Episode 1673 - Regina King

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All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fucksters?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

Welcome.

Welcome to it.

How is everybody doing?

How are you holding up?

It's look, I'm okay.

You know, today is a, it's a, it gets, it's a kind of a heavy talk.

I guess I got to do a little bit of a, not a trigger warning.

I don't really like that

term.

But

towards the end of this conversation with Regina King, you know Regina King.

She's been acting since she was like a teenager on 227

and broke through with her roles in movies like Boys in the Hood and Friday.

She's an Oscar winner for her performance in If Beale Street Could Talk.

She's won Emmys, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, a lot of stuff.

Right now she's in the new Darren Aronofsky movie Caught Stealing, which I enjoyed.

But towards the end,

we do talk about

the death of her son in some detail.

He took his own life,

and she's been public about it to a certain extent.

It came up in terms of talking about grief and mental illness.

So I'm just telling you now,

it gets a little deep and emotional at the end, okay?

So if that's going to

somehow, if you don't want to start crying on your run,

you might want to pause it when we start getting into that.

But it's an important conversation.

The whole thing was great.

She's great.

She's great in this new movie.

I went to see a screening of

Caught Stealing.

And it's interesting because they really, you know, Aronofsky really kind of gets the grit and

you know, kind of filth of New York at that time in the early 90s.

It was shot literally a block block from my old house.

A lot of it takes place on Avenue A

between like, you know, 4th and 7th on Avenue A.

He rebuilt the facade to Benny's burritos.

Kim's video was there.

So it's all very familiar to me because I was around then or even like shortly before that, I was still living down there.

So it does have that vibe.

But there's something I learned about watching this movie is that a lot of surprises in the movie, actually.

And it's a pretty good story.

And everyone's good.

Regina's great.

Austin Butler's great.

Zoe Kravitz, everyone's good.

But

there's something about violence that when it's not gratuitous, when it's not heightened or detached from

character in a way, or if people

get some violence done, at them, to them, and they don't really have it coming,

it's gnarly.

There is an element of comedy to this thing, but

the characters

are deep,

and Austin's character is a flawed and troubled guy.

But it is

definitely worth seeing.

I mean, I think

any Aronofsky movie is worth seeing.

But

it was kind of great.

to talk to Regina today because

it's a good talk.

So my show at Largo tonight is sold out, but I'll be back there with the band on Wednesday, September 10th.

You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.

Also, next week, we're doing an Ask Mark Anything bonus episode.

So this is the last call for you to send in your questions.

Just go to the link in the episode description of today's show and send me whatever you want to ask.

Then get the bonus episode in your full Marin feed next Tuesday.

How's that sound to

I talked to a class down at the Annenberg School for Communications and Media or whatever.

A woman asked me to come speak to her class.

I didn't realize it was the first day of that class.

I didn't realize that I didn't really know what the class was about.

And she just asked me questions and there may be, maybe there was 20 people in the room.

And there was part of me that one time thought like, oh, I could be a teacher.

I don't think I can.

I don't think I know how to be in front of an audience for very long without, you know, getting a laugh or knowing that I'm connecting.

And I tell you, teachers have got a tough job.

You've really got to, you know, somehow kind of put some sort of

filter on to not, you know, wonder whether you're connecting or not.

And also, I think I forget what it was like to be in college and who I was in college and what I knew versus what I thought I knew.

Big gap.

Big gap.

And if I really think back on it, like in philosophy class or logic class or even some of the classes about romantic poetry and stuff, it was way above my mental

pay grade there.

I tried to take it all in, but I just, it did not come together for me.

I feel like it's just starting to come together now.

I mean, I just, and I wasn't even talking in any lofty way, but I think there's just some basic things about

talking about

what you're thinking with points of reference and whatnot that could get totally lost.

And I'm not saying they weren't paying attention.

Some of them had good questions about show business and whatnot.

But I just had that moment where I was walking on campus and I was like, I kind of remember this.

I kind of remember who I was.

when I was like 21 or 20 at at

Boston University, you know, wondering if my trench coat was cool or whether my glasses frames are okay.

How is my hair cut?

You're just kind of going to these classes and

playing the role of student, playing the role of a smart guy or a guy who thought he was smart.

But in terms of what I really could grasp in college, in terms of

the classes I was taking, film studies and some satire classes, it's just the language of of academics, the language of philosophy, the language of

criticism.

It was just, my brain was too blown open.

I couldn't contextualize or compartmentalize much of anything.

And I still strove to do it.

And I have my whole life.

And I think I've gotten a little better at it.

But sometimes when I try to, you know, read the texts of

criticism or philosophy, I I don't fucking know.

I just dump stuff into my head.

Sometimes I pull something out that kind of aligns with kind of what I'm thinking, then I feel validated.

And I'm like, yeah, me and this guy who's a brilliant cultural critic, we were kind of thinking the same thing.

I just had half a joke about it, but there's half a book about it here.

But I think I nailed it.

I think I had it.

Maybe that's all I need.

Maybe I can let that go.

But I do know that

I don't think I could be a teacher.

But these conversations, they're still the lifeblood of what I do and, you know, who I am.

And this one, as I said earlier,

it does get heavy.

And yeah, something kind of interesting happened during it.

You know, I was able to.

kind of hold the space and listen and remain empathetic, but I didn't really kind of get, you know, I didn't really attach to my own grief till kind of later in the conversation about hers.

And I think that was good.

I think that's okay.

You know, it was Lynn's, uh, Lynn Shelton's birthday yesterday.

I believe she would have been 60.

And a couple of people were like, I hope you're okay today.

I'm like, I think about it a little bit every day.

I think the anniversary of her passing is more difficult.

And

I don't know if I've compartmentalized it,

but there's some part of me that just knows that and has known for a while that

in light of the tragedy of her death, but it's just people die.

And I don't think I've become callous to it, but there's

a bit of an acceptance to it,

to the struggle of living

and the reality of dying.

And what you do in between and

how do you kind of navigate the urgency to get those tweaks done

so you go out fully formed and

okay.

Be nice to go out okay

as opposed to go out.

Hey, wait, wait, wait.

I got it.

I'm okay.

Cut.

No, wait, let me give me one more.

Cut.

Fuck.

I think I've decided on my epitaph.

You know, these things come and go.

Some of them are funny.

Some of them are honest.

But

I think on my tombstone, if I do that, or on my urn,

on my plaque,

I think I just wanted to say

the other shoe.

Huh?

What do you make of that?

Pretty good?

The other shoe.

I like it.

Anyway, Regina King is here.

And as I said earlier, it does get heavy.

It might be emotional for some of you towards the last 15 minutes or so of this talk.

She's in the new Darren Aronofsky movie Caught Stealing, which opens tomorrow in theater.

She also has a new wine line called Me and You, spelled M-I-A-N-U.

And that's important because it is a passion project that we discuss.

It actually kind of

moved us through

a discussion of grief that I didn't know really how we were going to kind of move out of.

It's interesting when you talk to people and that stuff comes up.

And I started feeling mine and she was feeling hers.

And you're like, I don't think we're going to be able to get out of this

because we need to let it happen.

And but it kind of went right into this reason that she she

created this

wine,

and it's touching.

So, this is me talking to Regina King.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, painful authenticity.

That's what it's all about.

That's what we're opening up with, right?

Well, you know,

I don't think I know how to do it any other way.

But, you know,

I guess it takes a while to get to your authentic being.

You know what, I think that that's true.

And I think some people

never quite find that.

Yeah, because you put up, I think you put up all these defenses or ways of getting through life, and then you kind of get used to those.

And if you never have that moment where you're like, well, this is bullshit and find the courage to

kind of

get past it.

But that's the hard part, right?

Harnessing the courage.

Yes.

Yes, that is the hard part.

Because people are shitty.

And,

you know, they're always thinking about themselves.

And I don't know.

