Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Rushion Interviews Netflix's "First Kill" Executive Producer & Show-runner, Felicia Henderson, talks evolution from writing to producing, vampires & queerness, and Hollywood success!

Transcript

Rushion Interviews Netflix's "First Kill" Executive Producer & Show-runner, Felicia Henderson, talks evolution from writing to producing, vampires & queerness, and Hollywood success! · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass. I'm your host with
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  Speaker 1: Sean McDonald. I recognized that we all have different definition
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  Speaker 1: of success. For you and may be the size of
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  Speaker 1: your paycheck. Mine is inspiring people to accomplish their goals
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and live their very best life. It's time to stop
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: reading other people's success stories and start writing your own.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: People always talk about their purpose or gift. If you
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: have a gift, leave with your gifts and know that
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: your friends, family, or coworkers stop you from planning a
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  Speaker 1: living your dreams. My next guest is a person who
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  Speaker 1: leads with her gifts and shares her gifts. Her name
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  Speaker 1: is Felicia D. Henderson. She's taughted a Hollywood career right
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  Speaker 1: on popular sitcoms. Then a major shift occurred because she's
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  Speaker 1: the creative Showtimes Emmy nominated series Soul Food Television first
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  Speaker 1: multi season African American drama. Currently, she has the show on,
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  Speaker 1: executive producer and head writer of the action field romantic
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  Speaker 1: drama First Kill, premiering on Netflix June tenth, to show
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  Speaker 1: pits of family of vampires who are white against the
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  Speaker 1: family of master hunters who are black. She's also develop
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  Speaker 1: in the world War two drama Avenger Field for Peacock
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  Speaker 1: The Serious stars rene Zeger as Jackie Cochran, who co
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  Speaker 1: founded the school, who con founded the US only first
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  Speaker 1: woman's only woman's pilot training program, and at the time
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  Speaker 1: of her death in eighty was the most accompassed American
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  Speaker 1: pilot male or female in American history. Please working to
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  Speaker 1: money making conversations to massa class, the one and only
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  Speaker 1: Felicia D Henderson. How you doing, Felicia, Hi god Worthy,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: how are you doing well? You know? For you right,
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  Speaker 1: it's after them on the East coast. I knew US coast,
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  Speaker 1: you know, but you was out here on the West coast,
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  Speaker 1: East Coast doing the Atlanta Savannah doing this amazing series
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  Speaker 1: called First Kill. That was that was interesting because of
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  Speaker 1: the fact that you know this this this is a
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  Speaker 1: cool play on race. It's a cool play on kind
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  Speaker 1: of like a Romeo and Juliet play on romance. But
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  Speaker 1: how did the concept come to you? Thank you? And um,
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  Speaker 1: I love it said it's a cool play on these things. Um,
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  Speaker 1: because well, first I'm gonna start with answering your question. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The point that this same to me as Victoria Schwab
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  Speaker 1: also known as v E. Schwab. In her writing, UM
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  Speaker 1: wrote a short story called First Kill and it's part
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  Speaker 1: of an anthology UM called Vampires Never Died and U
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  Speaker 1: and Netflix liked it and hired her then to adapt
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  Speaker 1: it into a TV show. So she wrote the pilot
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  Speaker 1: script and then um Netflix called my manager and asked
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  Speaker 1: me to read it. And I was like, nope, my
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  Speaker 1: cup runneth over right. I don't have time for something new.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, you just have to read it. And
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  Speaker 1: I think two or three times I was like nope,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm finally He's like, for me. You know you
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  Speaker 1: have long time manager, longtime relationships. I get you with
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  Speaker 1: for me. So I read it and I was like,
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  Speaker 1: I'm in, let's set the meeting up and and I
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  Speaker 1: so I loved it. And that's how I've ben took
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  Speaker 1: the meeting with Netflix, met with Victoria, met with the
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  Speaker 1: folks at bellatris uh Um, the other producers, and decided
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  Speaker 1: to come aboard. Never less, Where were you at with
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  Speaker 1: the development of the project, With the project already in motion,
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  Speaker 1: are you with the early creative stages casting world? I
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  Speaker 1: want to audise to really get a full take of
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  Speaker 1: what First Kill? When you would introduce because you said,
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  Speaker 1: you know, four times, so I knew they were moving
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  Speaker 1: along while you were saying, no, sitting there, I'll think it. Well, no, actually,
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  Speaker 1: because to Netflix is credit. They really realized they needed
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  Speaker 1: a voice like mine room and I really appreciate that
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  Speaker 1: they knew that this cast is one it is um black,
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  Speaker 1: you know, um and so, and it is also at
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  Speaker 1: the center has two young women. So they really really
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  Speaker 1: like this was something that was missing, you know, from
