March 12, 2025 • 32 mins
In honor of his recent Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Sing Sing, we are re-releasing Minnie’s questions with actor, writer, and director Colman Domingo’s from 2021. Colman shares why being a good host helped him be a better director, wonders if finding the answers to our biggest questions ruins the magic, and takes a firm stance on his favorite kind of barbecue ribs.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm just waiting for this is the this is now
the recycling truck that's gone on because the other guy
was just.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
The regular trash.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Thank you, Johnny, Johnny, I see him out.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Great, Johnny's green, perfect. Great, there's another garbage.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, I don't know what. He's going back the other
way now. And something's happening in my little community. There's
a lot of trash happening.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
There's a lot of garbage happening. You know what. It's
after the fourth of July.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's probably You're exactly right. He's doing a double pass.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Great, he's like, Wow. People went crazy, especially since they
were finally able to be social, so there's lots of trash.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hello, I'm mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've
always loved Bruce's questionnaiw. It was originally an eighteenth century
parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But
with so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to
expand on anything. So I took the format of Pruce's
questionnaire and adapted what I think are se one of
(01:03):
the most important questions you could ever ask someone they
are when and where were you happiest what is the
quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
(01:27):
What would be your last meal? And can you tell
me something in your life that has grown out of
a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more
we begin to see what makes us similar and what
makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable
people who I am honored and humbled to have had
a chance to engage with. My guest today on many
(01:50):
questions is actor, producer and director Coleman do minga. Coleman
is what I would call a connector. He connects people
and ideas and moves through the world with a kind
of creative joy. I sometimes imagine him like a fairy
tale princess lost in the forest, where the path lights
(02:11):
up with every step that they take, and they're followed
by a gentle chorus of butterflies and birds. He is
pretty incandescent. We talked about life and love, and particularly
about change and how it's both a gift and a blight.
I left our conversation with a smile on my face
(02:33):
that has actually yet to recede. What person, place, or
experience has most altered your life?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh wow, I would say San Francisco. I moved to
San Francisco when I was twenty years old, and I
thought I was moving to San Francisco to become an artist.
That I became a man. I thought I was going
to become an actor. I became an artist there. It
was transformative to me because I moved there just did
(03:08):
redefine myself with very honest hat. A buddy who moved
to San Francisco after college and he was like, Hey,
I got this place in Nintendoline District. There's nothing but
you know, street walkers and dereluxts, you name it. In
the neighborhood. We live in a studio. You want to
come and live in a studio with us. I'm like, absolutely,
because that's what you do when you're twenty years old.
You live with four other dudes in a studio apartment.
(03:30):
And I literally slept in a closet. But it was
a place where I feel like I grew the most,
and I sort of redefined myself in every single way.
I grew my hair out, I started to do hippie
drum circles and do you know watsu and be on
the beach naked. I became another version of myself. I
became this weirdo artist boy. And then I got even
(03:54):
more focused in terms of like what I believed, my intentions,
where my purpose was, which was being an artist. So
San Francis go hold so much of my heart because
although I grew up in Philadelphia, I felt like I
was raised in San Francisco and I was there for
ten years. You were Yeah, I was in San Francisco
from ten ninety one to two thousand and one.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Wow. Yeah, did you become an act to that?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah? I became an actor there. I had this inkling.
I took a few classes at the Walnut Street Theater
School in at Temple University, and then I moved to
San Francisco just you know, with questions and wanted to
try things. And then I started get cast and then
I had to actually learn about what I was actually doing.
So my productions were my conservatory, my books, my mind's
and my Stantaslavsky you name it by Udah Hagan. Respect
(04:38):
for acting. I learned blocking by doing it, by wondering
what is blocking? What are they writing on stage? So anyway,
I became a theater artist in San Francisco, and I
learned to respect the theater and respect craftsmanship, and you know,
I was securely in the theater for you know, I
would say twenty six years in my career was fully
majority ly up on the stage and writing for the
(04:59):
stage and direct Yeah. Wow, golly.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I always wanted to work in the theater and I
could just never get cast. I remember I lived. I
live around the corner from the Royal Court, which is
this amazing theater in London. This incredible artistic director at
the time of this guy called Max Stafford Clark. I
literally used to go and I'd talk my way in
through the theater and they'd be rehearsing in the studio whatever,
and I'd find my way to his office and I'd
(05:24):
be like hello, and he'd be like yes, and I'd
be like, I'm a local actor. I need to work.
I've auditioned a hundred times. Can you give me a job?
And he would look at my resume and he would go, yeah, well,
you've got no theater on here, and I was like, no,
(05:45):
I know, so we can we can get some theater
on there. I used to badger him and it was
so funny. I just never I don't know what it was.
I kept getting cast in television, and when you're young,
you know, obviously you've got to pay the bills, you
got to do whatever comes your way. But I never
got any of the theater work. I don't really have
(06:05):
many regrets, but that is definitely one of mine, is
that I'd read them a million times, but I never
got to play those women that I read.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It's not too late, I think you never know when
I don't know, maybe you've been just dating and holding
this in for so long, but maybe that theatrical experience
will now blossom out of you at this time.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Why not you never know? I had a dream. I
had a dream the other night. I'm not kidding. It
has never been my dream to play Juliet. By the way,
she's one of the least interesting women, right I've wanted
to play. I actually auditioned for drama school in the
role of Volumnia, Carilinus's mother. So I was seventeen playing,
(06:47):
you know, a woman in her late thirties early forties,
and they were so bemused. I think that's why they
kind of gave me a call back. They were like,
it's this weird child like playing a middle aged woman
with a grown up warrior son. Like what you do?
I was like, I saw Judy, don't do it. It
was amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And they were like, if you.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Took it upon yourself to think.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That would be a good idea.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I had this dream the other night that I was
playing Juliet. It was so funny, and in one of
the scenes with Romeo, it was actually the scene where
they're respectively taking poison, and I sat up and went,
I want to be you, I don't want to be me.
Can we switch? And he said, well, yeah, but we're
both still going to die.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It was quite a cool dream that it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh my god, Where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Immediately? The first thing I think about is with my mother.
I think probably sitting in the kitchen of our row
home in Philadelphia around nineteen seventy nine. I'm probably doing
my homework at the kitchen table while my mother's cooking.
And when she would cook, like in the summer or
something like that, she would cook in her bra. She
(08:06):
was cooking her bra and her slip, and so I
just thought, I don't know that's where my mother cooks.
