The magic of Hamilton's Christopher Jackson

It's a thrilling penultimate episode of Off the Cupp Season 1 with one of the coolest guests ... Broadway (and TV and movie)  star, Christopher Jackson!  S.E. indulges in ALL the musical theater, behind-the-scenes action Christopher can offer from The Lion King to In the Heights to Hamilton. Christopher shares his journey from small-town life in Cairo, Illinois, to the grand stages of Broadway and television. He talks about his deep relationships with creative giants like Lin-Manuel Miranda and the impact of the entertainment of his youth, from MTV to Will Smith and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air . The conversation also takes a poignant turn as Christopher delves into his family's personal experiences with his son's autism diagnosis and his own advocacy. This episode has got a little something for everyone — heartfelt stories, humor,  maybe a few tears, and a very Broadway themed lightning round.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
As human beings. We're just laying this before you in
the hopes that it'll make you feel something. Yes, that's
that's what our job is.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to Off the Cup my personal anti anxiety antidote.
We are wrapping up the first season of Off the
Cup and we're wrapping up the summer, and I have
to be honest, it's been an awesome year and today's
guest might be the coolest we've ever had.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Now, we've had tremendous.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Guests this year in our first Off the Cup season,
from my friend Josh gad Our, first guest, to Huey Lewis,
one of my favorite pop artists, Bradley Whitford, Sherry Shepherd.
I mean, so so many good guests. And next week
we'll finish the season with a very special guest and
a very special announcement, so you definitely don't want to
miss that. But today's guest is so cool, Like if

(00:52):
cool were a person, it would be this guy. And
I want to start with a trigger warning for people.
We're gonna talk to memusicals in this episode. We're gonna
talk Broadway, we're gonna talk Tony's. It's happening, and you know,
what a big fan of Broadway I am. I geeked
out with Ricky Lake and Bridget Everett and Josh and
Kisses Paul Stanley. And if you don't think musicals are cool, man,

(01:16):
are you wrong?

Speaker 3 (01:17):
They are the coolest.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
And the coolest musical of all time probably is one
you definitely know, even if you're not a musicals person,
because in twenty fifteen, it took the world by storm.
It changed Broadway forever, I truly believe that, and it
brought in a whole new generation of theater lovers. It
made a bunch of incredibly talented people household names. It

(01:42):
taught American's history in a way we'd never learned it,
and it put us all in the room where it happens.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
You may have seen today's guest on the.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
HBO series Oz as Perry Loftus or Chunk Palmer on Bowl,
or mister Lisa Wexley on An Just Like That, or
as Simba in The Lion King on Broadway, or the
original Benny from In the Heights on Broadway. But you
know him as the Tony nominated, Grammy winning one and
only original George Washington from the award winning Broadway show Hamilton.

(02:18):
It's my great honor to welcome Christopher Jackson to off
the cup.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Wow, this is your life, this is my life.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
I am so lucky.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
That we get to do a version of this is
your life on a show like this.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
With people like you.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
It's nuts, honey, it's nuts.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's my How does it feel to be the coolest person?
I imagine in any room?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I wish the guy that somebody would tell my daughter
that if a en year old daughter, I could care
not a wit. Yeah, I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I know what you mean, but I mean, listen, it's Hamilton,
but it's also hanging out with the Sex and the
City crew.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
It's writing songs for Will I Am and Oh Cool Jay.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's casually winning an Emmy for writing a song on
Sesame Street. It's Oz and the Good Wife. It's the
Badass Club Queen Wife. It's the hip hop group Freestyle
Love Supreme. I mean, save some swag for the rest
of us.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I mean, come on, you know what happens when your
friends are doing fun stuff and you're smart enough to just,
you know, not say no.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
You do have cool friends?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah? I do have cool friends. I do. I do.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
But the thing that makes them cool is beyond just
their generosity and just awareness of the world, is that
the artists like me and we're all just trying to
like make stuff that we think would be cool and
like sharing it.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
You know.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
That's the sauce. That's the secret to all of it.
It isn't so much coming just from one person. It
comes from a lot of input and a lot of love,
and a lot of camaraderie and a lot of trial
and error.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, but it does seem so fun because it does
seem like and you have very important jobs, but it
does seem like you guys just get together and make
stuff and have fun.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's the essence of it.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
And we've done it all over the world, and we've
done it when no one was watching and but a
select few. And it's kind of that sandbox mentality, like
I've got a shovel, I've got a truck, I've got
a you know, a bucket of water.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
That's kind of how it always has come about.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
And and that's why it's always been more fun to
do stuff with them, because the trust that you build
up after a while is just it's impenetrable and and
you can fail together. But it's the effort and the
and the you know, just the I don't really give
it him whether or not it's the best thing in
the world.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah something, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, Oh I do.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
I do.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
And I'm so jealous. It just seems it's so cool,
you know.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
I always admire people who figure out ways to try
to do a lot of things in their careers, and
you have.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
And I want to.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Talk about it all with you, But first I like
to start by asking, what kind of kid were you?

Speaker 4 (05:15):
Oh man, middle child till the till till the wheels
fell off, you know, it's it's it's.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
An interesting thing.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Every generation has their own stuff, and our generation was.
I'm I turned fifty next month, and I was old
enough to be locked out of the house when I
was five to go play in the summer and don't
come back inside until lunch. Yep, you'll be fine, stay close,
you know. But growing up in a small town so

(05:47):
and my mom was a school teacher there, so there
was really no place in the town that I could
go that I didn't believe that there wouldn't be eyes
somewhere peeking through the window or driving by you know
what I mean. So the awareness of commune unity. And
I saw it as that I wasn't really into trouble.
I really didn't like getting into trouble. I like to
kind of stay on this side of it. And it

(06:09):
was freedom. It was a lot of freedom. There was
a lot of trust, and a lot of like personal responsibility,
a lot of the things that kind of prepared me
for being, you know, a public facing person, and a
lot of respects.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
I liked the.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
Freedom of that curiosity brought. You know, my mom being
a school teacher, we were taught to be curious. She
grew up on a farm. I spent half my time
on that farm doing you know, only the stuff you
could do on a farm, which is basically, find a
stick in a rock and try to hit a four
hundred foot home run. But you know what I mean,
avoid snakes and beehives, you know, things like that.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
But like just the the idea of.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
Being in a small area, right, the colloquialism, the camaraderie.
I was with ten other kids who were in the
same condition, if you will. So one day it was
the Super Bowl, the next day it was the World Series.
You know, we were playing at Wimbledon. You know, there
was a lot of sports involved. And then you know,
I was really active. My social network was our church.

