Anthony Mackie

We agree with our fearless leader, that when it comes to this week's Questlove Supreme guest the work speaks for itself! It goes without saying that Anthony Mackie is probably in at least one of your favorite movies. From Tupac to Marvel's The Falcon, he has done and is doing it all. This episode we dive into where it all comes from and what New Orleans, Juilliard and Wendell Pierce have to do with it. Trust that you don't want to miss this one and a warning that this episode may trigger a lot of laughter.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Question Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio. Whatever.
What's up? Man? You making you what? I thought you
were outside right now? I was like, yeah, I'm outside man,
the basketball game on him in New Wall and even
do adults shit like that outside and never a drink.

(00:23):
I get the look. And he ain't even got no
headphones on, like he just sprayed like I'm outne street
your headphones? I guess is you just found out about this.
I don't like headphones. I don't like to be contamed. Man.
I'm ready to fight Anthony Mackie and I barely know him.

(00:45):
I'm sorry. Welcome Anthony Mackie. Let us start everyone. Yes, yes,
not Anthony Mackie. But no, I don't record. That's how
didn't get everybody. I can tell this is already gonna

(01:08):
match our drunken Christmas episodes. I can I can tell already.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
I'm your host Quest Love. We have Teams Supreme with
us unpaid bill. Hello. Yeah, how's it going Tuesday? Everything's good.
You didn't tell us. You didn't tell us that we

(01:28):
we got black muppets on the wall. Yeah, black muppets.
We haven't discussed black muppets. They're a black muppets. Wait,
maybe I gotta pose. I gotta pose the question like
SNL does that mean all the other muppets are white?
Valid question? Can't answer that per se, but it's a
really good question. Are you not allowed to answer that question?
I don't know. I mean probably, I haven't honestly thought

(01:50):
about it, but it's a good it's a good question. Yeah.
Are we recording? Because I don't. I learned from Anthony Mackie.
I don't record. I just play free, free, living, free, free.
So what's what's? What's? Uh? What's the bump? His names
Eric and Travis or something? No, No one of them

(02:11):
got a real black name. It's not real black, but
it's a black enough. Not like you got name one
of them. You gotta give him like a North Philly
named Rosel please. Anyway, your girlfriend is your girlfriend of
urban descent? No, she's the producer of Sesame Street? Right?

(02:33):
Is she of urban descent? What? Is she black? His
stepmother's Jamaican? Though, that's right. Their names are Their names
are Elijah and West are not the blackest names Like
Elijah's is kind of yeah, and maybe Elijah shout out
to you know, Elijah rest in peace, Colorado Springs. That's

(02:53):
what's up. Okay, I don't know about that. Somebody they
want my my my ex wanted to name my son
Wyatt and I was literally about to go to jail,
and so you decided to name him Anthony Jr. You

(03:14):
think I'm gonna name him? Yo? I was the last
start in my mind space right now. He shot a
little question what you think named him? And I'm from
the South. You're gonna be a junior ship. I see that,

(03:36):
sugar Steve. How how are we doing this week? We're
doing great. Nice to see everybody, Team Supreme. Anthony Mackie
so nice to you. What's that rich Man students from Manhattan? Yeah, man,
I'm hype. I'm ready for this. I'm ready to go
in ready for about ten minutes. Girl going, I'm good, man,

(04:03):
I'm good. It's gonna be a fun episode, all right. Yeah.
I was about to say normally, I'm gonna I'm gonna
escuse the long jarn out episode because there's really no
need for this introduction. I'll just say this much brother
the brother Manchurian candidate. She hate me million dollar baby,
Eagle Eye, the hurt Locker notorious and catches us Abraham Lincoln,

(04:26):
Detroit Captain America Winter Soldier, Civil War. Also they hate you.
Give I didn't realize that was thug acronym. I'll get
that later. Black or white you need yeah, yeah, sad
give me all right? Anyway, The Night the Night Before

(04:47):
Avengers Aunt man, uh, Striking Viber is black mirror episode
definitely all the way. Um the Falcon Winter Soldier of course,
Um dude, what about the Matt day than One Adjustment Bureau?
Come on, Okay, there twelve more I was going to name,
but fuck it. Ladies and gentlemen, Yes, and we're recorded, Yes,

(05:20):
we are recording. How how are you right now? Man?
I'm good, bro, I'm chilling. I'm just living life, man,
enjoying this unemployment game. Shut up? Your job is on
TV every week. I don't know what you're talking about.
You're everywhere. So how are you unemployed? Well, this is
the minute to finish the job you unemployed? Thank you, sir.

