Colman Domingo

0:00I always told my husband, I want a place like this, but it's got to be 15 minutes from a good steakhouse. Yes. And literally, I live near Nobu. Oh my God, I love that. That's your local steakhouse. Yeah, exactly. Colman Domingo, welcome to One Night Stand. Oh, it's so good to be here with you. Good. Thank you for being here. We're so excited to talk to you about these books. Oh yeah, I'm very excited about it. I feel like it's probably one of the most unique collections that anyone's ever seen. It certainly is. it's like no it is because some people have you can really see like I mean there is a common thread in these but they're all there is I think so oh good I can't wait to hear what you think well okay well yeah we'll get into it but um it's such a great pile but have you always been a big reader I have yeah I was listen when I was growing up in Philadelphia my safe haven was the library yeah it was just a place because I wasn't like you know I was a very nerdy kid and and someone who just really I love reading and I love being in a library.

0:57The library was like peaceful. I was always you know doing different projects or listening to the librarian read us you know whether it's Encyclopedia Brown novels which I needed the new one every single time. So I love mysteries but then also one of my first jobs was actually in a bookstore and it made the most sense. It was when I was about 18 years old I worked for Barnes & Noble bookstore in Philadelphia and I took care of the self-help section and the travel section again very different things but you know one is learning how to be a human being yeah and the other one is learning how to be in the world I think did you have any favorite self-help books when you're in the self-help book section no I think I was just an awkward kid in person I thought and I thought that people were cooler in their 40s and so whatever the self-help books were was about me feeling confident as a person in the world um language wise how to stand in front of people all that stuff that I was learning by reading books yeah oh I love that I often find as well I mean we've had a quite a lot of guests on here who've brought self-help books but I think and so I've read more of them because of this but um I often find that I get more out of like looking out of the world at completely different things like I find that more additive in a way I do too.

2:14I think so as well. It's interesting. Well, maybe we can start with Theatre Kid by Geoffrey Seller, which is one of your four books that you've selected. Tell me what you love about this book. What I love about it is, first, I know Geoffrey Seller. I've known him as a producer, as one of the most groundbreaking Broadway producers of the 21st century. Nice, warm guy. I knew him from a distance for a while. and I think I had an idea about who he was based on I don't know what he produced or so the air around him and his adventure land company and then he comes up with this book and he says Coleman can I send you my book I was sure he sends me the book and it stayed on the shelf for a while and then I put it on my nightstand and I thought okay I need to read a little bit of this every time I turn around and I quickly discovered that everything that I thought I knew about him I didn't know like how his background coming from Detroit and a very you know what he called downwardly mobile family you know what I mean and really where he got his love for theater as well in telling stories like how do you get for me about just the journey which is such a great journeyman's journey of like how do you come from quote-unquote nothing yeah to having such influence in the American theater I thought was extraordinary and by a sense of curiosity by willing to try and to move out and to challenge yourself and to take everything you have had and learned and to make it something great so I love just that story I think it's just that's a typical American story as well you know from rags to riches yeah bit of a theme in some of those as well I think so but I feel like that there's yeah maybe that's it maybe that's part of the thing that these are sort of stories about people you know um people and images how you can redefine yourself yeah so that's what i was attracted to about the book yeah and i thought oh and i love jeffrey's way of telling stories i mean i wanted to know the story of like how did rent come about and the trials and tribulations of that yeah from it being this ambitious bit of a mess to you know the unfortunate passing yeah you know jonathan Marson on previews and then to the eventual success by like you know really drilling down and creating something that's everlasting yeah you know I think it really captures as well how difficult it is when you're producing or you're working on something the like feedback challenge of like he really writes about that so beautifully where he's like I want them to know that I believe in this that I believe it's going to come to fruition but I also need to tell them that I think the third act sucks or whatever it is like it's so hard yeah exactly because also especially I love his balance as a producer.

4:57He knows his job. His job is to support the artist. But it's also to be there to say, to be a theater goer. And to really honestly discern and say, it's not working. Or we need to do more work on this. We need to get another writer in on this or something like that. But I feel like, and that's a great creative producer, which is very rare. Is it interesting? I think it's actually rare in the American theater to have a great creative producer. You have a lot of producers who, you know, may fund and support, but not someone who's doing great critical thinking as an audience member and as a theater lover.

5:29And just trying to make the piece what the piece should be. And I think that's what I've learned in Jeffrey's book as well. It's like, oh no, every piece that he does, whether it's Avenue Q or whether it's Hamilton, he's not trying to make that musical like something else. He's trying to make that musical the best musical that that could be based on that idea and those creatives. Yeah, that's so interesting because it feels like that's the opposite of what goes on in Hollywood a lot of the time where you can see like there's one hit movie in a genre and then like two years later you see three iterations of the same thing.

6:00Yeah exactly because well everything is bottom line a lot of times in Hollywood they're like oh that works we think the people want that now. Yes. And I feel like you know the idea of having a creative producer break out and continue to challenge themselves with the work that they're putting out there and feed the appetite for commercial theater. Yeah. Is exciting. Totally. And say that, oh no, I believe and trust. Think about this, Avenue Q, who would think that that would be a huge success? Totally. Sort of an alt version of Sesame Street. Literally, yeah, adult puppets. Adult puppets. And believe that audiences want that.

6:37And they want to laugh. It's a little satirical. And we can laugh at ourselves. We can laugh at, you know, and have so much joy with it. Yeah. There's one line that I wrote down. Well, I wrote down a few lines from this book. but one that really stayed with me is when Jeffrey, when he's like setting himself up in New York, he talks about how it feels like my outside finally matches my inside, which I think is so beautiful. Cause I think for, if you ever grow up in a world that you, you maybe don't want to be in that world forever, you might have love and respect for your family or whatever. I thought it was just such a beautiful way of capturing that.

7:08And I wonder if you ever felt like your inside and your outside didn't match. Yes, I did. And I think maybe that's why I connected with this book because I do, you know, I come from working class Philadelphia. And like I was saying, now I know I've worked to sort of, how can I say, make the outside feel like my inside. Of whether it's art and beauty and joy and curiosity and language and travel, all that stuff that I was imagining from sitting in classrooms in West Philadelphia where I could be. Where I used to get in trouble all the time for daydreaming. Really? Interesting. Literally, yeah, exactly.

7:49I remember my mother went to a student-teacher meeting, and I was with her, and they said, your son's, one of his problems is, sometimes it's hard for him to focus. My mother said, what is he doing? He says, he's just staring out of the window. And I remember my mother said, why are you staring out of the window? I said, I don't know. She was talking about ancient Egypt, and I started to imagine it. Yes, totally. Like a little, we're talking about the pyramids in ancient Egypt, I literally would look out the window and start to imagine it. Exactly. So it was like. Yeah, I love, I love like living in my own brain and like imagining things.

8:25I'm starting to try to get back to that right now. I took a moment yesterday to just stand in silence in a sort of crowded space. But it's funny, people kept asking me, do you need anything? Are you okay? I'm like, no, I'm just taking it in. Exactly. Because sometimes I'm just trying to get back to that space of just creatively imagining and what you read, what you distill, what you've taken in, instead of letting it be actionable at all times. When do you think you started to feel like your outside did match your inside? Is this a particular age? Probably last week. No, but I feel like, listen, I think there's, we can make and remake ourselves.

9:08That's a very Buddhist way of thinking. you can make and remake the world, populating it with the images unto itself. And I think that by distilling a lot of information, I think by, maybe it's when I got a sense of travel, and seeing other people in the world, probably in my 20s, but I really feel like my outside started to match my inside. I would say maybe in my 40s. Yeah, where I feel like, you know, when suddenly you can liberate yourself, and you say, oh, this is my body, This is myself. This is my environment. This is the way I choose to live. Yeah, and it all makes sense to you and then you start living sort of like, you know, out loud in that way.

9:49Totally. Whatever that one, whatever way that is. Yeah. I never imagined I'm 56 years old and I feel I Love my 50s. Yeah, I had no idea. No one tells you that. I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell our Watchers today that it really does get great in your 50s. Oh, I think I think 40s are good, but 50s, I don't know what it is. I'll tell you this. I met this woman who said, for a long time, you're in your storytelling season. You're trying to tell a story about yourself. And when you get into your 50s and 60s, you start moving to truth-telling season, where you just tell the truth. You no longer have time for stories.

10:28Oh, I know exactly what you mean by that. Is that profound? Yes, that is deeply profound. I thought it was profound. Yes. And she literally told me this when we were walking a plantation in Georgia. we were like taking in and we're talking about telling the truth yeah about yourself and whatever that story is yeah so now I feel like when I walk in yes I use clothing and things like this to tell a story but now I'm telling a story about the truth of who I am yeah you know what I mean it's so hard because I think when you're younger you look to other people who've gone before and be like oh I need to be I want to be like that or so you're like you should apply co-op their story in a way and then actually as you get older you get no I just get to be completely I get to be me Me, yeah.

11:07It's so interesting. Isn't it beautiful? Yeah, it's so beautiful. Talking of Jeffrey Sellers' production, did you see Hamilton early in its run? I saw Hamilton when it was at the Public Theater on the Newman stage, and I sat there shook. Really? Could you feel the light? You felt it, and also because it was also a smaller room, you thought, I haven't experienced anything like this. Yeah. This was a surprise for casting, dance, use of language movement. And you think Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius and Tommy Kail and all his collaborators. And you thought they trust me. Yeah. That I can. Distill this historic history, you know, with and then transform it with all these people of color and all this movement and all things that are sort of colloquial and really consume it and digest American history in a new way.

12:02And feel like I'm a part of the story. And the story really is about all of us. And so I was shook. I remember when the child dies in there and that beautiful song. I remember I literally was shaking. I'll never forget that. And then when I saw it again on Broadway, I was worried. We're always worried when something transfers. You're like, okay, these producers, Jeffrey Siller believes that this can belong on a commercial stage. And you worry. you like it's gonna lose its intimacy but I think that's the also the the creative challenge how do we continue that momentum and feeling and still keep it make it feel contained beautifully I was at the Tony Awards last year when they did the anniversary I've just the energy in the room when they I just never like I was at like I don't know like a Beyonce concert I was just it was it's true it was just like screaming yeah it's so true everyone was screaming and and also it was like everyone in the show has become like bona fide stars in their own exactly but it's true but also I think that's the most beautiful thing about a lot of beautiful productions where you have everyone everyone in their own right is a leading actor but they also know that their job in this piece yeah you know to help move the needle along so yeah you're working I mean that's thing I love about Broadway I come from a Broadway tradition and you have triple threats yeah we can do everything yeah you know Yeah, I heard that you might be going to the National Theatre, you said in the interview.

13:25Is that? It's still percolating. I haven't been on stage in 13 years, which is wild to me. Yeah. And I've been talking to some friends. Now, because I've been working for so long, all my friends are now running theatres, which is amazing. They're running theatres and production companies, which is amazing. We were just hardscrabble artists for a long time. Now we're running the National Theatre in the Dunmar Warehouse and things like that. So I'm trying to figure out the best thing for me because I know that I want to give it my all. So possibly coming back to London. Oh, that's very exciting.

13:58I miss the London theater scene a lot now I live here. I love it, yeah. It's so cool. And I think also because I didn't grow up going to the theater, my parents weren't into that kind of thing. And when I first moved to London, I liked that the physical theaters were almost mini brands in the way that I didn't need to know too much about it. I just knew I could go to the Royal Court and I'd find something interesting. And I'm going to tell you, there's a couple of theaters here that I want you to find too. Okay. The Vineyard Theater. Oh, yeah. Go see anything at the Vineyard. Go see anything at the Public Theater.

14:28Okay. Exactly. Those are two great. Okay, great. Everyone note those down. We're going to all go see them. Well, next, maybe we could talk about Hollywood by Garson Canaan, which is an incredible book. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my. I was speechless. It's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah. I mean. And it's perfect for like your bedside because you want to digest all these little essays and stories. Like little vignettes. Yeah, because you're like, oh, you're with these. You're like, wow, I'm with Greg Arson or, you know, all these different people. But why is, oh, I'm going to let you ask your question.

14:57Well, no, I was just going to tell me what you love about this book. I love the insider's point of view to a Hollywood of bygone years. And I love that they're incisive and like real scenes. Yes. Actually, you're like, oh, this happened or the way this person reacted. I first, I was gifted this book by John Turturro, which is beautiful because I was working on a film for a while about a love story. I remember quite a love story about Kim Novak and Sammy Davis Jr. And he said, I found a great story about Harry Cohn and his relationship with Kim Novak in there. And I was like, really? Yeah. I said, send it to me.

15:38He sent it to me. And of course, I read that and then I read the entire book. I was like, what perspective? Like truly an insider. And then also, for my theater loving friends out there, to know that he was married to a dear friend of mine, Marion Seldes. And I didn't know that. I knew Marion at the end of her life. She was in a class by herself. She always wore lavender. She was really beautiful and elegant. She would read the reviews under a beautiful spotlight at an opening night on Broadway and her beautiful you know mid-Atlantic sort of standard accent you were like I feel like I'm a part of something yeah anyway Marion Settlers was married to Garson Kane before and it just made all the sense in the world I love I love that Hollywood anything about Hollywood a bygone era it's simultaneously so charming and also you really seeing how the sausage gets made absolutely like it's I mean the deals that are made the conversations that are made that are searing that that happened now except we're a bit more we have a bit more publicity and a bit more care about how we talk about things but this is just raw it's so raw and he's sort of like I mean Samuel Goldman is the sort of character who kind of character person who runs through like because a lot of the other there's like a chapter about Marilyn Monroe and a chapter about Greta Garbo but then he sort of keeps reappearing and I wondered have there been any execs in your career that have sort of like cropped up or being particularly supportive or I mean not that Samuel Goldwyn is always supportive.

17:09Any producers like that? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. It's funny. I think that I have a through line of directors like Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg. Yeah. Which is beautiful because it feels like, you know, they're still buying what I'm selling. Yeah. But also we've become friends. And I have become a bit of an insider when it comes to theater and when it comes to film and television. So I work with everyone. Oh, that's great. And so I feel like in a strange way, I'm sort of a through line throughout this industry. I feel like you can possibly do, as I know that because I've come from the theater and I'm deeply embedded in television and film, I'm sort of a connector with these worlds and with the fashion world and with the art world as well.

17:53Yeah, with these cultural moments. So I realize it's probably me. Yeah, it's true. Well, I'm not saying with any ego, but I'm like, oh, I think I'm the through line actually. I'm the one that connects a lot of communities, which is why I'm always, because I'm also really hosting events and thinking about why I bring people together. Totally. Talking of events, are you going to the Met Gala? I am gonna go to the Met Gala. I'm gonna go to the Met Gala. I'm gonna throw a beautiful Saturday night before Met Gala event. Because again, I like to bring my communities together. That's actually the intent of it.

18:24And I'm wearing a beautiful custom Valentino for the Met Gala. It's about, the theme is fashion as art. Oh yeah. And I'm really excited about that theme. I think, you know, the idea, because the first time I went to the Met Gala, the feeling I felt, and I told Anna Wintour this right after, I said, I feel like you placed me inside of an art installation. I feel like that's how we all felt, that we were living art. Yeah. And how beautiful is that? That's so beautiful. And I think we need more moments like that that are heightened, that make us, remind us about beauty and art and joy, and also philanthropy, because it does support the Costume Institute as well.

19:01Especially, you know, moments like that in our society. We need large moments like that. And these are like incredible collaborations. Like when you see the like designers and the like sketches and then how, when it starts to fit on the body and how the person who's wearing it shapes the garment. I did. I think it's so interesting. Yeah. And it's months in preparation too. I bet. I mean, there's conversations. I get on the phone with Alessandro Michele at Valentino and his team and my stylist. And then we talk to our jewelry, which is, you know, I'm wearing a brand ambassador for Boucheron and with Omega as well.

19:34So it's a huge collaboration with a lot of people. Yeah. And you want to make sure that everyone feels that they also have an artistic voice. Yes. In this moment as well. But you also, you as the artist are the creative director of it all. Exactly. But then of course I will send the sketch to Anna Wintour just because I like her perspective. Do you text her or are you an email? We're texters. I love that you text her. That's so fun. And is she a succinct texter back? She is. Yeah. And she gets back right away. Oh, I love that. And I'm always just amazed. Well, we've become very close friends. I really adore her.

20:05Yeah. And I think that she's, I always think she's very busy and of course she's all around the world and she's in meetings and doing all these incredible things and she's got time to text her friends. I love that. Yeah. Have you ever like taken a big risk with a designer and worn something that you didn't necessarily feel great in at that moment but they really believed in it and you were like, okay, I'm going to be a vehicle or. Absolutely not. No. I love it. Absolutely not. Yeah, good for you. Really, really. I'm very, maybe I've always been this way. I'm quick to say like, I'm willing to try something on yeah and like let's see what you think yeah and then we'll look at it and talk about it and then I will I will even like go through the motions of like oh yeah well let's get that figured out and everything and then we'll have the photograph in the book of things to wear and eventually I probably wouldn't wear it yeah because I'm like it's got to be the right moment yeah you know I feel like everything everything about it's all storytelling for me yeah especially clothing and design yeah it's all telling your story yeah and if it's not a story for you if it's someone else's story they're like oh yeah you would look good in that might it's just not my story yeah because and I won't deliver on it I won't feel good yeah I won't make that the garment look amazing yeah you can always tell when I feel my best like the other night the other premiere of a film that I have out called Michael yes and I wore this beautiful very sort of off the wall inspired Michael Jackson fit of a custom tuxedo and I felt like dancing and literally that was that was the story I want to feel like dancing yeah yeah I love that that's so special and it's so brilliant to just know like when you know who you are that you know incredibly I think that's I think that's brilliant thank you one of the things themes I found quite interesting in this book is that there's he talks a lot about the way that art gets made in the sense of the conflict that goes into making art and the sort of like the disagreements and I wonder how do you how do you find that as an artist when you're working on a film or a tv show like are you are you comfortable with that is that something you find difficult you've got more comfortable I'm very comfortable with it yeah I think I have a good sense of diplomacy and know how to ask a question yeah um and know where the question is centered and it can't be about ego yes and I think that's where that's where one gets into into trouble yeah when you're arguing with someone not arguing but like you have a conflict with someone and it's more their ego on the line than the work oh yeah that's something I'm not I'm not down with no so I feel like that's what causes friction yes but if it's about a good a good idea it's okay to take a good idea from anyone exactly and I'll always try something and I will always try something let's say if a director says hey I thought about this and that and the other and even if it's like something like I don't understand I'm like let me try it because maybe you see something I don't see it yeah but then it's then today I will also say well this is how I feel in this it didn't feel right but I'll tell you why yes and then hopefully we can get to an agreement about oh well maybe I should still over there or the lighting should be over here things like that and and then we'll get to an agreement but you can't have ego in the room night and that is a hard thing to say with a lot of people yeah a lot of times look the thing that if I bump up against anything it's ego yeah that if people want something a little bit more than another or they're doing it because they need this credit or whatever.

23:17You're like, no, no, no, you've got to do it truly for the love of the world. And that's the only way good work gets made. Tell me about the experience working on Michael and what that was like, because I imagine that's a very specific challenge when you're not just bringing a story to life, but a story that so many people already believe they know in some form or other. It's so funny because I think Michael is an icon. And like any icon, you could name the icons, whether it's Elvis, whether it's, I don't know, Anna Wintour. There are so many stories you can tell about a person and so many ways in.

23:48And I really appreciate the lens that we've taken on this film. This is his early years in the makings of. So you can understand and digest who Michael was. And then you can decide for yourself who Michael was. And I think, again, and it's celebrating his music and his artistry and what he's given to the world. and so I love that it's a sort of a gentle look at Michael and it's um there I think there should be 20 movies about Michael Jackson you know that so I feel like I think it lends itself to that so I'm really happy with what we made and it was not an easy movie to make I'm sure it was tough it was tough on all of us because it took maybe a year and a half um which is very long you know we had reshoots and pickups and things because I don't want to use the term wanted to get it right because I feel like that's not honest.

24:38We want this to be right for what we were trying to make. Yeah, you know what I mean? And that takes a lot of tooling and revisiting and reworking and just feeling like, okay, great. This is a version of a part of his story that we wanted to tell. And that's what the filmmakers wanted to tell. And I was on board as an actor to say, you know what? This is my lens into Joe Jackson, which is such a formidable character. in most people's imagination. But when you think about it, they just know sort of like the paint-by-numbers version of a person. And I'm creating, my job is to create a human being and not sort of this, you know, cartoon villain that people have imagined Joe to be.

25:20Yeah. I read in one of your interviews that you drew on your experience with your stepfather. A little bit. You know what? Because when I started to examine Joe Jackson, I thought, oh, he was a man from Arkansas. very rural Arkansas, who didn't have much of an education, moves up to, you know, he migrates up north, eventually builds a family with his wife, Catherine, a very large family. And he's a blue collar worker. What blue collar worker do I know? My stepfather, who had a seventh grade education, who he was a part of a generation, I would say, you know, growing up pre-civil rights, who whose job, who believed his job as a man was to be the provider and to be the one who, you know, here's the line, you know, you do your chores, you go to school, you do better.

26:10His job was to make sure his children had what they needed. He wasn't the soft and fuzzy one. But it's a type of man that truly exists. And I feel like people don't know that that man really had to exist in that way, especially a black man at that time. So for me, I looked at my stepfather and I thought, oh, I was raised by a man who was really when he came home he changed the whole energy of the house it was soft and warm and fuzzy and dancing and joyful he came home and you better your chores had better been done your homework better been done he was the taskmaster yeah make sure when your father gets home that these things are done yeah so he can sort of just lay down and rest so he could just sit in peace and quiet and again i'm packing there's so much i know about my stepfather i know the what he probably had on his shoulders as a black man with little to no education in the world and then why he wanted me to be the person that I am.

27:06So he gave me everything. And at times, I think even when I was growing up, at times I thought, I don't think he likes me. He didn't like me. He loved me. You know what I mean? But also there's a line in a great play by August Wilson called Fences. And people have been watching online. there's a version of james ro jones and a version of denzel washington having argue a conversation with their son cory and it's about liking the son saying why don't you like me and he's like i don't i don't have to like you the son said i don't have to like you my job is to provide for you that's the kind of man he was yes that my stepfather was and i think joe jackson was yeah that's what that's what i think i don't know if he was that way but that's what i've gleaned Yes.

27:50From the kind of man that he was. And once his children, Joe Jackson's children, wanted to be performing artists because they wanted to be. And they wanted their dad to work with them. Yeah. And he said, I'm going to work you. You want to be the best? I got you. And then he saw it as a great opportunity for the family. It was a family project for them to move out of their circumstance, to move to something else. And he took them to heights that is unimaginable, from a two-bedroom house in Gary, Indiana, to mega stardom. Yeah. And that many kids and the pressure. I just can't imagine. Exactly. Yeah.

28:25It's a lot. The book does such a sort of great job at showing the sort of arc of these sort of artists and movie stars careers really. And how like you go through these sort of peaks and troughs. And I guess it sort of made me think, especially with you having been on Euphoria for three seasons, all the people who are in it now are all such like, like everyone is such huge stars. They're mega stars now. Yeah, exactly. How has that evolution been from season one through to season three? First of all, it's been really lovely. I think I kind of... I didn't know that it would smash the zeitgeist like it has.

28:59Yeah. Truly. Sam Levinson is one of the greatest showrunner, creator, directors, I think, that we have. He's so inventive and collaborative. And he really has given us material that I think that we would rarely get. Yeah. Whether as the young artists, they were getting the best material of their lives. Look at Zendaya's work in season one and season two. And Sidney Sweeney's and Jacob Elordi's. Austin Abrams, you name it. And then Sam Levinson wrote this role for me. He wrote a role for me that many people, he knew what I could do. And he knew that I could deliver. But I hadn't been getting work like that for a long time.

29:37I was getting sort of, you know, just my regular tried and true television work. but nothing super challenging like what Sam has written for me. So I had great faith and hope that the universe would be kind. Yes. And it has. And now season three is just as epic as the other seasons. I think it's just an extraordinary season. I think, and it's a season, I'll be very honest, because I've seen a lot of the season, it's a season that is, the first few episodes are a huge setup. Yes. for what will happen towards the end. So I feel like it's a show that has to be digested in its whole. I almost wish it came out all at once.

30:20Because I feel like it's hard to digest where is it going. Because each episode is its own film. They're isolated films. But it will all make sense when you get to the end. Oh, fascinating. It's a good tease, isn't it? It is such a good tease. And I just feel like all of you in it are like the types of actors who are going to be written about in these types of memoirs in like 30 years time where there's some like I kind of feel that way maybe that's why I'm attracted to it as well because you're almost looking at how do people navigate this industry exactly how do they navigate uh the public life and their private life yes and that's the thing that I'm most fascinated with with that book yeah because it's an insider's glance into all of that all and how people they're trying to protect something in their privacy and you look at that now every one of us i i'm a bit more seasoned in my my years and experience so i i know how to distill it and and put up boundaries yeah and i think some some of our younger cast probably have struggled from time to time and they're working through it yeah and because all of it some a lot of it's new yet we do have some that have been child stars and they've they've learned to navigate this industry which is tricky because the world wants a lot of you and the more successful you are i think is also an opportunity to try to tear you down oh for sure it's a strange thing in our culture where the thing that gets that people love they also when they love it too much they also want to tear it down it's a very strange thing in our culture yeah that even happens for shows and movies that like you know a season can be beloved like i feel i'm so excited for season two of Heated Rivalry but I also feel like I feel like people are going to be critical of it just because they love the first one so much absolutely because they won't be able to let's say a Heated Rivalry suddenly takes place in I don't know it's not in Canada it's suddenly in you know Florida I think I don't know if I feel like people have a set idea of what they want yes and then they get mad at you when you don't deliver that again you're like no but I thought I wanted to challenge you again exactly yeah yeah i mean i i love that book and i just thought it's so juicy like even the the scene where he goes to the brothel towards the oh yeah i don't know it's just like it's so it's so honest yes and maybe maybe that's that's another that's the through line yeah yeah you just knocked me out on why i read what i read that brutal honesty i'm looking for brutal honesty and that probably leads us to the one on top yeah let's do it we were talking about that the moment When I got, we walked in, yeah.

32:49So Pimp by Iceberg Slim, an incredible memoir, which is brutally honest as we, but tell me what you love about this book. I first stumbled upon that book when I was doing research for a film that I did called Zola. Zola, yeah. Where I played X. I love that film. Who was a dastardly, dastardly pimp. Dastardly's such a good word, yeah. I'm bringing it back. Yeah. It was a dastardly pimp. And I, so I did, I did so much research on the psychology of pimp, of human trafficking, all of that. Because I'm like, I want to go into the psychology. And I think I was drawn to it because I'm like, it's so not me.

33:26It's so like, I'm such a feminist. I'm such a humanist. I'm like, oh, no, no, no. The idea of that is awful to me. But I was like, I want to get into their psychology. Yeah. And this had me shook. and I thought, oh my gosh, I didn't know that this is people's operating systems when they have nothing, but they believe that they can co-opt the mind of someone. And they tell you the psychology of what they think, whether you're beautiful, whether you're not beautiful, whether you're a little chubby or whatever, knowing how the psychology operates. They're psychologists. Yes. You know what I mean?

34:01Am I right? Totally. And what I loved about this book, and which, I don't know why it was on my mind the moment we walked in because I revisited a little bit the other day and I thought oh that's what I like how succinct he is I think writers who've been I don't know who've gone through programs can't write like this because you have this is a lived experience yeah and sometimes you can just say he can say everything he needs to say in three words and really and it takes you aback because it's so raw and unflinching and you're like I can't believe he just said that or he just the the use of um can I say the use of the word bitch or whores or things like that is just the way he uses them are so flippant and they're almost not even like sometimes they're um I don't know I just I just think it's fascinating his code of speech yes and contextualizing situations yeah whether it's with family or whether it's with um how he's learned from older pimps and things like that how how to be in the world.