I deal with it a lot now, and I'm 61.

I just, I think about it more now, like when I perform.

Really?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

That's interesting because you hear so many people

as, you know, I would say

even just even thinking about myself, each decade, I feel like I

discover a new

version of myself.

Yeah.

Or I have a new,

yeah, I don't really give a fuck.

Yeah.

You know, moment, you know?

That helps the new version of yourself.

Exactly.

As you get older and the zero fucks kind of start to stack up, you realize, like, I really don't give a shit.

And that's a powerful place to come from.

Yeah.

When you really don't give a shit, because if you really don't, it's freedom.

It's freedom.

Yeah.

It's freedom.

And I don't know, like on stage lately, I've just been,

I wrote down in my notebook yesterday, I wrote Limit Swagger.

I like that.

Just to see what will that do.

LS.

LS.

And, you know, just get down to the voice of

who you are.

Because like we live in this world now where

nobody shuts up.

And it's just

the noise.

It's fucking crazy.

The noise.

It's just like a never, never-ending yammering.

Just people.

And there's a frequency to it.

It's almost like a mania.

And I don't,

it just gets to the point where you got to save your brain.

1,000%.

It's so crazy that you said that because just yesterday, you know how like your car hooks up to your Bluetooth.

And if you don't turn it off, just as soon as you get in the car, it automatically starts playing, you know, what's on your Spotify or whatever.

And so this one podcast

that I was listening to

because

there was,

and I've never heard of the podcast before.

Yeah.

and it popped up on my

flipboard.

And so I was all curious about that topic.

So I'm going to listen to it.

And it was interesting.

You know, it was only like 24 minutes.

Yeah.

Good for me.

Sure.

And for whatever reason, I get in my car.

And I was actually listening to it while I was in New York.

So I'm back in LA in my car.

And it had gone to the next episode.

And the voices, Yeah.

It was really making me feel crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's because everyone is like I did radio years ago.

Yeah.

Like morning radio.

And I just realized this recently, that in order to get up and do live radio and get, you know, people are going to work, you get into this tone.

What's everybody got going?

And here we go.

This is where we're talking at this level.

And you lock into that.

And I think that is,

I think it happens innately when people get on these mics.

Right.

And they feel like there can't be any pauses.

You know, to learn how to pause like this, well, you got to, you know, you have quieter podcasts in there.

But the general means of talking on these mics is gah, ga, ga, ga.

And then on TV, it's all that.

No one stops.

It's no one stops.

And it's like on a frequency that is annoying.

And I have to

be honest that I kind of discovered that with myself with talking on the telephone, that I would go into a pitch that was

really,

I started hearing myself.

Right, for an interview or just in general?

Just in general.

You know what I mean?

It's good, you still pick up your phone.

I still use it for a phone.

That's good.

But yeah, like that same like moment that you had when you left radio, morning radio, I had that same realization like maybe about 10 years ago or so where I was like, you know what?

this conversation is not the problem I am the problem because my tone is up so high yeah and even as a like an actor I mean you know the power of pauses

but you know in regular conversation you sometimes you just sort of like let's get let's get this done yes but you know that's the funny thing another funny thing I realized

that's how you know with some of those commercials that they're AI because they they're no pauses

they just go yeah yeah.

I can't even wrap my brain around the AI yet.

I don't know what to do with it.

It's insane.

It's here.

Well, I know it's here, but like everyone's talking about it.

And maybe I'm not knowing when I'm engaging it.

Like, I'm not a complete sucker.

I do like the AI when you search for something.

on the on the Google and you get all these different options.

That seems helpful.

Yeah.

And when I see some of the AI on the reels on the IG, some of them are funny.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I don't know

what's slipping by me.

Right.

And what's real and what isn't real.

What is it?

I feel like there has to come a time where we can make a choice to detach from all of it for periods of time.

Well, I think for any

sanity,

you do have to consciously make that decision to detach.

It's hard.

Yeah.

It's like drugs, man.

Yeah.

I mean, even like when you're on set, you know, and like cut and everyone's just in their chair.

I've been doing the last two projects that I've been on, I've been leaving my phone in the trailer.

How's that working out?

It's worked out really great.

Also, because.

What did you do at that time?

I actually

look at the script.

But usually I don't bring my script to set, to be quite honest.

When I started a show called Southland,

Christopher Chulock, who's the

producing director there, he made a mandate that no sides were allowed on set.

No sides.

And that was probably the best gift he could have ever given.

I feel like all of us that were on that show probably still operate in that same way.

So since then, you know, I don't bring, unless I have a question specifically for the director and I want to remember my notes that I had written in my script, that's the only time I'll bring my script to set.

Really?

But it just, it's almost like the script sometimes can be like,

is Linus the one on Peanuts with the Blankets?

Yeah.

It's like you're binky.

Sure.

You know what I mean?

And so even though you might have prepared, sometimes you just will go up on a line just because you don't have that

piece of something right there with you.

And

I feel like it was really liberating that he had done that.

And

if I do go up on the line and I'm not able to substitute it with something else because I am actually in the scene, yeah um

i just will old school call out line sure yeah you know yeah well so it helped your whole process helped my whole process how many episodes you do of that southwest we did uh four or five seasons i want to say we did like 50 episodes so that's like a full training in no sides oh 1000 and whenever we would have guest actors that would come on they would freak out and i mean and these are like established actors just for the day just just for the episode they think you're gonna knock it out and just have the sides and learn them and then they get that mandate and they're like oh my god you guys really they really enforce this and we're like yeah yeah because you're on set and people are like wait cut can you take the sides out of your pocket we're seeing the sides we're seeing the sides all of that you know or um um chris also felt like with the sides people were disrespecting the words you know you see them on the ground people walking on them using them as coasters you know just garbage yeah just garbage exactly so um

I thought it was great, and I still use that to this day.

But it also forces you to prepare in a different way, like the real way, like

really know it.

Really know it.

And honestly,

it also forced a lot of actors, forced us

to have conversations and ask questions before we're actually shooting the scene.

Oh, good.

Because that's eating up time in the day.

Yeah.

So we would have like incredibly short days because all of the work was already done.

And that's sort of the job.

Well, it becomes difficult when you do like a whole movie.

Like I watched Shirley.

And I mean,

so

you didn't have your sides at all?

No, I didn't.

What I had was the script supervisor and my dialect coach.

And my dialect coach would, before every scene, we would just go over.

Because sometimes

there were like three or four really big speeches in Shirley.

And, you know,

they needed to become part of me.

And so those

speeches, I feel like I didn't need to go over those lines as much because I'd already

got to get these speeches.

And it was more just the dialect coach just pointing out places that I may have

dipped with the dialect.

But it was for the scenes that are with

other actors

where I really relied on

my dialect coach and script supervisor and luckily had really

I had actor actors that are in this for the art form so they we wanted to go through lines yeah we wanted to so we did a lot of just running our lines just together yeah that's good yeah that's a good it was a good cast yeah

so awesome what is that what is her dialect exactly slightly um so yeah Shirley has such a unique dialect.

So she's Bayesian,

but she's born in New York, then lived in Barbados for like

Jamaican.

Her husband's Jamaican.

Yeah.

And

her,

I call him her conciglier.

Yeah.

Rest in peace, Lance.

Great actor.

Awesome actor.

He was

Ghanaian.

Yeah.

So

sometimes the three of us, we, and the Michael Cherry, who played

Shirley's husband,

he is actually Trinidadian.

Wow.

So we were all working with dialects.

And sometimes when all three of us were in a scene together, we really had to work to not start picking up the other.

The other dialects.

Yeah, I have to do that here.

It happens sometimes.

I'll become, like, sometimes I interview an old Jewish comedian.

I'll ask my producer, at what point did I turn into an old Jew?

When did that happen?

So you're an actor.

Well, I act, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

I do the thing.

I mean, I.

Because that's what we do.

