January 15, 2024 • 49 mins
Isaac Mizrahi sits down with director, writer and producer Roger Ross Williams (“Cassandro,” “Stamped from the Beginning” based on the book by Ibram X. Kendi.) They discuss the surprising response Roger got when he was the only Black person at a Black Lives Matter protest, why racist ideas harm everyone and what it was like to work with Bad Bunny.
Plus, they share their hilarious stories of working with supermodels like Naomi Campbell, getting hit on by Keith Haring and more.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Roger Ross Williams @rogerrosswilliams and @onestoryup.
(Recorded on October 31, 2023)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So much of that part of the story I put
myself into, and you know, you take creative license. The
real Cassandro was not a second family. I was a
second family. My mother had had an affair, believe it
or not, with the pastor of the church who was
married with kids, and I was the pastor's illegitimate child,
(00:22):
shut and up and juicy and great stuff. And my
mother would go and spy on him and his family,
and I would have to sit in the car. So
those scenes, they weren't Cassundra's experience, they were my experience
where I had to sit in the car where she
would watch my father and his family at a picnic well,
and she would weep in the car, and I'd be like,
(00:43):
this is embarrassing. And those moments were so painful. I
was like, I'm going to put it into my art.
I'm going to put it into the film.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac and in
this episode I talked to Oscar Emmy and Peabody Award
winning director, producer and writer Roger Ross Williams, Hello Isaac.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's Roger Ross. Williams. I can't wait to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
The thing that's amazing about Roger Ross Williams is that
you probably already have seen like literally five or six
of his movies, and you may not even know it.
He is like one of the great artists, one of
the great documentary creators out there. And recently he made
his first scripted movie, which I watched in preparation for
(01:40):
this interview. It's a movie called Cassandro. It's incredible. It's
one of the most beautiful things ever shot and edited
and scripted, et cetera. But it just affected me on
such a deep level. I think for a few reasons.
One because of the sort of integrated gay subject matter,
also the integrated kind of ethnic subject matter. And thirdly,
(02:02):
and mostly I think for me personally, is the subject
of the mother and son that is really really central
to that particular movie, which it is in my life. Anyway,
I'm very, very excited to talk to Roger, and I
don't want to waste another second. Let's go. Roger, Hello, Darling.
(02:29):
You won't believe this. Did we meet at that shooting
that I did for your documentary about the Supermodels?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
No, I wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Because you were even there, Larissa, you can care about
me enough to show up.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I'm a massive fan of yours, Isaac. I've filmed at
your fashion shows back in the day with all the supermodels.
When I was covering fashion with Veronica Webb, we did
a series. He did a series, and I was the
producer of that series. And before that, I worked at
Comedy Central and we covered Fashion Week with Billy Norwich
as the correspondent and Gabby Dopel producing. So I go
(03:08):
way back and my friend edited Unzipped, my friend Paula Heridia.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Paula Heridia, who actually was the real editor of on Zip,
And then by the way, she had to leave and
Douglas Keey finished it. Douglas took another six years to
edit it. So, Darling, this is at last our first
face to face meeting. Yes, I want to start by
talking about your history, because I've been reading a lot
(03:34):
about you. I mean, I am such a huge fan
of yours I cannot tell you. But before we start
me like fangirling about all of your movies, let's talk
about you. You grew up in Pennsylvania, is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I grew up in small town, industrial town Easton Pennsylvania
really boring place, and I hated every second of it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right, and then I read about the fact that you're
like a latchkey kid and you grew up in this
little town, and I'm going, like, where's that screenplay, Darling?
Is are you working on that or are you writing
some kind of a memoir.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I've been thinking about writing a memoir.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I was option, Darling, pre option. A'm pre option in
your memoir.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Oh my god, I can say Isaac Miserai optioned my memoir.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It's a claim to totally, totally, totally, totally. So you
are many things, but you're gay, you're black. You like
documentaries like what shapes you as an artist the most?
What do you identify mostly as.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I think I'm shaped by fear and trauma. I think
that everything that I experience is a black gay man
in America shapes what I am as an artist. And
the types of films that I make are about outsiders
and you know, people like me, people who couldn't connect,
people who were beaten up in high school. And then
(04:52):
you know, we grew up and we became artists and
we sort of are masters of the universe now. But
it wasn't always that way, and I I still feel
that way, and I always identify with outsiders. Right.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I have to tell you something because I think
of myself as a gay Jewish at this point, old queen,
you know, Like that's how I feel persecuted, you know.
And I will say, like old is another thing. We're
born around the same time, Like you're a little younger
than me. Everyone's either much younger than me or even
(05:25):
a little bit younger than me, and it's very annoying.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Roger, No, I'm old too. I've been around the block.
But yeah, I don't feel old. I feel really young
and immature, which keeps me fresh as an artist.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Good good, Well, tell me about your rise as an artist.
What was it that you just loved about what you do?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, I didn't always love what I did, so I
started out as a journalist and I hated it, you know.
First I found it was kind of exciting because I
got to go to different places. But I worked for
the man. I worked for a mainstream media. I worked
for ABC News television journalist or Peter Jennings at the time,
and Ted Kopple. I don't know people remember them, but they.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Were They're legends remember that.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And I was working for the mainstream media and I
was like, God, I hate this. It was like sexist
and misogynistic and racist and especially back in those days.
And I was really miserable. And then I said, I
gotta quit this job.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
How long did you do that? How long did you through?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
That long time? It was from college. I went to
NAYU for journalism from college all the way through probably
like twelve or fifteen years, and I was working for CNN,
and I one day I just quit my job and said,
I'm going to hop on a plane. I'm going to
go to Africa and I'm going to make my first documentary.
And I just did it. All I had was a
camera and some whatever cash I had in the bank,
(06:49):
and I went to Zimbabwe and I made this documentary.
And then it wins the Oscar.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
My first try music for Prudence, Music by music by Prudence,
Music by Prudence. Right, And it's a short film, rightty
minutes forty minutes long, ah right, And then it wins
the Oscar. And then the most hilarious thing in the
world happens. Guess what, darling, you will be remembered for
that at least. Okay, talk about that from minute.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Top ten craziest Moments, I mean kind of Will Smith
moved me off the top. Some people had me at
number one because it was such a shocking moment. What
happened described to the listeners exactly what a producer that
I used to work with, that I a former producer
in the project and still had a producer credit, she
was entitled to be there, came and when I was
starting my acceptance speech because it's a short only one
(07:33):
person can accept it, and I'm the director, and she
I said like two words, and then she grabbed the
microphone and shoved me off the stage and said, isn't
that just like a man? Let the woman speak. Let
the woman speak. God, it was I'm looking at Merle
Street sitting in the front row there, and I'm looking
at Merle Street horrified, and she rambled on and on,
(07:54):
and no one knew what she was talking about. She
just kind of rambled on incoherently. And then the music
started playing and we were ushered off stage, and I
didn't know what happened. Was like, oh my god, I
just was humiliated. It was front of the biggest audience
in the world with Meryl Street looking at me in
the front row, and I was trying not to cry backstage,
and then her and I had to go before the
(08:16):
international press. It was a funny smile and they didn't
even know what happened because they're backstage, so they're like, girl,
how does it feel to win me? And I'm like,
like a deer caught in the headlights. Oh crazy. Turns
out it was the best thing that ever happened to me,
of course.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And by the way, I don't know how many hundreds
of millions of people have seen that clip around the world,
and you are probably like the most famous person in
the world for that particular. It's like, you know, everyone's
trying to get like Instagram followers and social followers. And
I did this ridiculous like sort of rant about this
hole that I had cut in my counter, which I
called the garbage hole, and that's literally got like ten
(08:51):
million viewers. And if I died tomorrow, my oh bit
would say he had a garbage hole. You know.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
It's like Naomi's famous airplane, which she cleans the seats
of the plane and wipes down the seats with the
thing and she puts the thing on the play that
has more fevers and.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Naomi that is hilarious. And by the way, did you
get to know Naomi as you worked very well? Said
the video? What was she easy to work with? Because
I remember hers being very difficult to work with and
extremely funny, and she was worth the way, and she
was the most beautiful woman in the room, but not
the easiest person.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Naomi was a dream to work with. Naomi is demanding
and I had so many great moments, Like I was
kind of like hanging out with Naomi all the time,
but not even shooting. Like Naomi's just like, Wow, come
hang out with me and Katar. I didn't even have cameras.
We're just hanging out, you know. She's like, come with
me to Edward Emmenthal's birthday party as my date. And
(09:47):
I remember sitting in the room with her glam team
and then Kate Moss comes in and Kate and I
sat for three hours as we watched Naomi get ready
together drank champagne. I just love Naomi so much, and
it was such a joy to get to know her
and to work with her. And she wasn't difficult with me.
But it's really about her excellence. Excellence, you know, she
really demands excellence out of everyone, and you know you
(10:10):
have to wait for her.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You just have to wait. And she was not difficult,
but you did have to wait for Naomi. But guess what, Darling,
you had to wait for Kate. Also one time I
was invited to be at a dinner for Princess Diana
in like the nineties, and Kate was my date. And
Kate took two hours upstairs. I was waiting in a
car for her, and finally I like buzzed her and
I went upstairs and she was not even and I
(10:33):
went like, Kate, you know. And by the way, then
Liz tilberis whose guests we were at Lincoln Center that
night for Princess Diana, she blamed me for being late,
and it's really Kate's fault. And I was like, Darling,
you talked to Kate, who is the subject of Princess Diana.
She's supposed to know better, you know. But anyway, I
don't know what it is about those super girls, just
like being waited for those super women. You know, it's
(10:55):
probably power, you know, control, you know. I think, wait
a minute, darling, go back to this, because what attracted
you to make that picture in the first place the
Supermodels picture.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I grew up with the Supermodels. I was in college.