She gets very comfortable and she usually I can see
her frying chicken and she's sweating a little bit, but
she's also teaching me. She loved that I was curious
about how she did things in the kitchen and something
about that just with a mother's love and a kitchen.
My mother always just she was just a real cool,
(08:29):
fun sweet woman. She's no longer with us, and I'm
not seed to angelicize someone, but my mother was really awesome.
She was funny and fun and interesting and always curious
and inspiring me to be curious as well. So, you know,
late seventies, early ladies, sitting in the kitchen with my mom.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Do you think those are the cornerstones of happiness for you,
which is comfort and homeliness and feeling safe.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, I think many. That's why I tend to have
people over to any apartment or house that I've ever had.
I'm always the hub. People know that I will have
a dinner party just because come over for dinner. I
love to feed people. I have a beautiful garden pool,
and I want people over enjoying it at all times,
because I think that's what maybe I was taught that
(09:17):
you share these things, you always have a sense of
love and comfort and safety when you have people around.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I love that. It's so funny because you'd invited us
over on July fourth, and I wish I could have
got there, because your home does look absolutely spectacular. It
looks like it's set up for you to never leave.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It, you know what. Listen, we're the second owners after
the first owners built the house, and it was built
by a Jewish doctor and his wife in nineteen sixty four,
and he built it to be the house that he's
in forever, and he was until he was ill and
his wife was ill, and then the house went to
(09:56):
the children, and then they finally sold it to us.
And I feel, honestly like the caretaker of the house.
I feel less like, oh, I bought a house and
we made it our own. But I felt like I
wanted to love this house because you could tell it
was loved. You couldn't feel it. And when anyone comes
over to the house, they're like, oh, no one ever
wants to leave. By the way my party it started out,
I was like, oh, we'll have an afternoon hang. It
(10:17):
started at two o'clock and it didn't undil two thirty
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Oh my god, I wish we'd come.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
It's that house, I'm telling you, and it happens consistently.
I'm just like, no one ever wants to leave my house.
I want people to feel loved, and so I'm like,
take a nap. There, go jump in the pool, there,
go use this. There's lotions, whatever you need. The house
is open for you.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You know, it's a very particular thing being a host,
and there is a huge amount of generosity. And I
must say that's what I think of when I think
of you as an actor. Thank you, generosity. Being part
of a cast or a collection of actors, it's such
a particular mindset.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, you know, it's wild. I think I've always approached
what we do many as a service job, that we
truly are in service. And I think those routes started
in the theater, where it's like I knew the task,
I knew what the assignment was, which was to be
in service to the audience, to be in service to
the story, be in service to what we're creating, to
(11:17):
not come in with any preconceived notions, but do as
much as I can and then see what I bring
to the table and then welcome what someone else brings in.
To be honest, if I know one good thing about myself,
I may not be the best at many things, but
I know I'm a good host, and I know that.
That's why I become a director, because I know how
to throw a good party. I think there are skills
(11:40):
of yours that you need. You're like, oh no, I
know my parties are good because I know about the music,
who to invite, why to invite them, the kind of vibe.
I'm curating the whole thing, you know, and I'm leading
the vision and then just welcoming what everyone brings to it,
like bring something, bring a cake, bring nothing, bring your
bathings to but bring something that is going to help
generate this huge, I don't know, epic experiment of communication
(12:05):
and love. That's why I invited you, guys. I felt
like I knew what you would bring and whatever that is,
you know.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I would have bought ribs and a good attitude.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Oh yes, thank you for bringing the ribs. I appreciate that.
Pork ribs or beef ribs, many pork or beef pork ribs,
pork ribs, same here. Thank you I'm committed to pork.
I don't understand the beef ribs. Too big, too.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Much, too big, and too much.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Too big, too gaming exactly. Yes, thank you so many.
I knew you were invited to the cookout.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I know I'm coming to another cookout. I want to
stay at a party till two thirty in the morning.
That's amazing. It just kept going, Oh, I love it.
I love it when the right people won't leave. It's
the worst thing when the wrong people start. But then
you really have only yourself to blame for having invited
them in the first place. So you just talked about
(13:00):
being able to appreciate that about yourself, which I love
so much because it means that you can actually consciously
add that the things you know you like about yourself,
you can consciously bring them to the things that you
do in the way you move through the world. So
(13:23):
tell me what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I think, to be honest, I just have to say
to my husband, m Raoul is one of a kind.
I admire him. We've been together for seventeen years, and
I really admire him. It's not only just about our love,
but it's also about our brotherhood, about our friendship, about
our patients with each other, about a stepping outside of
(13:51):
the unit and saying what do you need? Where are you?
And he's gone off and saved whales turtles. He went
off and he went to a turtle arm custory. It
for a month. We didn't peak to each other for
a month because he was committed to this thing. I
went to London for a while for six months to
do a couple plays, and his schedule woudn't allow him
to be there. But I was like, go on your journey,
trust that I'm here for you. It doesn't fracture our
(14:13):
relationship as anything. It allows us to grow in another
way that it allows us to be independent in some way.
When we first met seventeen years ago, I'd been through
a couple other relationships and I was sort of exhausted
with presenting the person that you want me to be
at a relationship and actually denying actually who I was,
and vice versa. I was like, no, so actually I
(14:34):
became an interrogation when our first dates, it was like,
what are you really about? Who are you? What do
you really like? What do you want? Because I want
to know who you really were. Don't be afraid tell
me exactly the things that you think are ugly about
yourself that are beautiful and that you hope you can
be better. Because if we're really dealing with each other
in that way, that's real love. I think. I think
I'm experiencing real love with him because it does mean
we can truly be and exist and accept each other
(14:57):
for who we are and also inspire each other to
be a little different.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
You know, do you think that it's different like that
what you just said, This is what real love is.
This is what it is I think I'm living in.
Do you think it's very different to the idea that
you had growing up of what love was? Because I
know my love is. I can't believe it. I love
this person that I am with so much, but in
this way that I never thought love would be this,
(15:20):
but it is. I always thought it was something else,
and actually my previous thoughts were erroneous. It wasn't that.
It is this.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I agree, Mannie. I agree because I think a lot
of times were taught that with love you have to
give up something. I don't think it's about giving up,
It's about like being open to shift or grow. But
I think it's like I've always believed that love was available.