(07:12):
We had a huge, very active use group. We traveled
every summer. We did the baked sales and the car washes,
and you know, donated On Christmas Eve, we'd take toys
and things to you know, to the women's shelter for
other kids and families who were in a desperate situation.
So there was all of these different points at which
humanity was the thing, right. We were just people just

(07:35):
trying to like have things, and you know, and then
MTV comes and so now, yeah, my head is turned
toward entertainment. My head is like, oh wait a minute,
there's music, there's movies, there's all this. Okay, I think
I might want to go do something like that.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Was it MTV?

Speaker 1 (07:51):
That was like the it was you know, it was
the MTV at all. It was the Will Smith on
Fresh Prince, yeah, who was like older brother. It was
The Cosby Show, and you know, it was I was.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
I've been thinking a lot about Malcolm Jamal Warner lately,
you know, because it was untimely passing and like just
the fact that these I knew that they were actors.
I knew that they were telling the story, and I
knew that I liked doing that when I had opportunities
like that. So for me, it was it was my
version of like Lynn making you know, home movies.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, like script script at home movie.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
I wasn't doing that, but like you know, I just
always saw entertainment is something that I could see myself
inside of.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
You know, Well, but how did your mom and stepdad,
I believe, how did they feel about your interest in performing?

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (08:41):
My mother is also the church pianist, So until up
until the day that I moved to New York, she
was the only person that ever played anytime I sang.
So we had that in common. We had that together.
That was sort of our thing. My older sister's musical too,
because she didn't really you know, have an inclination to
go into the arts like that, but like it was,

(09:03):
it was just something that she and I connected on,
and I mean we connected hard.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
We loved music, We loved.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
We loved that thing that happens when you make something,
you know, when you give voice to something, and she
knew that it was such a healthy outlet for me.
My stepdad couldn't have cared less. He was not a
brave man in that way. But my mother was my biggest.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Support for sure.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, sometimes all we need is one and that's the
most important one usually, But no doubt, we're talking about Cairo, Illinois.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, you gotta say the way it's tell me it's.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Hero Caro like cro Illinois, Caro like the syrup. Some
of the restaurers will probably know what that is.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's a very small town. I just looked its population
this fifteen hundred.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
It's not even that at this point.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's super small. And yeah, I grew up in small towns.
All towns can be super nurturing, they can also be
pretty small minded. Was your town an easy place for
a young man of color to want to sing and
dance and pursue something like that?

Speaker 4 (10:13):
I think in my instance they were incredibly supportive. But
I you know, I came up in the eighties and
so the shift had really had really begun. I think
what has happened in Caro has happened in so many
of the sort of post industrialists Midwest towns where there
was a lot of potential very early on and moving

(10:33):
into the modern age, and it all completely got viscerated.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
It was.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
It was completely viscerated due to racism and due to
the social constructs of the day. I mean, we have
a legacy where Grant staged his whole campaign of the
West from you know, started a caro. We have the
Holiday Hotel where Mark Twain played a whole lot of
poker and wrote up and down on the river boats.

(10:58):
But we also have a legac see, you know, in
the sixties and seventies where the White Citizens Council would
go up on the levees and shoot down rifles down
into the projects indiscriminately. I went to high school with
kids whose parents slept in bathtubs because of that. So
the legacy of that absolutely drained the spirit of anything

(11:20):
that the town hoped to be. We just didn't know
that in the eighties and nineties and that sort of
you know, and it so closely mirrors so many of
the communities in the Midwest that we now see in
the Cline and that have contributed to all the nonsense
that we have going on.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, well, what kind of culture shock was it? When
you leave ko and get to New York City in
like ninety three, ninety four to study dramatic arts, like
were you ready for that?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
You know what's crazy? Is it? Like?

Speaker 4 (11:52):
I worked at so I worked in the local grocery store,
I worked at the Wonder Market for the last year
that I was there, and my mom being a teacher
at high school.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
There's virtually no one in town that I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
And if I didn't know them, I knew their cousin
or their nephew or their niece for their mind, you
know what I mean. Like and one of the one
of the older men in our church, right before I left,
he said, you know, it's just people. There's just a
lot more of them, and everyone's going somewhere and they're
from somewhere.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
So when you get there, make.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Sure you take a second to look at the tall buildings,
but don't get lost in the fact that everybody's from
somewhere doing what they came here to do.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
So from in that sense, I was far more prepared
to like encounter because I the city, because I just
saw the people. You know, I wasn't prepared for snow.
I wasn't you know the first time that it snowed,
It's noted eighteen inches one day and then twenty two
the next. I had never heard of a nor'easter.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
Sure with my little starter jacket and no boots or
gloves or you're like, yeah, that was insane. But I
caught up pretty quickly and learned very quickly that you
gotta you have to dress for the winter up here.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Different thing.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Do you do you get you when you graduate? Do
you get work right away?

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I did? I did. It's crazy well. I ended my
school year, graduated on a Sunday. I caught the flu
that day.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
At some point I was in bed for two weeks
and then it kind of postponed the inherent fear and
just like being petrified of like, oh wait a minute, now,
I've got to like be out in the world. And
my college roommate called me up. He's like, we're going
to an audition today, Like I'm not ready to saying
yes you are, I'll be there in five minutes, and
literally in five minutes, I grabbed my book and we're

(13:38):
out the door. We go to a Showboat audition. The
show boat was the Broadway Shower was playing at the time.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
I got a call back for that following week, went
in did my audition.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Casting director. His name is Arnold Mongeoli, and to this
day I have such a deep admiration for him. He
walks around the table, he's smiling, everybody room and smiling
and put his arm around me and he's walking me
out of the room and says, you know, how old
are you? I said, well, you know, I'm nineteen. He's like,
you're ready to be on Broadway. But you're not ready.
Oh you're still a little green. He said, Go out

(14:12):
in the city, get a job, season a little bit,
learn how to wash your own clothes and make your dinner. Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
And I was. I was absolutely floored. I was like, oh,
wait a minute, what what do you mean? What do
you mean?