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  Speaker 1: where they were so far creating. So what they had
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  Speaker 1: was Victoria's script, but they really had not moved forward
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  Speaker 1: because they were looking for basically and um. So from
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  Speaker 1: the very beginning, um, you know, I got to take
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  Speaker 1: a look at the script and at what I know
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  Speaker 1: about cultural specificity to those characters. Um and and then
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  Speaker 1: from there I got to hire my writing staff, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, then from there as a group oh and
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  Speaker 1: higher than the director, and then as a group we
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  Speaker 1: started the casting process. Um and um. So all of that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, some like Jason Moore, who placed Jack Burns,
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  Speaker 1: was an actor that I worked with on The Punisher
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  Speaker 1: to My Love, so he started familiar I know this
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  Speaker 1: guy from Punishing with one of my favorites that's right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's from the punisher. You know, I need him and
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  Speaker 1: so you know, um, so it just started like that.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Juliette, the Juliette of Fairmont, who was played
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  Speaker 1: by Sarah Catherine Hook, was the first hired. We really
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  Speaker 1: thought we were going to have a hard time finding
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  Speaker 1: the right through yet, so that's where we started, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and outstanding by the way, Juliette outstanding and he had
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  Speaker 1: cal was also had shared the romantic lead who's African American,
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  Speaker 1: and so the whole process when I look at this series,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you know, you have to be sensitive because,
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  Speaker 1: like I said, I could I can sit down and say,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a very talented writer, but you have a you
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  Speaker 1: have a world that is gay and lesbian. Okay from
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  Speaker 1: a writer's perspective, did you was your was your writer's
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  Speaker 1: room balanced like that to be able to handle that conversation?
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  Speaker 1: Now that's a good question. Rashan. Um. You know, I'm
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  Speaker 1: a big believer that the writer's room should have the
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  Speaker 1: experience that you're depicting on the screen. You know, somebody
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  Speaker 1: in that room. And again you can't always have that obviously,
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  Speaker 1: if you're doing a show about aliens. You don't have
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  Speaker 1: aliens on the right, you know, but you have someone
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  Speaker 1: in there who knows aliens more than everybody else, is
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  Speaker 1: an alien expert, you know what I mean. So I
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  Speaker 1: thought it was very important that And I also having
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  Speaker 1: had the experience of being the only black writer in
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  Speaker 1: a room that might have a show that might have
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  Speaker 1: one or two black characters. And so I've had that
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  Speaker 1: experience where then they come to you and every time
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  Speaker 1: there's something for the black character to do, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they just felt, so what did you do that? And
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  Speaker 1: so I also wanted to make sure there wasn't just
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  Speaker 1: one queer person in the room who everybody was looking
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  Speaker 1: at going and now we turned to you as the
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  Speaker 1: queer expert, because you know, it's like like all experiences,
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  Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a monolithic experience of whatever
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  Speaker 1: it is that you are. And so it was important
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  Speaker 1: to me to have you know, men and women were
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  Speaker 1: writers in the room. It was important to me to
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  Speaker 1: have black writers. This important that white writers. It was important,
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  Speaker 1: you know, for all the experiences that I thought we
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  Speaker 1: were going to be depicted right, honestly, there are no vampires.
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  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more money making Conversations Masterclass
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  Speaker 1: with Rushan McDonald. Now let's return to Money Making Conversations
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  Speaker 1: Masterclass with Rashan McDonald. I'm speaking Felicia d. Handison, one
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  Speaker 1: of the top sitcom and dramatic writers and film writers
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  Speaker 1: in Hollywood, and her new series First First Kill, like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I said, as as our action field romantic drama. And
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: there's eight episodes long and the premiers June Team and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I'm an advocate, I you know, I get special access
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: because you know who I am. So I got to
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: be able to binge watch, you know. So four episodes on,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: four episodes on Saturday. And that's how four episodes on
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  Speaker 1: that Sunday. I called her in the middle because we
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  Speaker 1: are of a great relationship with long term free us
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  Speaker 1: and just told her I loved it. And that's just
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  Speaker 1: why I would tell you why I loved it, because
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  Speaker 1: first of all, it was engaging. It was it was entertaining,
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  Speaker 1: it was it misled me in a good way, you know,
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  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna know it all I think. And that's
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  Speaker 1: that's good writing, you know, that's good storytelling that you're engaged.