We can't really help, but we're like sponges.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe, really?

Maybe, I don't know if I ever framed it as an actor.

I just thought I was needy and believed that other people's lives were infinitely more interesting than mine.

But

so I just kind of

guam on, you know, take the ride.

Are you a People Watcher?

Sure.

So yeah, you're,

because every actor that I know,

we're all people watchers.

I do it a lot more.

I'm doing it more again.

Yeah.

Because you know who Robert Crumb is, the cartoonist?

No.

That name sounds familiar.

What is cartoon?

He's like an underground cartoonist.

He did, like, in the 60s, he did like Mr.

Natural and all that.

Yeah, you'd probably recognize that.

I'd recognize the cartoon.

Yeah.

But he has a very specific way of looking at almost everybody, and it's kind of like almost

slightly grotesque.

And I just watched a doc about him again, and I've been looking at everybody kind of like that.

And it's humanizing.

Slightly grotesque.

Yeah, slightly.

He's even supplanted.

Slightly grotesque.

Hold on a second.

I don't want to be rude, but

I just want to say hi to my mother.

Oh, hi, mom.

Hold on.

It's hard to get her.

Hello?

Hi.

Well, how are you doing?

Good.

What's up?

I'm interviewing somebody, but I didn't want to miss your call.

Are you doing okay?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Were you watching me in that show?

Yeah.

Did you like it?

I loved it.

Oh, good.

Look, I'm trying to make plans to get down there.

So try to, you know, try to stay here.

Don't go.

All right.

But you feel good?

Yeah.

All right.

I love you.

I'll talk to you.

I'll call you tomorrow.

Okay, babe.

Bye-bye.

Moms are the best.

Well, it's so.

And you're such a, a, yes, you are truly a comedian.

The fact that you would say, so just stay here.

Well, she's down in Florida and I haven't been able to get down there.

And, you know, she is getting older.

So there's that thing where

whatever my relationship with her is,

you know, you kind of go through life and you're kind of like, yeah, yeah, I'll call her later and whatever.

And then all of a sudden you're like, I got to.

Yeah.

My sister and I, we're going to have, we're to have a real deep conversation right now.

We go

once she'll go for one week and I'll go for one week.

Our mother's in Ohio and

because my stepdad died a couple years ago, and so she's in this house by herself.

Oh, she's still in her house.

Still in a house.

She doesn't want to move.

She doesn't want to move here.

Yes, the stairs are what's keeping her heart going.

Oh, good.

You know, she goes up those stairs faster than

but you know, she's 81.

Yeah.

And so we're going to have to, it's,

thank God that I have an amazing,

my bonus sister, our stepsister.

But

so even though her father passed, you know, she still comes and sees my mom every other day.

Oh, that's the best.

Yeah, she is absolutely the best.

I love you, Stephanie.

Oh, that's the best.

But, you know, we're going to have to.

Do it.

Yeah, we're going to have to come more than,

you know, one week out of the month.

And she's still chatty with it?

She is.

She's battling the beginning stages of dementia.

And I'm finding a lot of my friends were in this same place with their parents.

But the thing that's really kind of heartbreaking watching your parents lose their independence

is that with my mother's situation, she's aware of it.

It's not like she's not aware of it.

It's a mental thing.

She's fully, she's a teacher.

Yeah.

And so she feels the decline and we'll be in mid-conversation and she'll

just stop and she'll say,

I want to, I just don't know the words.

I want, you know, and so to know that that's happening to you,

you know.

It's heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking.

So we just try to remind her just to give herself grace, you know.

Well, that's nice because

my dad's pretty far gone with it and he doesn't seem to know at all well that's you know what we commonly uh recognize you know any type of dementia or i hate the word dementia i i want to just call it old timers yeah i say my dad's newly demented

because it you know dementia is sad but newly demented it's like what's this thing what's this thing yeah yeah

well there is something to that i mean i he he still seems to know me and you know his wife is a bit younger than him.

And, and she kind of makes him listen to the podcast and stuff.

So he knows me.

But like day of stuff, you can dig up some memories and stuff.

But like, you ask him if he feels well or if he remembers the movie.

He doesn't seem to care.

Like, he, I think she's, he's in the ventriloquist dummy stage of dementia where his wife, I'll say, did you see a movie yesterday?

And he goes, yeah, Rosie, what did we, what was that movie?

So he just, she just speaks true yeah and it keeps his brain alive yeah but the whole

I don't know both of them are still alive you know did your parents have you young um

well my mother I

I don't know I mean I feel like she was born in the 40s so she had me at 26 27 so that's the age that most people now people are having children later in life.

Oh, yeah.

So I would say, no, they, my mother was a normal age, and my father was older.

My father was 16 years older than my mother.

Oh, yeah.

He was, yeah.

My mom was 22, but even 26, if you think about a 26-year-old now, you're like, what?

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Yeah, I have my son at 25.

Really?

Yeah.

You're like a kid.

Well, I didn't feel, I mean, you know, I owned a home at that time.

I, you know, I

did.

So I've been working since I was a child.

Well, I guess you're not really a kid, but like, I just.

Well, in some cases,

I will definitely say that

lucky to have the mom that I have because I do I do know even then that I was much more mature than right my my peers yeah yeah and what what uh

does she you don't come from Ohio do you no I'm born and bred in LA my parents met here in LA okay and and had me and my sister and what's she doing in Ohio she went back to my mother's from Ohio

so about

a little over 30 years ago, when my grandmother was starting to slow down a bit, she moved

back to Ohio to be closer to her.

Oh, to her mom.

Yes, yes.

But you're not planning to move back to Ohio?

We are going to have to have that conversation.

Really?

Well, I mean.

I'm not at a place where I'm

okay

with

moving my mother out of a space where she is uncomfortable,

you know, out where she's comfortable

to a space that she has to get to know.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, like I said, she doesn't have, she remembers things.

It's not like, where am I?

She doesn't have, you know, any of that.

She's very much aware.

She keeps her calendar.

She, you know, and she just knows where everything is.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's our mom.

So

we, right now, we're going to be the ones to have to.

Right.

So what would you think about, like, just getting an apartment there or something?

Well,

the house that she's in is big.

Yeah, okay.

Because, you know,

and it's just her in it.

So I think,

look, I'm having this conversation with you, and I haven't started having it with my sister yet.

So the plan

to have the conversation with my sister.

You just started listening to this.

Yeah,

listen to the podcast.

What the?

Yeah.

That might be her response when I tell her.

But my thought is that maybe we would just, how we're alternating weeks now,

that maybe we just kind of stretch it out and alternate months.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah, it might work out.

Yeah, it might.

We'll see.

So getting back to Shirley, that movie seemed like

it was a movie that I didn't think I'd ever see.

And, you know, I don't, my memories of Shirley Chisholm were, you know, I was a kid.

Yeah.

But I remember it was a a big deal so really watching your movie was the first full arc of education I got about her wow and it's an important story yes so when did you get hung up on that story

my sister and I got hung up on that story

about 17 years ago I mean because

just um separately, we both had conversations with people who had never even heard her name.

And so that was a little mind-blowing for us.

And then we did a little bit more

asking people about, do you know who Shirley Chisholm is?

And found that

more of our East Coast friends knew who she was than West Coast friends.

And we were like, okay,

her story, she's like

the godmother of

first,

you know?

And she's the blueprint.

And so

we set out to do this film, and it took us this long to

get to actually

it becoming a reality.

How did you, like, how did the process happen?

Because it was your idea.

You like optioned a book or you bought the story?

Yeah,

actually, so we were with a lot of different teams of writers along the way.

Well, not a lot.

Yeah.

Went through a lot of versions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Only one version of a script,

but

two other ideas of what it could look like.

And so the first writing team we were with, they were still close to them now.

We still are trying to find that project to do.