Speaker 4 (14:23):
Because that would have sold, That would have solved all
of the issues that had emerged while I sat there
for two weeks, you know, sweating and being afraid to
like go outside. Fast forward five steps from there, there's
a gentleman named Norman matt Locke who had written a
show with Galt McDermott, the composer of Hair, and they
were in rehearsals. They just started rehearsals for this off

(14:44):
Broadway review called Time in the Wind that they had
written back in the seventies together and they were going
to stage it, and he's a big brusqueuy, and he says,
you know, I got to go into this call back,
but when I'm done, would you be interested in coming
to meeting this director.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
I've got a show that's going up, an off Broadway show.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
And I was like, sure, walk over to the theater,
start like meet the director, sing sixteen bars, and now
I'm in the show. I worked for the next five months,
got my equity card, and then I was off, you know.
And then eighteen months later I got hired at an
hour before the first audition for The Lion King. Yes,
all these things gonna happen abruptly, you know. I can't

(15:22):
you couldn't write it.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
But I had enough time to call my mom at
school and say, hey, Mom, I just.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Booked a Broadway show. I'm going to be in The
Lion King. I start rehearsal in twenty minutes.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
And I walk in and it's a room full of
people and there's a whole thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
But you go from off Broadway to Broadway in under
two years.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, So I mean sometimes when you're in it, it
feels like, oh, this is taking so long. I just
want to get there. But sure, even for you, it
felt fast.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
I mean yeah, but you know, when you're young, days
count like weeks, months, years. If you're looking for the thing,
you know, if you're if you're just looking for stability
more than anything else, you know, and you know, fortunately
I was surrounded and kept. I didn't know it at
the time, but I was being kept by so many
different friends and you know, acquaintances, and then just random

(16:16):
jobs here.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
I was a cater waiter. I worked in a tanning salon.
I was probably the only black person in New York
were working at a tanning salon. But I worked in
a tanning salon, you know, like I had all of
these jobs.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
I was to working at a bistro when I went
to my callback for Lion King, and I still went
back and finished my shift at the end of rehearsal.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
I worked there for two more weeks. Yeah, because because
you want to leave the owner hanging. But I didn't want.
I knew, but I didn't want to leave the owner hanging,
you know what I mean. It's just work ethic, the
thing that we do.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
I was fortunate enough to grow up doing really hard
like manual labor. Yeah, with my stepdad right, and my
end just on my family farm. So for me being
able to like understand what real work was kept me engaged.
It kept me not afraid to like, all right, I'll
do this job to survive for these three weeks, and
I'll do the next you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
the things that you do, you just kind of stay up.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
You know. It's it's remarkable.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Were you because at the time the Lion King, I mean,
it's still huge, one of the biggest shows.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
It was the biggest show on the planet at the time.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
At that time.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
That's right, Yeah, were you? Were you starstruck? Did you
have imposter syndrome? Were you like I can't wait for
everyone to see what I can do, Like what's your
your mentality?

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Super competitive, but not at the expense of my cast mates.
I was competitive with myself. I was competitive with the business.
I wanted to be able to like make my mark.
I wanted to be a part of big things. But
you don't have any control of that when you're an actor,
especially when you're a young actor like I'm just now
thirty years in getting to the point where I can
say yes or no to something, you know, But even then,

(17:50):
like we have to. We have these things called kids,
and they don't stop growing. They just know, they keep
growing and you got to feed them, and you.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Know they need clothes. So even now as as far
along as I've.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Sometimes you gotta say us, Yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Gotta say yes to things.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
When you start looking for other justifications for the time,
you know, then you start weighing time. You start weighing
like do I want to be on this schedule? I
really like having Monday or Saturdays and Sundays off. I
play golf on Sundays, like I have other friends outside
of this bit.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
You know me, like all of those things.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
Yeah, my god, but yeah, I always wanted to just
you know, I grew up revealed from a distance revering
Paul Robison and Sammy Davis Junior and Frank and like
all of these these folks that were that It feels
very familiar because it's it reminds me of the friendships
that I have.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
With my crew and the things that we're doing.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
And it's out in the world and it's public facing,
and you know, even all the way up into and
through Ham it's and it's it's exhilarating to know that
you're just like it's a Tuesday, let's go do something.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
You know, and ask exactly what happens, you know.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
And ever since, ever since Hamilton, it's been oh, and
I'll get to be on TV.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Now I get to go do this and do.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
That now, and right right right, well, let's speaking of
your crew. How do you come to meet Lynn? Manuel?

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Miranda left Lion King and O two. So I was
there from ninety seven to two.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
I call that like my grad school experience, Yeah, because
I really learned pretty much as much about the world
and about working on Broadway and myself growing as a performer.
But I had been hurt. I had three knee surgeries
while I was doing Lion King. It's an incredibly rigorous,
like physical show. So I left on crutches, I recover,

(19:42):
I go out of town. I did a show out
of town and a friend of mine called me all
the night before as I was packing up to come
back to New York, and she said, Hey, I've met
these guys. They're doing something really cool. It's hip hop
and it's R and B stuff, and it's a different
kind of theater and they're just great people. You should
just meet him. I was like, I whatever. You know,

(20:03):
I've been on Broadway forever.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
And I so two days after I get back from Chicago,
I go to the basement of the Drama bookslot store
and I meet Tommy Kale, and I meet Lin Miranda,
and I meet Bill Sherman, and I was like, you
guys are writing the musical because I thought you had
to look like Stephen Sondheim.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
H right, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (20:23):
Like again, all of these emerging you know, like eras
that are sort of shifting in the processes. And then
and then Lynn played me one of the songs. And
then it was a duet that we did and I
didn't even music. I just learned it from listening to him,
and we just like which song was that?

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Five?