(05:41):
There's one person here that knows how unemployment works. There's
one person here that also knows that you probably we
have five other things lined up. Yeah, I mean later. Yeah,
but right now I'm unemployed. I get that you can
actually file. He's right. I didn't think about it, but
I was told I can't file. Oh well, I was

(06:03):
about to say you can file. I don't get a
stimma chere. Yeah, I was gonna say, you got your stimmy.
You're a superhero. Superhero. I was going, I was I
was gonna file for stimmy and they told me I could. Yeah,
that would be pretty fucked up in the country. We
let the falcon get a stimmy that's incoming quality like

(06:25):
a motherfucker. Where are you right? Where are you right now? Us?
I'm I'm in the wallers downtown. You are too boo
to blue New Orleans. Yeah, seven one Bastallville hard head
know that. Yeah, New York motherfucker's don't know how to

(06:47):
deal with that. Going from you saw the Suns afterwards, right,
everybody was like, I love you too, Anthony, thank you.
I was just if other New Orleans all stars knew
each other because we we've talked to Terence Blanchard in
the last month, we talked to p J. Moore in
Tank and everybody is still all the New Orleans folks

(07:08):
are in New Orleans, I like a lot of other folks. Yeah, yeah,
it's the best city in the world. Why would you leave?
You get your You get European flavor, with the amenities
of America, with the best food in the world. Why
would you leave august Ship. Oh you don't like being nicky?
I don't worry. Oh wait, what else happens besides the

(07:31):
amount of hurricanes and floods? No, I just need to
be on fire, Anthony, right fire. Yeah, you're getting the
pool and you your cat? How whatever your cash is?
When't getting the pool? My neighbors know me through and through.
I'm like, stop looking over the fence. Dog, just ain't fun.
You stop looking over I'm not gonna make it through this.

(07:54):
I don't think, oh my god, all right, I don't
even like I don't even feel like having a normal
as interview because but he deserves his flowers, so we
you know, he's like, I think this is our flowers moment. Yeah, real,

(08:15):
I knew you too long. I'm gonna be good. Go ahead,
go ahead, No, no, no, you're good, You're straight. I'm
just waiting to get to this. She hate me conversation.
Oh here we go. What's your what's your what's your
family situation in New Orleans? Like? How many brothers and
sisters or siblings? Uh? Three? Three sisters, two brothers. We

(08:39):
all live here. You know, once you hear, but you
always come back, so you know, thankfully, knock on wood.
None of us have had covid um. But I'm the
young I'm the youngest. Okay, are they all artistically inclined
or you're the only one that sort of broke the down?
I'm the only one day they came. Damn if you

(09:01):
give him a menu to read, it to be a disaster.
So what what drew you to acting? Uh? You know
what our kids do? And my teacher, you know, and
the nineties they wanted to put everybody on ride. So

(09:23):
you know my mom, My mom came to school and
was like, yo, that's a gateway drug And I was like,
what the funk? What? Like? What is it a gateway too?
So then I got scared and instead of my my
my third grade teacher came in and was like, yo,
he's a good student, he just needs something to focus
his attention. So she had me audition for the Talented
in Theater program. And after that I never had another problem. Wow. Yeah,

(09:49):
I had some amazing teachers in my life every step
of my life. Literally, I am where I am today
because of the teachers I had, from my second great
teacher all the way up, and these all teachers in
New Orleans. So they had a Because we hear about music.
I hear a lot about the music in New Orleans.
But what's the kind of drama, act and scene like locally?