I worked at the Palladium where I was part of
the team running the Michael Todd Room, which was the
VIP room, my.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Favorite room in New York. Ye, the Michael Todd Room. Hello.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So I worked in the Michael Todd Room and the
girls were there, and Cher was there, and boy George
and Andy Warhol was still around, and he was there
in brook Shields and it was still Keith Herring and
Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Made a pass at me in that room, and oh
my god, who the hell are you me? You see,
now we should have had affairs with him. I could have.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I thought that I should have had an affair. He
made a pass at me at the Paradise Garage and
I danced with him, and I was like, he's interesting,
he's interesting looking. And I didn't know he was Key Herring,
you know, I didn't know he was. I kind of
knew he was an artist. Maybe I should have gone
for it, but I'm oh, well, so.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
You grew up in that whole environment sort of worshiping
that kind of glamour, right, glamor. It's so surprising to
me that the kids today who are so like conscious
of so many things to do with equality and justice,
they somehow like see way over the top of those
(12:22):
issues in order to like sort of worship at this
kind of Louis Wuetan and Chanel and you know what
I mean, Can we talk about that for a second.
What is it?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I mean, look at now Farrell leading Louis Vuitton. I
guess it's just this. The fashion is universe. Yeah, fashion
is just like this universal fashion and glamor universal. It
crosses across all raiths and also economics. Everyone. I don't
care if you're rich or you're poor, you still love
the glamour of it. You know, my mother was a maid.
(12:54):
My mother was a maid, and she would die her wig,
her purple wig, thea and her shoe so they would
match her purple afro wig and her shoes. And I
would sit there as a little kid and watch my
mother with her die matching purple heels and her purple
afro wig, get dressed and go to the club. And
I was like, I want to be this woman. I've
(13:16):
just loved my mother tell me everything, and she really
is a one.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But wait a second, I want to delve into this because, like,
you know, jerem O. Harris is the great play, right, Yeah, Okay,
So I went to one of the opening nights and
I hosted a party for him in my apartment after
the show. And this person walks in and his entourage,
his entire entourage, and the subject of the play is
partly selling your life for like a pair of expensive sunglasses, right,
(13:43):
and you're going, no, this is irony. But then they
walk in, these youngins where they will be so righteous
about certain things, and then other things they will totally overlook,
if it has to do with expensive platform shoes. Yeah,
can you tell me?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I didn't see the play, but I do know what
you're talking about, especially you know he's a black gay man,
right was his entourage? Like, but I mean, come on,
what else do we have? How do we escape the
reality of being both black and gay in America? We
escape it through glamour, through Fasha. It's escape, it's ape.
I escaped into the world because I felt totally free there.
(14:20):
I felt felt totally free in fashion and glamour and
nightlife and nightclubs, and I read you know, Vogue and
glamorous magazines, and that was that was the way Andre
Leon Telly's I mean, I also I executive produced the
Andre Leon Telly document I did that documentary, you know
with Kate, and we all escape that way.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
What are we gonna do.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
We're gonna sit in church and be told we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Die hundred percent. But here's the thing. It leads me
to this thought that I had while I was watching Cassandra,
which was one of the greatest Darling, you are so
great for making that picture, like when you win the
Oscar for that, I'm gonna bust in when you are
talking and I'm going, this is the greatest.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I would be honored. I'd be honored if if Isai
MASARAHI Darling.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It is something so great. And I kept thinking about
this kind of crazy thing to do with the escapism
of wrestling, people watching and going get them, get them,
get them right, because that's what wrestling is all about.
And now you're talking about gay wrestling, and people are
screaming these words, these real kind of pejorative words for gay.
(15:26):
People talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
So what blew me away about Cassandro is that in
this macho world of lucha libre, which is you're right
an escape where Mexicans, no matter you know, how poor
and struggling you are, you could go to these matches
and you could scream your heart out, you could root
for something, you can forget about your life. But it's
a very macho world. The Mexican culture is very macho.
(15:48):
And so when I met Cassandro, I was like, what
is this? And I was a New Yorker article and
I did a short film, a documentary about him for
the New Yorker. He walked in the room and I
just pulled the energy. He radiated this confidence and this
charisma and this fabulousness that I just couldn't believe, you know.
And I'm sitting there in al Paso, Texas, on the border,
(16:11):
in his house that is right across from the border wall.
His front door looks onto the wall of the border,
and what's where the the poor Mexican working class community
lives on the wall in al Paso. And I was like,
this is a movie. And I was maybe two hours
into our interview. I was just like in tears. He
was in tears, and I said, you're my first script
(16:32):
in movie. And when I went with him to a match,
I went with him out to Juarez, one of the
most dangerous cities in the world, just from the cartels.
We walk into this arena, thousands of thousands of Lucea
Libre fans, and people are bringing their babies up to
him to kiss. The people guy, the macho guys are
(16:53):
hugging him. He goes backstage, he puts on his long gloves,
does his makeup, he and he comes out in this
full His theme song is I Will Survive, and the
whole the whole arena, thousands of Mexican misogynists exactly, you know,
homophone people are screaming. I are singing I Will Survive.
And he takes the stage and I started bawling, and
(17:16):
I was like, this is the greatest story ever and
I that was it. I was like, had to make
the movie. Took me eight years, but unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And wait a minute, because I thought it was like
the greatest movie that I've seen in a really long time.
And I have to tell you, it's not easy to
make a movie. Right now. Did it have a theatrical
release before it was released on Netflix?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, it's Amazon. These streamers don't like theatrical releases, so
it had a one week theatrical release. You want to
get the movie made, so you know, the streamers have
all this money, so you go to the streamers. But
then it's like, oh wait, it's only a week in theater,
and I wanted people to see it in the theater to.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Have that experience. It was say, wait a minute, I
think you need to go to that movie to the
movie theater before you go to the Barbie Funck movie.
In the movie, yes, all that is like y CGI
and special effects, like you really shot that damn movie.
That movie is beautifully shot. That is a reason to
go to the movies, right your movie? I mean it
tell me what has happened to movies? Like why don't
(18:17):
I feel compelled anymore to go to the movies to
see Oppenheimer for instance.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Because true like artistry the studios and Marvel and they've
taken over the theatrical space, and sixteen year old boys
go to see Marvel movies and they don't care about
anything else because it's about bottom line corporate making money.
And the true art movies like movies were in the
(18:44):
seventies are dead and the only place they actually exist
really are places like Netflix and Amazon who will pay
for them, not anymore example, but who will pay for
them because they want to win awards and that's a
status symbol for them. Because Amazon isn't in the movie business,
They're in commerce. They want the prestige. I used to
(19:06):
be on the Board of Governors of the Academy and
one oscars I sat next to Jeff Bezos because I
get to sit in the front and I sat next
Jeff Bezos and I just told him about Cassandro the
whole time, said thank you for doing He's like, what,
because he has no idea that like, I have this
movie that your studio is doing. He's like, you do
And I was like, yeah, it's all Cassandra. And I
had him for you know, like four hours because he
(19:27):
was sitting next to me and he could wow moose.
Anytime there was a commercial break, I would be like,
let me tell you more about caring to get I
was trying to get more money to get it. I
was like, you should up the budget because it's going
to be a great But they're the only places, you know,
Netflix still they let power the dog and they let
these great directors you know, do their thing. But the studios,
(19:49):
they're just interested in giant, you know, commercial marvels, blockbusters
and they and they kind of killd the theatrial experience,
and then the streamers they just want you to watch
it on.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
But is there any art left to be made? You think,
like any more film, mixed kind of art left.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I mean, I have tons of amazing stories that I
want to tell. It's just you're out there in the
marketplace and you're trying to sell it, and all they
want to know is if it's commercial enough. And also,
you know, I'm black and gay. They're like, we don't
we still don't really want to hear from you. You know,
we're the executives at the top, the ones making the
decisions are white straight men. You come in to pitch
(20:28):
and they look at you like you're an alien from
out of space and they have all the money. They're like, no,
we don't understand. We don't relate to that story you want.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
To tell you unless someone gave them a speech about
like the quota of art that they have.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, they want to fill their quota. Yeah, yeah, they
want to fill their quota. And if their quotas filled,
then that's it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Let's go back to Cassandra for a second. Because one
thing I know noticed in that movie was that beautiful
relationship almost makes me sob between the mother and the son.
One thing that I thought was so interesting was there
was so little dialogue between them. It was all shots
and like reactions and reactions. I thought that spoke volumes
about your relationship with your mother. Probably, so when you
(21:19):
speak about that.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So much of that part of the story I put
myself into. You know, you take creative license. The real
Cassandro was not a second family. I was a second family.
My mother had had an affair, believe it or not,
with the pastor of the church who was married with kids,
and I was the pastor's illegitimate child, shut and up
(21:44):
and juicy and great stuff. And my mother would go
and spy on him and his family, and I would
have to sit in the car. So those scenes, they
weren't Cassundra's experience, they were my experience where I had
to sit in the car where she would watch. I
could see it thought and his family at a picnic well,
and she would weep in the car and I'd be like,
(22:04):
this is embarrassing. And those moments were so painful. I
was like, I'm going to put it into my art.
I'm going to put it into the field. I'm so
glad that you were intuitive enough to pick up on that,
because that was deeply prosecun.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And then it was really mysterious. As to the profession
of his mother. I couldn't tell. She was a laundress, obviously,
but also I thought she turned tricks probably well.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
She was like my mother who when you're the other woman.
She would go out every night to the nightclub, and
a lot of times it was to protect her man,
who would also be out at the nightclub. My mother
worked at the door of a nightclub and her boyfriend
at the time was the manager of the bar, so
she would go there and make sure no other women
(22:48):
would take her man from her. He was also married. Now,
the real Cassandro's mother also went out every night to
the club, and there was a lot of details I
couldn't put in the movie because they were so over
the top that no one would believe it. But really,
Cassandra's mother had lung cancer and she had an oxygen tank,
but she still smoked, and she was out at the nightclub.
(23:09):
One night she was walking home with her oxygen tank.
She collapsed in the crosswalk and died. That's how she died.
Oh God, imagine that scene, all dressed up in her
leopard prints finery. It was something about these women who
were with married men, who were which they needed to
fill their lives with something they didn't have, the husband
(23:29):
coming home to them every night. So then my mother
went out, and that's when I'd watch my mother put
on her purple wig with her matching purple shoes, and
she would get dressed up every night, just like Cassandro's mother.