Speaker 1 (20:39):
It was a song called Handball in high Bridge Park.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
It was an early, an early song in the heights,
like writing the process. And Lynn had just got into town,
like he had just met Tommy. They had just sort
of started working on this thing seriously. And I met
them that afternoon and the rest is history. I mean,
it's been a twenty year relationship, work in relationship, and.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
It's been incredible, it really has.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
I can't I don't know I don't know what else
to say about it other than you know, the world
has seen it, you know.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
What I mean?

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, it could not have gone better.

Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
In the Heights obviously does very well. It's a great
show as well.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
But what do you think when you first see the
Hamilton book or do.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
You only see pieces of it at first?

Speaker 4 (21:31):
Like?

Speaker 3 (21:32):
What's your how does.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Hamilton come to you in what form?

Speaker 4 (21:38):
The first thing that I Lynn and I are on
stage during a performance of In the Heights, there's a
section in the first act where Daniella, the lady who
owns the salon, they come out and they sing this
song no Mediga. And at the time, in the way
it was staged, Lynn and I would be inside the bodega,
and it wou'd be in a shaft. So on any

(22:01):
given day we could be talking about anything. We could
be talking about what Lynn eight that didn't didn't agree
with his stomach.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
I could be complaining about the fact that I haven't
slept enough where you know, it's just guys.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yep, And he says to me, he looks over and
he says, I got my next thing.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I think. I was like, cool, what is it?

Speaker 4 (22:19):
He's like, it's a hip hop concept album about the
Treasury Secretary. Time to go on out and then we
go out into the big number of ninety six thousand, right, So.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
What you know?

Speaker 4 (22:32):
I have no idea what he's talking about. And so
a few days later, Tommy says to me, I'm walking
across to my dressing room across the stage before the show,
and Tommy's come in and he's like, hey, G Dubs,
And You're like, what what? What everything shorthand with us,
you know? And I said, no, I don't know what
the hell he means. He said, G Dubbs, George Washington.

(22:56):
And I still just what And he says, Lin didn't
tell you. I was like, what, I don't know what
you're talking about. He said, Lynn's thing, George Washington. You're
gonna do It's a it's a thing about Alexander Hamilton
and you're gonna be George Washington.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
And I said, okay, that was it. We get done
with that show.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
Before I go home, I go down to the borders
down by Madison Square Garden because it was opened super late,
and I pick up this huge biograph. Would look for
the biggest biography on Washington that I could find. Yeah,
in a in a a great turn of luck for me.
It was Churnou's Pull a surprise winning biographer, perfect good choice,

(23:37):
eight hundred and something pages. I never even I never
read a book that that thick, ye, But that night
back in I guess what nine maybe eight o nine
O nine, I think, and I just start on the
bus on the train.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
I'm just like, it becomes my.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
Bible, and I knew that whatever it was going to be,
that I wanted to be as informed about it as possible.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
And it was like the first it was really the first.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Opportunity in all of the years that I've been working
to be able to like base the character work that
I was attempting on source material. It was a character
that was, you know, outside of Lincoln, was probably the
most biography figure of our of our country's history. So

(24:22):
there was just so much and even in the writing style,
there was so much tie in between. Obviously the Turnou's
Hamilton Book and the Washington book. Parts were like Deuteronomy,
but it was very it was super super informative. I've
read the book seven times throughout the course of the prep,
you know, because my years so a couple of times,

(24:43):
you know, a year I would I would get into it,
and I would have read it. It just became I tried
to become an expert on the things that motivated Washington
and the things that informed and influences life. Washington's journey
in Hamilton is all about the moment that happened, the
moments that happened before he ran into Hamilton, in the
moments after he ran into Hamilton. You know, his story

(25:04):
is not told. His story as it relates to Hamilton
is what's important, right And for me, it was really
important to know that when i enter upstage on the
rail and I've got a cloak on that I'm coming
from Boston after just having you know, thwarted the British
there and made you know, like.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
It all made sense to me.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
And that was the That's why I think, you know,
that role was the most fun because it was like, oh,
all of these things that I learned back in school,
I now actually get to yes, get the thread.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
It was dope, and you get to flesh him out
because he is just a figure in a history book
for so many people. Even if you admire him whatever
you think, he's alone gone. And to humanize him the
way Lynn does with all the characters in Hamilton and
really put personalities and plight, you know, to these characters.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
What an incredible thing to be a part of.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
I can't It was so much fun. It was so
much fun, and it was so hard.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, that was the part that I love.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
The most about it.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
Well, doing the show just physically sang twenty two songs
the show. If it wasn't a solo, it was like
I was involved in twenty two different songs. That's a
tremendous amount of singing, you know. So you build up
these muscles, and you build up this awareness and the
audiences that come in that are so wrapped and so

(26:22):
excited to meet the story live and in person, and
you know, because the groundswell was so tremendous before we
ever even hit Broadway.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, it was definitely a different kind of experience.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
There are enthusiastic audiences and then there are audiences that
are literally vibrating. Yes, when you come out on stage,
whether they you know, because it isn't about whether or
not they know the lyrics, It's about how they're hearing
it and being so open and being so aware that
they're in an audience.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yes, right, I always talk about.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
The the agreement that we make when we're as audience members,
like we all agree to bring whatever bags we have
into a theater, set them down and listen. Yes, and
the applause that comes is more of a confirmation that
we were together than you were so great, you were amazing.
I was so like all of those things are are nice,

(27:16):
but like that final moment where everyone stops, you know,
at the end of the show, there was a there
was a silence that usually happened that was so full
of just the release gratitude moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
it was a gratitude that we shared with the audience

(27:37):
because hey, we get to do this for you guys.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
It'll never happen again. It was really awesome.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
It was the It's the best part of of all
of the things that I've ever done.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Well, I can from from the position of an audience member,
I can tell you I cry at every overture, Like
I sit down the curtain, go the orchestra play, I'm crying.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Already because I'm just so grateful to be there.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
And I know, especially on Broadway, whatever I'm going to
see it's going to be the best thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
I mean, it just always is.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
And I can rank this one I liked more than
this one, but it's always just going to be the
best thing I've ever seen, and we're going to do
it together, and it's like it is such a break
from the real world for two and a half hours.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
It's yeah, we all need it.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
I do want to ask, though, before you knew it
was a huge hit, was there any thought as you're workshopping,
maybe this isn't going to work, or this isn't for Broadway,
or this is great but people won't get it.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Did you have any thoughts like that? No?