But what happened is their stars started rising, my stars started rising, and we just the time, we'd put together a package, we had

locked in on an outline that we felt like was was was good yeah and then we just started you know life started and going different ways and then

rena and i picked it back up again um it may have been

she your production partner my production partner my sister rena is my production partner and I can't really remember exactly when, but it was,

I was shooting the second, third season

of American Crime with John Ridley.

And

I said, Raina, what do you think about John Ridley?

Yeah.

You know,

why not?

You know, he loves history.

Yeah.

You know?

And she was like, ask him.

Ask him now.

Ask him why you're on set.

And I'm like, okay.

So at the time, you're not using your phone.

Yeah, I'm not.

Yeah, I see what you did there.

That's a true comedian.

You guys know how to bring that back.

I love it.

So asked him.

He loved the idea.

And so we started getting to work.

And in that small amount of time,

all of a sudden an announcement was made that Viola Davis was going to be doing Shirley Chisholm.

Another project.

Another Shirley Chisholm.

How the fuck does that always happen?

I don't know.

And here's the thing.

We had the rights from her sister, the life rights from her sister.

So we have been, we had been, even though that long pause had happened before we approached John,

we still kept continuing the rights with their sister Muriel.

And Muriel was like, you know, am I going to see it one day?

And we were like, Muriel, we are, we are.

And she died just as we were starting production.

So that was kind of pre-production.

Yeah.

So that was sad, but, you know, we kept kept our word, you know, and Viola make hers?

No.

So what happened was when I saw that announcement, we got together, kind of huddled as a team and had talked about what we should make an announcement too.

And I said, you know what?

I love Viola.

She's like amazing.

And I think she would be an amazing Shirley Chisholm.

So if she's made it there first, then you know what?

Wow.

Let's just, we'll have to step away.

And whatever happened, that that didn't work out.

And as soon as it didn't work out, we jumped back in, made an announcement.

Did you talk to her about it?

I have not, I still have not talked to her about it.

I know John really,

we started doing comedy together.

Yes.

I keep forgetting that that's where John, you know,

for a few years there.

Yeah.

And he was good.

He was like angry and intense.

Angry.

It's and

that dry.

Yeah.

And I've talked to him.

He was on the show years ago, but yeah, he's really kind of become a a lot of things yeah yeah

better that he stayed out of comedy 1000 better that he stayed out of comedy i feel like when he first said that he

started with the comedy space with writing as well and i was like

I just feel like I'd have to think too much about the joke to get the joke.

Yeah.

He's a very smart guy, and

he had some very smart jokes.

I still remember a couple of his jokes I brought it up about.

But so do you find that, how did people react to the story?

Did you get feedback on Shirley?

I mean, you know, you never know if people are giving you a BS version of what they feel about something, but it felt genuine.

Every person that expressed

that they did not know.

Thank you for letting them know.

They didn't.

We got a lot of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We got a lot of, you know,

thought it was just such an amazing

cast.

Yeah, yeah.

You know?

And we got a lot of people who were, you know,

like part of the campaign.

Yeah, over here.

They were teenagers

and who were very thankful for telling Mrs.

C's story.

Sure.

That's great.

That's great.

And the

but you didn't want to direct that one?

No,

no, that the the acting and the embodying her,

that was just, that was heavy lifting.

You know, and I did not want to dialect and everything.

Just all of it.

She's such a specific character, you know, just from how she walked, the way she spoke, the way she would change the way she'd speak, depending on who she was talking about.

And you got to study footage, too, I imagine.

Yeah.

And it's hard, like, if you're in every scene, how are you going to really direct?

Yeah.

You just, it's all on.

I mean, and people do it.

And I've seen like a great, like Don Cheeto did an amazing job.

And Miles Davis.

Oh, my God.

People don't talk about that movie enough.

Yeah, what a weird fucking movie that is.

What a weird, fucking great movie.

You know what I mean?

Like, that totally was stylized.

Because it's like a whole thing's like a hallucination.

Yeah.

And I thought it makes sense to the eyes of mine.

Yeah.

I thought it was great.

I thought it was amazing.

It's such a shame, like in this world of media, that things just come and go.

I know.

And it becomes hard to find.

I know.

And people work so hard on them.

I feel like part of it is because there's just so much content.

I know.

Yeah.

Just the idea that we call it content now is terrible.

I know.

And how so much content

is being made

to

entertain distracted people.

Yeah.

People who can't actually put their phone down and watch a film or watch.

Well, they keep telling us that people aren't capable of attention spam, but they're guilty of causing that.

1,000%.

People are capable.

Yeah.

But, you know, you've designed the system based on an algorithm that, you know,

don't get me started.

All right.

Yes, don't get me started.

What made you decide that for your film directing debut that

Night in Miami was the one to do?

Well, I had a meeting with my lit agent.

Yeah.

And

he was a new lit agent.

I had not,

I didn't jail quite right with the first one that I had.

And so with Harley, we went to lunch and I told him that I wanted to do something

that was

entertaining,

but that was

centered

that the story had a true

real life happening as the backdrop.

And that that was, you know, he asked me the question, what type of films do I want to direct?

And I'm like, all types of films, but this is one.

And he sent me three scripts that were, that had that, that met that note.

And when I read one night in Miami, I was like, oh my God, like, this is

my father.

This is my son.

This is my uncle.

Like,

I could see all the men that really have made an impact in my life.

It felt like

if

them and their friends were having real heart-to-heart discussions, debates,

that they would look something like this.

Right.

But people with consequence.

With consequence.

Cultural, political.

Yes.

And I mean, like, and that's a real story.

Yeah.

It's crazy because not unlike Shirley, which was a different and bigger story.

This was sort of a clandestine, you know,

no one would know this story necessarily.

Yeah.

But somebody, it was a play first?

It was a play.

Kemp Powers had written the play, and it had done really well.

I mean, it performed all the way from the West End to here.

So is it based on a real event?

Yes, that night actually took place.

It was Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Sam Cook, Malcolm X.

Yes, that night actually took place after Muhammad Ali's win.

Yeah.

That literally solidified him into being

the great that we know him to be.

And

again,

like

those conversations that they were having are conversations that

a lot of

black men are having.

And so what is it for me, like, what

how powerful for Kemp to

be

fearless enough to write a story to put these four giants yeah and say we're gonna look at them as just regular men yeah

yeah I guess that was the trick yeah

and they're all very different

could not be more different and that's really like if you know people always say well what is what is this story saying what message is that I think for me is that there's no

only one right way to do something.

You know, it's situational.

This move may be the best move.

This move may be the best move.

And sometimes it's a combination of all of them together.

And seeing

especially that relationship between Sam Cook and Malcolm X was especially beautiful to me to

be able to consider that

there is a such thing and human beings actually do debate healthily and actually grow

from those

challenge each other.

Take a hit and change their thoughts and change their minds.

Yeah, so it was a beautiful thing, that movie.

Yeah, thank you.

Do you think, like, do you consider your first big break with Singleton?

You know, honestly, Mark, I feel like I have a few big breaks.

I feel like, obviously, you know, when I was on the show 227, that's just as a child.

Yeah.

That's huge.

Yeah.

And then I feel like then the next one was with John and Boys in a Hood busting out of being the little girl on

227.

Yeah.

You know, that did no wrong.

Yeah.

And then Jerry Maguire.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so I felt like those three were just really pivotal

moments in my career that the industry started to see me as truly an actor.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

And, but, like, when you direct, I mean, did you, like, I assume Singleton was kind of a force as a director.

Absolutely.

And because it's fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, you were younger and it was exciting.

Yeah, it was exciting.

Fun cast.

Yeah.

But like, I think,

and I've said this before, but I think Baby Boy is a fucking masterpiece.

Yeah.

I mean, I like that movie.

I can't believe that movie.

Yeah.

One of John's

abilities is to

recognize

talent

in people that

we don't even know that we have.

Yeah.

and identify that.