That's something that I know that some of my friends
have not thought or believed, or they come into believing, oh,
my relationship will be these things, and they have these
(15:49):
parameters set up. Oh it must be this, it must
look like this, and like you're creating something in your
own mind that doesn't exist. Because when you see that
thing and you have that spark, you have to accept
what is. And I think love is imperfect. You bend,
you grow, you cry, you hurt, you all that stuff.
But I think if there's the underpinnings of saying I'm
committed to wanting to do this, and explores this with
(16:11):
you and explore grace, explore kindness, openness. Someone told me
this many years ago and never forgot it. I asked
this older couple what was the key to their success
and they said, and I think this woman, she says,
you've got to be alone for the ride to know
that they're going to change and it's going to have
nothing to do with you. And that's okay. I think
(16:34):
that's what we have to love people, right, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
You have to love them with loose hands that's it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You can't be tight. I think the fear people always
think that someone's going to leave you. But I'm like,
if someone's gonna leave you, they're going to leave you.
It doesn't You can't hold tight to it. You just
have to invest and pour all the love and care
that you can to it and trust it it'll be
for the time that it's supposed to be. You know,
we hope things can be happily ever after, you know,
and told fairy tales. Happily ever after? Is that the truth?
(17:04):
That's the hope. I believe that's the wish. But you know,
maybe happily ever after a few years or a couple
of coffee or if you laughs, I don't know, or
fifty years.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
It's really true. And we're never really asked to investigate
the fairytale. We're never asked to kind of cross examine it.
I know, I grew up with this idea that that
is what you do. You grow up, you fall in love,
that person loves you back, and then you have a baby.
And that is not how my life turned out at all. Right,
(17:34):
I grew up, did not fall in love, had a baby,
did fall in love, broke up with them fell in
love with someone else, but all the time sort of
mining for the parameters of what that love is, and
it's so far away from the initial idea. And you're right,
you have to keep growing, you have to keep doing
the personal excavation and allow your partner to do that
as well.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I think, yeah, because you never even know what your
family is supposed to look like exactly. I think. But
we're set up. We're thinking what you said, You're set
up thinking, oh, you fall in love, you have a child.
It becomes this sort of thing. But no one even
knows that maybe you fall in love, you have a child,
you don't have that love, you have another relationship that
you become best friends with the person you made that
(18:15):
child with, or whatever. Maybe your family is supposed to
look like this whole other creation based on the actual
reality the people that are involved in it, instead of
some ideological thing, this fairy tale looming over all of us.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You know, that's I'm so interested in. How do we
disseminate what other good ideas to hang on to and
what are the ones that we should really go Nah,
that's not going to serve me, because you can only
do it by living it. Really, and then circumstance will
slap you in the face and go, that was a
really terrible idea to have hung on to you for
so many years, and now here we are.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, that's any good drama, right, Isn't that the human condition?
I think it was Martin knocks and great showrunner. She said,
a great story is a great protagonist. That is one
and commit it to a wrong idea of themselves.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Ha ha ha. I love that.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Inn it's about the film or the series or something
that's trying to challenge them to change.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That is really good.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, I always attached to an idea about ourselves that
we have to smash and have to let go of.
At some point you have to realize how long is
it serving you? Is this really serving you? Are you happy?
Are you getting what you want?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But you're probably lucky if you get to smash it
or even have the impetus to do that, because a
lot of times I think people will use the quick
fixes to stop feeling bad about that thing. And all
of the available stuff that we have in our world
of consumption, various things from addictive to non addictive, but
repetitive behaviors becomes such a sort of immediate way of
(19:48):
dealing with it, rather than going question the fundamental idea
about why you want to keep doing this thing and
if it serves you.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I have a question for you. I think by like, say,
let's say, by smashing these things many if you like,
I don't know, how have you been as a person
when it comes to change?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Terrible? Terrible, really terrible terrible with change?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I say to myself, if you change, change everything, I
think it's I have a fearlessness with that. And somehow
it served me because I think I checked. All I
have is my gut to trust that. So why has
it been difficult for you? You know what?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Because because I actually feel exactly how you do, which
is if I have a gut feeling about something, I
have to act on that, and that has often meant
in gendering change. But the change itself I loathe. It
feels unstable and terrible and queasy and like like I
have permanent sea sickness, and it's powerful, but I have
this terrible volition to do it. And I think that's
(20:48):
one of the things, like if I could wave a
magic wand and change something about myself, it would be
to more readily embrace change to love it. Nothing in
life is stasis. Nothing. Everything is cant the moving and evolving.
So get on board, woman.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's come on, man, get on. That's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
It's so it's so true. I remember I moved from
New York years ago and people were so like, I
had a rent stabilized apartment. I had a wonderful career
in New York, and people felt like, why why do
you want to leave New York? You got a rent
stable apartment.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And I was like, you know what, you got a
job in an apartment.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Why you got a job an apartment. You're working on Broadway,
you're doing doing, Shut up. But I felt like New York,
like I trusted that New York was just not my
vibe right then and there, I thought like, I'm not growing.
I feel the winds of change coming and I've got
to go with it. And so at some point I
just I'll think about it for a moment. But then
at some point I just cut it all off and
(21:44):
I give up the apartment. And people are like, no
one gives up a rent stabilized apartment in New York.
You hang on to it and until they pull it out.
A claw under your dead hand, you know. But I
was like, I gotta go. I said, I gotta trust
that there's more I gotta trust, And you know, then
I got a rent and Los Angeles that I never
would ever imagine paying for because I was kind of like,
(22:04):
you know, I was a working artist. I never I
just thought in a company of working class family. I
felt like, oh, we don't spend that kind of money
in an apartment. But I decided to do that because
I thought, let me trust the universe, that the universe
will provide because this is what I need. And then
it kept providing that. So I think maybe that's because
I've done the math of it. Now after living in
this body for fifty one years, I've done the math,
(22:26):
and I see that when you trust your gut, when
you go with that feeling, it works out. I feel
like I feel like I'm starting my own church right
here on your podcast.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I love it. I feel like you have a philosophy
that is underwritten by New York real estate. I mean,
it's it's a pretty interesting way I'm kind of feeling.
I'm trying to figure out the stabilize your life.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Stabilize your life with from real estate to.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
From real estate to real good vibes.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
There we go. That's good, perfect, I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
What question would you most like answered?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Wow, that's a great question because I think that's a
question of the heart. Is there heaven? Hmm? And will
I truly see my loved ones again? Because you know,
I've lost some really terrific people in my life. One
recently one of my dear friends Ari, and I lost
(23:40):
my parents. And you know what I love, I love
so deeply because I feel like I've been attracted to
I don't know these dreamers, these people who believe in magic.
One was my mom, other was my dad. One of
my best friends Ari. And you wonder, You're like, are
you there? Are you in another realm Am? I just
hoping and wishing and believing. But I want to know
(24:02):
is that is that true? Do we really go to
the other place? Are you watching over? Are you listening?
Are you speaking to me? Are you walking with me?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I wonder if knowing, would you know how when we
find magical things out as people, and then there's that
moment of starting to put it into practice and it's
incredible and amazing, and then pretty soon this magical thing
becomes part of your daily life, and it no longer
becomes special and magical. It just becomes part of the kutaden.
(24:33):
And I wonder if we just can't hold that much
information and keep it as magical as it's supposed to
be down here on Earth in all of this thick
vibration of being in a physical body on a planet,
and that that whole etheric idea like that, we couldn't
hold it without corrupting it in a way.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Wow, I think that's very valid. As humans, we do
corrupt the magic.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Right, we kind of do, And maybe reaching for it
is better watching this and feeling like, you know, when
I go and try and find my mom, I really
have to feel for her. I have to let go
of all of the shit that I've been thinking about
in the day, and I have to connect with nature
or she always used to tell me to admire the
infinite sky, and I wonder if that that is as
(25:23):
pure as it could ever be, and that if someone
could tell me if there was a heaven, I probably
only ruin it by it then just being another thing.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
In my purse, just another place that you know, kind
of yeah, And you're right, because maybe I feel like
you're saying, maybe I want to know because I'm reaching
out towards it and it's a burning question in my heart.
But it also keeps us in that realm of magic
and that dimension of space and time and transcendence and
the things that we don't know. Maybe you're right, it's
(25:51):
maybe maybe we're not supposed to know everything.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Maybe that's it, And it's in the not knowing that
you can actually stay connected to spirit and that if
we drag it down here it wouldn't be that. I
don't know. I've been giving it a lot of thought
because my mama died quite recently, and I'm thinking about
what I think about all the time. Actually, but I'm
glad that you think about it too. I'm glad that
it's one of those things that we wrestle with.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think, yeah, because I think I don't know. I'd
like to believe, as we know of people who have
experienced a tremendous loss, especially mothers. I know when I
lost my mother. My mother was my best friend, and
when she passed, a sound came out of my body
that I don't think i'll ever hear again or want
to hear. It was animalistic. It felt like something that
(26:34):
was being severed in some way, shape or form. And
then I think have constantly been like like, I know
and feel her presence and all that happens in the world,
all the people that are sort of gentle reminders of her.
I do understand that it is a thing. I guess
you're not supposed to know until you do know, because
(26:55):
I think you're supposed to have some faith that there
is more. I think that's what keeps you mo mo
moving forward, because you know what the end is. We
all know what the end is. It's very clear what
the end is. It's definitive that we all will die,
but there's a promise that we will live on and
we will see each other again. And so I think
we keep moving through space with the hope that I
(27:17):
want to see that person again until I get that.
I'm going to keep doing things out down on this
plane and hopefully making a difference, leaving some fingerprints on things,
and making hopefully the spaces that we're in rich and
full before it's our turn. But we want to know
that when it's our turn, that someone's there, that you're
not alone, and that's something we don't know. We just
have to have faith and believe.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, exactly, and maybe that faith is what can make
being here a little freer because it's like, we just
get this one as far as we know. So play.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Can I ask you a question, Manny? Can I ask
you a question?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
When your mother passed you were very close, am I right? Yeah?
Where do you think the love goes? What do you
do with that love?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Good Lord? Well, the funny thing is, I don't feel
like it's gone anywhere. I feel like, in a way,
it has become distilled because the fact that she's not
here to kind of talk about all the stuff, so
all the bad stuff, all the difficult stuff, all the
amazing stuff life in general, because all of that has disappeared. Really,
(28:28):
what's been left in this kind of relief is the
grace and the laughter and the humor, and all of that,
for me is love. And I feel it so intensely,
And even though I can't talk to her and tell her,
I feel like that was the gift that she left
me with was what survives of us is love? Like
(28:50):
that is quite literally what survives of us is that
vibration and that feeling. And to be able to give
that to your children and for them to continue to
feel after you're physically not here anymore. I think that's
the point.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I think passing the baton right, yeah on.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
H And I was explaining that to my son the
other day, and I think it was really amazing being
able to tell him, and I know he won't forget.
I have all of this love, all of this love
that mom left me with, and it's so incredible to
be able to tell you about that love and that
when you see it, you'll know it. You'll see because
(29:31):
you'll recognize it in you, and then you'll have it,
and so it goes on, and so it goes on.
I don't know. I'm sorry you lost your mum and
your dad. I mean, we all do it. It just
it's just what happens.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
We do, we do, and you know it's for those
who haven't, if anyone's listening out there who haven't, and
I think it terrifies them knowing that if it happened,
they don't know what they would do. Yeah, And I'm
always telling people, well you will. I grieved and I
leaned into it. My friend Melissa was the one who
gave me the advice I said, because I felt like
(30:07):
I was such a good son. I loved being a son.
I loved my parents, And she said, you're going to
pour that love into everything that you do, and so
I think that, I know that, I know it was
a definitive moment in my life where the choice was
to use that love with even more conviction, and like
you're saying, to distill it, to say that this is
(30:28):
what purposes, what my intentions are, Who I love, how
I love. Not that I flitted it around, but I
guess I did. I just had it was more out there.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yeah, it focuses you, Like that's the thing when you
lose someone, even though you don't lose them, but when
they are physically gone, it is so focused because you
so clearly feel what it is that you felt about them. Yeah,
it certainly made me question all the stuff that I
gave a lot of energy to that really didn't deserve
that energy and didn't need it and didn't require it.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Done with that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Right, you can see Coleman in Zola, which is in
theaters now and it's honestly the most radical and best
film of the year in my opinion, maybe in many years.