Speaker 4 (28:40):
No, because again, as I said before about my relationship
with Lynn and Tommy and Alex Lockmore.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
We do stuff. Yeah, we just do stuff.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
And the reason why I had so much confidence that
it would work was mostly due to the fact that, Yeah,
Lend's my little broke but he is brilliant ye and
Tommy is a brilliant director and a brilliant They're brilliant
human beings, right. Love the politic of it, don't love
you know what I mean, like, don't like this song,

(29:12):
don't like this this idea, Like it's it's so thoughtful
that when loser draw. Our aim isn't to make everybody happy,
but our aim is to be tell a complete story.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
When a painter creates a painting, his job isn't to
stand by that painting and you know, for time in
memoriam and tell you what to think about it or
what how to be influenced by it. It's meant to
provoke thought, feeling, exercise, emotion. Right, that's the that's the
next step from the arts that are are refined or

(29:51):
in a frame and as human beings, we're just we're
laying this before you in the hopes that it'll make
you feel something.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yes, that's that's what our job is. You know what
I mean.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
I think it's so much as conflated, especially with the
TV of it all and the fact that the medium
becomes live, that we're only doing this.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
For recognition, And it couldn't be further from the truth.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
People who are on on you know, like social media
and things like that that are that are influences or
or are looking to be popular. That's not a new thing. Yeah,
I think in our our generation saw that happening. But
in sort of you know that traditional media with like
you know, Paris Hilton, for example, and Parditions Kardashians. Their

(30:37):
job was to be famous, do things that would initiate
and continue that conversation.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Our job is to like tell a story to you.

Speaker 4 (30:46):
If we're known for it, If we pursue that, it's
only so that we can further our ability to.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Do it right.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
And it's like, I don't want to be I don't
want to be a social media presence, but I.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Have to do that. I know because the people that
decide whether I get to work are now looking to
see how many followers I have and how active I am.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
And I mean, it's such a it's a weird it's
sort of a weird like time that we're in.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Well, it's very familiar.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
That idea is very familiar to me because I got
into journalism not to become famous, not even to be
on TV. I got in it to tell stories and
hold power accountable. And when TV came, I found well, this,
this is helpful. It gets me more writing jobs and
more opportunities to do the thing I love. And along
the way, right, when you get more well known, then

(31:37):
you have to foster the social media relationship. And sure
you have to you have to keep those parts of
your job going to get the next things you want,
I'd rather.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
And not for nothing. But like you also, you do
develop a skill.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
Set and then you do very You learn what.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
It means to be on camera and to like host
your own show, how to structure and how to produce
and how to like it guides your ability. But that
is a skill set versus it's a feature and not
a bug.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Right, It's just it's not the thing that you're pursuing it.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Yeah, because you you you uphold your own journalistic pathway.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
To the world and what's important to me.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
Yeah, and sharing that information, Yeah, as an expert in
the field that you're in.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
And that's I mean, that's why I watch you. That's
you know what I'm saying, That's why.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
And I know the difference between when I'm watching you,
you know, host a show versus something that you're sharing
on Instagram, you know, Like, but I never lose sight
that this is a human being but also a journalist
talking about the things that are relevant for people to
know and process.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
And that's a there's a there's a correlation I.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Think between I think there is and what actors are doing.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
It's it's a different it's a perform parallel pursuits, if
you will.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
You know, we've had a lot of artists on who
have done theater and then moved over to TV and film,
and they're very different muscles and experiences. What's the difference

(33:13):
for you and what do you like about doing TV
and film that's maybe different than doing theater.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
I like the craft of making television.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
I like that it's a mental exercise and it requires
a different kind of mental engagement.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Theater is all tightrope.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
Theater is being in a room with fifteen hundred people
and developing a sense of where they are or whether
they're with you, or whether they're quiet because they don't
like what's happening, or they're quiet because they're leaning in.
Theater is a level of focus that you have to
maintain whether you're on stage or not, and know exactly

(33:52):
where that energy has to be put at and how
you regulate that throttle. It's the most exhilarating experience I
I could hope to have professionally, and film and TV
is far more insular. Even if you're like filming on
Fifth Avenue carrying a twenty foot train, you know.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
There's no doubt that we know we're.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
In an iconic moment like that, you know what I mean,
But when the cameras one hundred feet away, you still
have to maintain the reality and the truth in that.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
And there's nobody watching, you know. So I love the
fact that life is still going on.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
I love the idea of leaving a sound stage and
you know, there's an ice cream truck down down the
street that literally held your shooting up for twenty minutes
while all of the neighborhood got ice cream.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
You know what I mean. There's just so many different
things that you have to be aware of and make
space war or the dreaded helicopter above right above an area,
you know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
That part it's way more forgiven in that regard, But
it's a different it's a different centema.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
It's a different thing.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Well speaking of because I think you just spoke of it,
and just like that, it just ended with controversy.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
Because that show provokes very strong feelings.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
What was your experience like stepping into a really beloved
franchise lover Here, but one that also got some real detractors,
especially in the last season.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
Well when it was out we were in our twenties
experiencing I mean, I lived in New York and that
wasn't my experience same.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
I didn't know where the fancy restaurants were.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
I wasn't thinking about fancy restaurants, right, you know, I
didn't have shoes that needed to be.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Shined, you know what I'm saying. Yes, we were in.

Speaker 4 (35:40):
Our twenties discovering everything. You fast forward, we've gone through
so many different world shape changing events.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yes, And we're all.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
In our forties and we've all been cheated on, and
we've been divorced, and we have kids, yep, and we
have money problems and we like I think that there's
a moment where alignment of an audience in a show
and an idea have to be reconciled some kind of way.