So those scenes came directly from me.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Wow, I could feel it. I could feel it. And
listening to you, I think you're going to make some
kind of crazy, crazy autobiographical scripted movie. You have such
an opportunity to make the most sweeping, mellow drama.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I've wanted to. I've wanted to, and I will someday.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I'm gonna bug you until you do it. I'm gonna
start producing it. I'm gonna start using money. Okay, Yes,
we love that, all right, Well, darling, if you live
in New York or you live in LA.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I live in New York, but I live mostly in
upstate New York, in the Catskill Mountains, which is where
I am now and I have a place in New York,
and my company is in New York and Dumbo.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
But I'm mostly got it upstate being in the movie business.
Why did you choose to live in New York and
not in Hollywood?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Like I could never live in Hollywood. I detest Hollywood.
I don't find any joy, and I find it really depressing.
Every time I go out to people are gonna listen
to this podcast in Hollywood? They be like, we're never
giving him a movie, Darling, that I still love New York. Now.
(24:49):
I have to have the country because I love gardening
and all the things, and like I need to escape
the city. But I still love the city, even though
the city is completely different. And my friends and I
sit around we're all old, and we say, people don't
go out. Those are the glory days in the eighties
and the club. But people don't go out anymore. They
don't have funny they don't dress up anymore. But I
guess we're just old and young people probably do go out.
(25:11):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
No, let me tell you something, Darling. They find opportunities
to dress up, but I'm not sure it's for the
same purposes as we used to go out and dress up.
But they do dress up and they do go out,
but it's a much smaller event, right, because we used
to go out to meet someone and maybe have sex
because we were porny little things, you know, I was right,
or not even to have sex, but just to go
(25:33):
out and see what people were wearing and what was
going on and the glamour of it. But now it
all has to do with swiping because they meet each
other on all these different grinder and I don't know
what these different places are because I was driving into
New York City one night with this young assistant to money.
It was like that was Nell, right, and that was
you know, Catturs, and that it was the Palladium. There
(25:55):
are no such clubs anymore, not as many. I want
to talk to you about this incredible documentary called Stamped
from the beginning and it is so powerful, and I
am so hoping that the right people see this thing,
which is not you and it's not me, and it's
not like the indoctrinated, but it's people that need because
it's so powerful. Again, like, how did I not know
(26:17):
that you were the greatest filmmaker alive? Seriously, between the
supermodel thing, which is completely on the other side of
the spectrum of this, and then Cassandra just plunked right
in the middle of it. Talk to me a little
bit about Stamped from the Beginning.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Stamped from the Beginning is based on a book by
Ibram X Kendy. Ibram mix Kendy is a great academic
historian and an author who wrote another New York Times
bestselling book called How to Be an Anti Racist, which
during the short lived racial reckoning in America when George
Floyd was sorrything, And I laugh about it because it's
(26:56):
almost like laughable that I know that we had our
little short window as black people in America, and it's
like over in everyone. I mean even in my tiny
farm town when George Floyd was murdered. There's no one
here but you know, Trump supporters and Confederate flags and farmers,
and they and their tractors were doing Black Lives Matter
protests and I was the only Black person in the
(27:18):
Black Lives Matter and I cried again, teared up because
I was like, how is this happening? And it was
so amazing. So during that time, Ebra mccandy had the
number one New York Times Best for a whole year,
over a year. Then number six was stamped from the beginning,
and that is a book about the history of racist ideas.
And I had done Tanahase Coats between the World and
(27:40):
Me with my company produced this as a special for
HBO during the middle of the pandemic with Oprah and
everyone in it and Angel Bassett and everyone. It was
a big bidding war because I was pitching that around
with Tanahase and the team and everyone wanted it. But
Netflix lost it to HBO, and I said to Netflix,
(28:01):
We've got to go after this book stamp from the beginning,
because it's just such a power. I learned so much
about myself as a black man in America and also
why I feel this way, why I'm experiencing what I'm
experiencing in this country. And I said, and you lost
Tanahass between the run of Me, You've got to get
this one right. And they Netflix did it. We did it.
(28:22):
We went got into a bidding war and we got it.
And then I had to figure out how to turn
it into a movie. And that was really fun because
I was like, Okay, I'm going to use every tool,
Madge that I have in the toolbox. I'm gonna tell
the story. How do you recreate Portugal in fourteen fifty two.
You do it on a three sixty green screen stage,
(28:43):
and you have actors and we paint it in the
painterly style of the time, and it's like a piece
of art, because art is how racist ideas are basically
disseminated through popular culture and art and movies and television
and paintings, and back then it was paintings, and so
that was the idea. And so I got to really
stretch myself creatively and really create using all these sort
(29:06):
of tools of actors and VFX and animation and graphics.
And it was so fun to make it all coherent
and tell it all in a coherent film.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
One thing you'd have to be the biggest doult on
the planet not to notice again is about women. In
this documentary, it's so many women.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Talking about all women and rights.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Plunk in the middle of the documentary is the story
about how much more difficult it is to be a
woman of color than it is to be a man
of color. Can you talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
So in the struggle, the resistance struggle throughout American history
for black Americans. Women have always been at the forefront
of that struggle, because women have always led the movement
of resistance, and men who've done that often were murdered,
like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X Right. And it's
women who are like the soldiers out there on the
(30:02):
front lines. And when I got a list of experts
doing the work around racism against Black Americans, I noticed
there were all these black women from Harvard and Yale
and Stanford and Howard doing the work, and I thought
it wouldn't it be a statement to have only black
women experts. Of course, Netflix pushed back and they were like,
it's not going to be accessible to and I was like,
(30:24):
I don't care, and I refuse to budge. And now
it's such an important message in the film that these
women who've always done the work, who've always worked the hards,
who are doing the work and academia around understanding racism
are the ones telling the story, and they're telling it
from a very personal plant. I was like, don't just
sit there and give me your academic speak. Talk to
(30:46):
me from your own experience. Tell me about your own experience.
Why are you driven to do this work? And they
get it. They got emotional and they cry and they
laugh and they got and so they're just so fabulous.
It was an amazing experience interviewing all of them.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
And is it possible to sort of promote that movie properly?
Like can you make the people who need to see
this movie see it?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Well, here's the thing, Ibramix Kendy is probably the most
banned author. And you know what they can't ban. They
can't ban Netflix, And so in two hundred and fifty
million households around the world it's available on Netflix. You
could just be like scrolling, you could see an image
and you'll be like, stand from the beginning, what is this?
(31:30):
I'm just gonna watch a little bit of it and
hopefully you get gripped and you're like, wow, this is entertaining.
It's like needle drop music. It's like Tyler the Creator
and all this great music, and it takes you back
and forth in time. It's fast moving. The challenge that
Netflix gave me is they were like, make something completely accessible,
pop culture accessible. Make a pop culture piece that talks
about racism but doesn't compromise on the depth of it,
(31:53):
and it's meaningful and can change hearts. And minds, but
is accessible. I liked that challenge, and Netflix is doing
an amazing job of putting it out there. I've done,
you know, a lot of festivals. I'm doing a lot
of press around it. We're doing big events, and I
think that the good evidence to me is that in
screenings I've had like friends bring their parents and who
(32:14):
are like conservative, and then they go home and they
have discussions. My friend bought their mother who's a conservative,
to see the movie and they said they stayed up
past midnight, are arguing and discussing at the film.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
You have to just watch it with a conservative unexpecting
you say you're going to watch this, just recommend it
and force an unsuspecting person to watch it. Now, this
is a sensitive question that I'm going to ask you,
but I know it has a very very good answer,
especially coming from you. If someone put me on the
spot as a gay person or a Jew and said,
what would you like to tell people to say or
(32:50):
not say? Like, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, okay,
but is there something that you could just tell everybody?
Like what is it that you would like to really
get across? Like, how can we help? How can everyone help.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Racist ideas harm everyone. And you may think, well, it
doesn't apply to me because I'm white, so I'm not
going to pay attention to that. But it's the policy
behind these racist ideas. So if you deny the country
health care because you're trying to deny health care for
(33:28):
black Americans, you deny everyone health care. If you hold
onto your gun and your assault rifle, because in the
basis of that it's about protecting yourself against the danger
of black Americans, then white Americans end up being dead.
All Americans end up being dead. So these policies based
in racist ideas are policies that harm everyone. In the film,
(33:50):
we say there's a civilize yourself by being racist, by
not being anti racist, it harms everybody. And I hope
that the film shows that that we all have something
to gain by wiping out racism and this and racist policies.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Is anti racism a sentiment or is it about law?
It's about lawss, it's about the house law darling. Oh,
it's about policy, about and going and speaking up and
saying things and making things different. Exactly the sentiment part,
I mean, are you really going to teach someone to
love you more? How are you going to do that.
You're going to maybe teach the kids or the grandkids,
(34:30):
but the existing people are not going to love, you know,
They're just not going to be taught to love something
they don't love.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, but I think if you understand that, but what
whiteness is, and that if you think if you're the
poorest person in the world and you are living in
a trailer and you have no money and you're on welfare,
that hating another person is going to.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Make you wealthy, that's not.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
It's policy that gets you that. It used to be
that slaves and indentured white servants were together and they
basically were forming a rebellion together, and then the landowner said, hey, wait,
let's divide them. Let's create laws that protect white people
and create this idea of whiteness, and that way we
get to keep more power.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Right, Yes, except even on a more subtle level. You're
talking about people on welfare and people who just hate whatever.
But I'm talking about like rich people who go like, oh,
black lives matter, no, all lives you know, like you
know what I'm saying. It's like, no, stop that, that's
just wrong, you know what I mean? That's what we
have to get to. Those people are the lawmakers, you
know what I mean, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And these ideas you don't even know you're thinking about,
these sort of racist ideas because they're so embedded into
your thinking about black people. And when even like Hillary Clinton,
who I'm a fan of Hillary, I voted for Hill,
but who says super predators, you know that was embedded
into her thinking. You don't even know you're exterminating racist ideas.
(35:54):
You don't even know when Barack Obama says, you know,
pull up your pants, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Up your pants. And that was a very, very very
significant moment, and I almost hated it because I love
him so much. I know, I know where he's coming from.
He's coming from a place of incredible beauty and love
and miss him, so I know, oh my god, oh
my god.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
And you know, my response is, embrace these anti racist
ideas policy wise, and don't think that there's something that
Black people are just generally criminals or lazy or all
those things. You know, it doesn't matter. And it could
be about Jewish people, it can be about Native American Asian.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
People, you know, gay people, trans people.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, these ideas are deeply embedded into our psyche and
and embedded into the policy. And that's what we have
to really understand that this policy hurts us all.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Darling. I usually talk to people about failure and about
how like their trajectory was affected more by failure. Can
you talk to that for about a minute or two.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I talk about that all the time when I do
masterclasses or talk to filmmakers. I said, if the failures
in my life have been the greatest things that have
ever happened to me, I'll just give you, like one
example with Cassandro tell Us. I was like, I'm gonna
make this movie and I'm going to write the screenplay
with David Tigue, who's my documentary editor. He's never written screenplay.
(37:24):
I've never written a screenplay. Said you want to write
a screenplay together? And like, how do we write a screenplay?
So I you know, I've had a bunch of films
at Sundance. I used to be on the advisory board there,
and I called up the Sundays they have a screenwriting lab,
and I said, I want to write a screenplay. Can
I get in your screenwriting lab? How many people apply
to that screenwriting lab? Twelve thousand people do you know
how many they take a year, twelve twelve out of
(37:46):
twelve thousand. So we attempt to write a screenplay, we
submit and it's rejected, and I am literally the poster
child of Sundance. Literally, I'm in the annual report, the
first annual report. I was in as their like example
of an artists they think I want to represent. Like
I went to their retreat and spoke to the staff
of Son like I'm very involved with Sun and I
(38:08):
would call the c the CEO, and I'm like, how
could you rej I was angry that they rejected me,
and I was just devastated. And then I had to
go back to the drawing board because I wasn't going
to be defeated by this. I wasn't going to allow
this rejection to stop me, to define me. And I
was like, I'm gonna make this movie. And I went
(38:29):
back to the drawing board and I really thought, both
me and David thought really deep and hard, and we
rewrote the entire screenplay. Wow, and we got in and
really yeah, and it was the best. I mean, the
movie would have been a totally different movie. The movie
was camp and over the top, and you don't need
(38:51):
to be camp and over the top. With Lucha Libra.
They're already in mass and.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Already doing it. And that's what I found to be
so incredibly great about the pick Sure, is that it
was integrated. It wasn't about a gay wrestling league, it
wasn't about a gay wrestling start. It was just about
a person, you know. That's why it was so gratifying
to me to watch and also so incredibly sexy. Oh
my god, and that other actor, that guy from looking
(39:17):
Oh my God. Thank you so much for casting Roul Darling. Raoul.
If you give him my phone number, that's get it
with Raoul. Tell me different ways Raoul Okay, Darling is
that his full name?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
His full name? If you're listening, give us a car.
I'm gonna I'm gonna text when this comes out. I'm
gonna text Roble to listen to this because Raoul is
such an incredible actor and he's such an incredible person.
And I did the directing lab at Sundance, and at
the directing lab you have actors come and play these
roles and you do five scenes from the movie. You
can't use those actors in your movie because you have
(39:50):
to be able to experiment and screw up right right,
Raoul came and played Grodo, played that role in at
the Lab, and I was like, there's no way Raoul
was gonna be in this movie. Over my dead. I
don't care what the rules are. I gotta see Rau
old nude again, shoot that sex scene again, because I
shot it in the lot. But he's also the most
wonderful person, and he's obviously from looking he knows how
(40:13):
to do a gay sex scene even though he's not gay.
He's not gay, and he's just the most generous, nicest, sweetest,
wonderful giving actor. And I'm just obsessed with Rob. And
then we can throw an event and you can come
to the event, and.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
We're gonna throw myself at him shamelessly.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I got he's gonna love this. He's gonna love this
well John. And there's also another sexy guy.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
In there besides Guyle.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Besides Guy, I'll go to see a Bernald.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
He's so sexy and so perfectly cast. By the way,
I can't believe.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
It was always gonna be Guy out. So the first
day I met Cassandra and I decided I was gonna
make the movie. I go with the crew to a
tequila bar at night and we're drinking tequila and I
was like, who could play Cassandro? And we're all playing
the game, and I was like, guy all Garcia Bernal,
There's no one else. There's no one else. And then
I stalked him for a year to get him. I
(41:08):
didn't know Guy a Brunal. I didn't know how to
get to an actor. I stalked him. It was crazy.
So he was in Coco, the animated film from Disney,
and he was the voice of Coco, I think, and
he was performing at the Academy Awards in his like
Mexican thing as Cocoa, singing, singing, And so I was
on the board of Governor. So I was governor. So
(41:29):
I get to go to the rehearsals for the Oscars.
So I'm at the rehearsal and Guyle's comes off from
rehearsing and I'm like, excuse me, I have this script
about this Mexican Okay. I was trying to pitch it
to him, and he's about to perform on the Oscars.
He's distracted, so he just little kind of like lew
me off. Then that year just so happens, I got
nominated for Life Animated my film I Bought an autistic
(41:49):
kid who learns to communicate through Disney Animated. I'm in
a restaurant with the whole crew. We're celebrating like a
couple of days before the Oscar. Guyle's at the restaurant,
having dinner with some friends. So my producer, Julie Goldman,
she goes, go, go, go, go, go, approach him. And
I was like, I'm I approach him. She goes, because
let's have a drink. So I had a margarita and
I go up to his table and I'm.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Like, always fortified by liquor.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yeah yeah, And I said, excuse me, I approached you before,
and I I, you know, I have this script. And
he was like having dinner with his friend's and poor guy,
and he goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and he
kind of blew me off, and I was I was embarrassed.
Third time. Third time. It's the Governor's Awards. We give
the honorary Oscars and Inner Reto, very famous director, Birdland
(42:33):
and Revenant, and you know he's always nominated for an Oscar.
He's getting an honorary Oscar and all the Mexican you know,
there's three amigos Fonso Curan, you know, Inner Retoo, all
the powerful Mexican directors and guy out there at a table.
And I'm at this thing because I'm a governor and
it's my event. And I go up and I tap
(42:53):
him on the shoulder from behind. I said, excuse me,
you hang with a cool crowd. Oh. It was the
worst line, brass, So you are embarrassing me hearing this,
so go on and he just was like what And
I was like, I'm the guy who And I tried
to pitch him again, and also, this is such an
awkward thing. And then I realized that I could actually
(43:14):
ask my agent to get me a meeting with him,
I mean love, And that's what I did. And as
soon as I pitched him in a real meeting, he said, yes,
I'd love to do it right away.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Oh god, wow, I mean, you get someone at the
right moments right. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
But the other actor that is also extremely sexy, and
he happens to be the biggest star in the world
is Bad Bunny.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Oh my god, Bad Bunny. We forgot to mention that
Bad Bunny happens to be in the movie. And he
is really sexy. Even in real life. He comes across
as a crazy wrestler. Like in real life he might
be love he loves wrestling. He contacted us his people
and said, bad Bunny would like to be in your movie.
And I'm like, what, Wow, he's the biggest star. She's
(44:00):
the biggest pop star in the world. And he couldn't
have been nicer. And it was his first time acting,
first role. Well, Darling, wait, Roger Ross Williams, look at
me in the eye. I am now telling you that
I would like to be in any movie that you
will be direct. And this is not the first time
I have acted. I have many, many, many actors. Seriously,
(44:20):
I went to performing arts high school. I am a
trained actor. I can do Shakespeare. If you want to
do Shakespeare, give this bitch a call. Okay, seriously, I'm
not kidding. Okay, all right, and write.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
A whole screenplay round right.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
I'll write your screenplay about your life, my memoir. I'm
gonna send you my memoir. I've got him, say I
got It was on the New York Times bestseller list
for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
I'm not for a year. I'm sure it was, Darling.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
One final question because I am obsessed with obituaries. So
what is your obituary about?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Uh, it's going to say that here was a black,
gay kid who grew up up in a poor household
with a mother, who was made the first person to
even graduate high school, much more graduate college, and he
makes it to incredible heights and he doesn't turn his
(45:16):
back on where he came from. He opens the door
for other people, outsiders, people like him. He creates a
production company, He creates a whole world where he can
raise up all of these young gay, straight people, outsiders,
people of color. But he gives them an opportunity to
(45:40):
be artists and to shine because he becomes a gatekeeper
himself and he's changed lives. Yeah, that's what I'd like
it to say.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Wow, Jarlick and then goes on to make this incredible
book and movie about his life, which becomes like the
greatest thing ever published and distributed.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
I love I love what they say. Your mouth to
God's ears.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
To God's ears. If there is a god, there is
a God. Is that something you want to promote?
Speaker 1 (46:07):
I mean stamped from the beginning on Netflix, and Cassandro
is on Amazon Streaming Now and Supermodels are streaming now
on Apple and my series High on the Hog, which
you should watch on Netflix. It's my series about African
American food. It's the history of African American food. It's
a beautiful series. The New York Times called it the
(46:29):
most profound series ever made. It's so it's not great.
It's not great. I love that headline.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I love it's the best.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
It's hosted by Stephen Saderfield. There's a six thousand word
profile of him in The New Yorker. But it's just
the most beautiful series and premiere season two. So now
you have to watch season one and season two.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
I will totally. I will thank you. This is I
love you, this was so love you to.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, bye, thank you bye.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
In advance of interviewing someone I have never met, I
am a little bit more nervous than when I know
the person, only because I don't know exactly what to expect.
I don't know their humor, I don't know their personality.
But like by the end of this episode with Roger
Ross Williams, I feel like I know this person. I
(47:26):
feel like I love this person. And now what is
most exciting to me is that I'm going to force
him to read my memoir, and then I am going
to force him to write a memoir, and then I'm
going to force him to option his memoir, and I
want to make it my directorial debut. Okay, how about
all that that's really true? All of that is true,
(47:49):
And I'm so excited that you all were here to
witness this, and thank you. Thank you for listening, darlings.
If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and
tell someone, tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin,
tell everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate
(48:09):
the show. I love rating stuff. Go on and rate
and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people
can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference.
And like it takes a second, so go on and
do it. And if you want more fun content videos
and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram
(48:31):
and TikTok at. Hello Isaac podcast And by the way,
check me out on Instagram and TikTok at. I am
Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Misrahi. Thank you. I love you.
And I never thought i'd say this, but goodbye Isaac.