(10:10):
I mean there's Look, the acting scene is great. You know,
we have a we have theaters here, we have theater
groups here. You know, we've just the art scene in general.
You know, if you look at the Marty Grand Indians,
all of that is just performing. You know, all of
us are storytellers. You know, New Orleans is a culture
of storytelling. So you know, if you sit down, we
went to Marcella's and Jaren's Blanche, you see them dudes

(10:31):
could tell a story that could wake up dead. You know. Yeah,
it's a part of the culture. Man, That's that's all
it is. Storytelling is a part of the culture. So
you know, everybody here is an actor. And they all, right, uh,
your parents what were your what was your what were
your parents? Uh? Uh, my mom was a housewife. Dude,

(10:53):
she just like chilled spanked all six of us. And
my dad was a contract you had a roof and coming.
So you know, he uh, with his education, became one
of the most successful businessmen in the city of New
Orleans just off of honesty and hustle. It's literally like

(11:13):
one of the most amazing stories, um you would ever
think to hear from my grandfather to my dad to
his six kids. You know, the amount of growth and
prosperity and appreciation is the biggest thing. You know. My
grandfather was a chere Cross, you know, so you know
it was you know, It's just one of those things
where I would never define my family's name just simply

(11:35):
because of who my grandfather was. Like when I got
in trouble, my dad used to say, you know you
were MACKI right, So you know, the validity of our
name always meant something, even when I was a child,
like when we went somewhere, I was never Anthony. I
was that Mackie boy. So it was already a standard
set and that there seems like it has a lot

(11:57):
to do with the roles that you seem to choose
to Oh definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's
why I'll never use the N word on screen. That's
why I choose roles in a way that people can watch,
learn and grow from. Yeah, you do. When I play
a thug is a thug with substance. I don't want
to just be willing Nelly out here, you know, acting

(12:19):
like an idiot selling booty for CARNBA. Yeah, we didn't
mention one of my favorite Anthony Mackie Ros appreciate that
imagery right there. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I've heard of
selling booty. I feel like you once said that to

(12:40):
you and that stuck with you. Yeah, that's somebody's grandmother's turn.
Don't be out there selling boot My version of that
was don't be out there in the corner selling wolf tickets.
We had wolf tickets. That what's that explain that? You know,
like wolf ticket like bullshit, and like, don't be acting
a fool. Wolf tickets. I'll be right you check. You

(13:03):
can't cash, you know, bill Bill. My dad was the
type of person, yes, like his goal in life, you know,
like Chris Rox says, like keep your daughter off the pole.
His going life for me was just to keep me
from going on the corner selling wolf tickets. What's the
genesis of that's saying though, who knows you're talking about?

(13:24):
You want to find it from? I'm all right, we're recording, alright. No,
now I gotta look up some old some old black
dude got a dog and painted him like a wolf,
selling tickets to see his dog, and everybody when they

(13:46):
saw it wasn't a wolf. That was the origin. And
that's it's improv ladies. And yeah, black history fact of
the day, the fact. So can I can I mentioned
Mr Love? Can I just mentioned why he's mentioned in
that role of playing thugs? That just more deeper than
what you think. No, I was just gonna yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(14:09):
yeah yeah yeah, Mr Yes, that's it. Sorry Bill. To
answer your question on urban diction, god oh the often
sited urban dictionary. Yes, wolf taken. Yes, to try Uh,
it's to try and sell a lie, either to yourself
or to others to yourself from that's called marriage. I

(14:36):
am happy. Wow, let's go in divorce, let's do it.
Let's go in yes club, let's go Hong you how
long you've been divorced? Mare? You? Are you back married? Now?
Where are you at? No? No? No, no, no, I
never no, I've been divorced four years. Yeah, the four

(14:59):
years O got you? What you say? Never again, never, Anthony.
Anthony said, that's neat you think you think you're doing
it again? Are you? Are you good? You know what,
I'm good? Unless it's Oprah or like I mean, unless
it's somebody like unless it's hollytt Bairy. You don't mean

(15:21):
to j Lo. Come on, look at their history. And
that's what I'm saying. I'm like that, it's perception, Anthony,
your three Are you doing some purpose? I want? I want,

(15:48):
you know, camera drama in your relationship, but Shill Obama? Yeah,
but no cookie from good times. I don't know. I
don't know. Yeah, you know, I think now, especially the