(36:14):
And I think, you know, I can't speak to an
entire audience or characterize an entire you know, millions of
people watching a beloved show that helped define kind of
what they're a period of their lives. Yeah, represented, you know,
I can't speak to that except to say that I
think culturally, I think we're in a moment where there's

(36:37):
certainly room for a show like and just like that.
But I think given the very recent history of these
cultural movements like black Lives Matter and social justice and
me Too and all of those things that were super
important for us, a show like Sex and the City
has to do a whole lot of lifting because.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
The stakes are high, stakes are.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
Higher, a whole lot of lifting, And I don't know
if anybody can check all of those boxes.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's hard to do, especially remembering Sex and the City
ultimately as a comedy, and.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
It is and it's treated as such. Yeah, heart, you
know what I mean. Like it?

Speaker 3 (37:19):
No, I totally get it.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
But have we but have we allowed ourselves to laugh?
I know?

Speaker 2 (37:24):
I know it's tough because it's not just about getting
into sushi samba and finding Minola Blois anymore.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Like, as you said, a lot's changed.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
The stakes are higher because we're older, the world is different.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
How do you tell the story of these.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Same people in a completely different time and age, with
completely different, very real responsibilities now more than just paying
their rent.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
It's a heavy lift. It's a lot. You're asking a lot.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
And speaking of the characters, how do you let them
live if the decisions that they've made don't now align
with your politics?

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yes, right, right.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
So there's what I mean to say is that when
you have a show like this, and the beautiful part
about it is that there are so many cultural touch
points that Michael Patrick King and the entire like writer's
staff were being so attentive to all of these different
voices and all of these different all of these different influences.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Community and flots.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And and they weren't making a show
based on trying not to offend as many people as
they could. They were making a show that ultimately, at
the at the end of the day, honored the characters
lives as they continued. Yes, And I think that that's
while also presenting characters that were so very like seemingly

(38:42):
ensconced in how these characters have evolved and giving them
life and trying to represent a different take on the
times and on the city and on how these people
live and move and breathe.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
You know it.

Speaker 4 (38:57):
There doesn't need to be a perfect version because it's
not possible. Good point, Yeah, it's just not possible. It's
you know, like me and Nicolelaurie Parker were doing something
that has never been done on television before. We were
representing a black family with all of these very you know,
sort of common problems while also having hundreds of millions

(39:19):
of dollars in them. Yeah, and living in a fifty
million dollar you know, condo and Park Avenue like that's
a real thing.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, that happens, we just don't see it. And that's
also I think representing the best of imagination and TV
and making and storytelling.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yes, you know, well said, I want to switch gears.
We have something in common. Our kids are on the
autism spectrum, and I was wondering if you're comfortable sharing
what it was like to get that diagnosis.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
In that moment, we were ten minutes before our first
run through of in Nights Off Broadway, so there was
I was having a day where there was a lot
going on.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
It's a big day.

Speaker 4 (40:04):
Yeah, I thought that My wife was while we were
checking on and trying.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
To figure out.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
What was going on with our boy, and she called
me and she told me that our pediatrician is certain
after the second evaluation that CJ has autism.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
How old is he at this point?

Speaker 1 (40:26):
He's two almost two. And I had never heard what
I'd never heard the word. I didn't know what it meant. Yep.
And in that moment. I mean, quite honestly, it was
upsetting and scary.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
But the first question that I had was will we
ever be able to play catch? I mean I literally
said that, will he ever be able to play?

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Like? And I don't know why that. I don't know
what that, you know, like, I get baseball's deep better
in my in my experiences in my childhood and my
my psyche, And it's one of those few it's one
of the few.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Things that I that was always a bridge from me
with an older mentor, like my godfather was my pastor.
The first thing we ever did was play catch with
one another. My grandfather played catch with me, my dad,
who was there there for a very.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Short amount of time.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
I remember ball was a part of our relationship, and
that was what it was.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I don't know why. He was diagnosed with pdd in OS,
which is sort of.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
Broad spectrum early diagnosis, nonspecific. He experienced some things later
on soon thereafter that were a little bit more severe.
He he developed a proxy.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Of speech where and that's a situation where in his case,
he basically lost his brain the wiring, to put it
sort of crudely, the wiring from his brain to his
mouth got jump. Okay, so he wasn't able to process
certain foods are certain like sour sweet, sweet sweet stuck around,

(42:09):
but savory things. He was eating a lot of different things.
And then after a while, I mean very quickly, was
just like no, he couldn't process certain textures to this
day that he still struggles with and he's twenty now.
He couldn't talk.

Speaker 4 (42:22):
So it severely affected his ability to speak. And so
instantly physical therapy, speech therapy inccupational therapy in home every day,
started school when he was three, all day like his
speech pathologists.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Well, first of all, his mother, My wife is amazing,
was amazing.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
She essentially put her career who she's also a world
class singer and performance.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yes, she put her whole career. She stopped it. She's like,
you're doing this, I'm doing this.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
And so every single day at eight o'clock, first therapist,
the last therapist was at.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Four every single day and saved his life. There was
a time we didn't think he would talk.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
He won't shut up, and I know that that's not
you know, that's that's we still have so many things
that we have to be attentive to.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
It's never ending.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
It's never ending with our kids anyway, Yes, but it
just sort of shrunk our world, yep around. This little
nugget of a beautiful child taught me how to be
a dad, taught me how to don't come home a
crack beer, internal sports center. No no, no, no, no, get home.
You got to lock in. What have I missed? What's

(43:41):
going on? How can I help? What do I need
to know? How do I need to You know, I
can take him to therapy this day, I can get here.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I can be here for that, you know what I mean?
Like it just sort of it rearranged everything.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
And we were pretty much broke and had so few
prospects in terms of like resources and where to go,
how to navigate the.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
New York state.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
And we're very fortunate, blessed to be in New York state,
a state, a state that makes such accommodations for people
with special needs as opposed to some other states.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
And it's just horror stories. But my wife was.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
I mean, she turned into a pitbull of an advocate.
She was on top of everything. She was super attentive,
and we just learned a new life. We learned a
new way to move. We learned how to. We had
to build our family up to be advocates. They weren't
prepared for this either. Nobody was prepared for it.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
So we had to after we kind of got to
a point where we understood what we needed to do,
we had to educate them and we had to get
them on board to understand the severity of the situation,
how long it was going to take for us to
get to some kind of a baseline.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
And to their credit, they all stepped up. They all
figured it out. Everybody kind of learned their own. You know,
grandparents have to be brought on. Grandmother's they're they're just
completely you know, unflappable. Yeah, you know, grandpa's need to
kind of like recalibrate.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Like I did, played baseball until he was eleven and
then he was done.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
So we did get to play catch, and we did
go to games, and I did get to do that
with him, and we have had so many experiences.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
We do travel with him. He gets to just all
he is.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
A brilliant, brilliant kid and well young man now and
and we just we just figured it out. And then
we've turned what we've gone through into advocacy and just
done our best at like Trumpet where the resources are
because it's so isolating, right, you like the idea of