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  Speaker 1: And so when you look at it when you're developing
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  Speaker 1: these characters, because because you have these these monster hunters
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  Speaker 1: and then you have these vampires. They don't know each other,
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  Speaker 1: and then you're trying to create a relationship. And what
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  Speaker 1: what came out of it was a parenting story. Correct. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it really was very much about the family and getting
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity to compare you know, two very different households.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you have warring families there the capulets and
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  Speaker 1: the monogues for all engines and purposes, and so you
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  Speaker 1: get to go inside both of these young women's songs
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  Speaker 1: and see how the fact that they now want to
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  Speaker 1: do what they want to do as opposed to what
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  Speaker 1: they were raised to do, and see how each set
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  Speaker 1: of parents deal with the fact that their their child
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  Speaker 1: is not doing what they're told. And so in that way,
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  Speaker 1: we tried very much um to have those experienced that
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  Speaker 1: part of the experience being incredibly normal because everyone who's
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  Speaker 1: a parent knows what it's like when you say go
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  Speaker 1: left and your child goes right. That was incredibly universal.
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  Speaker 1: So in that part, it's like it is time for
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  Speaker 1: you to do what you're told. You're sixty now you're
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  Speaker 1: But the thing that's different is like it's time for
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  Speaker 1: you to go your vampire. So it's time to go
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  Speaker 1: for your first kill. But how you're dealing with the idea,
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  Speaker 1: do what you're told, grow up and be like your family.
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  Speaker 1: That's what both girls are being told to be like
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  Speaker 1: your family. Girls decide on their own road because because
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  Speaker 1: you're dealing with the reason I say it's a really
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  Speaker 1: good parenting story because like our parents, we know how
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  Speaker 1: to make decisions and we feel our life is hid
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in the right direction. Juliet's father is a d A.
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  Speaker 1: The setting is Savannah, Georgia, which has that like you know,
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  Speaker 1: Savannah has that little is next to New Orleans. It
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  Speaker 1: has that little voodoo type vampire something's happening in the
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  Speaker 1: swamps type area. App at look background, look to it.
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  Speaker 1: And then you have these master hunters who are at
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  Speaker 1: the top of the gil. You know they're they're the best.
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  Speaker 1: They were brought into Savannah because they are here to
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  Speaker 1: do their job. So these are the parents d A
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  Speaker 1: successful lead master hunters. Then they have two daughters who
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  Speaker 1: are teens at that right age where they feel they
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  Speaker 1: are kind of grown, but they're not grown. That's what
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  Speaker 1: stood out to be the most in your writing room
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  Speaker 1: that you created with First Kill. What were some of
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  Speaker 1: the fun journeys that y'all had putting each episode together?
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  Speaker 1: Oh my god, we have so much fun. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: one of the things said earlier about I always say,
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  Speaker 1: when I'm putting the writing writer's room together, as Sean,
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  Speaker 1: I don't really need anyone who thinks like me. I
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  Speaker 1: already think like me, so I'm not one of those
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  Speaker 1: who tries to get a whole bunch of people who
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you know are gonna say, yes, you're brilliant. I also
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: say my goal is to always be, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: dumbest person in the room, and I am really freaking smart,
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  Speaker 1: so that I am trying to, you know, elevate myself.
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  Speaker 1: I'm trying to elevate the material when I bring this
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  Speaker 1: group together. And Victorian and I still have the ongoing
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: battle all fun that. She's like, well, you know, there
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: are no such thing as straight vampires. What are you
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  Speaker 1: talking about? So we have this ongoing battle about all
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  Speaker 1: vampires being queer. No, Victoria, if I were a vampire,
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  Speaker 1: I'd be a straight vampire. She's like, no, you wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: because of your vampire you were. So we have these
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  Speaker 1: kind of fun conversations and then just people talking about
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  Speaker 1: as you know, the other writers in the room who
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  Speaker 1: are parents, like what they would do if their daughter
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  Speaker 1: did this thing? And so you know, I had my
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  Speaker 1: second my Coe is a mother of four children, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, what would you do? Joyce like drown him?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I was like, what, like, my child do something other
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: than what I told him to do. So you have
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: that kind of fun stuff, and then you have the
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  Speaker 1: fun conversations about building the mythology, because the room really
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: built that mythology, you know, from Whole Cloth, where the
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  Speaker 1: short story that Victoria wrote leaves off. The short story
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: is kind of the pilot. We do the short story
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: in the pilot, and then we have to create an
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: entire series. And so being in that room and deciding
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to what the guild would look like, what would be
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the rules of the guild. How do you get into
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the guild? Where do these you know, legacy vampires come from?
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  Speaker 1: What is their mythology? Who's the biggest, baddest one. And
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  Speaker 1: to also be doing that where you unapologetically within our
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: mythology the legacy vampires. You know, it's a matriarchy. So
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  Speaker 1: to talk about strong women getting to do you know,
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  Speaker 1: what we do and have being unapologetic about that because
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  Speaker 1: that's in the mythology. It's just all very cool. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the interesting thing about the series First Killers is preparation okay,
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  Speaker 1: because a lot of people there was a lot of action,
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  Speaker 1: lots of scenes. So how did that work out? Okay's
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  Speaker 1: at a period for training, action training before we started production,
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  Speaker 1: and how did that production when to work when you're
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: doing a series like that that is romantic but it's
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  Speaker 1: very heavy action field and because the start you after
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  Speaker 1: you're doing can't lead to injuries, so you can't just
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  Speaker 1: go out that add live it. So talk about that
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: was because you know, you did the Punisher, so you
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: used to violence, you know, violence on the street, so
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  Speaker 1: they get no more violence than Punitor. But then this
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  Speaker 1: is your personal project that the purpose purpose all yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I would tell you that before you asked the question.
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  Speaker 1: The fun part about this series is that you have
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  Speaker 1: the vampires who are somewhat invincible, okay, and then you
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  Speaker 1: have a young African American girl her name is cal
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  Speaker 1: on the show, and she is can be harmed, she
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  Speaker 1: can be hurt, she's vulnerable, she's a human, and that
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  Speaker 1: carres an emotion for you throughout the series of fear
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  Speaker 1: that something can go wrong, and that is really key
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: in this series for me as a watcher, going don't
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: go there, don't do go come on now, don't be
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: stupid then and so that was the that was the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: whole training process. I was just telling I enjoyed it
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: as a viewer, but also as a friend. Congratulations, Thank
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you so much for Sean. I really really appreciate that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: because I know that you are a very critical watcher.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You're a very critical viewer. I know that very well.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: So and then a lot to me to get that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon fall from you going um in because I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: also know you to be a very honest guy, so
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you would tell me I'm not in really really hard. Um.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: You know everyone did, and I will tell you the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: two brothers you know, um, from the time that the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: actors arrived, they went into training with the stunt Apolo
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and THEO. Yes yes, Apolo Burns and Dominic Goodman place
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: uh Apollo and Philip Mullins Junior plays THEO and they're
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: both in incredible shape and so it became competition between
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: them and they ended up being thickest things. Like they
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: really did have that brotherly relationship and um. But they
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: were like they were just always competitive with each other.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And of course particularly Dominic was always asking can he
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: do that stunt? You know, we also have stunt performers,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: but he would often want to do that stunt and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I do that, like, no, you can enough. But they
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: did their own stumps because they came, you know, ready
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to work that hard and um. And of course Amani Louis,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: she's a natural athlete as well, who places the life
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: he burned, So they all there's natural athletes who already
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: came with bodies ready, and then they worked really hard
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and wanted to everybody wanted it to just look really authentic,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and so they worked really hard to make sure that
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: it did. And I was just I was so so
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  Speaker 1: proud of them. It's the best cast. They just all
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: came and gave every single day they have to, you know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: battling COVID. Okay, you know that it's not a normal time.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: When this production was happening, people massed up and you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: be tested. How did that play a role in frustration
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and this production at the time it was going on
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: it But on the screen you don't see that. All
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you see is a final result. No, you don't see
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: those extra twenty hours a day that you know I
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was working because of COVID and that we started before
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: there were vaccines, so you know, it was but Netlix
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: have very strict policies to keep us safe, and I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: was very strict about them, and you know, I gave
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: speeches I'm the set to let it every all the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: cast and the you know, we will be following this
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: protocol because I promised my family I'm coming home as
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: healthy as I left, and so we were very strict
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: about it. But it did mean you know that it
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: took longer because we could only work shorter days to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: give people mass breaks as those things get get overwhelming
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: when you're wearing the twelve hours a day and all
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of that kind of thing. You know. So it was
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the only ever frustrations that I ever had had to
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: do with the challenge of you know, producing this show
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: during very challenging times. The actual creative side of it
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: was wonderful, amazing and fun you know every day, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: because everyone was working so hard, um, it made the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: stuff that made it difficult, like working during COVID, you
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: could get through it because we were all a team
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: trying to make it. We'll be right back with more
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. Now, let's return
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rashan McDonald. There's an
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: interesting question Felicia about the series. You know, because you
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: know you you've got you got eight episodes here, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you you go, you you put it on the wall,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you try to develop his ar kind of characters connect
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. When did you feel at that
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: point go, I got it, and then you felt that
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: magical moment this is special. I got it. That's one response,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and then this is special. Um. I think that I
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: have to give a lot of love and big props
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: to Jet Wilkinson, our director. Um Jet just oh my god,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you know. And I met her on The Punishers when
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: we first worked together. She directed an episode I wrote,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and we just really click. And she was the first
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: one person that I thought of, you know, because she
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: had to be a woman. I thought it had to
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: be a woman with the kind of experience that she
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: has um in terms of doing you know, action, and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: she happens to also be so she's kick ass, and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: then she happens to be a queer woman so jet
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and a woman of color, So she brought all of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that to bear on this and um, watching her work,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: you know that you have you just go, oh my god,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I can't believe what we're accomplishing in these conditions. But
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: when I really felt for Shawn like we've got it,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I was in editing. You know. It took me seeing
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: it all being put together and then the visual effects
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: at it, and then Kurt Parkard to write that killer score.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You know. Netflix love the music so much that there
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: is a soundtrack coming out with the score. We have
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: two official playlists of the music from the show, all
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: being dropped on Friday, June tenth, um when the show drops.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So it was seeing it all together, going I am
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: so proud of this, Like I knew when I saw
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: it all the like that feeling of like I know
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: this is good. I know this is good. I know
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: we're speaking to a lot of people. I know people
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: are gonna enjoy it and they're gonna learn something and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: they're going to appreciate. We're talking to Felicia D. Henderson.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: She's the executive producer, the showrunner, the head writer of
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the exciting action field romantic drama owned Netflix premier June tenth,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: is called First Kill. One of the things I've always
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: admired about Felicia D. Henderson is her ability to pivot
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: if she's if she's not a person that you if
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you're holding hands walking down the road, though she might
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: veer off so holy tight holy type, because she actually
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: in her direction if she sees an opportunity that she's
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: comfortable with. And that's that's what a lot of people
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: don't do. They get fear stops him from shifty. How
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: does it allow before I go into the rene their
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: winger project? How does that walking through silences? Some people say,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: walking up, willing to come through, go through doctors to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: come out and potentially into the light. How do you
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: how do you pull that off? Felicia? Um? You know what,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I think that I have an interesting relationship with fear
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: um and that a lot of times. Even my younger
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: sister we once had an argument and she goes, well,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not like you. You know, you're not afraid of anything.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: And I asked that her, Actually, I'm afraid all the time.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I just moved despite my few and um, I'm not
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: gonna ever let it control me. And I also am
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a person who I'm all, I'm just naturally inquisitive. So
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: if I hadn't done something before, um, if something looks interesting,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: too interesting to me, I always believe I can do it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, I want to try that thing. I
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: love trying new things. I'm at a pointment in Mica
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Rare that I only want to choose things that are
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: significant in some way to me and my uplifting my
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: race and my up the women and my uplifting groups
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that are not um you know, represented well or not enough.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And you know, first, my job always is to entertain.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: But while entertained, I want to be fed myself on
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: that a place where I want to be fed, So
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I'm always looking for what haven't I done that then
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: could be interesting to me? And um, it's always scary
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: partinue if you don't know what you're doing. But I
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: take my full and whole self going let's go, you know,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So it's a little fearful I go anyway, and then
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: once I make that leap, my eye is only on
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the goal. So no matter what happens, like with production
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: on First Kill, you would be amazed at all that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: went wrong. If I had time to tell you, and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you know, people are like, oh, it's time to down
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: or we're never gonna make it this time. And I
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: don't talk to those people, right because I didn't come
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: here to shut down, you know what I mean. I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: came here to do a show. I will not move
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: until that show is done now, So that that lends
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: us to shift over to another exciting project's coming up.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: You know, when you look at the streaming and the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: cable and the first I only had, like uh, I
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: had a Direct TV, and then I had Comcast. If
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: direct TV if the rain came too hard, you the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: direct TV went away. So I was that Comcast sitting
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: over there. Okay, I'm still watch TV. Okay. Unfortunately for me,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I've discovered the Comcast. It's part of Peacock. So if
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you have Comcasts, you will get Peacocks. And so that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: means another I have to buy. Already got Apple anywhere.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I already got Disney Plus anyway, already got a Hulu anyway,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I already got HBO Plus because I got the Disney,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: because I got Direct TV. So this is old Peacock.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: It's called Avenger Field. It starts an incredibly talented actress
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: when you're able to work with talent like that, you
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: know you go because you're going from a very talent
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: on the cruel we are not no no dispersion unknown talent,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you know. So I have excellent resumes to a bona
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: fide well known actress every age zero winker. That's what
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: these projects being developed for. Talk about making that transition
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and how do you look at it differently? Um, you
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: know what, you try your best once you take it
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and you say, you know, you try to bring your
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: a game and anything you do or I certainly do.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And so once I say I'm gonna bring you know,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: writing and producing are just the gifts that God decided
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I should have. So the way I say thank you
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: for that is I bring my a game. I work
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: as hard as I can, and so I want to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: be worthy of, you know, having been given the gift,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and I want to be worthy of you know, a
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: two time Oscar winning actresses ability. Right, So that's where
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I start. But once I do that, realize the opportunity,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the blessing I've been given, I put it in just
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the Cyrus Shawan because then I just have to focus
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: on doing the best work I can Because if I
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: focus on oh my gosh, this is for Renee's Elwig.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Then you know, your mind gets all screwed, and then
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the pressure gets to you, you know, and yeah, if
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I do my best, it will be good enough for her.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: But if I focus on, you know, the stuff that
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I can control, you know, will she like it? Then
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I can't do my best work. So I've come to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the table already knowing what an amazing honor it is
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to get a chance to write for Renee's Zelwig. Like,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that's huge. I bowed down. She's amazing, and so I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: thank God for bringing me to this place. And then
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I put it over here to the side so that
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I can do the job that would be worthy of
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: her by focusing on the jobs where my friend, as
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: long as I've been on you, you pushed me, and
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you've been focused, and from my focus, you refocused me.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: But more importantly, the fact that you're working on the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: series that I got to see on Netflix and somebody
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I love and I admire, and I've seen growing this
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: industry transition from comedy and fearlessness, you know, refer the
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: word fearlessness was out there. You were fierce. Okay, so
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: let's go and be real. Forget Beyonces. This is the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: real fierce right there. So again, First Kill a premier
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: on Netflix June. Team you gotta watch it, not because
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: she's my friend. It's it's entertaining, it's funny, it's action
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: feel for sure. Is a pretty cool take on Romeo
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and Juliet and um and it's apparently movie that really
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: really strikes you as something relatable to anybody who wants
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: their child to have a better life than they had
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: when they were growing up, and that's what they're fighting
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: in this family of hunters and vampires. Is called First
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Kill on Netflix. Thank you, Thank you, Felicia d. Henderson,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Raean McDonald. I love you and I appreciate you having
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: me on. I really really do. Thank you so much
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk again on the other side. Alright, I
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: want to thank everybody. If you want to see me
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: or any of these episodes on my show, go to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation dot com. I'm Rashean McDonald. I am
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: your host. Thank you.