(48:51):
Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio, Awfully Nice and
I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by
me Isaac Musrahi Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein.
The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. Vis
Executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Karl Welker, and
(49:13):
Nathan Cloke at Imagined Audio, Production management from Katie Hodges,
sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed
by Ben Waltzon. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and
Sarah Katanak at I AM Entertainment.
So much of that part of the story I put
myself into, and you know, you take creative license. The
real Cassandro was not a second family. I was a
second family. My mother had had an affair, believe it
or not, with the pastor of the church who was
married with kids, and I was the pastor's illegitimate child,
(00:22):
shut and up and juicy and great stuff. And my
mother would go and spy on him and his family,
and I would have to sit in the car. So
those scenes, they weren't Cassundra's experience, they were my experience
where I had to sit in the car where she
would watch my father and his family at a picnic well,
and she would weep in the car, and I'd be like,
(00:43):
this is embarrassing. And those moments were so painful. I
was like, I'm going to put it into my art.
I'm going to put it into the film.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac and in
this episode I talked to Oscar Emmy and Peabody Award
winning director, producer and writer Roger Ross Williams, Hello Isaac.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's Roger Ross. Williams. I can't wait to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
The thing that's amazing about Roger Ross Williams is that
you probably already have seen like literally five or six
of his movies, and you may not even know it.
He is like one of the great artists, one of
the great documentary creators out there. And recently he made
his first scripted movie, which I watched in preparation for
(01:40):
this interview. It's a movie called Cassandro. It's incredible. It's
one of the most beautiful things ever shot and edited
and scripted, et cetera. But it just affected me on
such a deep level. I think for a few reasons.
One because of the sort of integrated gay subject matter,
also the integrated kind of ethnic subject matter. And thirdly,
(02:02):
and mostly I think for me personally, is the subject
of the mother and son that is really really central
to that particular movie, which it is in my life. Anyway,
I'm very, very excited to talk to Roger, and I
don't want to waste another second. Let's go. Roger, Hello, Darling.
(02:29):
You won't believe this. Did we meet at that shooting
that I did for your documentary about the Supermodels?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
No, I wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Because you were even there, Larissa, you can care about
me enough to show up.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I'm a massive fan of yours, Isaac. I've filmed at
your fashion shows back in the day with all the supermodels.
When I was covering fashion with Veronica Webb, we did
a series. He did a series, and I was the
producer of that series. And before that, I worked at
Comedy Central and we covered Fashion Week with Billy Norwich
as the correspondent and Gabby Dopel producing. So I go
(03:08):
way back and my friend edited Unzipped, my friend Paula Heridia.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Paula Heridia, who actually was the real editor of on Zip,
And then by the way, she had to leave and
Douglas Keey finished it. Douglas took another six years to
edit it. So, Darling, this is at last our first
face to face meeting. Yes, I want to start by
talking about your history, because I've been reading a lot
(03:34):
about you. I mean, I am such a huge fan
of yours I cannot tell you. But before we start
me like fangirling about all of your movies, let's talk
about you. You grew up in Pennsylvania, is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I grew up in small town, industrial town Easton Pennsylvania
really boring place, and I hated every second of it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right, and then I read about the fact that you're
like a latchkey kid and you grew up in this
little town, and I'm going, like, where's that screenplay, Darling?
Is are you working on that or are you writing
some kind of a memoir.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I've been thinking about writing a memoir.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I was option, Darling, pre option. A'm pre option in
your memoir.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Oh my god, I can say Isaac Miserai optioned my memoir.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It's a claim to totally, totally, totally, totally. So you
are many things, but you're gay, you're black. You like
documentaries like what shapes you as an artist the most?
What do you identify mostly as.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I think I'm shaped by fear and trauma. I think
that everything that I experience is a black gay man
in America shapes what I am as an artist. And
the types of films that I make are about outsiders
and you know, people like me, people who couldn't connect,
people who were beaten up in high school. And then
(04:52):
you know, we grew up and we became artists and
we sort of are masters of the universe now. But
it wasn't always that way, and I I still feel
that way, and I always identify with outsiders. Right.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I have to tell you something because I think
of myself as a gay Jewish at this point, old queen,
you know, Like that's how I feel persecuted, you know.
And I will say, like old is another thing. We're
born around the same time, Like you're a little younger
than me. Everyone's either much younger than me or even
(05:25):
a little bit younger than me, and it's very annoying.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Roger, No, I'm old too. I've been around the block.
But yeah, I don't feel old. I feel really young
and immature, which keeps me fresh as an artist.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Good good, Well, tell me about your rise as an artist.
What was it that you just loved about what you do?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, I didn't always love what I did, so I
started out as a journalist and I hated it, you know.
First I found it was kind of exciting because I
got to go to different places. But I worked for
the man. I worked for a mainstream media. I worked
for ABC News television journalist or Peter Jennings at the time,
and Ted Kopple. I don't know people remember them, but they.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Were They're legends remember that.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And I was working for the mainstream media and I
was like, God, I hate this. It was like sexist
and misogynistic and racist and especially back in those days.
And I was really miserable. And then I said, I
gotta quit this job.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
How long did you do that? How long did you through?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
That long time? It was from college. I went to
NAYU for journalism from college all the way through probably
like twelve or fifteen years, and I was working for CNN,
and I one day I just quit my job and said,
I'm going to hop on a plane. I'm going to
go to Africa and I'm going to make my first documentary.
And I just did it. All I had was a
camera and some whatever cash I had in the bank,
(06:49):
and I went to Zimbabwe and I made this documentary.
And then it wins the Oscar.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
My first try music for Prudence, Music by music by Prudence,
Music by Prudence. Right, And it's a short film, rightty
minutes forty minutes long, ah right, And then it wins
the Oscar. And then the most hilarious thing in the
world happens. Guess what, darling, you will be remembered for
that at least. Okay, talk about that from minute.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Top ten craziest Moments, I mean kind of Will Smith
moved me off the top. Some people had me at
number one because it was such a shocking moment. What
happened described to the listeners exactly what a producer that
I used to work with, that I a former producer
in the project and still had a producer credit, she
was entitled to be there, came and when I was
starting my acceptance speech because it's a short only one
(07:33):
person can accept it, and I'm the director, and she
I said like two words, and then she grabbed the
microphone and shoved me off the stage and said, isn't
that just like a man? Let the woman speak. Let
the woman speak. God, it was I'm looking at Merle
Street sitting in the front row there, and I'm looking
at Merle Street horrified, and she rambled on and on,
(07:54):
and no one knew what she was talking about. She
just kind of rambled on incoherently. And then the music
started playing and we were ushered off stage, and I
didn't know what happened. Was like, oh my god, I
just was humiliated. It was front of the biggest audience
in the world with Meryl Street looking at me in
the front row, and I was trying not to cry backstage,
and then her and I had to go before the
(08:16):
international press. It was a funny smile and they didn't
even know what happened because they're backstage, so they're like, girl,
how does it feel to win me? And I'm like,
like a deer caught in the headlights. Oh crazy. Turns
out it was the best thing that ever happened to me,
of course.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And by the way, I don't know how many hundreds
of millions of people have seen that clip around the world,
and you are probably like the most famous person in
the world for that particular. It's like, you know, everyone's
trying to get like Instagram followers and social followers. And
I did this ridiculous like sort of rant about this
hole that I had cut in my counter, which I
called the garbage hole, and that's literally got like ten
(08:51):
million viewers. And if I died tomorrow, my oh bit
would say he had a garbage hole. You know.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
It's like Naomi's famous airplane, which she cleans the seats
of the plane and wipes down the seats with the
thing and she puts the thing on the play that
has more fevers and.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Naomi that is hilarious. And by the way, did you
get to know Naomi as you worked very well? Said
the video? What was she easy to work with? Because
I remember hers being very difficult to work with and
extremely funny, and she was worth the way, and she
was the most beautiful woman in the room, but not
the easiest person.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Naomi was a dream to work with. Naomi is demanding
and I had so many great moments, Like I was
kind of like hanging out with Naomi all the time,
but not even shooting. Like Naomi's just like, Wow, come
hang out with me and Katar. I didn't even have cameras.
We're just hanging out, you know. She's like, come with
me to Edward Emmenthal's birthday party as my date. And
(09:47):
I remember sitting in the room with her glam team
and then Kate Moss comes in and Kate and I
sat for three hours as we watched Naomi get ready
together drank champagne. I just love Naomi so much, and
it was such a joy to get to know her
and to work with her. And she wasn't difficult with me.
But it's really about her excellence. Excellence, you know, she
really demands excellence out of everyone, and you know you
(10:10):
have to wait for her.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You just have to wait. And she was not difficult,
but you did have to wait for Naomi. But guess what, Darling,
you had to wait for Kate. Also one time I
was invited to be at a dinner for Princess Diana
in like the nineties, and Kate was my date. And
Kate took two hours upstairs. I was waiting in a
car for her, and finally I like buzzed her and
I went upstairs and she was not even and I
(10:33):
went like, Kate, you know. And by the way, then
Liz tilberis whose guests we were at Lincoln Center that
night for Princess Diana, she blamed me for being late,
and it's really Kate's fault. And I was like, Darling,
you talked to Kate, who is the subject of Princess Diana.
She's supposed to know better, you know. But anyway, I
don't know what it is about those super girls, just
like being waited for those super women. You know, it's
(10:55):
probably power, you know, control, you know. I think, wait
a minute, darling, go back to this, because what attracted
you to make that picture in the first place the
Supermodels picture.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I grew up with the Supermodels. I was in college.
I worked at the Palladium where I was part of
the team running the Michael Todd Room, which was the
VIP room, my.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Favorite room in New York. Ye, the Michael Todd Room. Hello.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So I worked in the Michael Todd Room and the
girls were there, and Cher was there, and boy George
and Andy Warhol was still around, and he was there
in brook Shields and it was still Keith Herring and
Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Made a pass at me in that room, and oh
my god, who the hell are you me? You see,
now we should have had affairs with him. I could have.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I thought that I should have had an affair. He
made a pass at me at the Paradise Garage and
I danced with him, and I was like, he's interesting,
he's interesting looking. And I didn't know he was Key Herring,
you know, I didn't know he was. I kind of
knew he was an artist. Maybe I should have gone
for it, but I'm oh, well, so.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
You grew up in that whole environment sort of worshiping
that kind of glamour, right, glamor. It's so surprising to
me that the kids today who are so like conscious
of so many things to do with equality and justice,
they somehow like see way over the top of those
(12:22):
issues in order to like sort of worship at this
kind of Louis Wuetan and Chanel and you know what
I mean, Can we talk about that for a second.
What is it?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I mean, look at now Farrell leading Louis Vuitton. I
guess it's just this. The fashion is universe. Yeah, fashion
is just like this universal fashion and glamor universal. It
crosses across all raiths and also economics. Everyone. I don't
care if you're rich or you're poor, you still love
the glamour of it. You know, my mother was a maid.
(12:54):
My mother was a maid, and she would die her wig,
her purple wig, thea and her shoe so they would
match her purple afro wig and her shoes. And I
would sit there as a little kid and watch my
mother with her die matching purple heels and her purple
afro wig, get dressed and go to the club. And
I was like, I want to be this woman. I've
(13:16):
just loved my mother tell me everything, and she really
is a one.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But wait a second, I want to delve into this because, like,
you know, jerem O. Harris is the great play, right, Yeah, Okay,
So I went to one of the opening nights and
I hosted a party for him in my apartment after
the show. And this person walks in and his entourage,
his entire entourage, and the subject of the play is
partly selling your life for like a pair of expensive sunglasses, right,
(13:43):
and you're going, no, this is irony. But then they
walk in, these youngins where they will be so righteous
about certain things, and then other things they will totally overlook,
if it has to do with expensive platform shoes. Yeah,
can you tell me?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I didn't see the play, but I do know what
you're talking about, especially you know he's a black gay man,
right was his entourage? Like, but I mean, come on,
what else do we have? How do we escape the
reality of being both black and gay in America? We
escape it through glamour, through Fasha. It's escape, it's ape.
I escaped into the world because I felt totally free there.
(14:20):
I felt felt totally free in fashion and glamour and
nightlife and nightclubs, and I read you know, Vogue and
glamorous magazines, and that was that was the way Andre
Leon Telly's I mean, I also I executive produced the
Andre Leon Telly document I did that documentary, you know
with Kate, and we all escape that way.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
What are we gonna do.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
We're gonna sit in church and be told we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Die hundred percent. But here's the thing. It leads me
to this thought that I had while I was watching Cassandra,
which was one of the greatest Darling, you are so
great for making that picture, like when you win the
Oscar for that, I'm gonna bust in when you are
talking and I'm going, this is the greatest.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I would be honored. I'd be honored if if Isai
MASARAHI Darling.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It is something so great. And I kept thinking about
this kind of crazy thing to do with the escapism
of wrestling, people watching and going get them, get them,
get them right, because that's what wrestling is all about.
And now you're talking about gay wrestling, and people are
screaming these words, these real kind of pejorative words for gay.
(15:26):
People talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
So what blew me away about Cassandro is that in
this macho world of lucha libre, which is you're right
an escape where Mexicans, no matter you know, how poor
and struggling you are, you could go to these matches
and you could scream your heart out, you could root
for something, you can forget about your life. But it's
a very macho world. The Mexican culture is very macho.
(15:48):
And so when I met Cassandro, I was like, what
is this? And I was a New Yorker article and
I did a short film, a documentary about him for
the New Yorker. He walked in the room and I
just pulled the energy. He radiated this confidence and this
charisma and this fabulousness that I just couldn't believe, you know.
And I'm sitting there in al Paso, Texas, on the border,
(16:11):
in his house that is right across from the border wall.
His front door looks onto the wall of the border,
and what's where the the poor Mexican working class community
lives on the wall in al Paso. And I was like,
this is a movie. And I was maybe two hours
into our interview. I was just like in tears. He
was in tears, and I said, you're my first script
(16:32):
in movie. And when I went with him to a match,
I went with him out to Juarez, one of the
most dangerous cities in the world, just from the cartels.
We walk into this arena, thousands of thousands of Lucea
Libre fans, and people are bringing their babies up to
him to kiss. The people guy, the macho guys are
(16:53):
hugging him. He goes backstage, he puts on his long gloves,
does his makeup, he and he comes out in this
full His theme song is I Will Survive, and the
whole the whole arena, thousands of Mexican misogynists exactly, you know,
homophone people are screaming. I are singing I Will Survive.
And he takes the stage and I started bawling, and
(17:16):
I was like, this is the greatest story ever and
I that was it. I was like, had to make
the movie. Took me eight years, but unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And wait a minute, because I thought it was like
the greatest movie that I've seen in a really long time.
And I have to tell you, it's not easy to
make a movie. Right now. Did it have a theatrical
release before it was released on Netflix?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, it's Amazon. These streamers don't like theatrical releases, so
it had a one week theatrical release. You want to
get the movie made, so you know, the streamers have
all this money, so you go to the streamers. But
then it's like, oh wait, it's only a week in theater,
and I wanted people to see it in the theater to.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Have that experience. It was say, wait a minute, I
think you need to go to that movie to the
movie theater before you go to the Barbie Funck movie.
In the movie, yes, all that is like y CGI
and special effects, like you really shot that damn movie.
That movie is beautifully shot. That is a reason to
go to the movies, right your movie? I mean it
tell me what has happened to movies? Like why don't
(18:17):
I feel compelled anymore to go to the movies to
see Oppenheimer for instance.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Because true like artistry the studios and Marvel and they've
taken over the theatrical space, and sixteen year old boys
go to see Marvel movies and they don't care about
anything else because it's about bottom line corporate making money.
And the true art movies like movies were in the
(18:44):
seventies are dead and the only place they actually exist
really are places like Netflix and Amazon who will pay
for them, not anymore example, but who will pay for
them because they want to win awards and that's a
status symbol for them. Because Amazon isn't in the movie business,
They're in commerce. They want the prestige. I used to
(19:06):
be on the Board of Governors of the Academy and
one oscars I sat next to Jeff Bezos because I
get to sit in the front and I sat next
Jeff Bezos and I just told him about Cassandro the
whole time, said thank you for doing He's like, what,
because he has no idea that like, I have this
movie that your studio is doing. He's like, you do
And I was like, yeah, it's all Cassandra. And I
had him for you know, like four hours because he
(19:27):
was sitting next to me and he could wow moose.
Anytime there was a commercial break, I would be like,
let me tell you more about caring to get I
was trying to get more money to get it. I
was like, you should up the budget because it's going
to be a great But they're the only places, you know,
Netflix still they let power the dog and they let
these great directors you know, do their thing. But the studios,
(19:49):
they're just interested in giant, you know, commercial marvels, blockbusters
and they and they kind of killd the theatrial experience,
and then the streamers they just want you to watch
it on.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
But is there any art left to be made? You think,
like any more film, mixed kind of art left.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I mean, I have tons of amazing stories that I
want to tell. It's just you're out there in the
marketplace and you're trying to sell it, and all they
want to know is if it's commercial enough. And also,
you know, I'm black and gay. They're like, we don't
we still don't really want to hear from you. You know,
we're the executives at the top, the ones making the
decisions are white straight men. You come in to pitch
(20:28):
and they look at you like you're an alien from
out of space and they have all the money. They're like, no,
we don't understand. We don't relate to that story you want.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
To tell you unless someone gave them a speech about
like the quota of art that they have.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, they want to fill their quota. Yeah, yeah, they
want to fill their quota. And if their quotas filled,
then that's it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Let's go back to Cassandra for a second. Because one
thing I know noticed in that movie was that beautiful
relationship almost makes me sob between the mother and the son.
One thing that I thought was so interesting was there
was so little dialogue between them. It was all shots
and like reactions and reactions. I thought that spoke volumes
about your relationship with your mother. Probably, so when you
(21:19):
speak about that.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So much of that part of the story I put
myself into. You know, you take creative license. The real
Cassandro was not a second family. I was a second family.
My mother had had an affair, believe it or not,
with the pastor of the church who was married with kids,
and I was the pastor's illegitimate child, shut and up
(21:44):
and juicy and great stuff. And my mother would go
and spy on him and his family, and I would
have to sit in the car. So those scenes, they
weren't Cassundra's experience, they were my experience where I had
to sit in the car where she would watch. I
could see it thought and his family at a picnic well,
and she would weep in the car and I'd be like,
(22:04):
this is embarrassing. And those moments were so painful. I
was like, I'm going to put it into my art.
I'm going to put it into the field. I'm so
glad that you were intuitive enough to pick up on that,
because that was deeply prosecun.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And then it was really mysterious. As to the profession
of his mother. I couldn't tell. She was a laundress, obviously,
but also I thought she turned tricks probably well.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
She was like my mother who when you're the other woman.
She would go out every night to the nightclub, and
a lot of times it was to protect her man,
who would also be out at the nightclub. My mother
worked at the door of a nightclub and her boyfriend
at the time was the manager of the bar, so
she would go there and make sure no other women
(22:48):
would take her man from her. He was also married. Now,
the real Cassandro's mother also went out every night to
the club, and there was a lot of details I
couldn't put in the movie because they were so over
the top that no one would believe it. But really,
Cassandra's mother had lung cancer and she had an oxygen tank,
but she still smoked, and she was out at the nightclub.
(23:09):
One night she was walking home with her oxygen tank.
She collapsed in the crosswalk and died. That's how she died.
Oh God, imagine that scene, all dressed up in her
leopard prints finery. It was something about these women who
were with married men, who were which they needed to
fill their lives with something they didn't have, the husband
(23:29):
coming home to them every night. So then my mother
went out, and that's when I'd watch my mother put
on her purple wig with her matching purple shoes, and
she would get dressed up every night, just like Cassandro's mother.
So those scenes came directly from me.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Wow, I could feel it. I could feel it. And
listening to you, I think you're going to make some
kind of crazy, crazy autobiographical scripted movie. You have such
an opportunity to make the most sweeping, mellow drama.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I've wanted to. I've wanted to, and I will someday.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I'm gonna bug you until you do it. I'm gonna
start producing it. I'm gonna start using money. Okay, Yes,
we love that, all right, Well, darling, if you live
in New York or you live in LA.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I live in New York, but I live mostly in
upstate New York, in the Catskill Mountains, which is where
I am now and I have a place in New York,
and my company is in New York and Dumbo.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
But I'm mostly got it upstate being in the movie business.
Why did you choose to live in New York and
not in Hollywood?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Like I could never live in Hollywood. I detest Hollywood.
I don't find any joy, and I find it really depressing.
Every time I go out to people are gonna listen
to this podcast in Hollywood? They be like, we're never
giving him a movie, Darling, that I still love New York. Now.
(24:49):
I have to have the country because I love gardening
and all the things, and like I need to escape
the city. But I still love the city, even though
the city is completely different. And my friends and I
sit around we're all old, and we say, people don't
go out. Those are the glory days in the eighties
and the club. But people don't go out anymore. They
don't have funny they don't dress up anymore. But I
guess we're just old and young people probably do go out.
(25:11):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
No, let me tell you something, Darling. They find opportunities
to dress up, but I'm not sure it's for the
same purposes as we used to go out and dress up.
But they do dress up and they do go out,
but it's a much smaller event, right, because we used
to go out to meet someone and maybe have sex
because we were porny little things, you know, I was right,
or not even to have sex, but just to go
(25:33):
out and see what people were wearing and what was
going on and the glamour of it. But now it
all has to do with swiping because they meet each
other on all these different grinder and I don't know
what these different places are because I was driving into
New York City one night with this young assistant to money.
It was like that was Nell, right, and that was
you know, Catturs, and that it was the Palladium. There
(25:55):
are no such clubs anymore, not as many. I want
to talk to you about this incredible documentary called Stamped
from the beginning and it is so powerful, and I
am so hoping that the right people see this thing,
which is not you and it's not me, and it's
not like the indoctrinated, but it's people that need because
it's so powerful. Again, like, how did I not know
(26:17):
that you were the greatest filmmaker alive? Seriously, between the
supermodel thing, which is completely on the other side of
the spectrum of this, and then Cassandra just plunked right
in the middle of it. Talk to me a little
bit about Stamped from the Beginning.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Stamped from the Beginning is based on a book by
Ibram X Kendy. Ibram mix Kendy is a great academic
historian and an author who wrote another New York Times
bestselling book called How to Be an Anti Racist, which
during the short lived racial reckoning in America when George
Floyd was sorrything, And I laugh about it because it's
(26:56):
almost like laughable that I know that we had our
little short window as black people in America, and it's
like over in everyone. I mean even in my tiny
farm town when George Floyd was murdered. There's no one
here but you know, Trump supporters and Confederate flags and farmers,
and they and their tractors were doing Black Lives Matter
protests and I was the only Black person in the
(27:18):
Black Lives Matter and I cried again, teared up because
I was like, how is this happening? And it was
so amazing. So during that time, Ebra mccandy had the
number one New York Times Best for a whole year,
over a year. Then number six was stamped from the beginning,
and that is a book about the history of racist ideas.
And I had done Tanahase Coats between the World and
(27:40):
Me with my company produced this as a special for
HBO during the middle of the pandemic with Oprah and
everyone in it and Angel Bassett and everyone. It was
a big bidding war because I was pitching that around
with Tanahase and the team and everyone wanted it. But
Netflix lost it to HBO, and I said to Netflix,
(28:01):
We've got to go after this book stamp from the beginning,
because it's just such a power. I learned so much
about myself as a black man in America and also
why I feel this way, why I'm experiencing what I'm
experiencing in this country. And I said, and you lost
Tanahass between the run of Me, You've got to get
this one right. And they Netflix did it. We did it.
(28:22):
We went got into a bidding war and we got it.
And then I had to figure out how to turn
it into a movie. And that was really fun because
I was like, Okay, I'm going to use every tool,
Madge that I have in the toolbox. I'm gonna tell
the story. How do you recreate Portugal in fourteen fifty two.
You do it on a three sixty green screen stage,
(28:43):
and you have actors and we paint it in the
painterly style of the time, and it's like a piece
of art, because art is how racist ideas are basically
disseminated through popular culture and art and movies and television
and paintings, and back then it was paintings, and so
that was the idea. And so I got to really
stretch myself creatively and really create using all these sort
(29:06):
of tools of actors and VFX and animation and graphics.
And it was so fun to make it all coherent
and tell it all in a coherent film.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
One thing you'd have to be the biggest doult on
the planet not to notice again is about women. In
this documentary, it's so many women.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Talking about all women and rights.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Plunk in the middle of the documentary is the story
about how much more difficult it is to be a
woman of color than it is to be a man
of color. Can you talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
So in the struggle, the resistance struggle throughout American history
for black Americans. Women have always been at the forefront
of that struggle, because women have always led the movement
of resistance, and men who've done that often were murdered,
like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X Right. And it's
women who are like the soldiers out there on the
(30:02):
front lines. And when I got a list of experts
doing the work around racism against Black Americans, I noticed
there were all these black women from Harvard and Yale
and Stanford and Howard doing the work, and I thought
it wouldn't it be a statement to have only black
women experts. Of course, Netflix pushed back and they were like,
it's not going to be accessible to and I was like,
(30:24):
I don't care, and I refuse to budge. And now
it's such an important message in the film that these
women who've always done the work, who've always worked the hards,
who are doing the work and academia around understanding racism
are the ones telling the story, and they're telling it
from a very personal plant. I was like, don't just
sit there and give me your academic speak. Talk to
(30:46):
me from your own experience. Tell me about your own experience.
Why are you driven to do this work? And they
get it. They got emotional and they cry and they
laugh and they got and so they're just so fabulous.
It was an amazing experience interviewing all of them.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
And is it possible to sort of promote that movie properly?
Like can you make the people who need to see
this movie see it?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Well, here's the thing, Ibramix Kendy is probably the most
banned author. And you know what they can't ban. They
can't ban Netflix, And so in two hundred and fifty
million households around the world it's available on Netflix. You
could just be like scrolling, you could see an image
and you'll be like, stand from the beginning, what is this?
(31:30):
I'm just gonna watch a little bit of it and
hopefully you get gripped and you're like, wow, this is entertaining.
It's like needle drop music. It's like Tyler the Creator
and all this great music, and it takes you back
and forth in time. It's fast moving. The challenge that
Netflix gave me is they were like, make something completely accessible,
pop culture accessible. Make a pop culture piece that talks
about racism but doesn't compromise on the depth of it,
(31:53):
and it's meaningful and can change hearts. And minds, but
is accessible. I liked that challenge, and Netflix is doing
an amazing job of putting it out there. I've done,
you know, a lot of festivals. I'm doing a lot
of press around it. We're doing big events, and I
think that the good evidence to me is that in
screenings I've had like friends bring their parents and who
(32:14):
are like conservative, and then they go home and they
have discussions. My friend bought their mother who's a conservative,
to see the movie and they said they stayed up
past midnight, are arguing and discussing at the film.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
You have to just watch it with a conservative unexpecting
you say you're going to watch this, just recommend it
and force an unsuspecting person to watch it. Now, this
is a sensitive question that I'm going to ask you,
but I know it has a very very good answer,
especially coming from you. If someone put me on the
spot as a gay person or a Jew and said,
what would you like to tell people to say or
(32:50):
not say? Like, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, okay,
but is there something that you could just tell everybody?
Like what is it that you would like to really
get across? Like, how can we help? How can everyone help.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Racist ideas harm everyone. And you may think, well, it
doesn't apply to me because I'm white, so I'm not
going to pay attention to that. But it's the policy
behind these racist ideas. So if you deny the country
health care because you're trying to deny health care for
(33:28):
black Americans, you deny everyone health care. If you hold
onto your gun and your assault rifle, because in the
basis of that it's about protecting yourself against the danger
of black Americans, then white Americans end up being dead.
All Americans end up being dead. So these policies based
in racist ideas are policies that harm everyone. In the film,
(33:50):
we say there's a civilize yourself by being racist, by
not being anti racist, it harms everybody. And I hope
that the film shows that that we all have something
to gain by wiping out racism and this and racist policies.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Is anti racism a sentiment or is it about law?
It's about lawss, it's about the house law darling. Oh,
it's about policy, about and going and speaking up and
saying things and making things different. Exactly the sentiment part,
I mean, are you really going to teach someone to
love you more? How are you going to do that.
You're going to maybe teach the kids or the grandkids,
(34:30):
but the existing people are not going to love, you know,
They're just not going to be taught to love something
they don't love.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, but I think if you understand that, but what
whiteness is, and that if you think if you're the
poorest person in the world and you are living in
a trailer and you have no money and you're on welfare,
that hating another person is going to.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Make you wealthy, that's not.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
It's policy that gets you that. It used to be
that slaves and indentured white servants were together and they
basically were forming a rebellion together, and then the landowner said, hey, wait,
let's divide them. Let's create laws that protect white people
and create this idea of whiteness, and that way we
get to keep more power.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Right, Yes, except even on a more subtle level. You're
talking about people on welfare and people who just hate whatever.
But I'm talking about like rich people who go like, oh,
black lives matter, no, all lives you know, like you
know what I'm saying. It's like, no, stop that, that's
just wrong, you know what I mean? That's what we
have to get to. Those people are the lawmakers, you
know what I mean, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And these ideas you don't even know you're thinking about,
these sort of racist ideas because they're so embedded into
your thinking about black people. And when even like Hillary Clinton,
who I'm a fan of Hillary, I voted for Hill,
but who says super predators, you know that was embedded
into her thinking. You don't even know you're exterminating racist ideas.
(35:54):
You don't even know when Barack Obama says, you know,
pull up your pants, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Up your pants. And that was a very, very very
significant moment, and I almost hated it because I love
him so much. I know, I know where he's coming from.
He's coming from a place of incredible beauty and love
and miss him, so I know, oh my god, oh
my god.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
And you know, my response is, embrace these anti racist
ideas policy wise, and don't think that there's something that
Black people are just generally criminals or lazy or all
those things. You know, it doesn't matter. And it could
be about Jewish people, it can be about Native American Asian.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
People, you know, gay people, trans people.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, these ideas are deeply embedded into our psyche and
and embedded into the policy. And that's what we have
to really understand that this policy hurts us all.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Darling. I usually talk to people about failure and about
how like their trajectory was affected more by failure. Can
you talk to that for about a minute or two.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I talk about that all the time when I do
masterclasses or talk to filmmakers. I said, if the failures
in my life have been the greatest things that have
ever happened to me, I'll just give you, like one
example with Cassandro tell Us. I was like, I'm gonna
make this movie and I'm going to write the screenplay
with David Tigue, who's my documentary editor. He's never written screenplay.
(37:24):
I've never written a screenplay. Said you want to write
a screenplay together? And like, how do we write a screenplay?
So I you know, I've had a bunch of films
at Sundance. I used to be on the advisory board there,
and I called up the Sundays they have a screenwriting lab,
and I said, I want to write a screenplay. Can
I get in your screenwriting lab? How many people apply
to that screenwriting lab? Twelve thousand people do you know
how many they take a year, twelve twelve out of
(37:46):
twelve thousand. So we attempt to write a screenplay, we
submit and it's rejected, and I am literally the poster
child of Sundance. Literally, I'm in the annual report, the
first annual report. I was in as their like example
of an artists they think I want to represent. Like
I went to their retreat and spoke to the staff
of Son like I'm very involved with Sun and I
(38:08):
would call the c the CEO, and I'm like, how
could you rej I was angry that they rejected me,
and I was just devastated. And then I had to
go back to the drawing board because I wasn't going
to be defeated by this. I wasn't going to allow
this rejection to stop me, to define me. And I
was like, I'm gonna make this movie. And I went
(38:29):
back to the drawing board and I really thought, both
me and David thought really deep and hard, and we
rewrote the entire screenplay. Wow, and we got in and
really yeah, and it was the best. I mean, the
movie would have been a totally different movie. The movie
was camp and over the top, and you don't need
(38:51):
to be camp and over the top. With Lucha Libra.
They're already in mass and.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Already doing it. And that's what I found to be
so incredibly great about the pick Sure, is that it
was integrated. It wasn't about a gay wrestling league, it
wasn't about a gay wrestling start. It was just about
a person, you know. That's why it was so gratifying
to me to watch and also so incredibly sexy. Oh
my god, and that other actor, that guy from looking
(39:17):
Oh my God. Thank you so much for casting Roul Darling. Raoul.
If you give him my phone number, that's get it
with Raoul. Tell me different ways Raoul Okay, Darling is
that his full name?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
His full name? If you're listening, give us a car.
I'm gonna I'm gonna text when this comes out. I'm
gonna text Roble to listen to this because Raoul is
such an incredible actor and he's such an incredible person.
And I did the directing lab at Sundance, and at
the directing lab you have actors come and play these
roles and you do five scenes from the movie. You
can't use those actors in your movie because you have
(39:50):
to be able to experiment and screw up right right,
Raoul came and played Grodo, played that role in at
the Lab, and I was like, there's no way Raoul
was gonna be in this movie. Over my dead. I
don't care what the rules are. I gotta see Rau
old nude again, shoot that sex scene again, because I
shot it in the lot. But he's also the most
wonderful person, and he's obviously from looking he knows how
(40:13):
to do a gay sex scene even though he's not gay.
He's not gay, and he's just the most generous, nicest, sweetest,
wonderful giving actor. And I'm just obsessed with Rob. And
then we can throw an event and you can come
to the event, and.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
We're gonna throw myself at him shamelessly.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I got he's gonna love this. He's gonna love this
well John. And there's also another sexy guy.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
In there besides Guyle.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Besides Guy, I'll go to see a Bernald.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
He's so sexy and so perfectly cast. By the way,
I can't believe.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
It was always gonna be Guy out. So the first
day I met Cassandra and I decided I was gonna
make the movie. I go with the crew to a
tequila bar at night and we're drinking tequila and I
was like, who could play Cassandro? And we're all playing
the game, and I was like, guy all Garcia Bernal,
There's no one else. There's no one else. And then
I stalked him for a year to get him. I
(41:08):
didn't know Guy a Brunal. I didn't know how to
get to an actor. I stalked him. It was crazy.
So he was in Coco, the animated film from Disney,
and he was the voice of Coco, I think, and
he was performing at the Academy Awards in his like
Mexican thing as Cocoa, singing, singing, And so I was
on the board of Governor. So I was governor. So
(41:29):
I get to go to the rehearsals for the Oscars.
So I'm at the rehearsal and Guyle's comes off from
rehearsing and I'm like, excuse me, I have this script
about this Mexican Okay. I was trying to pitch it
to him, and he's about to perform on the Oscars.
He's distracted, so he just little kind of like lew
me off. Then that year just so happens, I got
nominated for Life Animated my film I Bought an autistic
(41:49):
kid who learns to communicate through Disney Animated. I'm in
a restaurant with the whole crew. We're celebrating like a
couple of days before the Oscar. Guyle's at the restaurant,
having dinner with some friends. So my producer, Julie Goldman,
she goes, go, go, go, go, go, approach him. And
I was like, I'm I approach him. She goes, because
let's have a drink. So I had a margarita and
I go up to his table and I'm.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Like, always fortified by liquor.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yeah yeah, And I said, excuse me, I approached you before,
and I I, you know, I have this script. And
he was like having dinner with his friend's and poor guy,
and he goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and he
kind of blew me off, and I was I was embarrassed.
Third time. Third time. It's the Governor's Awards. We give
the honorary Oscars and Inner Reto, very famous director, Birdland
(42:33):
and Revenant, and you know he's always nominated for an Oscar.
He's getting an honorary Oscar and all the Mexican you know,
there's three amigos Fonso Curan, you know, Inner Retoo, all
the powerful Mexican directors and guy out there at a table.
And I'm at this thing because I'm a governor and
it's my event. And I go up and I tap
(42:53):
him on the shoulder from behind. I said, excuse me,
you hang with a cool crowd. Oh. It was the
worst line, brass, So you are embarrassing me hearing this,
so go on and he just was like what And
I was like, I'm the guy who And I tried
to pitch him again, and also, this is such an
awkward thing. And then I realized that I could actually
(43:14):
ask my agent to get me a meeting with him,
I mean love, And that's what I did. And as
soon as I pitched him in a real meeting, he said, yes,
I'd love to do it right away.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Oh god, wow, I mean, you get someone at the
right moments right. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
But the other actor that is also extremely sexy, and
he happens to be the biggest star in the world
is Bad Bunny.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Oh my god, Bad Bunny. We forgot to mention that
Bad Bunny happens to be in the movie. And he
is really sexy. Even in real life. He comes across
as a crazy wrestler. Like in real life he might
be love he loves wrestling. He contacted us his people
and said, bad Bunny would like to be in your movie.
And I'm like, what, Wow, he's the biggest star. She's
(44:00):
the biggest pop star in the world. And he couldn't
have been nicer. And it was his first time acting,
first role. Well, Darling, wait, Roger Ross Williams, look at
me in the eye. I am now telling you that
I would like to be in any movie that you
will be direct. And this is not the first time
I have acted. I have many, many, many actors. Seriously,
(44:20):
I went to performing arts high school. I am a
trained actor. I can do Shakespeare. If you want to
do Shakespeare, give this bitch a call. Okay, seriously, I'm
not kidding. Okay, all right, and write.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
A whole screenplay round right.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
I'll write your screenplay about your life, my memoir. I'm
gonna send you my memoir. I've got him, say I
got It was on the New York Times bestseller list
for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
I'm not for a year. I'm sure it was, Darling.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
One final question because I am obsessed with obituaries. So
what is your obituary about?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Uh, it's going to say that here was a black,
gay kid who grew up up in a poor household
with a mother, who was made the first person to
even graduate high school, much more graduate college, and he
makes it to incredible heights and he doesn't turn his
(45:16):
back on where he came from. He opens the door
for other people, outsiders, people like him. He creates a
production company, He creates a whole world where he can
raise up all of these young gay, straight people, outsiders,
people of color. But he gives them an opportunity to
(45:40):
be artists and to shine because he becomes a gatekeeper
himself and he's changed lives. Yeah, that's what I'd like
it to say.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Wow, Jarlick and then goes on to make this incredible
book and movie about his life, which becomes like the
greatest thing ever published and distributed.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
I love I love what they say. Your mouth to
God's ears.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
To God's ears. If there is a god, there is
a God. Is that something you want to promote?
Speaker 1 (46:07):
I mean stamped from the beginning on Netflix, and Cassandro
is on Amazon Streaming Now and Supermodels are streaming now
on Apple and my series High on the Hog, which
you should watch on Netflix. It's my series about African
American food. It's the history of African American food. It's
a beautiful series. The New York Times called it the
(46:29):
most profound series ever made. It's so it's not great.
It's not great. I love that headline.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I love it's the best.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
It's hosted by Stephen Saderfield. There's a six thousand word
profile of him in The New Yorker. But it's just
the most beautiful series and premiere season two. So now
you have to watch season one and season two.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
I will totally. I will thank you. This is I
love you, this was so love you to.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, bye, thank you bye.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
In advance of interviewing someone I have never met, I
am a little bit more nervous than when I know
the person, only because I don't know exactly what to expect.
I don't know their humor, I don't know their personality.
But like by the end of this episode with Roger
Ross Williams, I feel like I know this person. I
(47:26):
feel like I love this person. And now what is
most exciting to me is that I'm going to force
him to read my memoir, and then I am going
to force him to write a memoir, and then I'm
going to force him to option his memoir, and I
want to make it my directorial debut. Okay, how about
all that that's really true? All of that is true,
(47:49):
And I'm so excited that you all were here to
witness this, and thank you. Thank you for listening, darlings.
If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and
tell someone, tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin,
tell everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate
(48:09):
the show. I love rating stuff. Go on and rate
and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people
can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference.
And like it takes a second, so go on and
do it. And if you want more fun content videos
and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram
(48:31):
and TikTok at. Hello Isaac podcast And by the way,
check me out on Instagram and TikTok at. I am
Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Misrahi. Thank you. I love you.
And I never thought i'd say this, but goodbye Isaac.
(48:51):
Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio, Awfully Nice and
I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by
me Isaac Musrahi Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein.
The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. Vis
Executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Karl Welker, and
(49:13):
Nathan Cloke at Imagined Audio, Production management from Katie Hodges,
sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed
by Ben Waltzon. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and
Sarah Katanak at I AM Entertainment.
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