(45:48):
it can be really isolating. Your friends don't kind of
know if they can talk about this or be here
for that. They don't know why you're leaving at six
and not at nine when you normally head out after
a couple of glasses of what I mean, like it's
you just got to figure the things out.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
But yeah, it was it. I would say that it was.
It was difficult, but having a child is just difficult period.
But it's on this side.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
Of it and what we've been experiencing over the especially
over the last like ten years, it's just been you know,
it's a refining process.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
You get better at it. You know, it doesn't get easier,
you just get stronger, right right.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
I mean you think and I think that that that
really characterizes what that whole journey has been for us
and continues to be.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Well. I love so many things that you said, and
I love the way you talk about are kiddos on
the spectrum.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
And you know a thing that really helped me.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Because you know when you said, the first thing I
thought of is will we be able to play catch?

Speaker 3 (46:50):
You know, you have an idea of what.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Your kid's childhood's going to be like and what you're
going to be like as a parent, and you've got
to sort of confront Okay, does that change? But then
also I found what I found really helpful was letting
him guide me through the journey too, because I'm a fixer,
I'm a solver. And I realized, like my son, my
son's younger, he's ten, he has ticks as well, and

(47:16):
a couple of years ago he was having some fairly
disruptive ticks that you'd notice and hear. And my solution was,
let's stay home for a couple of days. It's like
third grade. Who cares stay home for a couple of days.
I don't need you to be suffering through the agony
of being watched or scrutinized or maybe even made fun of.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Like, you don't need that, It's fine.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
His solution was, no, Mom, I want to go to
school and I want to give a presentation on my
tics and let my classmates know what's happening to me
and what, you know, what makes me feel good in
this moment. And it was so brave, and I almost
robbed him of that opportunity to be brave and so

(48:00):
I'm so proud of him. But as parents, we want
to solve and fix. Yeah, And it was a good
reminder for me to be like, well, he might have
even better solutions that part than I have for every
challenge we're going to come up against.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Why don't I ask him first? You know?

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Yeah, But that's also first of all, that's just incredible
and it's beautiful, but also like we're not sort of
trained in the idea of what parents are supposed to do. Yeah,
but like I think the superpower and the shortcut to
all of this stuff is just meeting them where they
are exactly but you but not too long ago, you

(48:39):
couldn't ask him what he'd prefer to do, right, So
the growth that comes out of that is a testament
to like he's already advocating for himself totally, which is
you know, number one on the list. But two, like
you're learning to trust that he's not going to We
don't let our kids walk on the side of the
street on the sidewalk, We put them up against the building.

(49:01):
But now he knows the difference between stepping on the
curve and not, you know, so there's growth to be found,
and that's.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
What's beautiful about it. I call it the beautiful struggle.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
I borrow that phrase from from a great artist, Tulip Quality,
who named one of his albums after that. And it
happened right around the time that CJ. I discovered that album,
right around the time that CJ had been diagnosed, and
it was like, oh, this is yeah, it's it's never
not loaded.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
It's never not loaded, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (49:30):
And I can remember a time where I I kind
of got in touch with the idea of what empathy
for myself was because parents, we feel sorry for ourselves too,
you know, not not because not in a woe is me,
but that there's so much helplessness through the process of
it that you can kind of slip into the like

(49:52):
what did I do?

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Is it my fault? How do I get away? How
do I make it better?

Speaker 4 (49:56):
How do I get us out of this crazy? You
can't not that way anyway. You have to you have
to learn a whole new way, and you're better. You're
better for it totally. Your kids are better for it totally. Yes, Well,

(50:18):
thank you for sharing that. That's really great and important.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Let's lighten the mood with a lightning round before we
say goodbye.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Oh Lord, all right, m h, what's the.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
Best musical of all time? Besides Hamilton and in the.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Heights He's trying to get me killed though.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
I'm taking those off the table.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Why because of specifically? And I could call you, you know,
I could, I could get my swag back on.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
I mean, we love those two. But what else.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
It's gonna expose me? No, it is, no, I can't.
I'm just gonna try to answer your question. But you're
gonna have to.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
You're gonna have to either like leave this awkward, awkward
pause or or cut it down. It's okay.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
I think of all time kind of puts it in
a different thing. I'm gonna say, lion King.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Oh that's a good one.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
I'm gonna say, lion King. I think that they did.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
I think what what we did, what Julie put forth
was not was. I think it's beautiful because of its
simplicity and just how complex and how like truly like
the theater thing that the theater devices she used are
thousands of years old and they worked so well.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Yeah, very cool. Yeah, yeah, good answer. I can't get
you in any trouble. What's a Broadway role you haven't
played but would like to.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
I don't know, okay, completely the one I haven't played yet. Great,
most of the traditional roles don't work for me. Oh interesting,
I don't think old musicals age.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Well hold please pause right there.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
I could totally see you though, as either a Valjean
or a Javert.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Okay, no, you disagree.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
I'm just not interested in it.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Oh, okay, that's a different thing.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Yeah, I guess, yeah, like I'm not.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
I think the way we tell stories now has the
potential to be more interesting in the way that musicals
were written a long time ago. Yes, you could have
the plot, take a five minutes or three minute break,
sing a song about sparrows, and then come back to
the plot. Whereas now we structure things we need to.
We want to keep things moving, and that's why a

(52:59):
lot of the rolls you have to do a lot
of work as an actor to make them relevant and
push move the things through. And they don't write a
lot of roles for black men in the forties and fifties.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yes, facts, Yes, so that love it?