And so that was the case with, you know, while Tyrese may not have been trained and Taraji was more trained, I think he recognized something in both of them that,

let's put these two together.

It was so, you know, it's hilarious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's hilarious and it's heartbreaking and it's, you know, it's all the things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bing Rames.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Oh.

My gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Project that we're developing now.

Yeah.

Um

at our company, a character character in there.

I want to,

the plan is when we get the official green light,

that I'm calling Ving up.

Like,

it's time for you to reprise that energy that you had there.

Yeah.

It was something else, right?

If he hears it,

it's an early call out.

Yeah.

And where did you start acting?

Did you train here?

Yes, here in L.A.

In school, or did you just seek it out?

Because it's interesting when people grow grow up in LA because it's all here.

It's everywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, my mother, being a teacher, also was always and still does believe that arts, the arts are just as

important

to

exercise your brain and all of...

that

as math, science, and yeah.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, and so she always supported anything my sister and I wanted to do.

So whether it was tap dancing or playing piano, we just had to stick through it throughout the amount of time we signed up for.

And so

we started, we were at one of my mom's friends' house and up the street from that friend Todd Bridges lived.

And his mom, Betty Bridges,

was outside roller skating while we were outside roller skating.

So, you know, at eight years old, it's kind of like

to her, she,

I would never think that now, but she was an old lady to us.

And we were like, oh my gosh, she's out here on roller skates.

And I guess us being so curious about it and asking her, you know, so

it doesn't hurt for you to skate.

You know, just asking her all of the dumb kid questions.

Yeah.

And, and actually, there's no dumb question, only the one that wasn't asked yeah um I don't fully believe that

for the kids that are listening for the kids that are listening yeah be question yeah ask questions yeah ask questions yeah um and so she I guess took a liking to us being so

you know, bold to ask a grown-up these questions.

So she was like, well, where do you guys stay?

And we're like, we're just visiting our friend.

And she was like, well, is your mother here?

And we were like, yeah.

And so she

said that

we didn't really know.

And so we walk in and we're like, mom, this lady outside wants to see you.

Yeah.

And Raina and I are looking at each other.

And

she tells my mom that she has an acting academy.

And

if would we be interested in going?

And we were like, oh my God, yes, please.

Because at that point, my sister and I used to

do

put on plays for our parents and recite Shell Silverstein poems from

where the sidewalk ends we were performing yeah yeah so to hear her say that was just like yes absolutely and it worked out it worked out I didn't have to become a dentist a dentist that's that was that was a choice that was a second choice yes yes but that's crazy yeah and I thought like I mean you've done so much stuff I watched the new movie I did watch that oh you got a chance to see cut Stealing?

Yeah, I saw it yesterday.

Oh, sweet.

Sweet.

They set me up at the AMC in Burbank alone at two in the afternoon at the whole theater.

Did you?

No one else.

No one.

Shut up.

Yeah, it's just me watching it.

I haven't seen it.

You haven't?

I have not seen it.

Really?

Well, because Darren,

and you know what, I'm not mad at him for this.

He does not want to send out any screenings.

Well, that's why they had to do that secret screening.

Yeah.

Oh, you could have come.

Yeah.

I mean, here's the thing.

All of the times, because that's what they were doing, what wanted to do, what they did with you, which means that's more expensive because they're buying out the theater for that

or the showing.

They're not having regular press screenings.

Right.

And so

I, no, well, some of the screenings, there are press people there, but

they have to work out you know, when they can come.

And so it just hasn't worked out with my schedule to not

watch it on the screen.

So I'm going to watch it at the premiere.

It's kind of a great movie

in the sense that it's rare that you see a movie where violence isn't necessarily gratuitous.

It's just detached from character, just something you expect.

Because all the violence in it is pretty violent.

Yeah, that's what I keep hearing from people.

It's pretty violent.

But I think the reason people respond to that is because it's all very character-driven.

And the frame of the movie is fairly real.

He went out of his way because I lived in that area where he shot for years.

Oh, wow.

I lived right on 2nd Street between A and B.

Okay.

So like walking by Benny's burritos and Kim's video, I'm like, because I knew he had rebuilt it.

But I literally lived on that block for like a couple of years.

Yeah.

And he kind of made it pretty gritty and it seemed like the right time.

And

there was something,

I tell you, once, you know, Liev and

Vincent as the Hasidic Jews,

it's so hard not to see guys doing those characters and wait for laughs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's the opposite.

Yeah.

But there's that one scene with Carol Kane.

I guess you haven't seen it yet.

I haven't seen it yet.

I know.

I can't wait because the feedback

has been really great.

And honestly, when the script came my way,

first

I said, absolutely, I want to read it when I learned it was Darren.

I mean, there's like

every actor, there's, you know, you have your list of directors, filmmakers you want to work with.

And I would say

everybody,

Darren is in their 10.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I feel like it.

You know, you just respect

just his storytelling abilities so much.

And so then I read the script and I'm like,

okay, so Darren Aronofsky's doing this story.

Oh, all right.

Yeah.

Because I'm all about

don't be put in a box.

Yeah.

You know, and it's very clear that, yeah, you know, you may not call this a comedy, but if Darren Aronofsky is going to do a comedy, this is what the comedy is going to be like.

He calls it a comedy?

I don't know that Darren would actually say that it's a comedy, but I know that that is the closest thing to a comedy that Darren would do.

Well, I guess, like, you know,

and he has a sense of humor.

Well, yeah, and there are jokes in there, and it is, you know,

it's kind of an underdog story, but it is

the characters are pretty thorough.

So like, you know, even if you have to suspend your disbelief around, you know, some of the, you know, the realities of the thing, and it's clearly shot with this sensibility of like it's a guy caught in a caper that he didn't expect to be caught in.

So that in itself is sort of a comedic premise.

Right.

And, you know, the punk rock guy is kind of a clown.

Yeah.

And Matt Smith.

And the Hasids are kind of funny.

But your character is very intense.

And Griffin Dunn has that

owns.

He played that really well.

Yeah, Paul.

Yeah.

Paul's bar.

Yeah.

So

there's definitely, I guess if I really think about it, it's comedy, but the weight of where all you guys are coming from is heavy, man.

right?

Yeah, and it's a it is a spoilable movie, so we can't really

talk too much, but your character is so great.

And just the fact that you're all in,

you know, when you see her,

you're like, all right, well, this is, yeah, but we can't, I, because the plot twists actually worked.

Yes.

You really don't see them coming.

That's the great thing.

And when I read this script,

that's what I told Darren.

I said, usually with,

you know, with the story, you like, oh, okay, you know,

a certain way, certain, by page 30, you know that this character is going to do this.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And I was like, Darren, I did not catch it.

Yeah.

So

I felt good.

After you read it the first time?

After I read it the first time, I didn't catch it until, you know, it was revealed.

And there's several of those moments.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

And so I just felt like if anybody's hands this was going to be good in, it's in Darren's hands.

And then he's telling telling me at that point I want to say only Austin Butler when when there was interest with me yeah Austin was the only one that was cast yeah and

and so I've heard great things about Austin

and I went and met Darren and I was

You always like go into something and hold your breath when it's someone you're meeting, someone you're a fan of because you don't want that to be destroyed.

I don't want to be like

Darren Marnovsky movies.

I didn't want to feel like that.

And he could not have been more clear about the story that he was trying to tell.

And it was the story that I read on that page.

I felt like, here's an opportunity to do something that

is a little pulpy, but it puts us in that place of Even though the film takes place in the 90s, but of those 90s films that we love.

They weren't a bunch of green screen.

It was like a fight was a real fight.

A car crash was a real car crash.

Just all of that,

all of those die-hard type feelings that you would have with suspense at the edge of your seat.

What's gonna, that's how the script read.

And so I think it definitely came off that way.

But it is interesting that you get invested in these characters.

Yeah.

And

it's all surprising.

Yeah.

There is a heavy emotional weight that Austin has to carry.

And you know what's also funny to me, Mark, that so often in movies like that, when you have just the

character, how did I wind up here?

A lot of times those movies annoy me because like

you, we know why you ended up there.

You know what I mean?

You keep doing dumb thing after dumb thing.

Whereas with

Hank, Austin's character,

you feel for him because you're like, God, he doesn't deserve that.

Come on.

He had no idea.

Yeah,

it was kind of great.

And

the film, If Bill Street Could Talk,

I interviewed Jenkins, Barry, on here.

Wow.

That guy is

a fucking genius.

I was just about to say, I was going to say it, but I let you finish the sentence.

I couldn't, like, you know, I had this experience, you know, watching watching Underground Railroad.

And I was like, why isn't the entire world talking about this?

I know.

And I just couldn't understand.

It goes back to what we were talking about just 10 minutes ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With things get lost.

Things get lost.

Yeah, but, but I do think that's something like that.

And also, you know,

there's a certain way that this culture, and look, I'm no one to call out any specific institutionalized problems, but how they frame black artists' work, it just doesn't, you know, I don't know how you celebrate something as intelligent and elevated as Underground Railroad unless you have all the critics who are like, this is it.

Right.

You know, this, you know what I mean?

Or else it's just no one knows what to do with it or where it goes.

I think, you know, because we are still such a divisive,

I'll just say country.

So I'm not going to speak about the rest of the world.

And we are in an even more divisive place than say where we were.

Horrendous.

You know,

before

from Underground Railroad, I think

because we just cannot look at stories as American stories.

If they're predominantly black people in them or predominantly white people in them, they're predominantly Latino or whatever.

It's their stories.

And we're all guilty of it.

we've all bought into this construct.

And

so it's

unfortunate because, like you said, someone like Barry Jenkins, who is so brilliant, and it's not really just so much brilliant, like smart.

Yeah, just his taste is brilliant.

And you just look at his film making, like, let's just like take the words out of it.

Yeah.

But the choices that he's making and why he's making these choices is so fascinating.

And when you talk to Barry, the thing that I love most, like I would have to pull myself off the phone every time I talk to Barry because you can't help but lean in.

The way he

tells a story, even if it's not a story for

television or film, just telling you a story is so engaging and forces you to lean in.

And I never felt at any point working with Barry that he was felt like he was the smartest person in the room or or or made me feel like he never had to overexplain something

because

which I find in some conversations because I'm not quite following what you're saying because you know

you're talking over me um I never feel that ever when I'm speaking to Barry yeah because that movie was beautiful.

It was a really, really loving set in the sense of family was so much

the anchor of the story.

Yeah, and so everyone involved, and you know, it starts with Barry, it starts at the top.

So, that energy does

with the director.

Yeah,

yeah,

was within all of us.

I mean, we were working and shooting in really small places.

Like the family apartment

was an actual

brownstone that we were in.

Whereas normally,

especially when you're going to have a scene with eight people in the room,

you're going to build that set.

Yeah.

Especially when.

Right.

But no, Barry was like, I wanted to, if you could cut the screen and smell it, it would smell like New York.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you won the big prize.

I won the big prize.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what they say.

You've won a lot of prizes.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny.

I was doing some press for Caught Stealing last week, and in one of the interviews, they said, so did you know that that year you were the most awarded actor, you know?

And I was like, we're not just talking about black actors, right?

Are we talking about all actors?

And they said, yeah.

And I just learned that like last week, you know, that was a real.

interesting ride for me to be in this business.

As long as I had been in this business, I had never experienced the campaign run.

Oh, right.

So I really

had no idea.

I had no idea what how it resulted.

How it resulted or what you had to do.

Oh, yeah.

That's it's fucking work.

Yeah.

And I was shooting Watchmen, so I was working Monday through Friday.

I'd get on the plane Friday night to go promote Saturday and Sunday, screening here, screening there.

First movie, Bill Street?

To promote Bill Street.

Like for the first part of shooting Watchmen, it was

work.

It's work and sometimes you got to buy them presents.

Well,

with the Golden Globe, you know, it's insane.

So, but, but prior to that, I had, I had won Emmys.

Yeah.

Still, that television campaigning,

the film, that's just another beast.

That is a whole nother beast that had my head spinning.

And one, time I looked up and I had literally, between shooting the show Watchmen and promoting Bill Street, I looked up and I had worked like 21 days straight.

And then at that point, your body tells you, I'm out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's done.

I'm done.

Yeah, yeah.

But 21's pretty good.

Yeah.

I just did like a few weeks for, like, I have an HBO special out and it was in an animated movie and, you know, a couple other things.

We're ending this show.

And after four weeks, I was just like, all right,

what's going to happen is going to happen.

Yeah,

I need that Saturday or at least just Sunday.

I need one day to because there's a repetition to it.

Yeah, to recharge, to sleep, to not talk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and you don't realize until you don't have that

how much you need to burn out.

Yeah, the repetition is what gets you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's very hard to.

And then to be interested.

That's right.

The acting really comes into play when you're getting that same question for the 40th time.

Yeah, and the enthusiasm that people have when they ask that question like it's the first time it was asked.

I know.

So

it's kind of interesting.

Yeah, that's a diplomatic word.

Yeah.

Well, no, you've done amazing work.

And I know you've been, you know, very public about your son's passing.

And, you know, I've talked a bit about grief on here because my partner, Lynn, died quickly and tragically.

And

it seems that what I realized for myself before having known what you'd gone through and was different is that there is not really

a kind of public conversation that makes grief and

the experience of it, no matter what the cause of it,

kind of just a human, regular thing.

No.

No.

And

it's interesting because, you know, it's one thing when, you know, it's it's a parent that's grown old

or something like that.

Yeah, you're kind of happy.

It's like, okay, you've done enough.

You've done, yeah.

You did it.

Yeah.

But

the hole that is left.

Yeah.

When I speak to other people who've shared the same experience that I have.

And I'm speaking to them and they're like 20 years from it.

It never gets refilled, you you know, and you just, it, it softens

at times.

Um,

I've learned most

the thing that's most clear to me is that that expression mutually exclusive,

I don't really

exist in that space, you know, like literally sadness and happiness is always working in concert within me all the time.

I mean, I can literally always or just after his death?

After Ian's death.

Yeah.

After Ian, I say peaced out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, like, I can have a guttural laugh.

Yeah.

And

literally, it'll end up being a cry.

Yeah.

Or

I can have moments where I'm talking to Ian and I'm like, oh, all right, that was a good one.

Yeah.

And then,

and

feel the

joy that he always gives me.

Yeah.

And then at the same time, just miss him so much, you know.

And

how did you deal with the

unanswered questions?

I'm always dealing with them.

You know, I don't, I,

sometimes it's just accepting the things that you can't change.

Yeah.

You know, like the serenity prayer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But I will say that

I have such an amazing support

team, you know, from my mother to my dear friends and

who are all, you know, grieving as well.

not the same as me,

but I also realize that it's a very unhealthy thing to compare grief.

I used to have Kleenex here.

Hold on.

I used to have them right here.

You know what?

I have some in my purse.

Oh, you do?

I do.

That's another thing that I've learned.

I always have, yeah,

I never had tissue in my purse all the time.

And now I always do.

Yeah,

the only reason I brought it up at all is because

it seems that you find it important

to have a conversation about it.

I think there's no other way for when you're in the public's eye and you have

you don't have the blessing of

mourning or grieving with your family.

Yeah.

You know,

there is

that moment of

you got 24 hours with the news.

You can't stop the police from

dumping the story.

Yeah.

And so

I tried to stay off of the

internet and all that stuff

because you know that someone is going to say something that is going to, you know, sin you.

And I

had had a moment I don't know how I ended up something coming

across my phone and

somebody was saying

that I guess wants to call themselves a journalist

that they were saying you know

they were looking at Ian's post and saying that if the family had been paying attention, they would have been able to stop.

And that just

just infuriated me you know that how dare you yeah how dare you make assumptions about what's happening in in our home yeah in our lives um and um and how um

the amount of humility that people don't

have

is is mind-blowing yeah they're they're they're coward predatory cowards yeah in terms of information So I just started leaning into

all of the good energy that was coming towards me and surrounding me

and

made the decision that

my team is like, you're going to have to

say something.

You're going to have to.

And I'm like,

as Ian used to say with potty training,

tomorrow, I'll do it.

I'll do it soon.

And then I knew that I needed to

have that first public conversation with someone I trusted.

And so that's how Robin Roberts was

that person.

I reached out to her and said, you know,

Jen, can I do this with you?

And she,

we had a tearful moment and she was like, absolutely.

And, you know, and she took care of me.

She made sure that I didn't have to come into the studio.

We went someplace where it's just just she and I speaking.

And

the response to people

leaning into,

although it's sad, but that they share something with me, grief.

Right.

You know, we all, we all share a smile.

We all share love.

And I put that in air quotes.

Yeah.

But we don't, we all, and we all eventually at some point are going to have a relationship with grief.

Yeah.

And but we don't talk about it, as you said.

People retreat from it.

They retreat from it.

So.

And also, I think that what happens is what I found in a different situation is that

it's not like a hunger, but

it brings people together in a way that is so specific.

And in your situation, people who deal with mental illness, people who deal with the kind of loss you had, people who deal with these unanswered questions about the nature of other people

or the nature of their pain or the nature of how to frame that, that any time that a community can come together around something tragic like that, you know that it's a common story.

Absolutely.

I think one of the things that

we've always, until recently,

when a commercial or

ad or something was

talking about depression,

it would always look like a person that presents very sad.

Right.

And

so

I am living

knowing that that's not what, you know, as I'm, you know, we're going through, you know, Ian's depression.

Yeah.

And this is the first time I'm talking about it

but as we were living it

it was just always so amazing how Ian

still would lead with joy yeah even when you know we would and only those close

Ian's father and myself yeah

you know my sister and close friends of Ian's and not even all of his friends were aware of the depression.

Right.

And

it's just such, it's just so irresponsible

as

human beings in the medical profession to present depression as something that looks like people walking around sad.

Yeah.

Because that's not

only how it looks.

Yeah, because it's a battle.

It's a battle, absolutely.

And, you know,

leading with joy, I mean, you know, that's the fight from within.

Yeah.

And then when you know, when you're sitting by yourself or whatever, you know,

it's a constant battle against something that, you know, obviously becomes uncontrollable.

Yeah.

Did you, was there a point where, was he trying to do medicine?

Yes, there was a point, but

you know, he

there was

a

period of time of just doing the therapy, doing the

going to the psychiatrist, and not

wanting to give in to

medication.

And I think probably a lot of it is seeing how so many people

were

when they were on it, how just kind of

creative.

And

I do know that

if he started the medication sooner, there would not have been all of the music that he wrote, all of the paintings that he would not have

done them.

I'm not going to be a person to sit here and

I feel like it's a dangerous place to go to say

if

this

if Ian had stayed on medication, that it would have been a different different result.

I don't believe that.

I don't, this is the result.

I know

everything that we did, everything that he did, he had stopped smoking, stopped, you know, just everything working on the depression.

And, you know, at one point he said, Mom, I'm just so tired of talking.

Yeah.

And

seeing that pain

in your child that is working to

beat

depression,

whatever beat depression is,

you know,

is really, really,

really, you know, you feel helpless

as a parent.

Because as a parent,

you want to be able to provide

help.

Help.

Yeah.

You're trying to, you know, and

what's helpful for you is not helpful for the next person, you know.

So we're always,

when it comes to

mental illness, especially, you know, it's a

unfortunately,

it is a, like trying on

clothes.

Does this fit?

Does this, you know?

Looking for something to work.

Looking for something to work, you know.

And like now, do you

is there some sort of path towards acceptance?

Yes,

but I still, you know,

I just miss him so much.

And

I don't know that

like there are moments that I feel

Ian.

Yeah.

But because I miss him so much, his physical presence,

when that's the person you talk to every day and

or the person that you want to hear there,

what would your commentary be on this, you know, Ian?

Like that,

I don't have that.

It's irreplaceable.

Sure.

Do you still talk to him?

I do.

I do.

I do.

I do.

It's so hard.

Yeah.

So

there's no plan.

There's nothing for someone to say, this is what you're supposed to do to

accept

what fate had in store, you know?

Yeah, I think there are things that say that, but I don't know how good,

unless you're a deep believer.

Right.

You know.

And you know, a bit of me, like, I feel like if I didn't have,

and maybe this is my own mental shit,

that if I didn't have this sadness, then I'd be scared.

Right.

Yeah.

Because then that would mean that I

in is not my world.

Right.

You know, then I was not honest to

myself.

Or to him.

Or to him.

Yeah.

Well, you said something somewhere that I thought was kind of amazing, which is that grief is love that doesn't have anywhere to go.

Yes, I can't remember who actually said that, but

my aunt,

and I say my aunt, my play aunt.

I've known her.

My mother and her have been friends ever since they were in the fourth grade.

She had given her a card that said that.

And my mom gave it to me.

And

it just really stuck with me because it gave me words to

verbally express how I'm feeling.

Yeah.

And I think that with your work and with

honoring his memory by

sharing it,

it's just, it is, it like, I think that it can't be

talked about enough that, this is a disease, you know.

Exactly.

And that

it's not something you can will yourself out of.

Honestly, Mark, I think that's the biggest

stigma

is that people can't look at mental health as a disease.

Yeah.

Like you can,

if someone

has,

let's just say, cancer,

and they,

whatever drugs or whatever put them into remission.

Yeah.

There's, and then you have someone else that has cancer and they do all the drugs and they don't

go into

so what's the difference, you know what I mean?

Of someone that's using all of the therapy tools

with all of the

different ways.

All the different therapies.

You know, I just,

I know that Ian is tired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and I know that

there is a part of him that

looked at people much older than him still fighting that battle and losing it.

Yeah.

That had an, I'm sure, made an impression on him.

Yeah.

And I just feel like, you know, when it's just, you know, talking about it, they're like that, I think if anything, that whether

it seems impossible to have a sort of deep acceptance of tragedy

in your own life, but I do think that making it,

you know, demystifying it and accepting the illness

and that this is an illness that happens to a lot of people.

And like you said, some people, you know, can get through it, kind of.

Some people don't.

That's the only thing you can do.

And honestly, Mark, for one, thank you for

making this space safe, you know, for me to talk.

And that this was not what we were having this interview for.

But I think a big part of me, just because it's Ian, it's my heart.

Yeah.

We're in this cancel culture, and that

I

have been so thoughtful to

be very selective with

when I speak who I'm speaking to

because

people are just waiting to cancel somebody or to take what someone says and pick it apart and say what a person really meant right you know I mean you even see

They even look at people's body language and say, this is what this person means.

This couple holds each other.

So, you know, I'm like, don't fuck with Ian.

So that's part of me yeah the reason why

I'm very selective when I'm I'm speaking sure yeah and also just stay away from that shit yeah that part yeah that part because it's just there's it's it's it's part of that sort of mania that we talked about at the beginning yeah there's just this frenzy yeah to to create garbage at the at the cost of people's feelings, their hearts, their lives.

Right.

Just, and people, nobody's do it.

Who are these fucking people?

Yeah, yeah, keyboard gangsters.

Yeah, yeah.

I try to stay as far away from them as possible.

Oh, yeah.

I had, you know,

after Lynn died, there were monsters, you know, saying, you know, like,

Mark killed his girlfriend.

You know, like, it's like,

who sits there and does that?

You know, like, diminish, it's inhuman.

It's inhuman.

But you can't expect humanity from this monster that we carry around with us.

Yeah.

Well, I'm sorry if I got you too down.

No, no.

That's the thing.

Like what I said before.

Happiness and sadness are always working in.

And I really mean it when I say in concert.

Because if I don't embrace it as in concert.

You know what's weird?

I just realized about that

is that

It does

that happiness and sadness in concert because once you have a foundation of grief,

that on some level, you understand the battle

of, you know, of non-clinical sadness.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I guess that is the human spirit is to keep

that balance.

Yeah.

Because what else are you going to do?

Everyone's going to go through this.

What else are you going to do?

Yeah.

That's when one of my, I was like, mom, I just sometimes, I just don't know what to do.

And she said,

you do what you're doing.

You're here.

I get that so much.

And because, like, I don't think I really look to my parents for advice much after a certain point because they weren't those kind of parents.

And there's some day, and I'm 61.

There's some days there's like, would someone please just tell me what to do?

Do.

Just tell me what to do.

Yeah.

And that's a hard thing to sit with.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we could talk about the wine.

We could.

Or we could.

Would that be a good transition for you to go out on?

I mean,

absolutely.

I mean, it's Ian's name is right there in the middle.

Shit.

How did you get involved with wine?

Ian.

Really?

I mean.

He was a wine guy?

Ian

is a...

loves a story and loves

it has great taste.

Yeah.

You know?

so when you're an artist like he is,

and you discover new things, you want to, you want, you want to be the one to share it.

And so, he would share

wines with me, you know, like

he just,

and I think a lot of it came from being a chef.

Yeah.

You know, he just the pairing of the chef.

Yeah, yeah.

Of all, sure, of so many things.

He's a chef, a musician.

I mean, he was even in one night in Miami, an audition for the role.

But

I digress.

Oh, so with the wine,

Ian introduced me to orange wine about six years ago.

I've never had any desire to be in this industry, in the hospitality.

Well, no.

Let me take that back because I did have a restaurant, but never to actually sell

a brand

of wine.

yeah you know like everyone that you speak to that's in the business is always like if you want to lose money that's the business you get into

and so in this space of trying to

understand what this new relationship is with Ian you know

I'm I am looking for I was always looking for ways to when you're talking to your friends and they're talking about what their children are doing now and I have old stories.

How do I create new stories?

So it was like, we're going to do an orange wine.

Yeah.

And so that's kind of how the birth of me and you.

That's what it's called?

Yes, it's spelled M-I-A-N-U, and you pronounce it me and you.

Yeah.

And Ian's name is in the middle because when you put the M and the U on the end.

Yeah.

And is it like small batches or how does it work?

Yeah, this is self-finance.

Okay.

I'm the vineyard or I'm procuring the grapes.

So yeah.

I have people like,

oh my God, you're going to send me some.

I'm like, absolutely not.

I am not.

But it is available at meanduwines.com.

There you go.

Yeah.

There's no samples.

No samples for the press.

No, some samples for the press.

Oh, good.

But very smart samples.

And how's it landing?

It's landing where we're almost sold out.

So that's pretty exciting.

And then you do another batch?

Yes,

and now I'm in the business part of it.

You know what I'm saying?

It was more just a way to

put something in a bottle that was

the closest

for people who did not get the opportunity to be blessed with Ian's presence, to taste something and get an idea of just how whimsical he can be, how tasty he can be, how artistic he can be.

The label is very artisanal.

It's like a canvas.

Oh, nice.

And

so I'm just doing that more just as Ian and I creating this together.

I love it.

Yeah.

And then now I have to think about the business part of it.

We can make it bigger.

Yeah.

How do we sustain?

You know, how do we,

am I winding up at a different, you know, looking at a wine with different grapes?

You know,

is that fun?

Most part it is.

Yeah.

For the most part it is.

But it's a little

terrifying because I had to enter back into the social media space.

And

so I kind of slowly started doing it, knowing that the wine launch was coming up.

And that's.

You can also have someone do that for you.

Filter it.

I'm a control enthusiast.

I've never heard it put that way.

I like that.

That almost sounds like something you could put on a business card.

Regina King, control enthusiast, at your service.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, it's a beautiful thing that you're doing, and it's great talking to you.

I hope you had

to you too.

What are you going to do next?

I understand that I'm lucky enough to get in here.

Yeah.

Well, you know,

I got to do another season of that show with Owen Wilson.

And, you know, I just put out a special and I'm starting to build another bunch of comedy of some kind.

I want to try and take it somewhere different.

Yeah.

I feel like I've said all I've got to say on some level and I want to try to say something different.

Something different.

I was about to say, say something different.

Yeah.

It's not every you don't feel like you've said everything you have to say.

You just want to say something different.

Yeah, some part of me thinks I can lighten up a bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

I feel like,

and maybe again, that's just me.

Yeah.

To me, when the humor is rooted in like the real shit,

it's funnier.

For sure.

Yeah.

I mean, I did a whole, my last special was from bleak to dark.

But there was about a half hour about grief.

Oh, wow.

I should have checked that out.

You should.

It's an HBO special, and it was about, you know, finding some way of coping and dealing with with what happened and and making it a public thing to release some of that because like the sadness is real is unavoidable

but there are even inappropriate jokes around it that you can have with with yourself that you know that other people who've been through it can can share it but people who haven't are like oh shit right

but those are those are important yeah yeah well

highly yeah well it was great talking to you thank you you.

It was great talking to you.

Thanks for doing it.

Okay.

I know

it was real.

That was real stuff there.

You can go see Caught Stealing tomorrow.

It opens everywhere.

And check out her new wines at meandu.com.

That's m-i-a-n-u.com.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, people, people on monday show a return guest tim heidecker he was on an early episode by himself and then once again with eric wareheim now we're having one last talk in the garage i did cry once on stage during the music so vulnerable to me yeah you know i just feel like and i and i think that

i think that doing the music and and and sort of moving through that fear, it's going to help my stand-up in a way because I'm just tired of the pattern.

Yeah, there's something about like

when wondering what I'm so clear about why I'm doing it for myself,

but I don't know, I don't know how close I am to understand

if I'm doing it for the right reasons for my audience.

Yeah, that's the trick, isn't it?

Yeah, but how much of that lives in our head anyways?

And, you know, like, and in the comments.

So I don't know.

Like, I'd worry about that too.

Like, oh, let's indulge Mark with his little music dream.

And certainly growing up, seeing comics that do music, I'm like, oh, fuck, what is he doing?

It didn't go well for Kennison.

He was pretty serious about it.

Any comic that is music seriously,

it's very hard to watch,

to frame it correctly, even if they're amazing.

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

And it's a shame because I think we all come from like...

growing up wanting to just do stuff yeah and not thinking about the genre and how it's going to be classified at blockbuster video or whatever i guess but like when eddie murphy did my girl Girl Wants to Park.

Oh, that's terrible.

I think.

I'll agree with that.

Yeah.

But

it all comes down to if you're not doing it to sell records

and you're doing it earnestly to express yourself,

then it's legit.

I think that's where I'm coming from, is I have things I want to say that don't belong in my comedy.

Yeah, I haven't figured out how to write a song yet.

Yeah.

I think I've probably written some, but I have to find them.

That makes sense?

Yeah, I mean, either

John Lennon says, like, keep it short and make it rhyme.

Did he?

Yeah, I think so.

He also has all those chords.

You have the Beatles chords.

Yeah, I don't.

I'm still strictly a 145.

No, those are good, too.

With an occasional.

Those are the catchy ones.

With an occasional two.

Two minor.

Yeah, two minor.

Right, exactly.

To make it pop.

Yeah.

That's Monday, which is also the 16th anniversary of our very first episode.

Wow.

Wow.

How did that happen?

Also, a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST,

and

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