Run don't walk to see it. And Candy Man which
(31:28):
is released on August the twenty seventh. This year, Mini
Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, Supervising
producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(31:48):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison O'Day, Lisa Castella and
Annika Oppenheim at w kPr, Dala Pescador, Kate Driver and
(32:11):
Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver,
I'm just waiting for this is the this is now
the recycling truck that's gone on because the other guy
was just.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
The regular trash.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Thank you, Johnny, Johnny, I see him out.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Great, Johnny's green, perfect. Great, there's another garbage.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, I don't know what. He's going back the other
way now. And something's happening in my little community. There's
a lot of trash happening.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
There's a lot of garbage happening. You know what. It's
after the fourth of July.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's probably You're exactly right. He's doing a double pass.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Great, he's like, Wow. People went crazy, especially since they
were finally able to be social, so there's lots of trash.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hello, I'm mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've
always loved Bruce's questionnaiw. It was originally an eighteenth century
parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But
with so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to
expand on anything. So I took the format of Pruce's
questionnaire and adapted what I think are se one of
(01:03):
the most important questions you could ever ask someone they
are when and where were you happiest what is the
quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
(01:27):
What would be your last meal? And can you tell
me something in your life that has grown out of
a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more
we begin to see what makes us similar and what
makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable
people who I am honored and humbled to have had
a chance to engage with. My guest today on many
(01:50):
questions is actor, producer and director Coleman do minga. Coleman
is what I would call a connector. He connects people
and ideas and moves through the world with a kind
of creative joy. I sometimes imagine him like a fairy
tale princess lost in the forest, where the path lights
(02:11):
up with every step that they take, and they're followed
by a gentle chorus of butterflies and birds. He is
pretty incandescent. We talked about life and love, and particularly
about change and how it's both a gift and a blight.
I left our conversation with a smile on my face
(02:33):
that has actually yet to recede. What person, place, or
experience has most altered your life?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh wow, I would say San Francisco. I moved to
San Francisco when I was twenty years old, and I
thought I was moving to San Francisco to become an artist.
That I became a man. I thought I was going
to become an actor. I became an artist there. It
was transformative to me because I moved there just did
(03:08):
redefine myself with very honest hat. A buddy who moved
to San Francisco after college and he was like, Hey,
I got this place in Nintendoline District. There's nothing but
you know, street walkers and dereluxts, you name it. In
the neighborhood. We live in a studio. You want to
come and live in a studio with us. I'm like, absolutely,
because that's what you do when you're twenty years old.
You live with four other dudes in a studio apartment.
(03:30):
And I literally slept in a closet. But it was
a place where I feel like I grew the most,
and I sort of redefined myself in every single way.
I grew my hair out, I started to do hippie
drum circles and do you know watsu and be on
the beach naked. I became another version of myself. I
became this weirdo artist boy. And then I got even
(03:54):
more focused in terms of like what I believed, my intentions,
where my purpose was, which was being an artist. So
San Francis go hold so much of my heart because
although I grew up in Philadelphia, I felt like I
was raised in San Francisco and I was there for
ten years. You were Yeah, I was in San Francisco
from ten ninety one to two thousand and one.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Wow. Yeah, did you become an act to that?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah? I became an actor there. I had this inkling.
I took a few classes at the Walnut Street Theater
School in at Temple University, and then I moved to
San Francisco just you know, with questions and wanted to
try things. And then I started get cast and then
I had to actually learn about what I was actually doing.
So my productions were my conservatory, my books, my mind's
and my Stantaslavsky you name it by Udah Hagan. Respect
(04:38):
for acting. I learned blocking by doing it, by wondering
what is blocking? What are they writing on stage? So anyway,
I became a theater artist in San Francisco, and I
learned to respect the theater and respect craftsmanship, and you know,
I was securely in the theater for you know, I
would say twenty six years in my career was fully
majority ly up on the stage and writing for the
(04:59):
stage and direct Yeah. Wow, golly.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I always wanted to work in the theater and I
could just never get cast. I remember I lived. I
live around the corner from the Royal Court, which is
this amazing theater in London. This incredible artistic director at
the time of this guy called Max Stafford Clark. I
literally used to go and I'd talk my way in
through the theater and they'd be rehearsing in the studio whatever,
and I'd find my way to his office and I'd
(05:24):
be like hello, and he'd be like yes, and I'd
be like, I'm a local actor. I need to work.
I've auditioned a hundred times. Can you give me a job?
And he would look at my resume and he would go, yeah, well,
you've got no theater on here, and I was like, no,
(05:45):
I know, so we can we can get some theater
on there. I used to badger him and it was
so funny. I just never I don't know what it was.
I kept getting cast in television, and when you're young,
you know, obviously you've got to pay the bills, you
got to do whatever comes your way. But I never
got any of the theater work. I don't really have
(06:05):
many regrets, but that is definitely one of mine, is
that I'd read them a million times, but I never
got to play those women that I read.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It's not too late, I think you never know when
I don't know, maybe you've been just dating and holding
this in for so long, but maybe that theatrical experience
will now blossom out of you at this time.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Why not you never know? I had a dream. I
had a dream the other night. I'm not kidding. It
has never been my dream to play Juliet. By the way,
she's one of the least interesting women, right I've wanted
to play. I actually auditioned for drama school in the
role of Volumnia, Carilinus's mother. So I was seventeen playing,
(06:47):
you know, a woman in her late thirties early forties,
and they were so bemused. I think that's why they
kind of gave me a call back. They were like,
it's this weird child like playing a middle aged woman
with a grown up warrior son. Like what you do?
I was like, I saw Judy, don't do it. It
was amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And they were like, if you.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Took it upon yourself to think.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That would be a good idea.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I had this dream the other night that I was
playing Juliet. It was so funny, and in one of
the scenes with Romeo, it was actually the scene where
they're respectively taking poison, and I sat up and went,
I want to be you, I don't want to be me.
Can we switch? And he said, well, yeah, but we're
both still going to die.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It was quite a cool dream that it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh my god, Where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Immediately? The first thing I think about is with my mother.
I think probably sitting in the kitchen of our row
home in Philadelphia around nineteen seventy nine. I'm probably doing
my homework at the kitchen table while my mother's cooking.
And when she would cook, like in the summer or
something like that, she would cook in her bra. She
(08:06):
was cooking her bra and her slip, and so I
just thought, I don't know that's where my mother cooks.
She gets very comfortable and she usually I can see
her frying chicken and she's sweating a little bit, but
she's also teaching me. She loved that I was curious
about how she did things in the kitchen and something
about that just with a mother's love and a kitchen.
My mother always just she was just a real cool,
(08:29):
fun sweet woman. She's no longer with us, and I'm
not seed to angelicize someone, but my mother was really awesome.
She was funny and fun and interesting and always curious
and inspiring me to be curious as well. So, you know,
late seventies, early ladies, sitting in the kitchen with my mom.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Do you think those are the cornerstones of happiness for you,
which is comfort and homeliness and feeling safe.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, I think many. That's why I tend to have
people over to any apartment or house that I've ever had.
I'm always the hub. People know that I will have
a dinner party just because come over for dinner. I
love to feed people. I have a beautiful garden pool,
and I want people over enjoying it at all times,
because I think that's what maybe I was taught that
(09:17):
you share these things, you always have a sense of
love and comfort and safety when you have people around.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I love that. It's so funny because you'd invited us
over on July fourth, and I wish I could have
got there, because your home does look absolutely spectacular. It
looks like it's set up for you to never leave.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It, you know what. Listen, we're the second owners after
the first owners built the house, and it was built
by a Jewish doctor and his wife in nineteen sixty four,
and he built it to be the house that he's
in forever, and he was until he was ill and
his wife was ill, and then the house went to
(09:56):
the children, and then they finally sold it to us.
And I feel, honestly like the caretaker of the house.
I feel less like, oh, I bought a house and
we made it our own. But I felt like I
wanted to love this house because you could tell it
was loved. You couldn't feel it. And when anyone comes
over to the house, they're like, oh, no one ever
wants to leave. By the way my party it started out,
I was like, oh, we'll have an afternoon hang. It
(10:17):
started at two o'clock and it didn't undil two thirty
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Oh my god, I wish we'd come.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
It's that house, I'm telling you, and it happens consistently.
I'm just like, no one ever wants to leave my house.
I want people to feel loved, and so I'm like,
take a nap. There, go jump in the pool, there,
go use this. There's lotions, whatever you need. The house
is open for you.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You know, it's a very particular thing being a host,
and there is a huge amount of generosity. And I
must say that's what I think of when I think
of you as an actor. Thank you, generosity. Being part
of a cast or a collection of actors, it's such
a particular mindset.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, you know, it's wild. I think I've always approached
what we do many as a service job, that we
truly are in service. And I think those routes started
in the theater, where it's like I knew the task,
I knew what the assignment was, which was to be
in service to the audience, to be in service to
the story, be in service to what we're creating, to
(11:17):
not come in with any preconceived notions, but do as
much as I can and then see what I bring
to the table and then welcome what someone else brings in.
To be honest, if I know one good thing about myself,
I may not be the best at many things, but
I know I'm a good host, and I know that.
That's why I become a director, because I know how
to throw a good party. I think there are skills
(11:40):
of yours that you need. You're like, oh no, I
know my parties are good because I know about the music,
who to invite, why to invite them, the kind of vibe.
I'm curating the whole thing, you know, and I'm leading
the vision and then just welcoming what everyone brings to it,
like bring something, bring a cake, bring nothing, bring your
bathings to but bring something that is going to help
generate this huge, I don't know, epic experiment of communication
(12:05):
and love. That's why I invited you, guys. I felt
like I knew what you would bring and whatever that is,
you know.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I would have bought ribs and a good attitude.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Oh yes, thank you for bringing the ribs. I appreciate that.
Pork ribs or beef ribs, many pork or beef pork ribs,
pork ribs, same here. Thank you I'm committed to pork.
I don't understand the beef ribs. Too big, too.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Much, too big, and too much.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Too big, too gaming exactly. Yes, thank you so many.
I knew you were invited to the cookout.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I know I'm coming to another cookout. I want to
stay at a party till two thirty in the morning.
That's amazing. It just kept going, Oh, I love it.
I love it when the right people won't leave. It's
the worst thing when the wrong people start. But then
you really have only yourself to blame for having invited
them in the first place. So you just talked about
(13:00):
being able to appreciate that about yourself, which I love
so much because it means that you can actually consciously
add that the things you know you like about yourself,
you can consciously bring them to the things that you
do in the way you move through the world. So
(13:23):
tell me what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I think, to be honest, I just have to say
to my husband, m Raoul is one of a kind.
I admire him. We've been together for seventeen years, and
I really admire him. It's not only just about our love,
but it's also about our brotherhood, about our friendship, about
our patients with each other, about a stepping outside of
(13:51):
the unit and saying what do you need? Where are you?
And he's gone off and saved whales turtles. He went
off and he went to a turtle arm custory. It
for a month. We didn't peak to each other for
a month because he was committed to this thing. I
went to London for a while for six months to
do a couple plays, and his schedule woudn't allow him
to be there. But I was like, go on your journey,
trust that I'm here for you. It doesn't fracture our
(14:13):
relationship as anything. It allows us to grow in another
way that it allows us to be independent in some way.
When we first met seventeen years ago, I'd been through
a couple other relationships and I was sort of exhausted
with presenting the person that you want me to be
at a relationship and actually denying actually who I was,
and vice versa. I was like, no, so actually I
(14:34):
became an interrogation when our first dates, it was like,
what are you really about? Who are you? What do
you really like? What do you want? Because I want
to know who you really were. Don't be afraid tell
me exactly the things that you think are ugly about
yourself that are beautiful and that you hope you can
be better. Because if we're really dealing with each other
in that way, that's real love. I think. I think
I'm experiencing real love with him because it does mean
we can truly be and exist and accept each other
(14:57):
for who we are and also inspire each other to
be a little different.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
You know, do you think that it's different like that
what you just said, This is what real love is.
This is what it is I think I'm living in.
Do you think it's very different to the idea that
you had growing up of what love was? Because I
know my love is. I can't believe it. I love
this person that I am with so much, but in
this way that I never thought love would be this,
(15:20):
but it is. I always thought it was something else,
and actually my previous thoughts were erroneous. It wasn't that.
It is this.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I agree, Mannie. I agree because I think a lot
of times were taught that with love you have to
give up something. I don't think it's about giving up,
It's about like being open to shift or grow. But
I think it's like I've always believed that love was available.
That's something that I know that some of my friends
have not thought or believed, or they come into believing, oh,
my relationship will be these things, and they have these
(15:49):
parameters set up. Oh it must be this, it must
look like this, and like you're creating something in your
own mind that doesn't exist. Because when you see that
thing and you have that spark, you have to accept
what is. And I think love is imperfect. You bend,
you grow, you cry, you hurt, you all that stuff.
But I think if there's the underpinnings of saying I'm
committed to wanting to do this, and explores this with
(16:11):
you and explore grace, explore kindness, openness. Someone told me
this many years ago and never forgot it. I asked
this older couple what was the key to their success
and they said, and I think this woman, she says,
you've got to be alone for the ride to know
that they're going to change and it's going to have
nothing to do with you. And that's okay. I think
(16:34):
that's what we have to love people, right, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
You have to love them with loose hands that's it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You can't be tight. I think the fear people always
think that someone's going to leave you. But I'm like,
if someone's gonna leave you, they're going to leave you.
It doesn't You can't hold tight to it. You just
have to invest and pour all the love and care
that you can to it and trust it it'll be
for the time that it's supposed to be. You know,
we hope things can be happily ever after, you know,
and told fairy tales. Happily ever after? Is that the truth?
(17:04):
That's the hope. I believe that's the wish. But you know,
maybe happily ever after a few years or a couple
of coffee or if you laughs, I don't know, or
fifty years.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
It's really true. And we're never really asked to investigate
the fairytale. We're never asked to kind of cross examine it.
I know, I grew up with this idea that that
is what you do. You grow up, you fall in love,
that person loves you back, and then you have a baby.
And that is not how my life turned out at all. Right,
(17:34):
I grew up, did not fall in love, had a baby,
did fall in love, broke up with them fell in
love with someone else, but all the time sort of
mining for the parameters of what that love is, and
it's so far away from the initial idea. And you're right,
you have to keep growing, you have to keep doing
the personal excavation and allow your partner to do that
as well.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I think, yeah, because you never even know what your
family is supposed to look like exactly. I think. But
we're set up. We're thinking what you said, You're set
up thinking, oh, you fall in love, you have a child.
It becomes this sort of thing. But no one even
knows that maybe you fall in love, you have a child,
you don't have that love, you have another relationship that
you become best friends with the person you made that
(18:15):
child with, or whatever. Maybe your family is supposed to
look like this whole other creation based on the actual
reality the people that are involved in it, instead of
some ideological thing, this fairy tale looming over all of us.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You know, that's I'm so interested in. How do we
disseminate what other good ideas to hang on to and
what are the ones that we should really go Nah,
that's not going to serve me, because you can only
do it by living it. Really, and then circumstance will
slap you in the face and go, that was a
really terrible idea to have hung on to you for
so many years, and now here we are.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, that's any good drama, right, Isn't that the human condition?
I think it was Martin knocks and great showrunner. She said,
a great story is a great protagonist. That is one
and commit it to a wrong idea of themselves.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Ha ha ha. I love that.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Inn it's about the film or the series or something
that's trying to challenge them to change.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That is really good.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, I always attached to an idea about ourselves that
we have to smash and have to let go of.
At some point you have to realize how long is
it serving you? Is this really serving you? Are you happy?
Are you getting what you want?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But you're probably lucky if you get to smash it
or even have the impetus to do that, because a
lot of times I think people will use the quick
fixes to stop feeling bad about that thing. And all
of the available stuff that we have in our world
of consumption, various things from addictive to non addictive, but
repetitive behaviors becomes such a sort of immediate way of
(19:48):
dealing with it, rather than going question the fundamental idea
about why you want to keep doing this thing and
if it serves you.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I have a question for you. I think by like, say,
let's say, by smashing these things many if you like,
I don't know, how have you been as a person
when it comes to change?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Terrible? Terrible, really terrible terrible with change?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I say to myself, if you change, change everything, I
think it's I have a fearlessness with that. And somehow
it served me because I think I checked. All I
have is my gut to trust that. So why has
it been difficult for you? You know what?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Because because I actually feel exactly how you do, which
is if I have a gut feeling about something, I
have to act on that, and that has often meant
in gendering change. But the change itself I loathe. It
feels unstable and terrible and queasy and like like I
have permanent sea sickness, and it's powerful, but I have
this terrible volition to do it. And I think that's
(20:48):
one of the things, like if I could wave a
magic wand and change something about myself, it would be
to more readily embrace change to love it. Nothing in
life is stasis. Nothing. Everything is cant the moving and evolving.
So get on board, woman.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's come on, man, get on. That's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
It's so it's so true. I remember I moved from
New York years ago and people were so like, I
had a rent stabilized apartment. I had a wonderful career
in New York, and people felt like, why why do
you want to leave New York? You got a rent
stable apartment.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And I was like, you know what, you got a
job in an apartment.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Why you got a job an apartment. You're working on Broadway,
you're doing doing, Shut up. But I felt like New York,
like I trusted that New York was just not my
vibe right then and there, I thought like, I'm not growing.
I feel the winds of change coming and I've got
to go with it. And so at some point I
just I'll think about it for a moment. But then
at some point I just cut it all off and
(21:44):
I give up the apartment. And people are like, no
one gives up a rent stabilized apartment in New York.
You hang on to it and until they pull it out.
A claw under your dead hand, you know. But I
was like, I gotta go. I said, I gotta trust
that there's more I gotta trust, And you know, then
I got a rent and Los Angeles that I never
would ever imagine paying for because I was kind of like,
(22:04):
you know, I was a working artist. I never I
just thought in a company of working class family. I
felt like, oh, we don't spend that kind of money
in an apartment. But I decided to do that because
I thought, let me trust the universe, that the universe
will provide because this is what I need. And then
it kept providing that. So I think maybe that's because
I've done the math of it. Now after living in
this body for fifty one years, I've done the math,
(22:26):
and I see that when you trust your gut, when
you go with that feeling, it works out. I feel
like I feel like I'm starting my own church right
here on your podcast.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I love it. I feel like you have a philosophy
that is underwritten by New York real estate. I mean,
it's it's a pretty interesting way I'm kind of feeling.
I'm trying to figure out the stabilize your life.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Stabilize your life with from real estate to.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
From real estate to real good vibes.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
There we go. That's good, perfect, I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
What question would you most like answered?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Wow, that's a great question because I think that's a
question of the heart. Is there heaven? Hmm? And will
I truly see my loved ones again? Because you know,
I've lost some really terrific people in my life. One
recently one of my dear friends Ari, and I lost
(23:40):
my parents. And you know what I love, I love
so deeply because I feel like I've been attracted to
I don't know these dreamers, these people who believe in magic.
One was my mom, other was my dad. One of
my best friends Ari. And you wonder, You're like, are
you there? Are you in another realm Am? I just
hoping and wishing and believing. But I want to know
(24:02):
is that is that true? Do we really go to
the other place? Are you watching over? Are you listening?
Are you speaking to me? Are you walking with me?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I wonder if knowing, would you know how when we
find magical things out as people, and then there's that
moment of starting to put it into practice and it's
incredible and amazing, and then pretty soon this magical thing
becomes part of your daily life, and it no longer
becomes special and magical. It just becomes part of the kutaden.
(24:33):
And I wonder if we just can't hold that much
information and keep it as magical as it's supposed to
be down here on Earth in all of this thick
vibration of being in a physical body on a planet,
and that that whole etheric idea like that, we couldn't
hold it without corrupting it in a way.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Wow, I think that's very valid. As humans, we do
corrupt the magic.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Right, we kind of do, And maybe reaching for it
is better watching this and feeling like, you know, when
I go and try and find my mom, I really
have to feel for her. I have to let go
of all of the shit that I've been thinking about
in the day, and I have to connect with nature
or she always used to tell me to admire the
infinite sky, and I wonder if that that is as
(25:23):
pure as it could ever be, and that if someone
could tell me if there was a heaven, I probably
only ruin it by it then just being another thing.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
In my purse, just another place that you know, kind
of yeah, And you're right, because maybe I feel like
you're saying, maybe I want to know because I'm reaching
out towards it and it's a burning question in my heart.
But it also keeps us in that realm of magic
and that dimension of space and time and transcendence and
the things that we don't know. Maybe you're right, it's
(25:51):
maybe maybe we're not supposed to know everything.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Maybe that's it, And it's in the not knowing that
you can actually stay connected to spirit and that if
we drag it down here it wouldn't be that. I
don't know. I've been giving it a lot of thought
because my mama died quite recently, and I'm thinking about
what I think about all the time. Actually, but I'm
glad that you think about it too. I'm glad that
it's one of those things that we wrestle with.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think, yeah, because I think I don't know. I'd
like to believe, as we know of people who have
experienced a tremendous loss, especially mothers. I know when I
lost my mother. My mother was my best friend, and
when she passed, a sound came out of my body
that I don't think i'll ever hear again or want
to hear. It was animalistic. It felt like something that
(26:34):
was being severed in some way, shape or form. And
then I think have constantly been like like, I know
and feel her presence and all that happens in the world,
all the people that are sort of gentle reminders of her.
I do understand that it is a thing. I guess
you're not supposed to know until you do know, because
(26:55):
I think you're supposed to have some faith that there
is more. I think that's what keeps you mo mo
moving forward, because you know what the end is. We
all know what the end is. It's very clear what
the end is. It's definitive that we all will die,
but there's a promise that we will live on and
we will see each other again. And so I think
we keep moving through space with the hope that I
(27:17):
want to see that person again until I get that.
I'm going to keep doing things out down on this
plane and hopefully making a difference, leaving some fingerprints on things,
and making hopefully the spaces that we're in rich and
full before it's our turn. But we want to know
that when it's our turn, that someone's there, that you're
not alone, and that's something we don't know. We just
have to have faith and believe.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, exactly, and maybe that faith is what can make
being here a little freer because it's like, we just
get this one as far as we know. So play.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Can I ask you a question, Manny? Can I ask
you a question?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
When your mother passed you were very close, am I right? Yeah?
Where do you think the love goes? What do you
do with that love?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Good Lord? Well, the funny thing is, I don't feel
like it's gone anywhere. I feel like, in a way,
it has become distilled because the fact that she's not
here to kind of talk about all the stuff, so
all the bad stuff, all the difficult stuff, all the
amazing stuff life in general, because all of that has disappeared. Really,
(28:28):
what's been left in this kind of relief is the
grace and the laughter and the humor, and all of that,
for me is love. And I feel it so intensely,
And even though I can't talk to her and tell her,
I feel like that was the gift that she left
me with was what survives of us is love? Like
(28:50):
that is quite literally what survives of us is that
vibration and that feeling. And to be able to give
that to your children and for them to continue to
feel after you're physically not here anymore. I think that's
the point.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I think passing the baton right, yeah on.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
H And I was explaining that to my son the
other day, and I think it was really amazing being
able to tell him, and I know he won't forget.
I have all of this love, all of this love
that mom left me with, and it's so incredible to
be able to tell you about that love and that
when you see it, you'll know it. You'll see because
(29:31):
you'll recognize it in you, and then you'll have it,
and so it goes on, and so it goes on.
I don't know. I'm sorry you lost your mum and
your dad. I mean, we all do it. It just
it's just what happens.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
We do, we do, and you know it's for those
who haven't, if anyone's listening out there who haven't, and
I think it terrifies them knowing that if it happened,
they don't know what they would do. Yeah, And I'm
always telling people, well you will. I grieved and I
leaned into it. My friend Melissa was the one who
gave me the advice I said, because I felt like
(30:07):
I was such a good son. I loved being a son.
I loved my parents, And she said, you're going to
pour that love into everything that you do, and so
I think that, I know that, I know it was
a definitive moment in my life where the choice was
to use that love with even more conviction, and like
you're saying, to distill it, to say that this is
(30:28):
what purposes, what my intentions are, Who I love, how
I love. Not that I flitted it around, but I
guess I did. I just had it was more out there.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yeah, it focuses you, Like that's the thing when you
lose someone, even though you don't lose them, but when
they are physically gone, it is so focused because you
so clearly feel what it is that you felt about them. Yeah,
it certainly made me question all the stuff that I
gave a lot of energy to that really didn't deserve
that energy and didn't need it and didn't require it.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Done with that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Right, you can see Coleman in Zola, which is in
theaters now and it's honestly the most radical and best
film of the year in my opinion, maybe in many years.
Run don't walk to see it. And Candy Man which
(31:28):
is released on August the twenty seventh. This year, Mini
Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, Supervising
producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(31:48):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison O'Day, Lisa Castella and
Annika Oppenheim at w kPr, Dala Pescador, Kate Driver and
(32:11):
Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver,
Host
Minnie Driver
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