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Okay, great, not a lightning round answer.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Sorry, no, there's no right or wrong lightning round answer, This.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Is not a box is a brief kind of thing. Okay,
we can have real answers, sorry.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Best real answers. Okay, favorite post theater meal, Grandma's.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
Lies from pats Aria's on forty sixth Street. Oh yes,
all the garlic you can stand? Yes, and carbs right, yes?

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Yeah, yes, punishment absolutely.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Who's funnier behind the scenes? Jonathan Groff, Lynn or dav Diggs.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
That's one, A, B and C.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
They're all idiots in their own way. The Davide is
Davide is an assassin. Davide is an assassin with this,
with this, with his funny, he's amazing. And Jonathan's just
that smile and Lynn's Lynn so love it.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Did you get to keep any of the clothes from
and just like that?

Speaker 1 (54:17):
No? Once that many people have seen you wear something?

Speaker 3 (54:22):
What could you do anyway?

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Right? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Right, yeah, because you dress up when you hit a
red carpet, I try, Oh I've seen try. Yes, Okay,
what's the worst? What's your worst audience experience? Meaning an
audience member who was awful or disruptive?

Speaker 3 (54:42):
Like, do you have one that you remember?

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Pence came to the show a week after I left.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
I remember, yeah, not to say that he was an
awful audience member, right understood, Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I think.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Oh yeah, Madonna was on her phone, right yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
But that's a misunderstood situation too, okay, because I know
from someone on the inside that there was a family
issue that she that was dire that she was dealing with.
Oh okay, so I give a little grace contact cast
members have been talking about it. Yeah, I just happened
to know something about it. There have been people that
have been sleeping in second or third row.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
I remember.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
I remember like it was like in the first month
or so of him, and you know, because we come
out so slowly and we're taking the audience in, and
there was someone just there was.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
An older gentleman. It was just oh I just couldn't.
He just couldn't get there.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Does that mess with you?

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Nah? No, okay no, because someone told me, is like
that guy could have saved five people's lives. He could
be a hard surgeon.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
He could have been surgery for twenty hours straight and
then couldn't give the tickets up.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
So is going to be the best sleap of his life.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
What a great way of putting it.

Speaker 4 (56:03):
Yeah, it is is because it can be affecting, you know,
I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
We were on stage last night in his kitchen and
there was a woman as we were sitting at the
dinner table, We're about to go into Fallen and as
an older black lady, you could hear and she was
just so in it, and she was talking in between
every phrase, and it was so hard not to laugh
because I knew she knew, because I knew who she

(56:27):
knew exactly what I was doing.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
And the rest of the audience was, you know, she
was the only one.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
But she was like, yeah, yeah, go ahead and smile.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
We know what that is. Yeah, it was one of
those lessons last night. It was amazing. It was amazing.
It is amazing.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
If someone's coming backstage, what's a thing they should not do?

Speaker 4 (56:51):
Ooh uh, don't interrupt conversations with other people for an autograph.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Wait, we're back there already. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
I love seeing people after a show. But just be patient, Yes,
be patient. Yeah, they shouldn't. They shouldn't push in on conversations. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Patti Lapone famously said that ovations are cheap in America,
meaning we give standing ovations to freely and not everyone
deserves them your thoughts.

Speaker 4 (57:24):
If you had said anybody but Patty, I'm sorry, miss Lapone,
I would probably have a better answer. I don't think
it's our job to police audiences. I think if it's
they're standing up because they're ready to go, that's fine.

(57:44):
I think if they're standing up because it's now a
new sort of trend, I think that's fine. I don't
think that you can come on stage, offer an idea
and expression over a period of time, and then hold
some requirement of how people should receive you. Yes, I

(58:08):
don't think that's what ovations are meant to do. As
I said earlier, I think that they are simply a
affirmation that we've spent time together. Yes, that will never
happen again. I do believe that people should be a
little bit more on top of turning their damn phones off,
of course, but I would never stop a performance to

(58:28):
chastise an audience member for having their phone out. Because
what the public doesn't know is that when we come
off stage, we go to a stage manager and say
there's somebody in that seat and they're filming, and then
the usher comes down and takes the phone or makes
them stop to stop a performance, I think is the
most self aggrandizing thing that you can possibly don't It

(58:52):
doesn't service anything or anyone. And I'm the first person
to show deference and respect. But you know, as a
as a fellow Broadway performer, who I've done a few shows.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Yeah, I've done a few thousand shows.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (59:07):
Nobody has the right to pull the rest of the
world out of this world that you've been creating, simply
for you to get your your your fill of of
wagging at people like later for that.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (59:19):
If I was an audience member and saw that, I
would be incredibly offended. Great answer.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Okay, this is the last question. It's the most important question.
We ask it at the end of every podcast. When
is it iced coffee season?

Speaker 4 (59:35):
Anytime you want to put some is a cup and
a half some coffee.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
I prefer it in the afternoon. I prefer my iced
coffee later in the day, you know, on the way
to the theater, something like that. Anytime you want it.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
It's the correct answer. I knew you'd have the correct windows.
I knew you'd have the right answers.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
You can have any time you like, especially you.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
Yes, Christopher Jackson.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
This was This is absolutely delightful, highlight, a pleasure, a joy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
We laughed, I cried. This was incredible. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
You're the best. Keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
You too.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
You bring so much joy to so many people, and
we're just so grateful for you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Appreciate you. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Coming up next week on Off the Cup, we end
our season with a very special guest. I get super personal,
more personal if you can believe it, then I have
all season with none other than.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
My husband, John Goodwin. On a scale of one to stant.
No nervous, are you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:40):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Maybe a four to eight? Oh, four to eight is
a wide swing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yeah, it keeps going back and forth.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reason Choice Network.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
If you want more, check out the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Other Reason Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native
Land pod. For Off the Cup, I am your host,
Se Cup. Editing and sound design by Derek Clements. Our
executive producers are me Se Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman.
Rate and review wherever you get your podcasts, Follow or
subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday,