plus seventy two years,
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: and and other seventy two plus seventy two years. If
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: life wasn't enough, we got seven to two years. We
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: can just go just for just good measures. Just in
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: case you confused about the life, I got some two years. Wait,
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: no you And now you're sitting here next to me
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: executive producing an ABC series with my man fifty cents.
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: How does that happen? Brother? Come on? Um, you know
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: fifty was a made man when I when I when
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: I met him obviously, uh. And then in addition to
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: him being a made man in the rap world and
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: in business, um, he had already had one of the
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: number one TV shows power you know on the air
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: Stars and so um, I met him through uh a
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: mutual friend. This guy UM that I met him through.
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: He owned an illegal fight club. He ran an illegal
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: fight club in the Bronx and illegal. It was illegal. Yeah.
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: They you know, they did the they did the fighting
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: things in the in the in the warehouses and the
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: you know, the Junkyard sanction that nothing was sanction it was.
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: It was actually shut down a few times by by
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: law enforcement. UM. And so it was it was top
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: of the line illegal um. But he was successful in
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: getting to three people to come out and watch these fights,
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: and as a as a popularity in the in the
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: fight group, it became tougher to you know, to keep
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: it on the ground. Even had rappers to come out,
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: Fat Joe, Remy mar They came out. They would perform
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: during intermission. And he was trying to get at a
- 1:03:11Speaker 1: llegal fight club. Yeah, intermission they got there rapping. Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: And in the ring there was a big ring. They
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: build a ring. You know, they listened. It was so sophisticated.
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: They had drones that was up in the in the
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: in the guy beating the camera down from the top
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: angle and streaming that, you know, the cell phones and everything.
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: I mean, the guy, he really had it put together.
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: The problem was it was illegal. So you know, when
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: do you want the fifties, like, you know, fifty men,
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: you know, you take us really really over the top.
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: If you come out and perform and fIF I listen,
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: I gotta promote promotors license in Nevada, Nevada. If I
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: come to your fight club, I'm gonna lose that. I'm
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: not I'm not gonna do that. He says. When you
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: get legal. Uh, you know, I'll come out and perform.
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: And so you know, they spent tens of thousands of
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: dollars an attorneys trying to get legal. Fifty even passed
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: him a couple and fifties attorneys basically told him upfront, listen,
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: you're out of your mind. It's never gonna happen. It's impossible,
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: uh to just move to through the regulatory issues to
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: get something like this legal. This just can't be done.
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: And so another individual who's the owner of Rough Riders,
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: Darren Dean, was a friend friend of mine. Uh, he
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: heard this guy, his name is Hove. He heard him complaining,
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: you know, about not being able to get legal and
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: all the money that they spent. So so Darren says, listen,
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: where all these lawyers failed you. I think I got
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: the guy that may be able to help you out.
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: So he introduced me to Hope, and Hope told me
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: his issues, and I actually went to one of the
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: legal flight cover. This was in two thousand and so
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: I went to I went to one of the the
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: fights just to get a feel on what was happening.
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: And I said, okay, you know what, I'll help you,
- 1:04:59Speaker 1: and I got them legal in two weeks and fifty
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: went out and performed. And fifty went out and performed.
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: He was like, he was blown away. How to how
- 1:05:09Speaker 1: in the world were you able to do this? Who
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: did this? Because when he got there there was police
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: on both sides of the street. There was hundreds of
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: people outside. There was a police on both sides of
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: the street, so he thought. Fifty thought when he got
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: there that they were getting ready to shut it down.
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: He actually just driver to acts the police, you know,
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: what was up? What's going on? So the police says
- 1:05:28Speaker 1: crowd control, when when you see where out here doing
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: crowd control? So so so like as you know, everybody going,
- 1:05:39Speaker 1: he cops, oh go have go have fun. We're gonna
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: make We're just out here to make sure everybody's say,
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: traffic flow. So he wouldn't have performed, and you know,
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: he was like, how the hell did this happen. The
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: guy explained to fifty, you know about me, about my
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: story and that I had got them legal, and fifties like, listen,
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: have him in my en next tomorrow, Man, I want
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: to talk to this guy. So I sat down with Yes,
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: that gotta be me. So I sat down with him
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: and we talked, and you know, he was like, would
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: you let me run with this as a TV show?
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: You know, there was there was some talking to hear
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: about a movie, but the fifty was like, nah, his
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: vision was way out there. He was like, nah, but
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: people want to want to hear this. Let me back
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: up a little bit. Isa said, when you say run
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: with this, what was this you were talking about? What? Okay?
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: The concept was was was around a movie. And when
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: he heard the story, he immediately I mean I can
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: see his mind turning, you know, he immediately he said
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: to me. He says, he kind of stopped me and
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: he said, listen, this is not this is a movie.
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: Can it can be later on, but this is this
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: is a TV show. This is something that people want
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: to be inspired over every single week. Uh. And I
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: want to be able to be comfortable in telling this
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: story in ways where where we can continue to enlighten
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: and continue to inspire and continue to provide hope to people.
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: So I said, you know, it's it's cool. Whatever you
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: want to do. I said, okay, and he and he
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: made it happen. And one of the things that that
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: um was very very significant to me and in dealing
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: with that decision that he made is that the guy
- 1:07:16Speaker 1: that brought me to him. Now, remember this is just
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: an idea. There's no contracts, there's no agreements, there's nothing.
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: He goes to the guy. He says, listen, I'm gonna
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: pay you for a year. Tomorrow. Come by my office tomorrow.
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: I'll have the cash you're waiting for you. That's how
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: confident he was and what he had and what he
- 1:07:36Speaker 1: knew what he could do with it. He started committing
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: himself before the financially, before there was any agreement. Well, no,
- 1:07:43Speaker 1: he didn't do it to me. He did it to
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: the guy that that brought me there. In other words,
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: he said, listen, I'm not leaving you out. You're gonna
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: be a part of this too. But what i'm gonna
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: do is, I'm gonna pay you in advance for an
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: entire year for every episode that I believe that's going
- 1:07:58Speaker 1: that I'll be able to get out the first year.
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay you for that now. And he didn't
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: even speak to He had spoken to nobody, no writers.
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: Sony was nowhere to be found at that time. Maybec
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: was nowhere to be found. He but he knew he
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: saw the road, and and and he committed himself on
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: that road that he saw and it materialized. I mean,
- 1:08:17Speaker 1: he's he was a visionary. And when I saw that,
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: because I see those things, you know, I the experience
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: that I have in trying to survive in prison in
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: a maximum security prison, and it was the only one
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: for seven and a half years. It was the only
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: one in the state. So that meant that that that
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: every undesirable that was there was put in the same
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: place with everybody else. And in order to survive in
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: that environment, you have to learn how to size a
- 1:08:43Speaker 1: person up. In zero point three seconds, I could size
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: you up even if you don't open your mouth. When
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: he did that, I knew because I was there, I
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: was talking to him, I was studying him to the
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: longer he was studying me. I was studying him. I
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: knew I could roll the dice and turn my back.
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: And that's what I did. I rolled the dice, walked
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: out his office, and here I am. Are you happy?
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: Emulated so seven and in prison? Yes, when I read
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: your story, it was started. You represented yourself? Yes? Why um?
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: In trial? The first the first time I represented myself
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: from the outset, but no legal training no legal training,
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: and all I had was a high school diploma. Most
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: of most of the most of the grounds that I made,
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: and most of the law that I created, I created
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: with the high school diploma. While I was in prison.
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: Most of the people that I have that I got out,
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: I got out with a high school diploma. Uh. And
- 1:09:39Speaker 1: and and that's one of the reasons why I can
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: I'm still saying that today is because I haven't been
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: licensed that long, because because of the challenges that they
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: that is, when I actually got licensed, they investigated me.
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: I passed the bar actually in two thousand and eight.
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: If if I had been licensed after I passed the bar,
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: I would have probably quadrupled what I had accomplished when
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: I was in prison by now. And Uh. But what
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: they did was they investigated me for another nine years,
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: something that should have taken a couple of weeks. Uh.
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: They investigating me for nine years before giving me my license.
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: And what I literally had to do. UM after nine
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: years had passed, there was a Supreme Court justice, her
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: name was Virginia Long out of New Jersey. She was
- 1:10:29Speaker 1: one of the justices that that made a landmark ruling
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: in my civil case. UM that for the first time
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: in the history of that state. It made the state
- 1:10:40Speaker 1: viable for conduct of prosecutors. And before it was counties,
- 1:10:46Speaker 1: counties that would have been live and there was there
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: was all these immunities that went with it, but my
- 1:10:50Speaker 1: case changed that and she was one of the judges.
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: She retired um around two thousand, fifteen sixteen. She retired
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: and when I found she retired, I wentn't looking for her,
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: and I located her in a law firm, very huge
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: law from international law from called Fox Rachaw. I called
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: her up and she remembered who I was, and she
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: offered me to come in for a consultation. I sat
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: down with her and when she found out what was
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: going on, she was really appalled about it. She was
- 1:11:21Speaker 1: it was It was just incredible to her as a
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: Supreme Court retired Supreme Court justice, because you know, the
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: Supreme Court controls all of that. They're the top dogs
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: when it comes down to not only the judicial system
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: in the state, but also who practices and who doesn't.
- 1:11:35Speaker 1: If there's disciplinary actions, they're the ones who suspends you
- 1:11:38Speaker 1: or disciplinary disciplines you, or or revoke your license. They
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: control all of that. So she basically let me know
- 1:11:45Speaker 1: and no, no, no small terms that uh she felt
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: for my situation. She uh was going to she couldn't
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: actually represent me because it was a conflict of interest
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: and being that she was on the bench during my
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: civil case. But fortunately her husband was also a partner
- 1:12:03Speaker 1: at the firm, and so she says, what I'm going
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: to do is I'm going to let my husband represent you.
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: That's me. My husband represents me and I represent him. Um,
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: And being that I was on the bench, they understand
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: what that means. So he came in and within six
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: months I had a license. Within after nine years when
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: he came in, within six months, I had a license.
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: And there's a picture of me. You can see it
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: on the internet. It's all over the internet, and it's
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: on my Instagram of me being sworn in. There's a
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: lady with with blonde hair, light light whitish blonde hair,
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: an older lady swearing me in. That sir, that's a
- 1:12:41Speaker 1: retired chief not Chief Justice, but Justice of the Supreme
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: Court of the Congratulations. This problem is nationwide and and
- 1:12:49Speaker 1: people are in their effects predominantly people of color. And
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: so when you hear me say something like that, does
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: it get you mad motivates you for change, it does,
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: and it doesn't get me mad at all. Uh, it motivates,
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: It motivates me for change. And and and to be
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: honest with you, Um, And this is a controversial statement
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: that I'm gonna make, but I really believe in it.
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: I think as as minorities, as as blacks, um, we've
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: been we've been mad for a long time. And I
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: think I think we should because being mad takes a
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: lot of energy. And I think if we refocused as
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: a people, refocused that energy on making changes. Because we're
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: a powerful people, well we really we really really are.
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: And a lot of times anger has a has a
- 1:13:39Speaker 1: way of distorting the way you think and the decisions
- 1:13:43Speaker 1: that you make. Um. But if if we can, if
- 1:13:46Speaker 1: we can, uh refocus a lot of anger into action. Uh.
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: You know, I think we can move mountains as a people. Uh.
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: And and you know, even for me being in the
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: situation that I was in, there was room for for
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: a lot of anger, for for for being enraged, and
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: and just to just to give you an example of
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: what I'm saying, there was a there was a time
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: early on when I had a decided that I was
- 1:14:16Speaker 1: going to represent myself, and you know that was a
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: time when you represent yourself in court, in court, yes,
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: in my during my my my trials. Um. You know,
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: I had made a decision early on that I was
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: going to represent myself. And I remember I was in
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: my cell working on a on an emotion, and I
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: was I was working almost all night, and I fell
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: asleep in the middle of writing the motion, and maybe
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: an hour or two I woke back up, and I
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: decided that I was going to pick up where I
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: left off, and I began to read what I had
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: written just to kind of get myself acquainted with it again,
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: and started where I left off. And and when I
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: started reading, I began to look ground because it seemed
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: to me that there was something wrong. That was I
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: was beginning to look around to see where those papers
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: were that I was working on, where that emotion was
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: that I was working on, because I didn't even recognize
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: what I was reading. It was it was so it
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: was so overwhelmed with emotion and with anger that I
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: didn't recognize myself. I didn't recognize the person that had
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: written it. And that was that was a divine moment
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: for me, because it it took me somewhere mentally and
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: emotionally that I needed to go in the sense that
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: that I was never going to have the kind of
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: focus that I needed to have in order to get
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: myself out of this situation being burdened down with the
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: negative emotions um and. Anger is a very negative emotion.
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: Sometimes it's well placed, but most of the time, anger
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: is a very very misplaced emotion. The moment I decided
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: that I was going to manage and control that, uh,
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: I had to learn to separate myself from my that
- 1:16:03Speaker 1: emotional state. And the moment I did that, uh I,
- 1:16:08Speaker 1: I moved into a moment of such clarity UH that
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: it was a snowball right my my, the gift that
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: God had given me for the law. The first time
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: I picked up the law book, it was like I
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: had done it all my life, which is amazing because
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: everyone in the direction you used pursuing your life until
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: this happened, had absolutely no interest in the law at all,
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: um and and and never picked up a law book
- 1:16:34Speaker 1: before in my life. And the first time I did
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: it was like I was doing it all my life.
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: And in that moment of clarity, UH took a gift
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: and turned it into a snowball rolling down a hill.
- 1:16:44Speaker 1: So that seven and a half years later, by the
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: time I got back in court, I was so good
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: that I got a veteran police officer to confess, understand,
- 1:16:53Speaker 1: and that that's how I actually how I how I
- 1:16:54Speaker 1: ultimately got out a veteran cop. Uh seven and a
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: half years before that, he was a detective in the
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: prosecutor's office. Seven and a half years later, when I
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: got him back on that stand, he was the chief
- 1:17:07Speaker 1: of the police academy. That's how much he had risen.
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: And and obviously he's a more sophisticated individual, and I
- 1:17:16Speaker 1: was able to get him to literally not only confess,
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: but to put himself in jail. Me. You know, when
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: you confess the misconduct like that, perjured testimony, falsifying police reports,
- 1:17:29Speaker 1: you know you're you're going to jail. And so you know,
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: I was just that good. Seven and a half years later,
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: no law degree, high school diploma, and I did something
- 1:17:41Speaker 1: that lawyers practiced their entire life to do. I did
- 1:17:45Speaker 1: that as a person as a young man with the
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: with the high school diploma. Now and when I look
- 1:17:50Speaker 1: at the television series, the lead lead actor has that
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: anger in him yes, anger because it should be there,
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: because he's not he's not he's in he's not supposed
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: to be. Uh. Your wife played by George Bryant. Um
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: Also she's living in it with your best friend, and
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: then your daughter. They're now living with your best friend, Yes,
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: in a romantic relationship, and now you're in jail. What
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: made that character development like that? What was the whole
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: rationale was setting it up like that? Um? Well, you
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: know the the the the colleague we I just gave
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: you about what I had to go through to actually
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: get a license. It's a very long time. That's a
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: couple of decades, and so creatively, what was the decision
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: was made to condense that? Um, so that we can
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: carry the public through some of the triumphs and and
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: and some of the agonies of defeat that you go
- 1:18:52Speaker 1: through in that process. Uh and so and and what
- 1:18:56Speaker 1: the family is going through with you and so Aaron
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: Wallace is a presentation of you know, all those things
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: wrapped up into one, even the emotions that I was
- 1:19:06Speaker 1: telling you about. One of the things about me having
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: to hide that emotion and having to control it is
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: that it does not give the public what was really
- 1:19:14Speaker 1: going on inside me. And and so what we decided
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: to do is we decided to allow the public to
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: reflect on not only this anger, in this agony that
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: Aaron was going through as a character, but also how
- 1:19:29Speaker 1: he has to manage to control it in order to
- 1:19:31Speaker 1: move ahead. That's that's key. And uh, you know, you
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: have the the the destruction of family that occurs when
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: you're when you're in prison, um, and when you're in relationships,
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: the destruction of the relationship, the the total annihilation of
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: the family nucleus. And so this, this this conflict between
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: this three way conflict between Aaron, his best friend and
- 1:20:00Speaker 1: and his wife, you know, is a reality. You know,
- 1:20:03Speaker 1: these things happen, uh in the world. I went in
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: uh in prison. I went into prison with the family,
- 1:20:10Speaker 1: with a wife and a daughter, you know, And when
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: I came out of prison, I didn't have my family anymore,
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: you know. And so and so those are the realities
- 1:20:19Speaker 1: of prison for many men, uh in America. And it's
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: it's very very difficult to have a life sentence with
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: seven years on top of it and people waiting for
- 1:20:30Speaker 1: you to come home, you know. Uh. The the the
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: general consensus is that the power of the government is
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: too large for you and it's time to move on emotionally, physically.
- 1:20:43Speaker 1: And then you trapped with that idea that I'm in
- 1:20:45Speaker 1: a sc yes, wait for me, wait for me, wait
- 1:20:48Speaker 1: for me. So you call. Did you ever give up
- 1:20:50Speaker 1: with that? With that emotional damage that you know it's
- 1:20:53Speaker 1: being done to your family and the fact that you
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: don't know if you can actually get yourself out of jail. Um? Know,
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: I didn't never give up, you know. You know. One
- 1:21:01Speaker 1: of the things about about dealing with these kind of
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: challenges is that is that it starts with your mind.
- 1:21:08Speaker 1: My reality was that I was going to die in prison,
- 1:21:12Speaker 1: and so that's right. But but but the reason why
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: that was my reality is because someone gave me that reality.
- 1:21:19Speaker 1: That reality was given to me, and so that wasn't
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: the reality that I created. That was the reality that
- 1:21:25Speaker 1: was given to me. And so what I did was
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: I lived in my reality, the one I created. That's
- 1:21:31Speaker 1: why I didn't. I wasn't going to be a slave
- 1:21:34Speaker 1: to the reality that they created for me, which is important,
- 1:21:36Speaker 1: you know, which is very very control. You can control
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: my reality. The reality got you living in is an
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: uncontrolled environment. You don't know what the food next year
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: you're gonna do. You don't know if your cell door
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: is gonna open three o'clock in the morning and someone
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: comes in there, what a shame can take your life.
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: You have no idea what's gonna happen to you from
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: one day or the other. And so one of the
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: things that I did was I created my own reality.
- 1:21:59Speaker 1: And that reality was based on on my own intellect,
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: the gifts that I had in the tenacity, uh that
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: I engaged in order to protect myself and my family,
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: mostly my family, because this was not just an attack
- 1:22:14Speaker 1: on me. It was an attack on my family. Uh.
- 1:22:17Speaker 1: And And when you look at the destruction going on
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: around you that you are inside watching you can't do
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: anything about you, you realize that this was more than
- 1:22:24Speaker 1: just about you. This is this is about how it
- 1:22:27Speaker 1: decimates families and communities. Absolutely, and you were right in
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: the middle of that. Now, now you're an executive producer,
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: you're given that title for this ABC series. We're talking
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: about Isaac Right Jr. Your story inspired this series. It's
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: a fictional series about a fact by a legal series
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: and the family Dynamics. It's on ABC Arizona Tuesday nights.
- 1:22:48Speaker 1: UMFs will make a guest appearance on March four. What
- 1:22:53Speaker 1: is your role as executive producer of the series? Um, well,
- 1:22:57Speaker 1: executive producers. Uh, they're the boss. But I mean that's
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: why that's what I said. There there's a there's a
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: number of us. I mean there's there's Allison Greenspan, Doug Robertson,
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: he's an executive ducer fifty as an executive producer. You
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: know the big bosses and Sony in ABC. Uh, And
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: I have ABC with me right now. They're they're not
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: only my boss, but but they're also my partner. Absolutely, absolutely,
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: And that's where it should be. That's what that's what
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: you want people. I would tell people if you if
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: you're promoting your traveling alone, that's not good. You've got
- 1:23:36Speaker 1: people traveling with you. That's the side that they care.
- 1:23:38Speaker 1: They want to make it happen. And this is this
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: is a great series, first of all, because I was
- 1:23:42Speaker 1: emotionally charged by the whole breakdown of that person who
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: Here's an interesting thing about the series four life that
- 1:23:50Speaker 1: we're talking about that's inspired by your incarceration and your
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: triumph as a as a as an attorney now and
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: for Lancropison and entrepreneur. Is that as as as he's
- 1:24:00Speaker 1: in prison, and then he gets to go out of prison,
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: he gets to put on the suit, but then he's dictated, Hey,
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: it's time to undress, time to go back to what
- 1:24:08Speaker 1: you really are supposed to be. And so that really
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: is a mental tub and so that really it's what
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: inspires me to say, Wow, he's dealing out our root
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: for him. Alright, and so you this plays out, this
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: is the opening, um, I guess credits talk about I
- 1:24:25Speaker 1: used to be one of you guys, used to be
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: just like you. I was free and then all of
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: a sudden, I got the police busted to my night
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: club and found drugs and then announced me to be
- 1:24:36Speaker 1: a King Pig announcer in life in prison, my family
- 1:24:39Speaker 1: has been yanked away from me. My wife she now
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: is living in a relationship with my best friend, my daughter.
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: I don't know what she's doing in her life, but
- 1:24:47Speaker 1: guess what, I want to reconnect with her. And that
- 1:24:49Speaker 1: is the serious. So right there, it sets up a
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: lane of frustration and passion for the character. And so
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: the serious is tied to the fact that every episode
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: is this he's developing as a man because he has
- 1:25:00Speaker 1: to redevelop as a man in prison. He's a man
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: outside of prison, but a man in prison is a
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: different person because you're dealing with different dynamics. And so
- 1:25:07Speaker 1: each episode is his journey for not only trying to
- 1:25:10Speaker 1: seek his freedom, but the freedom of other people, because
- 1:25:13Speaker 1: every time he received success as a lawyer, then more
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: people are inspired by his efforts. And that's what pushed
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: me to say I want to see this show, and
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: push me to say I want to see you. Yeah,
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: and you brought up. You brought up an incredible point
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: because it's the easiest thing in the world for a
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: judge not to even look at your papers when you
- 1:25:31Speaker 1: put it in. You don't know. They just rubb a
- 1:25:33Speaker 1: stamp it. That's that's that nonsensitive stamp, denied and move on.
- 1:25:38Speaker 1: It takes a certain amount of respect to allow them
- 1:25:44Speaker 1: to force them to do a double take and say,
- 1:25:46Speaker 1: you know what, I better read this. It takes a
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: certain level of respect and so and so what this
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: journey does with for life, it takes eron through that growth.
- 1:25:57Speaker 1: Aaron Wallace. Aaron Wallace, you see him moving through that
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: growth where you know in that first episode you saw
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: him one this win, this case that gave you a
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: glimpse of a case with some complicated techniques, complicated techns,
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: and you know, and the thing about that, the thing
- 1:26:15Speaker 1: that you could because because all these things, you know,
- 1:26:17Speaker 1: we talked about and they asked me about it, and
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: there was a question to me about you know, you know,
- 1:26:22Speaker 1: should we should we do this? And you know, I
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: was like, because I'm I'm so my understanding about the
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: system is is so intimate. I was like, of course
- 1:26:31Speaker 1: should you That shouldn't be even question. Yes, Ford you
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: that paper, you know, because here's here's the thing about
- 1:26:38Speaker 1: this country. In this country, the way your system is
- 1:26:41Speaker 1: supposed to be shut up, set up is that it
- 1:26:43Speaker 1: is better for a guilty man to go free than
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: an innocent person to spend a day in prison for
- 1:26:49Speaker 1: something he didn't do. We would rather be guilty to
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: go free than to send an innocent person in prison.
- 1:26:54Speaker 1: That is the way our system of justice is supposed
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: to be set up. That is all. That is one
- 1:26:58Speaker 1: of the guiding principles of a system of justice, so
- 1:27:01Speaker 1: that we can ensure that we will do whatever it
- 1:27:04Speaker 1: takes to prevent a person that's innocent from going to prison.
- 1:27:07Speaker 1: And that's not how it's working. It's working differently. And
- 1:27:10Speaker 1: so when you see Aaron making that desperate move forging
- 1:27:14Speaker 1: this document, he's forging this document. He is doing the
- 1:27:18Speaker 1: wrong thing for the right reason. And the risk that
- 1:27:21Speaker 1: he's taken, you'll see there on the line, it's going
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: to come back. That risk is going to come back
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: at him right and his family because he has a
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: because basically a little other side noticed that a lot
- 1:27:33Speaker 1: of people are not happy that he has a law
- 1:27:35Speaker 1: degree in he saw a little cool leap loop loophole
- 1:27:39Speaker 1: allowed him to get it. And so every time he
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: goes in front of a judge, you know, they questioned
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: his technique, they call him a novicet, They tell him
- 1:27:46Speaker 1: to do more homework. So he's constantly disrespected. But because
- 1:27:50Speaker 1: he is as the as the and and the way
- 1:27:53Speaker 1: he got the law degree, somebody vouched for him at
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: a higher position, and that now what's happening on the side.
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: They hate this, so their goal is to be able
- 1:28:03Speaker 1: to see stop him from winning and to crush him.
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: And so that carries So you know, you got your enemies,
- 1:28:10Speaker 1: you got your people, your roofa, you got the five family,
- 1:28:14Speaker 1: and you got the prison. So it turns in the
- 1:28:16Speaker 1: prison into like good guys. The angry guys are the
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: d A and this guy named mask masking. They bad people,
- 1:28:25Speaker 1: bad people, bad people. And so so when you when
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: you see that and just letting people, why would I
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: watch this series? How would I relate to this series?
- 1:28:32Speaker 1: You're gonna relate because it's as a family dynamic in it.
- 1:28:35Speaker 1: You can relate because you you feel some type of pain,
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: but because somebody is innocently incarcerated. And then you realize,
- 1:28:43Speaker 1: also this is just regular people. This is regular regular people.
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: And even even when he's uh, even when he's uh
- 1:28:50Speaker 1: found out, one of the gods provides him with information
- 1:28:53Speaker 1: so they know he's a good guy. And so that
- 1:28:56Speaker 1: is when I'm I love good storytelling and so good
- 1:28:59Speaker 1: story to and it helps me out one day, plug
- 1:29:01Speaker 1: into the reason this action is happening? Why is it happen?
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: Why is it? Why is why are we doing this?
- 1:29:06Speaker 1: Because I hate it when you just jump over the
- 1:29:08Speaker 1: jump over three to get the five. You know these
- 1:29:12Speaker 1: dark tunnels, whether it's the information is the important information
- 1:29:15Speaker 1: to give continuity is missing. But this, this story, this
- 1:29:19Speaker 1: is continuity there and you can follow it, uh and
- 1:29:22Speaker 1: you can understand, you know, why these things are happening,
- 1:29:25Speaker 1: and the things that you don't really understand. It's hidden
- 1:29:27Speaker 1: from you in the beginning. It's revealed to you, you know,
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: revealed to you later on. But but I think they
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: did an incredible job. I mean, uh, Nicholas peanuck? Uh?
- 1:29:40Speaker 1: Is the am I pronouncing that right? Puck? I'm sorry.
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: I hope he's not listening right now. But Nicholas, you know,
- 1:29:50Speaker 1: he's an incredible actor. Um, he just he is so
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: profound in his acting. And you've seen the episode, so
- 1:29:58Speaker 1: I'm speaking to the choir right now that it has
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: it has affected me that it is. It has been
- 1:30:02Speaker 1: therapeutic for me watching him because it's like it's like
- 1:30:05Speaker 1: watching myself, and the things that he shows outwardly are
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: the things that I know I was feeling inside. You know.
- 1:30:13Speaker 1: You know. The interesting thing about that Nicholas plays the
- 1:30:15Speaker 1: character Aaron Wallace, which is the lead character in this
- 1:30:18Speaker 1: series for Life, which is on ABC airs on Tuesday night.
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: The thing about it is that you know, he keeps
- 1:30:24Speaker 1: that character with anger so close to the edge. Man,
- 1:30:27Speaker 1: I feel nervous when he with the warden. I feel
- 1:30:30Speaker 1: nervous for him. Shut up, dude, would you should be quiet?
- 1:30:33Speaker 1: Because he's always internally mad. Yeah, And that's what I
- 1:30:37Speaker 1: love about the character. And it makes me nervous. It
- 1:30:39Speaker 1: makes me nervous in a good way. You know what
- 1:30:41Speaker 1: I'm saying from a from a viewer standpoint him and going, hey, dude,
- 1:30:44Speaker 1: shut up, you're about to blow it when you just
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: calmed down, because it's character just goes so close to
- 1:30:50Speaker 1: the edge all the time. And that's a that's beautiful man,
- 1:30:53Speaker 1: it is. And I had nobody to tell me that.
- 1:30:55Speaker 1: I had to learn that um from from trial and
- 1:30:58Speaker 1: error and so and so. What's beautiful about it? It's
- 1:31:02Speaker 1: because that reality not only taps into his humanity, but
- 1:31:06Speaker 1: but it also just like what you were doing, you
- 1:31:09Speaker 1: were trying to guide him from the TV sets. Shut up,
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: shut up. You push it too far. You know when
- 1:31:15Speaker 1: they let him in, you know, because I've seen his
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: anger when he led him in the room with the
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: warden by her. Please don't grab this woman start strangling. Okay, cool?
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: Well guess what they gave me the signal. I hopefully
- 1:31:28Speaker 1: you enjoyed this interview. I've been enjoying. We went kind
- 1:31:31Speaker 1: of along, but I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep talking
- 1:31:34Speaker 1: to you. I appreciate. The beautiful thing about this show
- 1:31:37Speaker 1: is that Tuesday Night, my man fifty cents to be
- 1:31:39Speaker 1: making a guest. The parents want this character on the show.
- 1:31:44Speaker 1: Do you know fifty he does it both ways? You know,
- 1:31:46Speaker 1: you know fifty fifty Uh created the power series and
- 1:31:50Speaker 1: got my fifteen most shows about the bounce out Uh
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: and Havoc. Havoc is coming with fifty character. Havoc is
- 1:31:57Speaker 1: getting ready to come. That know all the way they
- 1:32:02Speaker 1: musty serious as every time. The show airs is a
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: musty series on Tuesday night on ABC. For Life, I'm
- 1:32:07Speaker 1: here with one of the executive producer. The series is
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: inspired by his life story, Isaac Wright Jr. Look to
- 1:32:14Speaker 1: your children's eyes to see the true magic of a forest.
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: It's a storybook world for them. You look and see
- 1:32:21Speaker 1: a tree. They see the wrinkled face of a wizard
- 1:32:24Speaker 1: with arms outstretched to the sky. They see treasuring pebbles,
- 1:32:28Speaker 1: They see a windy path that could lead to adventure,
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: and they see you. They're fearless. Guide through this fascinating world.
- 1:32:36Speaker 1: Find a forest near you and start exploring and discover
- 1:32:39Speaker 1: the forest. Dot Org brought to you by the United
- 1:32:41Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. Look to your
- 1:32:44Speaker 1: children's eyes to see the true magic of a forest.
- 1:32:48Speaker 1: It's a storybook world for them. You look and see
- 1:32:51Speaker 1: a tree. They see the wrinkled face of a wizard
- 1:32:54Speaker 1: with arms outstretched to the sky. They see treasuring pebbles.
- 1:32:59Speaker 1: They see a windy path that could lead to adventure,
- 1:33:02Speaker 1: and they see you. They're fearless. Guide. Is this fascinating world?
- 1:33:07Speaker 1: Find a forest near you and start exploring. I Discover
- 1:33:09Speaker 1: the Forest dot org brought to you by the United
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. What grows in
- 1:33:16Speaker 1: the forest trees? Sure you know what else grows in
- 1:33:19Speaker 1: the forest. Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our
- 1:33:23Speaker 1: family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect from this
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: and connect with this, we reconnect with each other. The
- 1:33:33Speaker 1: forest is closer than you think. Find a forest near
- 1:33:36Speaker 1: you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org
- 1:33:40Speaker 1: brought to you by the United States Forest Service and
- 1:33:43Speaker 1: the AD Council. Thank you. My next guest is a
- 1:33:46Speaker 1: talented actress and singer who was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- 1:33:51Speaker 1: You talk, I'm from Texas, so I can talk like that.
- 1:33:53Speaker 1: She right, above me, right above me. She moved to
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: Atlanta for college and and attended an HBC you School,
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: Atlantic University, where she majored in theater, and then moved
- 1:34:03Speaker 1: to Los Angeles and has been booking television shows, films,
- 1:34:06Speaker 1: and commercials every since. She is now starting in the
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: news Tyler Perry series and it is entitled Tyler Perry's
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: Ruthless Please Walk Up to Money Making Conversation. Melissa L. Williams,
- 1:34:19Speaker 1: Thank you. Wow. That was a great first of all,
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: you deserve it, you know, and you're you're out here,
- 1:34:27Speaker 1: you know. I always tell people a lot of people
- 1:34:29Speaker 1: are stopped based on fear, stop based on people's expectations
- 1:34:34Speaker 1: or projections of what they should be doing in their lives,
- 1:34:37Speaker 1: in their life. And here you are at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- 1:34:40Speaker 1: I've been there several times. Uh. Eat some great barbecue
- 1:34:44Speaker 1: at Oklahoma City. By the way, I've been there some
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: good bed So how do you get to Atlanta to
- 1:34:52Speaker 1: Los Angeles from Oklahoma City? Ha? Ha? How how can
- 1:34:55Speaker 1: your dreams be so big in Oklahoma City? Well, I'll
- 1:35:01Speaker 1: tell you that's how you know it's your gift. When
- 1:35:05Speaker 1: when nobody or nothing you know circumstances can stop you
- 1:35:11Speaker 1: from attaining it. I feel like my purpose I found
- 1:35:16Speaker 1: it at a young age. M My purpose on this
- 1:35:19Speaker 1: earth was this to tell a story, um, whether due
- 1:35:23Speaker 1: to characters or my own. And that's why I think
- 1:35:26Speaker 1: that God has given me such a powerful testimony because
- 1:35:32Speaker 1: it is definitely one that I feel can transform other
- 1:35:36Speaker 1: young black women actors or even just people who live
- 1:35:43Speaker 1: in small towns. You know, I feel like my story
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: would trans transform their thinking at least enough to um
- 1:35:51Speaker 1: make them believe that they can do it, just because
- 1:35:53Speaker 1: of you know, where I'm from and where I grew
- 1:35:56Speaker 1: up as well, right, And I think I appreciate you
- 1:35:59Speaker 1: saying it, because you know, people look at the big
- 1:36:01Speaker 1: city New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, now Los Angeles, that's
- 1:36:06Speaker 1: where you go to achieve. You you either from those
- 1:36:09Speaker 1: type of cities or you're born in those types of
- 1:36:10Speaker 1: cities where the real talent is just like an anything,
- 1:36:12Speaker 1: you know, it comes from everywhere. You're part of that,
- 1:36:15Speaker 1: one of the limbs on the tree that fruit that
- 1:36:18Speaker 1: we need to grow. And so when you made the
- 1:36:20Speaker 1: decision to go to Atlanta for college, that was the
- 1:36:23Speaker 1: first major decision you had to make because you were
- 1:36:25Speaker 1: leaving home Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Atlanta, Georgia, which we know.
- 1:36:30Speaker 1: I've been in Oklahoma City and I said they're joking earlier,
- 1:36:32Speaker 1: but I was for real, I know the black population there.
- 1:36:35Speaker 1: Now you come into a market where we remember was
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: truly an African American market. What was that like? What
- 1:36:39Speaker 1: was that transition for you? Oh? It was definitely a
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: culture shark. I mean, you know, there are black population
- 1:36:47Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. You can county on your on your on
- 1:36:49Speaker 1: your one hand. You know, we don't make up a
- 1:36:53Speaker 1: lot a lot of space. We'll take up a lot
- 1:36:55Speaker 1: of space in Oklahoma, but there are black people. So
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: I will just sell of that miss right now. People
- 1:37:01Speaker 1: always ask me, oh, I know black people live in Oklahoma,
- 1:37:05Speaker 1: and I'm like, yep, yep, because here's one right here.
- 1:37:09Speaker 1: So uh I think you know, for me, it was
- 1:37:14Speaker 1: a cultural shock because Atlanta obviously is about that culture
- 1:37:18Speaker 1: and black love and black history and black restaurants and
- 1:37:21Speaker 1: black owned businesses and black owned designers, like it's everything black,
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: and that's what I wanted, you know. I I the
- 1:37:28Speaker 1: reason why I even found out about like college in
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: Atlanta is because I was impacted on by a movie
- 1:37:35Speaker 1: called Drumline. I saw that in high school, and I
- 1:37:39Speaker 1: was like, I want that experience. I want in all
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: black uh experienced HDCU. I want. I want to see
- 1:37:46Speaker 1: the girls dancing like that. I want the drum Line
- 1:37:48Speaker 1: have rhythms like I want to be around that. So
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: I looked it up online and I thought, I was
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: so ready to, you know, move forward. I thought, there's
- 1:37:58Speaker 1: a school on drum Line with a real coool. So
- 1:38:00Speaker 1: I looked up the school that it went to, and
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: I found out that it was false obviously created for
- 1:38:06Speaker 1: the movie. But hey, I'm in Oklahoma, you know. I
- 1:38:10Speaker 1: found out that Okay, they filmed it in Atlanta on
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: a college campus which happened to be um An HBCU,
- 1:38:19Speaker 1: so in the au C Center that makes up more
- 1:38:22Speaker 1: House Stemming in Clark, Atlanta. You know, all of those
- 1:38:25Speaker 1: campuses are on one campus there in Atlanta. So I
- 1:38:28Speaker 1: applied to Spellman, I applied to Clarks, I got a
- 1:38:31Speaker 1: sence to Clarks, and I went to Clarks. Congratulations because
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: that that that was the seed for while we were
- 1:38:38Speaker 1: talking today and uh, because you know, HBCUs, I'm a
- 1:38:42Speaker 1: part of a lot of campaigns with hbcun't attended. I
- 1:38:47Speaker 1: didn't attend an HBCU, but I'm such a fan of
- 1:38:50Speaker 1: bringing the quality of educated people that their brand awareness
- 1:38:54Speaker 1: that HBC uses given out, especially in Hollywood. All the
- 1:38:57Speaker 1: wood has really being overrun by HBCU graduates, which is
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: really positive as well as I'm sure you're finding that
- 1:39:04Speaker 1: out as well, you know. And so with that being said, yeah,
- 1:39:08Speaker 1: that's something that I'm I'm proud too to be a
- 1:39:11Speaker 1: part of it as well. And I'm I'm glad that
- 1:39:14Speaker 1: people are mentioning that because it only puts me on
- 1:39:17Speaker 1: business in our HBCUs. You know, like at the end
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: of the day, college is a business if you ain't
- 1:39:23Speaker 1: nobody going and nobody's showing, and you ain't like we
- 1:39:26Speaker 1: need the ABC used to be in the business. So yeah,
- 1:39:30Speaker 1: I'm glad that people are, like I think lean away
- 1:39:33Speaker 1: when you um, a lot of people are coming out
- 1:39:36Speaker 1: mentioning that in their journey her story, and I think
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: that's important and that's why I had to mention it
- 1:39:43Speaker 1: in your story in your journey. My executive producer, she's
- 1:39:46Speaker 1: from Hampton, you know, you know, so I gotta get
- 1:39:50Speaker 1: love over there. She keeps me right every every time
- 1:39:52Speaker 1: I do this show. Now, listen, I don't want to
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: get anybody mad because it may seem like I've drifted
- 1:39:58Speaker 1: off into a personal conversation about your life, or do
- 1:40:01Speaker 1: you have a show coming out? Tyler Perry is ruthless?
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: Before we talk about that show the Seed, if your
- 1:40:07Speaker 1: character was playing it in his other show They're over now.
- 1:40:15Speaker 1: It was really interested. I would reading. I always trying
- 1:40:17Speaker 1: to do additional research of what they sent over to me,
- 1:40:19Speaker 1: and I was reading this article and he was talking
- 1:40:21Speaker 1: about you know, you said Tyler Perry was a genius.
- 1:40:23Speaker 1: You said this guy was amazing. Why did you say
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: that about Tyler Perry? Because that's what I truly believe.
- 1:40:30Speaker 1: I think he is amazing. I think he is genius
- 1:40:33Speaker 1: any man who can write great produce. Okay, first of all,
- 1:40:36Speaker 1: let me just start from the beginning. My background is
- 1:40:39Speaker 1: theater major, but I did uh continue education under the
- 1:40:45Speaker 1: media production program. So I twitched my major, okay, because
- 1:40:49Speaker 1: I was like, I need to learn the behind the
- 1:40:51Speaker 1: scenes because later on down the line, Um, you know,
- 1:40:55Speaker 1: just having the theater major isn't going to be enough, right,
- 1:40:58Speaker 1: So I need to learn how to see? Do I
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: need to learn how to edit. I need to learn
- 1:41:02Speaker 1: learn how where did the rights go? So I have
- 1:41:04Speaker 1: good lighting? Right? Um? So I learned all that. And
- 1:41:08Speaker 1: I'm saying that to say any man that can at
- 1:41:11Speaker 1: his level, I'm talking about Netflix skills. I'm talking about
- 1:41:14Speaker 1: cable et own uh now with the streaming service that
- 1:41:18Speaker 1: he's partnered with, the b t V T plus. Um
- 1:41:21Speaker 1: anything I can write, create, produce and direct and still
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: you know, be a personality themselves with them India Tour.
- 1:41:30Speaker 1: That's a genius in my eyes. And if anybody wants
- 1:41:33Speaker 1: to disagree, I'd love to talk about it. I love
- 1:41:37Speaker 1: to talk about it. I won't I won't disagree. I
- 1:41:39Speaker 1: will not disagree at all. I just like to talk
- 1:41:42Speaker 1: about the relationships because of the fact that, you know,
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: everybody needs to toot that horn. It's not tied to
- 1:41:48Speaker 1: just he gave you an acting shot. He's doing it
- 1:41:51Speaker 1: over and over the years. The thing I like about
- 1:41:52Speaker 1: Tyler Perry's that he does all these things and you
- 1:41:55Speaker 1: talked to him, it's the same guy he's you know,
- 1:41:57Speaker 1: he doesn't change. Did some walk on the stage floor
- 1:42:00Speaker 1: and he's some little weird dude or some over energized person.
- 1:42:04Speaker 1: It's the same individual. That's that's to me is amazing,
- 1:42:07Speaker 1: you know, being that he built his career, you know,
- 1:42:10Speaker 1: with Medea and all that stuff as an actor playing
- 1:42:13Speaker 1: a female role of female character over the top. But
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: he's so centered. Now, let's talk about the seriousness. Is
- 1:42:20Speaker 1: not centered. It's Tyler Perry's the Oval. Okay, Now, okay,
- 1:42:27Speaker 1: I got to talk about this show. If you have
- 1:42:29Speaker 1: not seen this show, everybody, Okay, the lead characters. The
- 1:42:33Speaker 1: guy looks like Bradley Cooper, the lead character. That's the president,
- 1:42:36Speaker 1: the president. It's it's a it's a dysfunctional show, right
- 1:42:40Speaker 1: that the Obamas have left the White House and a
- 1:42:43Speaker 1: dysfunctional family has moved in. I'm talking about I'm talking about, folks,
- 1:42:48Speaker 1: This functional at the steroid level has moved in. Okay, Okay,
- 1:42:53Speaker 1: the President and the first lady she's black, he's white. Okay,
- 1:43:00Speaker 1: they do not They do not get a controversial. They
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: do not get the least devolve their problems there. She's black,
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: he's white. For these people, that's the least two problems
- 1:43:09Speaker 1: on the show. That is like minor league that that
- 1:43:13Speaker 1: quickly becomes a non issue compared to the other problems
- 1:43:17Speaker 1: that they have going on. Did they have a daughter.
- 1:43:21Speaker 1: I gotta talk. I gott tell the doughters she's crazy. Okay.
- 1:43:27Speaker 1: The mama actually tastes the dollar on the show, tastes
- 1:43:32Speaker 1: her in front of people, eat the white out, in
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: front of the in front of the security. You don't care,
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: don't mam Her mama, her actual mom, not the step mama,
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: her actual mama, tastes her own daughter. Mama, the mama. Okay,
- 1:43:47Speaker 1: she has her two kids, two kids, now their daughter. Now,
- 1:43:55Speaker 1: this is Tyler Parris over office. I'm not gonna give
- 1:43:58Speaker 1: everything away, but I gotta set these characters because we're
- 1:44:00Speaker 1: gonna get to Yeah, we got we still got to
- 1:44:02Speaker 1: let them watch it now, Okay, no, no, you know me.
- 1:44:06Speaker 1: I'm I'm not gonna bust Tyler Perry's bubber. Well, there's
- 1:44:08Speaker 1: enough crazy in his on this show. Enough drug dealing
- 1:44:11Speaker 1: going on this show, enough enough sex going on. I
- 1:44:16Speaker 1: mean sex sex sex sex is going on this show
- 1:44:19Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Oh my good man. And then your character,
- 1:44:23Speaker 1: well that's got to be that's got number one TV.
- 1:44:30Speaker 1: He does. I'm telling by why then your character you're
- 1:44:34Speaker 1: part of a coat. She's saying, because you know she
- 1:44:43Speaker 1: she could really see you know, she could really sing. Okay,
- 1:44:47Speaker 1: so she causedly throws in these notes along the way, humming, humming.
- 1:44:51Speaker 1: She has a child with the with the sun of
- 1:44:55Speaker 1: the butler at the White House, but she has a
- 1:45:00Speaker 1: twin sister. Ain't gonna go no, I'm not gonna go
- 1:45:01Speaker 1: any further than that that she has twin sisters. So
- 1:45:04Speaker 1: she plays two characters in the oval. Am I am
- 1:45:07Speaker 1: I right now? But if you can correct me, Melissa,
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: I No, No, you're right, I'm just I'm just listening, smiling. Okay. Cool.
- 1:45:15Speaker 1: So so, so it's all set up. So picture this.
- 1:45:20Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, the Obama's gracious, the epitome of
- 1:45:25Speaker 1: elegance and has left the White House and part hood,
- 1:45:32Speaker 1: part trailer park, part uh foolishness, part uppity, depity, stupidity
- 1:45:43Speaker 1: has moved in. So the staff at the White House
- 1:45:48Speaker 1: they caught off guard. They're not they're not ready for this.
- 1:45:53Speaker 1: If you just watched I just beg I just begged
- 1:45:55Speaker 1: people that just do me this faith. If you question
- 1:45:58Speaker 1: every Shaw's enthusiasm, just watch the pilot. If you watch
- 1:46:02Speaker 1: the pilot, I swear to you, if you watch the pilot,
- 1:46:07Speaker 1: he has you you cannot believe. Well, we'll go on
- 1:46:11Speaker 1: in the next episode. And we get to the next episode,
- 1:46:14Speaker 1: it gets more crazy. You know what you have said,
- 1:46:17Speaker 1: none but the truth. Let's tell us about your character
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: and more detail and uh, let's uh, let's let's talk
- 1:46:23Speaker 1: about this journey of this new series. Because it's twenty
- 1:46:25Speaker 1: four episodes. Correct, yes, it is. It's twenty four episodes.
- 1:46:29Speaker 1: It will be coming out on b ET Plus, which
- 1:46:31Speaker 1: is b e t s new streaming app partners with
- 1:46:34Speaker 1: Tyler Perry, and that is available everywhere Android, Amazon, Apple, Roku.
- 1:46:41Speaker 1: It's available everywhere. You can type in on your smartphone
- 1:46:44Speaker 1: b et plus. Um. So that's just letting everybody know
- 1:46:49Speaker 1: the price. It is coming out on March nine, teens
- 1:46:52Speaker 1: and we're not dropping one, we're not dropping two. We're
- 1:46:56Speaker 1: dropping three episodes at one on March nineteenth, just just
- 1:47:00Speaker 1: to show you, you know what loose Was is about.
- 1:47:04Speaker 1: And literally, uh, from those three people are going to
- 1:47:07Speaker 1: be hooked. I mean from the first one, you're gonna
- 1:47:09Speaker 1: be hooked. But those three right there, right book line
- 1:47:13Speaker 1: and Spinker. Well, now, now like I was hooked on
- 1:47:17Speaker 1: The Oval when it came out on BT and that
- 1:47:20Speaker 1: was really like an adult soapoul that's what the Oval
- 1:47:25Speaker 1: really is. What what exactly is ruthless? What exea what exactly?
- 1:47:31Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, the the Oval was more
- 1:47:33Speaker 1: like an adult soap. Okay, what exactly is Tyler Perry's ruthless?
- 1:47:38Speaker 1: What exactly is the theme of that? And what drives
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: the energy of the characters because we can get them
- 1:47:42Speaker 1: more a little more detailed in building enthusiasm because as
- 1:47:45Speaker 1: I am enthusiastic enthused about The Oval, they should definitely
- 1:47:48Speaker 1: be enthusised because your character was very dynamic and it
- 1:47:51Speaker 1: was developed on The Oval show. So being this smart
- 1:47:55Speaker 1: person than he is, Tyler Perry spends it off. This
- 1:47:58Speaker 1: characters this character off. So tell us about the dynamics
- 1:48:01Speaker 1: of your character that was on The Oval, because I
- 1:48:04Speaker 1: didn't want to give that away too much. I want
- 1:48:06Speaker 1: you to be able to express that in your own
- 1:48:08Speaker 1: words and then transition and over the show. Okay, okay,
- 1:48:11Speaker 1: So my character in uh The Oval that hasn't been
- 1:48:15Speaker 1: off is named Ruth. Ruth has a baby with Barry,
- 1:48:20Speaker 1: who is Um, the son of Nancy Um. Nancy which
- 1:48:28Speaker 1: is the house, the house basically the house grandmother right now,
- 1:48:34Speaker 1: which her husband works for the White House. He's the butler.
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: His name is Richard. So, Um, Ruth comes and she's
- 1:48:40Speaker 1: like she wants her child because Barry has full custody
- 1:48:44Speaker 1: at the moment because of ruth past. And she's like,
- 1:48:48Speaker 1: I want to see much to my daughter. And that
- 1:48:51Speaker 1: turned into her kidnapping her daughter with her cult members
- 1:48:55Speaker 1: and taking her back. Um. So Ruthless is going to
- 1:48:59Speaker 1: show you where she's taking her back too. So basically
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: Ruthis is Ruth's character, UM taking her daughter to this
- 1:49:07Speaker 1: cold and you're going to be getting an inside look
- 1:49:10Speaker 1: of this fanatical underground world that is the rocket issue
- 1:49:16Speaker 1: that's being the call Wow. And it's all shot in Atlanta.
- 1:49:22Speaker 1: It's all shot in Atlanta on his studios. Um, It's
- 1:49:27Speaker 1: it's literally I think I could be wrong, but I
- 1:49:32Speaker 1: think I'm right. Um, this is like the first series
- 1:49:35Speaker 1: that he's shot like on location. So he made an
- 1:49:39Speaker 1: actual compound for the cult just for the show. And
- 1:49:44Speaker 1: when I tell you, just like walking on the ground
- 1:49:48Speaker 1: of it, it's pretty, it's pretty eerie. So he's gotten
- 1:49:52Speaker 1: it down to even just like the aesthetics. Um, and
- 1:49:56Speaker 1: people are going to feel the eeriness of it because
- 1:50:00Speaker 1: so at the end of the day, like this is
- 1:50:02Speaker 1: someone was telling him this earlier, but it's it's kind
- 1:50:05Speaker 1: of like speaking to that fear of um the unknown.
- 1:50:09Speaker 1: Because a few books on Netflix Tyson Cult, You're gonna
- 1:50:13Speaker 1: get hundreds of documentaries on cults that are either inactive
- 1:50:18Speaker 1: or active or we don't know they're active, you know
- 1:50:21Speaker 1: what I mean. So like these are it's a thing.
- 1:50:25Speaker 1: It's just no one brings it to the forefront. But
- 1:50:28Speaker 1: I think that um, this show is is going to
- 1:50:31Speaker 1: be pioneering for Tyler Perry because it's getting me out
- 1:50:36Speaker 1: of the box and and almost out of the out
- 1:50:38Speaker 1: of the comfort zone of like doing the lighthearted comedy
- 1:50:42Speaker 1: you know what you did that with a Fall from
- 1:50:44Speaker 1: Grace with me because of the fact that well, that's
- 1:50:46Speaker 1: what I'm saying, this is the new way. So he
- 1:50:49Speaker 1: started with a Fall from Grace and he got all
- 1:50:52Speaker 1: when he's six million of those Netflix eyes on that,
- 1:50:56Speaker 1: and and that just made me even more say, I
- 1:51:00Speaker 1: know Ruthless is going to have people just the same
- 1:51:03Speaker 1: because it's on the same as to say, he's going
- 1:51:05Speaker 1: the same way with it, just the drama, thriller, horror type, right,
- 1:51:10Speaker 1: that's what uses No nothing, I never take for granted
- 1:51:13Speaker 1: any talent, and you are a talent when you're doing characters.
- 1:51:17Speaker 1: And I can tease about your characters, but there's work
- 1:51:20Speaker 1: involved and in auditioning for this character. Tell us that
- 1:51:24Speaker 1: whole process and and when you got the role, and
- 1:51:28Speaker 1: then also the announcement of the new series. Let's let's
- 1:51:31Speaker 1: first talk about I could like to let my my
- 1:51:33Speaker 1: fans know how who wanted who aspire to a world
- 1:51:37Speaker 1: of entertainment or the level of acting and acting that's
- 1:51:40Speaker 1: a job, So talk about that whole process. Oh well,
- 1:51:45Speaker 1: it's definitely definitely, that's definitely a job, and it's definitely
- 1:51:48Speaker 1: a journey one that you've got to have faith for.
- 1:51:52Speaker 1: So um, I loose California after I after I finished
- 1:51:57Speaker 1: the college in Atlanta, and I came out here knowing nothing,
- 1:52:02Speaker 1: and you know, I do know theater. So I was
- 1:52:05Speaker 1: extra in Atlanta and that's like the most experience I
- 1:52:08Speaker 1: had had on like a TV or film that professionals set.
- 1:52:13Speaker 1: So when I moved here, I just started doing a
- 1:52:15Speaker 1: lot of research on like you know, wanting to get
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: your head shots, what I do Actors go on to
- 1:52:21Speaker 1: to submit themselves for auditions. And once I started getting
- 1:52:24Speaker 1: all this material and knowledge by just doing it the
- 1:52:27Speaker 1: research myself. I was like garnering results my first role
- 1:52:33Speaker 1: that I was on the game, and that was from
- 1:52:37Speaker 1: me submitting myself and my picture. It was a head shot.
- 1:52:40Speaker 1: It wasn't professional. I had nothing on my resume, but
- 1:52:44Speaker 1: Jay selected me. And then the delimma was me having
- 1:52:48Speaker 1: to get back to Atlanta to do the auditions, you know,
- 1:52:51Speaker 1: and so it was another fight. And I think that, Um,
- 1:52:55Speaker 1: it's just it takes this. I think any career, any
- 1:52:59Speaker 1: career was longevity takes that fight in that drive, uh,
- 1:53:03Speaker 1: because it's not always gonna be up. It's up and down.
- 1:53:07Speaker 1: You know, a journey is up and down, and so
- 1:53:11Speaker 1: if you have that fight, you'll be able to survive
- 1:53:14Speaker 1: at all. And I think that's that's what my journey
- 1:53:17Speaker 1: has taught me. It's built my character as a person
- 1:53:20Speaker 1: to be able to withstand like all the nose until
- 1:53:23Speaker 1: you get the big yes, which right now for me
- 1:53:26Speaker 1: is this moment. So for Ruth, um, I auditioned for
- 1:53:30Speaker 1: the Oval for another character and never audition for Ruth.
- 1:53:35Speaker 1: So what character character did your audition for? I auditioned
- 1:53:40Speaker 1: for Lily. That Lily, Uh, Sierra peyton Is drawn. UM.
- 1:53:46Speaker 1: So auditioned for that and then I got a call
- 1:53:49Speaker 1: back for that and his other shows, Sences, So I
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: had for both of the shows, and he flew us
- 1:53:58Speaker 1: all out to do that in Atlanta. He did it
- 1:54:00Speaker 1: at his studios and that was the first time I
- 1:54:02Speaker 1: had entered with studios UM and he offered me the
- 1:54:07Speaker 1: role of Denise. So then call from Tyler Perry, huh
- 1:54:13Speaker 1: you also used a roll of Denise. Yes, I got
- 1:54:17Speaker 1: that was my first. Crazy. Then I got a phone
- 1:54:19Speaker 1: call crazy daughter. Huh No, no, no, Denise is the
- 1:54:24Speaker 1: mistress to roll. That's right, that's right. They they got
- 1:54:26Speaker 1: beat up. That's right, that's right, right. Yeah, yeah, so Denise,
- 1:54:30Speaker 1: that was my first. He offered me that one. And
- 1:54:32Speaker 1: then and then I got a phone call um the
- 1:54:35Speaker 1: phone number I didn't know, and I didn't answer, and
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: then I got a text in the text said it
- 1:54:38Speaker 1: had to Parry here. I'm trying to reach you, and
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: I was lying, stop stop, stopping stop. So you got
- 1:54:44Speaker 1: a phone call. Ain't nobody calling you, Ain't nobody calling you?
- 1:54:49Speaker 1: And you have not to answer a certain phone numbers
- 1:54:52Speaker 1: I don't know. Did you answer number? I asked everything.
- 1:54:55Speaker 1: I asked everything I know, I just stay no. Sorry,
- 1:54:59Speaker 1: I don't know you by I know how to say
- 1:55:03Speaker 1: that real quick, Melissa, I'm telling you, so you better
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: stop all that. I don't know that. I'm not gonna answer, okay,
- 1:55:09Speaker 1: because some of those calls come from offices and the
- 1:55:12Speaker 1: officers don't have texting capabilities. Okay, Oh is that what
- 1:55:18Speaker 1: it is? Yes, ma'am. I'm telling you. I think that
- 1:55:20Speaker 1: my for me, for me, um, this is how. This
- 1:55:25Speaker 1: is my my motto. It's just important. And I don't
- 1:55:28Speaker 1: have your number thing and people always do just like otherwise. Huh.
- 1:55:35Speaker 1: I love you. I know something. I can't say that
- 1:55:38Speaker 1: that can't say anything to you. You submitted yourself to
- 1:55:41Speaker 1: the game with no representation and got and got an audition,
- 1:55:45Speaker 1: and you got your behind to Atlanta and you got
- 1:55:48Speaker 1: cast on the show. So you got the tenacity, you
- 1:55:51Speaker 1: got to drive. But if somebody called you from a
- 1:55:54Speaker 1: number you don't know, answer, Okay, answer it might be Rashawn,
- 1:55:59Speaker 1: might be Rashawn calling you. I might be called. Well,
- 1:56:02Speaker 1: now that I know that it might be used, I
- 1:56:04Speaker 1: will always continue a fantastic story. Continue. I'm enjoying it.
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: Come on. My listeners are joining it to okay. So
- 1:56:14Speaker 1: then he calls me, so I missed the car. I
- 1:56:17Speaker 1: called him back, and he just starts, you know, talking
- 1:56:20Speaker 1: my way because obviously he knows my number. Let me
- 1:56:22Speaker 1: say something. L Perry is a very smart man. He
- 1:56:25Speaker 1: didn't say hello when I when I called him, we
- 1:56:28Speaker 1: just started talking. He said, all right, cool, I'm about
- 1:56:30Speaker 1: to start my vacation, but I have a little time.
- 1:56:32Speaker 1: And I said hello, and he said, all right cool,
- 1:56:34Speaker 1: I'm about to start my vacation, but I have a
- 1:56:36Speaker 1: little time. So you're playing Denise in my new show
- 1:56:38Speaker 1: that over. I really want to And he just kept
- 1:56:40Speaker 1: talking and I was like, oh, this is really Dunn
- 1:56:43Speaker 1: with period and so then I just listen. No, because
- 1:56:47Speaker 1: I listen. You have to remember as an actress, right,
- 1:56:51Speaker 1: we're used to go into auditions, um and going home
- 1:56:55Speaker 1: and going on with our lives. Because if you dwell
- 1:56:58Speaker 1: on one audition, you lose your mind. So that's why
- 1:57:02Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I I did audition produce things,
- 1:57:05Speaker 1: but no way, he's calling me right now, you know,
- 1:57:07Speaker 1: so um uh he called me and he says all
- 1:57:11Speaker 1: these things. He's like, I want you to play route.
- 1:57:13Speaker 1: I didn't want to work with for a long time.
- 1:57:15Speaker 1: I'm doing a spinoff, and I think that would be
- 1:57:17Speaker 1: a better role, see, you know, for your range. And
- 1:57:19Speaker 1: I didn't want to, like, just think about it, take
- 1:57:21Speaker 1: a time to think about I said, well, first of all, hi,
- 1:57:24Speaker 1: Tyler Perry, and then I and then I said, yes,
- 1:57:30Speaker 1: the answer is yet He's like, no, just think about it.
- 1:57:33Speaker 1: You know. It was fourth of July at that time,
- 1:57:35Speaker 1: so it's like this, you know, spend the holiday, think
- 1:57:37Speaker 1: about it. Text me in the morning with your with
- 1:57:40Speaker 1: the answer. I'm like, did he just all right? So
- 1:57:44Speaker 1: I said, you know what, okay, Mr Perry, I will
- 1:57:47Speaker 1: pray on it and I'll text you in the morning.
- 1:57:49Speaker 1: And he said okay, and I did that, and I
- 1:57:55Speaker 1: in my spirit it was confirmed. Could you sleep? That's
- 1:57:59Speaker 1: all I was doing. You know, hot fast? Can daylight
- 1:58:02Speaker 1: come in the morning? I know. I was like, I
- 1:58:08Speaker 1: was like those kids waiting for the first day of
- 1:58:09Speaker 1: school with their hands on their on their cheeks, just
- 1:58:12Speaker 1: looking at the window tells me. I was like, come on,
- 1:58:16Speaker 1: come on, let it be appropriate time six seven and
- 1:58:19Speaker 1: appropriate Hi, Mr Perry, I'd like to roll over. Thank
- 1:58:22Speaker 1: you so much. And that's how I went. It was
- 1:58:25Speaker 1: at Tech and he checked me back and he's like, sorry,
- 1:58:28Speaker 1: divine side you, but this is gonna be really fine.
- 1:58:31Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'll be in touch with you.
- 1:58:33Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa, wow, congratulation, what a great
- 1:58:41Speaker 1: what a great story and an honest story. And your
- 1:58:44Speaker 1: career is honest based on honesty and supreme hard work
- 1:58:48Speaker 1: and not letting people doubt you and not telling you
- 1:58:50Speaker 1: that you want in a certain area you can't accomplish
- 1:58:53Speaker 1: your dreams, and you're willing to travel, not just from Oklahoma.
- 1:58:57Speaker 1: You went to Atlanta, a new area, Los Angeles. Like
- 1:58:59Speaker 1: you said it all, you arrive with with your dreams
- 1:59:01Speaker 1: and determination, and then you came back to Atlanta and
- 1:59:05Speaker 1: you know, still with your dreams and your determination. And
- 1:59:07Speaker 1: that is a testimony that I want everybody to hear.
- 1:59:10Speaker 1: But before we go, I'm talking to Melissa L. Williams.
- 1:59:13Speaker 1: She's just start the new Tyler Perry's Ruthless series. Tell
- 1:59:16Speaker 1: us how and where's it coming on and when does
- 1:59:18Speaker 1: it start and it starts Marching eighteen, tell us more
- 1:59:21Speaker 1: details before we wrap it up. Thank you so much
- 1:59:24Speaker 1: for Sean for saying that, and um, yes, okay, so
- 1:59:26Speaker 1: everybody download b T plus it's a new streaming app
- 1:59:31Speaker 1: for us for b et um. And you didn't get
- 1:59:34Speaker 1: it anywhere Android, Apple, Real cool, just anywhere you've been
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: typing in on your phone a smart device. You'll get
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: BT Plus and the show is called Bruce's March nineteen.
- 1:59:45Speaker 1: You there, they'll be late because I'm gonna be talking
- 1:59:48Speaker 1: about it now. He's spoiling it for you. That's all
- 1:59:53Speaker 1: I gotta say, my friend, thank you for calling my show,
- 1:59:55Speaker 1: and thank you. I'm gonna support you. You know I
- 1:59:57Speaker 1: got you. You know I got you back. Okay, I
- 1:59:59Speaker 1: got time ferries back and your star. You don't change
- 2:00:03Speaker 1: your hard work. That's a testimony that, uh I when
- 2:00:06Speaker 1: I look in the mirror or even when I'm tired,
- 2:00:08Speaker 1: I realized I have to go on because God has
- 2:00:10Speaker 1: gotten me up. But at moment and I'm and that
- 2:00:13Speaker 1: you take advantage of it. And so you're taking advantage
- 2:00:15Speaker 1: of You're taking advantage of it every day in this
- 2:00:17Speaker 1: new series called Tyler Perry's Rootless Again. I'm speaking to
- 2:00:21Speaker 1: the star Melissa L. Williams. Um, you're listening to money
- 2:00:25Speaker 1: making conversations. If you want to hear more money making
- 2:00:27Speaker 1: conversation shows, go to money making conversation dot com. I'm
- 2:00:30Speaker 1: Rashaw McDonald. I'm your host. In this season of giving,
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