Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Karimah Westbrook Full Interview

Transcript

Karimah Westbrook Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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1:07
Speaker 1: I heart my next guest as an actress, writer and producer.
1:10
Speaker 1: Shee right there. We are on the same line, but
1:13
Speaker 1: she can actually just only active. I only have one
1:16
Speaker 1: acting opportunity that I accepted. That was Jason's lyric. I
1:19
Speaker 1: played Fast Freddy. That's my historical moment in acting, spending
1:23
Speaker 1: nearly twenty years her career, spending nearly twenty years in television,
1:26
Speaker 1: film and theater. When you do a theater you can act.
1:29
Speaker 1: Just tell you that now theater you can act now
1:31
Speaker 1: because usually especially when you start the early days of theater,
1:34
Speaker 1: because people right sitting right next up to you. You know,
1:36
Speaker 1: early theater, you know you can like to lean forward
1:39
Speaker 1: and see you and touch your customers. Her latest project
1:42
Speaker 1: includes To Set Up Your Drama All American, which is
1:45
Speaker 1: based on a true story, starting the role of Grace James.
1:50
Speaker 1: She's also start in the upcoming movie called Bolden, a
1:53
Speaker 1: reimaged life story of the influential New Orleans music legend
1:57
Speaker 1: Buddy Bolden, which we in theaters May three. But He's
2:00
Speaker 1: welcome to money making conversations. Karema Westbrook, thank you for
2:06
Speaker 1: having me. Oh she comes on with that. You know
2:08
Speaker 1: that that great voice, gracious voice, I got the morning voice.
2:13
Speaker 1: That's your voice here. I'm just going to say one thing.
2:18
Speaker 1: All American is inspired by story, So not all the
2:23
Speaker 1: details on the series is exactly true. And um, I
2:28
Speaker 1: have a co star role in Embolden. I just don't
2:32
Speaker 1: want to mislead people. They're going to go to the
2:33
Speaker 1: movies and think I'm a lead and then they're gonna
2:35
Speaker 1: watch all Americans think it's all true. Okay, okay, okay,
2:39
Speaker 1: alrighty um. You know a lot of people think Black
2:42
Speaker 1: Panther real. You know that they're looking for Wakanda. Just
2:48
Speaker 1: let you know at the at the Delta they change
2:50
Speaker 1: one of the one of the flight schedules to Wakanda.
2:53
Speaker 1: You know that. You know that. So you know it's
2:57
Speaker 1: who wants to know the truth will believe it to
2:59
Speaker 1: be the truth. My whole thing is that you're absolutely right,
3:02
Speaker 1: is inspired and so you have to say these things
3:04
Speaker 1: so people want will sue you because that's my life.
3:08
Speaker 1: They told that's me, that's that's really me. And there
3:11
Speaker 1: that's my role you're lying. I need I need to check.
3:13
Speaker 1: So that's why I used the word inspired. But more importantly,
3:16
Speaker 1: your career has been inspired twenty years. So what did
3:19
Speaker 1: you want? So I'm someone that you said, you're early
3:22
Speaker 1: morning bars, You're on the West coast. Yes, okay. Usually
3:27
Speaker 1: people thank you for getting up early to do my show.
3:30
Speaker 1: Thank you? What did it all start? What did it
3:33
Speaker 1: all start for you? Being inspired? What city? What state?
3:36
Speaker 1: They said? You know, I want to do this for
3:38
Speaker 1: a little Well. I was born and raised in Chicago,
3:44
Speaker 1: and as a child, I've always been very active in
3:47
Speaker 1: sports and in the arts. I did plays, um community
3:52
Speaker 1: plays as a kid and end in school and I
3:56
Speaker 1: I kind of went back and forth between um acting
4:00
Speaker 1: in sports. I was very active in sports, and my
4:03
Speaker 1: biggest influence growing up was Whoopi Goldberg, Like I love
4:07
Speaker 1: Hippy Goldberg and it's so funny. As a kid, I
4:10
Speaker 1: never realized that it was something that I could do professionally.
4:14
Speaker 1: It always seemed so far away, even though I did
4:17
Speaker 1: it to entertain. I did plays that I just never
4:19
Speaker 1: really connected the docks, like, oh, you can actually earn
4:22
Speaker 1: a living doing this until I was in my late teens,
4:27
Speaker 1: and once I was done in high school, I started
4:31
Speaker 1: to look at acting more seriously, trying to figure out exactly,
4:35
Speaker 1: you know, how I could do it on a professional level.
4:38
Speaker 1: Once I knew I could do it on a professional level,
4:40
Speaker 1: and I started auditioning for still auditioning for plays in
4:43
Speaker 1: Chicago independent films, and then there was excuse me, there
4:47
Speaker 1: was a movie that came to Chicago call Saved the
4:51
Speaker 1: Last Dance. There was a big production coming from Hollywood,
4:56
Speaker 1: and at the at the time, I didn't have an agent,
4:59
Speaker 1: but all the actor to that knew in Chicago was
5:01
Speaker 1: talking about this movie. I got an audition, You got
5:04
Speaker 1: an audition, You got an audition. I was like, oh
5:05
Speaker 1: my god, I don't have an audition. And at the
5:08
Speaker 1: time I only had a commercial agent. And so this
5:11
Speaker 1: girl that I worked with and she was like, yeah,
5:13
Speaker 1: I have an audition tomorrow for Stable as Dance. I
5:16
Speaker 1: was like, oh, learn really what time? And then she
5:19
Speaker 1: told me one time. I was like, oh, yeah, who's
5:20
Speaker 1: doing the casting? Tell me who was doing the casting
5:23
Speaker 1: where they were located. So sure enough, that very next
5:27
Speaker 1: day I showed up at the audition and clearly they
5:30
Speaker 1: were looking for a certain type and I was not
5:33
Speaker 1: it so I stuck out like a sore thumb, and
5:36
Speaker 1: the casting director she came out and she said, does
5:39
Speaker 1: everybody here have an audition? That was clearly for me,
5:43
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I kind of got up, like
5:45
Speaker 1: can I talk to you for a minute, and so um,
5:49
Speaker 1: I pulled over right and pull it over, but we
5:51
Speaker 1: kind of walked over to the side, and I was like,
5:53
Speaker 1: I don't have an audition, but I really really want
5:55
Speaker 1: audition for this role. And she let me audition and
5:58
Speaker 1: then I ended up getting the all back. And it
6:00
Speaker 1: was the whole thing with my hair because I was
6:02
Speaker 1: wearing my hair and natural back then, but they wanted
6:05
Speaker 1: someone with long straight here. So I went through this
6:07
Speaker 1: whole thing and trying to find a wig. I didn't
6:09
Speaker 1: want to put a stew in in my head. Back then,
6:11
Speaker 1: my wig was like a mop because back then it
6:14
Speaker 1: was like Louis talking like almost twenty years ago. So
6:17
Speaker 1: the wig like literally set up on top of my head.
6:20
Speaker 1: It was look awful. But I went back. I had
6:23
Speaker 1: to call back audition again. They called me back again,
6:27
Speaker 1: and um, they wanted to be auditioned for a different
6:29
Speaker 1: role and then call me back again. I met with
6:31
Speaker 1: the director and then I got a part in the
6:34
Speaker 1: movie and that was the start of me earning enough
6:37
Speaker 1: money to move to California. And um, after I worked
6:43
Speaker 1: on the film, I ended up moving to California and
6:49
Speaker 1: the rest is kind of history. I mean, there was
6:51
Speaker 1: a lot of different things in between that. You know.
6:53
Speaker 1: I went to the Academy of Dramatic Arts one summer
6:56
Speaker 1: for their summer program prior to that, and I knew that, uh,
7:00
Speaker 1: I had to get back to California in order to
7:02
Speaker 1: pursue a career in television and film. And so I've
7:07
Speaker 1: always been very goal oriented. So I wrote out all
7:10
Speaker 1: of my goals and what I want to do, and
7:12
Speaker 1: it seemed like everything was like falling into place. Like
7:16
Speaker 1: literally even from when I book say the Last Dance,
7:19
Speaker 1: I remember meeting with the director Thomas Carter, and he
7:22
Speaker 1: was like, so, what are your goals? And that was
7:24
Speaker 1: like the perfect question for me because I had all
7:26
Speaker 1: the answers. I was like, I want to get my
7:27
Speaker 1: sad car, I want to want to get into Union,
7:29
Speaker 1: I want to move to l A. I want to
7:31
Speaker 1: be television you know. I had like this was long list.
7:33
Speaker 1: I was like completely ready and um so after booking
7:37
Speaker 1: that film I moved to. I had enough money to
7:41
Speaker 1: move to l A. And um, you know, prior to that,
7:45
Speaker 1: as I was saying, I'm always in very goal oriented,
7:47
Speaker 1: So I was planning to get to l A. I
7:50
Speaker 1: didn't know how I was going to get there. I'm
7:53
Speaker 1: very familiar with Saving Last Dance. It's one of my
7:56
Speaker 1: familiar was as an interracial relationship as a young lady
8:00
Speaker 1: African American lead and a white female lead and uh,
8:05
Speaker 1: and she was wanted to be a ballet dancer, okay,
8:07
Speaker 1: and then by going into the black community, she was
8:11
Speaker 1: ostracized because you know, she was she had rhythm, she
8:14
Speaker 1: was cool, and that was what she was dating this
8:16
Speaker 1: kind of popular black guy who was also tied to
8:19
Speaker 1: a game, a game. So so it was one of
8:23
Speaker 1: my favorite movies. And just that's why I know so
8:24
Speaker 1: much details about it. So so I was like, you
8:27
Speaker 1: really know the thing way when it came out, because
8:32
Speaker 1: I was writing, I was writing and doing sitcoms to
8:34
Speaker 1: the time, my thought was a silly concept. I was
8:36
Speaker 1: gonna watch this and I became one of my favorite movies.
8:38
Speaker 1: And so, so, what's the One of the Road. Were
8:41
Speaker 1: you one of the that the the girls that didn't
8:44
Speaker 1: like her or which one did? Did you did your
8:47
Speaker 1: character make the screen? I did make the stra screen.
8:51
Speaker 1: I had one line, and I was um. I was
8:56
Speaker 1: one of the girls who didn't like her and his
9:00
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend. So initially I auditioned for the girl the
9:03
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend, and I didn't get that role, but I
9:06
Speaker 1: ended up getting like one of her friends. Right, So
9:09
Speaker 1: I was just instigating in the club and yeah, when
9:13
Speaker 1: she was dancing with John Patrick comments the guy, I
9:17
Speaker 1: was instigating, like you were one of them girls. Yeah,
9:23
Speaker 1: because they were like yeah right, yeah, huh yeah, okay.
9:27
Speaker 1: Co Well that's that's great because see, my whole thing
9:31
Speaker 1: about it is that, first of all, I got to
9:33
Speaker 1: get a Chicago story out of you about the weather.
9:35
Speaker 1: I just came back from Alaska last week, and so
9:38
Speaker 1: it was cold, and so I was walking around just
9:40
Speaker 1: being normal. It was like twenty six degrees. I was
9:42
Speaker 1: just being normal, and then the guy said, man, it's
9:44
Speaker 1: cold out there. I said, excuse me, excuse me, I've
9:46
Speaker 1: lived five years in Chicago. Yeah, I'm the five years
9:50
Speaker 1: in Chicago. I'll just let you understand this is nothing. Yeah,
9:54
Speaker 1: you have no haark. You have the wind coming around
9:57
Speaker 1: the corner. Knocking your face off. You have in the
10:00
Speaker 1: wind that drives up your tears and nicky eyes, blink icicles.
10:05
Speaker 1: You don't have that here. You have cold. You have
10:09
Speaker 1: drama in Chicago with the weather. So yeah, now, miss Westbrook,
10:13
Speaker 1: do you have a cold story you can share with
10:16
Speaker 1: us before we go before we are a continuous interview,
10:19
Speaker 1: because I just can't let as Chicago native just come
10:21
Speaker 1: on my show and just talk about Chicago like it's
10:24
Speaker 1: because that that's an experience that five years I was
10:26
Speaker 1: up there, five years, I know I would walk around
10:28
Speaker 1: the street and be unrecognizable. They won't know if I
10:31
Speaker 1: was black and white. That's how much clothes I had
10:32
Speaker 1: on Chicago. Yeah, that is something that I really tried
10:39
Speaker 1: to forget about the weather. I would say that it
10:44
Speaker 1: is definitely I did not miss the weather at all,
10:48
Speaker 1: so very low. But you know, once you live there,
10:51
Speaker 1: you kind of adjust it's being so cold, but it's
10:55
Speaker 1: still very cold, And I honestly just have completely tried
10:59
Speaker 1: to forget those brutal cold days of having them go
11:02
Speaker 1: out and turn the car on and let it run
11:05
Speaker 1: about ten minutes before you get in at it. Yeah,
11:08
Speaker 1: you just don't dropping the cold Chicago call, yeah, I does.
11:13
Speaker 1: I don't care if you got the heat warmer. It's
11:15
Speaker 1: just it's just ain't happening. So I just want to
11:18
Speaker 1: I just wanted to bring that up because I had to.
11:20
Speaker 1: It was whenever somebody said it from Chicago, it just
11:23
Speaker 1: brings back a flood of cold memories to meet Miss Western,
11:26
Speaker 1: and so I just gotta I just gotta like bring
11:29
Speaker 1: your pain to my pain, you know what I'm saying. Especially,
11:32
Speaker 1: I was just in Alaska this weekend and I'm walking
11:34
Speaker 1: around at twenty six like it's nothing. You know. I
11:36
Speaker 1: didn't even have the Chilians on. I didn't have anything.
11:39
Speaker 1: I was just walking around regular, regular, regular pants. I
11:42
Speaker 1: was just cool, just and but the thing about it
11:45
Speaker 1: is that I love the fact that Chicago is such
11:49
Speaker 1: a melting pot of creativity. It's it's really one of
11:53
Speaker 1: my favorite cities. And I want to get in more
11:55
Speaker 1: detail about the writing aspect that you were talking about
11:58
Speaker 1: because of the fact that you producer and all that,
12:00
Speaker 1: because there's so many layers that people don't understand. When
12:03
Speaker 1: you get into Hollywood, you just can't be just an actress.
12:06
Speaker 1: You have to have layers. It's called multiple talents. Which
12:10
Speaker 1: leads the multiple streets of incomes, would leads the multiple opportunities.
12:13
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll be right back with more
12:15
Speaker 1: of It's Westbrook. As we talked about her career from
12:18
Speaker 1: Chicago to l A, say the last dance, because we've
12:21
Speaker 1: got more break with her. I just ra Sean McDonald's
12:25
Speaker 1: heading into the final break of my show money making
12:28
Speaker 1: conversations on the phone. Is a very talented actress, writer, producer,
12:34
Speaker 1: straight out of Chicago, not living in uh Los Angeles. Um,
12:39
Speaker 1: and the she's got up early for my show. Twenty
12:41
Speaker 1: years in the business. When when you tell somebody twenty years,
12:45
Speaker 1: I always tell people that that's a resume builder. That's ah,
12:48
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen overnight. Um, you have to do a
12:51
Speaker 1: lot of different things. It's Westbrook to be successful. And uh,
12:55
Speaker 1: you you you you came in as an actress. When
12:57
Speaker 1: did you start shifting to the writing and produce some
13:00
Speaker 1: phases of your career. I started writing and producing in
13:05
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. This was right before the oddly was
13:09
Speaker 1: right before the writer's strike and two thousand and seven.
13:12
Speaker 1: But I just felt the desire to create my own opportunities,
13:18
Speaker 1: you know, instead of waiting for work. I mean, the
13:23
Speaker 1: the amount of work that was available, it wasn't the
13:27
Speaker 1: same back then that it is now. And so I
13:29
Speaker 1: thought it was important for me to create and not
13:33
Speaker 1: just wait. And so that's what I did. Well, you know,
13:37
Speaker 1: it's interesting, did you say that, because that was at
13:39
Speaker 1: the time where, you know, where where reality shows started dominating,
13:44
Speaker 1: and then that came out of that strike. Remember, that's
13:46
Speaker 1: why there was a lot of people, well, you know,
13:48
Speaker 1: we can, we can get back, because everybody was questioning,
13:50
Speaker 1: what is a writer? What are there right now? It's
13:53
Speaker 1: a reality or show or those right? Oh no, no,
13:54
Speaker 1: we're just producing them. We're just producing them. And so
13:58
Speaker 1: at one time, because I had our of producing the
14:00
Speaker 1: awards show called the Neighborhood Awards the Hoodie Awards, and
14:04
Speaker 1: it was becoming very difficult for me to find talent,
14:08
Speaker 1: celebrity talent to go on stage because they weren't working.
14:10
Speaker 1: They weren't working, and so I really I thought that
14:15
Speaker 1: was a dark time for African American talent as well
14:18
Speaker 1: as storytelling, because all our images were argumentative in reality shows,
14:24
Speaker 1: you know, spending on each other, throwing drinks on each other,
14:26
Speaker 1: climbing on top of the fight, over men fight over
14:29
Speaker 1: each other, fighting over clothes. That for a boy, the
14:32
Speaker 1: like a like a four year window. That's all we
14:34
Speaker 1: were on television, and that was I thought that was sad.
14:37
Speaker 1: So when you say that, hey, the opportunities weren't there,
14:40
Speaker 1: you started building your armor to you wanted to create
14:43
Speaker 1: your opportunities. That was tied to reality shows right right, um,
14:49
Speaker 1: and it was squite the best thing I could have did.
14:51
Speaker 1: I think every actors should create their own opportunities, right
14:57
Speaker 1: because it also serves as a calling card. Know, the
15:00
Speaker 1: big thing for a lot of actors is to try
15:03
Speaker 1: to you know, get a demo reel and get their
15:05
Speaker 1: demo real together and all this and that. But writing
15:08
Speaker 1: and producing a film, even if it's like a short. Um,
15:14
Speaker 1: Now you don't need a whole lot of money to
15:16
Speaker 1: create something good. It serves as a bigger calling card.
15:20
Speaker 1: And now with so many different avenues and outlets to
15:24
Speaker 1: distribute your work and have places license it, there's more
15:29
Speaker 1: opportunities for you to even get paid for the things
15:32
Speaker 1: that you create. Now, thats theater you do? A theater
15:36
Speaker 1: you've done? Have you done? Sitcoms? Are your sitcomfers or
15:39
Speaker 1: your drama? I normally have mainly done drama, but I
15:44
Speaker 1: have done some sitcoms. Back in the day, I worked
15:46
Speaker 1: on shows like Girlfriends and Militia, but those are probably
15:50
Speaker 1: the only two sitcoms I've ever worked on. I'm a
15:54
Speaker 1: sitcom guy, you know, I'm the Jamie Fox. Some ten
16:00
Speaker 1: to Marry Maras have a sitcom guy, Steve Harvey. So
16:03
Speaker 1: so I know there is a big difference. I always
16:05
Speaker 1: tell people. In the sitcom, they you you open the door,
16:09
Speaker 1: and a drama they allow you to walk to the
16:10
Speaker 1: door and then open it and so so well used.
16:15
Speaker 1: And also dramas are more emotional. But now theater that's
16:18
Speaker 1: a different calling card, isn't it. Yeah, theater you have
16:22
Speaker 1: more space. Um, when I say that, television you're working
16:27
Speaker 1: within certain frames. Film you're working within certain frames, but
16:32
Speaker 1: you still have a little more space than television. Theater
16:35
Speaker 1: you're completely free. Theater is consistent. There's no stop, cut,
16:40
Speaker 1: you know, let's do it again. You're living the story
16:43
Speaker 1: all the way through. There's no breaks in between, maybe
16:46
Speaker 1: if there's an intermission, but outside of that, there's no cut,
16:50
Speaker 1: there's no let's redo it. You know, you're living it
16:53
Speaker 1: completely all the way through and you have to project more.
16:57
Speaker 1: You have to really use your your voice to reach
17:01
Speaker 1: the people in the back of the theater. You know. Um,
17:04
Speaker 1: some bigger theaters have microphones, but most of them don't,
17:08
Speaker 1: so you really have to have um strong vocal um
17:13
Speaker 1: tools to really project. But they'll be able to live
17:16
Speaker 1: truthfully where the person in the back of the theater
17:18
Speaker 1: can still what you're experiencing. So it is a different approach,
17:23
Speaker 1: but all in all, you're still being and all three
17:27
Speaker 1: of the mediums with you know, with the whatever story
17:30
Speaker 1: you're telling, you're still being as your character. It's just
17:32
Speaker 1: about how you're using your your body at this point, um,
17:38
Speaker 1: and your your instrument, your voice and stuff like that
17:40
Speaker 1: within the three mediums. Yeah, I'm on the phone. She's
17:43
Speaker 1: on the phone talking up talking to Karema Westbrook Or.
17:46
Speaker 1: She's one of the co stars of the TV series
17:49
Speaker 1: or c W drama called All American. It airs every Wednesday,
17:52
Speaker 1: nine pm and you can also catch the show or
17:55
Speaker 1: streaming for you of course on the c W app.
17:58
Speaker 1: She's also will be appearing in the UH movie are
18:02
Speaker 1: called The Uh. The The Boat's Tall Bolden, which is
18:06
Speaker 1: the influential New Orleans music legend called Buddy Bolden that
18:10
Speaker 1: would be in theaters May third, and you'll be playing uh,
18:14
Speaker 1: playing his mom in that in that movie, I'm assuming
18:17
Speaker 1: it's uh as a period of there and so, so
18:20
Speaker 1: when do you start? This is just an honest question
18:22
Speaker 1: because as I always tell people, if you're gonna go
18:25
Speaker 1: to Hollywood, go to Hollywood young, because as you go
18:27
Speaker 1: to Hollywood, they're more opportunities. You know, I always tell
18:29
Speaker 1: people there's only one teacher teaching the classroom, but they're
18:32
Speaker 1: usually teaching it the thirty students. So there's thirty young
18:34
Speaker 1: people opportunities that you have in there. So and we
18:37
Speaker 1: all know that there's a window that when we turn
18:40
Speaker 1: these headshots. We said, hey, if I'm twenty one, I
18:42
Speaker 1: can still play six Team. When I'm thirty, I can
18:44
Speaker 1: still play early twenties. So when people start casting you
18:47
Speaker 1: for different roles and you start accepting them, do does
18:50
Speaker 1: it define your place in Hollywood? Or you just say, hey,
18:53
Speaker 1: I accept the opportunity that they give me and I
18:56
Speaker 1: will I'm a working actress. I think it ends on
19:00
Speaker 1: the medium that um you're working in, because if you're
19:06
Speaker 1: in a big film and like you're like, for instance,
19:10
Speaker 1: I'm in a big film and I play a mom.
19:13
Speaker 1: People who see the film, that's what they're gonna see
19:16
Speaker 1: me as Naturally, it's kind of like, oh, they will
19:18
Speaker 1: be perfect for this because they saw you play the
19:21
Speaker 1: same exact character, which is why they think you would
19:23
Speaker 1: be perfect for the other characters. That's exactly the same
19:26
Speaker 1: as a character you just saw you As with television,
19:29
Speaker 1: you have a little more range because you might just
19:33
Speaker 1: be guest starring on a role on the on the
19:36
Speaker 1: show in a particular role, and so you might be
19:39
Speaker 1: a doctor on one show, you might be a police
19:41
Speaker 1: officer on another show. But typically people started casting you
19:46
Speaker 1: based off of how they seen you, Like if they've
19:49
Speaker 1: seen your work, your demo real when you playing a doctor,
19:52
Speaker 1: most of the times they're like, they're gonna kind of
19:55
Speaker 1: see you in that, in that in that vein um.
19:59
Speaker 1: But there's always room for you to break out of
20:03
Speaker 1: that by choosing to do different types of roles so
20:06
Speaker 1: people can see you differently, and you can also create
20:10
Speaker 1: your own content or something that's a completely different character
20:14
Speaker 1: than you've been playing you've been hired to do to
20:17
Speaker 1: show people that you can do something else. So it's
20:19
Speaker 1: just a matter of how people initially see you. A
20:22
Speaker 1: lot of times it's how they feel like, oh, you
20:25
Speaker 1: will be great for that, because that's the imprint that's
20:28
Speaker 1: on their mind based off with the work they've seen
20:30
Speaker 1: you do. But that's not an absolute. There's people, you know,
20:34
Speaker 1: character actors done all types of things, you know, And
20:38
Speaker 1: when I first started, I did a lot of character work.
20:41
Speaker 1: When I first started, how did my career and every
20:44
Speaker 1: character was completely different. So um, but I think you know,
20:50
Speaker 1: once I started playing moms, like, oh, they want to
20:54
Speaker 1: hire you as a mom. Oh, they want to hire
20:56
Speaker 1: you as the mom. You're hired as the mom. You're
20:59
Speaker 1: his mom. So I've been the mom for the last
21:02
Speaker 1: several years. It's I'm okay with that. But yeah, I
21:06
Speaker 1: think that I've played that role enough that that I
21:09
Speaker 1: gotta ask you because you know, our our audition for
21:12
Speaker 1: one role in my whole life, and I got it.
21:15
Speaker 1: You're going to competing. How do you land roles? How
21:18
Speaker 1: do you how do you win when you're going in
21:21
Speaker 1: the casting session? I think you got to just go
21:25
Speaker 1: based off of the material. This is what I've learned
21:28
Speaker 1: from just being on the other side. Sometimes it has
21:32
Speaker 1: nothing to even do with your performance because somebody could
21:36
Speaker 1: come in and do a really great job. But as
21:39
Speaker 1: a writer, as a creator, sometimes you just see the
21:43
Speaker 1: character as being a certain way. Um. A lot of
21:47
Speaker 1: times you know it when you see it. Sometimes it's
21:50
Speaker 1: just a person's essence that it works. It's like that's
21:54
Speaker 1: who it is. So above all of that, you've gotta
21:59
Speaker 1: be as prepared, aired as possible, um with the material
22:04
Speaker 1: um and totally believe in the circumstances that are written
22:08
Speaker 1: that it's written and going in and just being free
22:12
Speaker 1: and doing the work. But ultimately a lot of times
22:15
Speaker 1: it boils down to a person's essence. It boils down
22:20
Speaker 1: to what feels right. Because somebody could come in and
22:24
Speaker 1: flood the lines and be perfect for the role, and
22:28
Speaker 1: it wasn't even about them, like getting the lines right
22:31
Speaker 1: and being perfect. It was just something about them feels right.
22:35
Speaker 1: They feel like that character so or it feels like
22:39
Speaker 1: what we were looking for. The writer it's like this
22:42
Speaker 1: is how I see it, or the director it's like
22:44
Speaker 1: this is how I see the character. That's him. And
22:47
Speaker 1: the actor could be like my audition was terrible, but
22:51
Speaker 1: they don't realize that it was something about their essence
22:54
Speaker 1: that was right for the part. So I think there's
22:57
Speaker 1: a lot of different components that play a part in
22:59
Speaker 1: some mighty being being cast in the role. But the
23:03
Speaker 1: only thing actor can really can concern themselves with is
23:08
Speaker 1: being prepared, a being as prepared as possible, and believing
23:12
Speaker 1: in the circumstances that's written in the script, and going
23:15
Speaker 1: in and letting go and doing their thing and letting
23:19
Speaker 1: it go when they walk out of the room. That's important.
23:23
Speaker 1: On the phone, you know, she's twenty years in television,
23:27
Speaker 1: film and theater. UH latest project is UH She's co
23:31
Speaker 1: starring on All American as a c W drama. Because
23:34
Speaker 1: this Wednesday n I PM. You can catch the show. Also,
23:37
Speaker 1: you can catch your streaming anytime you want them to
23:39
Speaker 1: see that the app Also Bolden will be hitting the
23:42
Speaker 1: theaters May third. Her name is Kareema Westbrook. I know
23:45
Speaker 1: her from Savor Last Dance. I'm a big fan. I'm
23:48
Speaker 1: glad I finally got you on the show. You keep winning, Okay,
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