(16:15):
age that we are now, I think marriage is just
finding somebody that you want to, that you want to
die with. You want that's the person you want to,
you know what. I think it's finding somebody that's nice.
Like people nowadays just aren't. And you meet people that unappreciative.
They're not nice no matter what it is, no matter

(16:37):
what you do for them, it's not enough, no matter what,
They're always asking you for something Like It's like, just
meet somebody that's nice like, Yo, I'm outside cutting grass.
You look hot. Let me bring you something to drink,
you know what I mean, Like, just be nice, like
take care of me the way you don't take care
of other motherfucker's. I know that's a hard idea to grasp,

(16:59):
but just being nice like you whole week go out
with your boys like stuff. Yo, yeah, that stuff, But
come on and take care of this when you finish
with your boys, and you gotta know that's what you're
supposed to do. Don't worry when I leave. Go out

(17:21):
and you tap fun with your boys. You enjoy it.
That's how that works. Even half funds a loaded definition,
half money to keep your dick to yourself. No, that's
you know, that's anonymous. We're so old. Our idea of
having fun and sitting around talking about the stuff we did,
drinking and having it ship. You know, my idea of

(17:44):
having fun is silence exists. Don't don't be in the
babe raises away for a week and it's just me.
I love silence. I love silence. No, I just meant
being in a relationship is you know, I'm new. I

(18:07):
mean we're in the honeymoon phase still, so still like Uh, yeah,
we're still with our honeymoon phase. I don't hate her yet.
Uh was two years, almost two years. But one of
those years was a COVID year though, So that's like
a year on steroids. That's like, yeah, for three years.

(18:32):
And I'm shocked that we survived COVID and so, you know,
because a lot everyone else didn't. So they said, they
said the divorce rate during COVID went up like a
thousand percent. Really, yeah, it's crazy when you actually meet
the person you married. Oh, that's just everything exactly. It's like, yo,

(18:58):
be nice, be nice, to feel like that's fair. Just
be nice. It is, but it's harder than it sounds.
It's just it's not it's like for some people. For
some people, yeah, for some people. You know, well there's nice.
There's also honesty. You can lie to me. Just be nice.

(19:20):
Please lie at me, tell me. I'm the prettiest moment.
I mean, please lie to me. Don't tell me the truth.
How am I going to Segway to Juilliard after this conversation.
It's all lies. It's all lies. Juilliards lies, it's all lies.
He's in the middle of the monologue. So I thought
this was the truth circle after this is a true circle, bro.

(19:41):
It is definitely a safe space, definitely a same I'm
gonna be all over Tmzie said around with yall. They
don't pay attention to the quest. Let the premis trouble. Yeah,
all right, So how did you wind up? You know?

(20:01):
It was a funny story. Man. There was this actor
from New Orleans saying Window Pierce. And I met him
when I was fourteen years And when I met Windows,
Window showed up at school. He had on a white
linen suit. He was driving a Porsche, a black Porsche,
had on a white linen hat. Honestly, I was like,
that's the cleanest black dude I've ever seen. And he

(20:25):
gave a speech and I went up to him afterwards
and I was like, yo, bro yo, whatever you did,
I'm gonna do. Wherever you went, I'm gonna go. He goes,
all right, young s, I'm like, all right, beatt. So
I went to North Carolina School of they Arts for
he went to Noka. I went to he went to Juilliard.
I went to Juilliard. I went there just specifically because

(20:46):
he went there because he was such a role model
and an ambassador to the arts. For me, just because
he was such a talent to do. And I've never
seen a black dude speaks so eloquently of black dude
so like emotionally necked it with his work, you know
what I mean, Like the stuff that he he was
the best part about waiting to accept. Yeah, and he
had two things. Yeah true that and then y'all both

(21:10):
ended up and she hate me together exactly exactly. That
means she just wants to rush. I don't. I don't.
I don't, I don't. I was just saying I would,
We'll go back to that, you know, put a pen
in it. But I just thought that now he said that. Uh,
he said that, and now I'm thinking ship. So that
made an impression. So you're saying that seeing window and

(21:32):
in its clean suit, and that made an impression on you,
and you're like, that's what I wanna, That's what I
want to do. No, it was seeing him so clean
because I didn't even know he had the force until
I looked out the window. And I'm not a force dude.
Like if he had pulled up in a classic Mustang
out have been like this guy is gone, you know.
But but just seeing him, seeing him speak about the

(21:55):
arts and the way his passion about the arts and
him being so clean, like you know, my dad was
a contractor man. My dad was a roofer. Every day
my dad came home, he got his I mean, he
was like I had never seen a dude that clean before,
you know, and it really it really changed my perception
of what a man was, because to me, a man

(22:15):
was a dude who went out and had dirt under
his nails and you know, bust his ass for his
family and really made sure that his house wasn't there.
And I didn't know. I thought only white dudes to
do that. The suit Wow. See now damn And you
said that. Now I'm all messed up because whenever I
go to Philly, Yeah, I I I purposely try to

(22:37):
do the opposite, like I drive the bummy car, and
because I'm trying to do this down to earth, blue
collar musician thing, and I thought that that would make
more of an impression than you know, I think was

(22:59):
in them, especially with kids. Kids want to see. That's
why like people and you know, everybody in the music
industry and everybody who kids try to emulate, they try
to emulate them because they look like they got it.
That's why women, that's why you know, little girls are
asking for these you know, drag queen eyelashes and because

(23:22):
you know, that's that's the idea now, because I think
that's the look of when you got it, you know.
And my thing was my dad had it, you know.
But when I looked at window like I saw windowing,
he had it. M hm. You know, my his education level,
you know, everything about him, dude, like to this day,

(23:44):
like I talked to him last week before he left
for Europe, and everything about this dude just exudes confidence
and success. You know. Yeah, like if there's a if
there's a generation of Latin X black acts, No, you're right,
he definitely get more flowers out loud. Right. Can I

(24:07):
ask you about that class of Juilliard because it's interesting
it seems like there's a slew of folks that came
out of Juilliard from your year and like even the
following or the pre like from now I would thinking
about Nelson Ellis from True Blood to to My Girl
from Power, uh law, you know what I mean? Like,
so can you talk about that and if y'all connected

(24:28):
and circle ever circle back in life? Um? I mean,
of course you know, the great thing about it is
our class was probably the first I would say that,
Routina sorry, yes, Routina West. Our class was definitely the
first diverse class at Juilliard. We had five black people,
had a Native American, we had an Asians. I mean

(24:49):
twenty people, you know, eight of us were you know,
so we were definitely the most the first and the
most diverse clas ass at Juilliard ever. And because of that,
we were able to do things that other classes weren't
able to do. Like I first got recognition by playing

(25:09):
Tupac off Growing and that was the play we developed
at Juilliard. You know, we didn't play at Juilliard first
because it was in the New York Times, you know
you who would expect juliar students to be able to
do a play about Tupac? And I'm like, so, why
is acting the only career where you're limited by your
level of education? Like, the more that you have, the

(25:33):
less no no, no, no, no no no, the more
you have, the less black you less black you are,
thank you go ahead and say it, the less black
you are. And that's the problem. That's the whole situation,
that's the whole situation that really confuses me. You know,
if you're a black person with any substance depth and wait,

(25:56):
you're looked upon its fake phony or not black. That's crazy.
There's been times when I've gone in auditions and they're like, yeah,
you ain't black. You went to Juilliard. I don't say
the person's name who told me that, but you know
that's happened to me a few times in my career,
you know, but we don't look at it that way.
And that's the sad scary part. If you went to
Julie or not, you're not real. We gotta go get

(26:17):
somebody that shot seventeen people and can actually smoke weed
on set. Well, yeah, some of them commercials mess that up.
When you see the commercials where people are speaking that
urban thing and then they do the behind the scenes
and they're speaking proper, and you're like, I think those
kind of Yeah. Can you talk about well, before before

(26:41):
you started eight Mile, you were in a string of
August Wilson Place. Was that just strictly for how did
you get involved in those projects where they Juilliard or later?
Was this? No? No, no, no no no, that was
just out of love for August. I mean, you know,
Piano Lesson was one of the first place I saw
and it literally changed my life, to change my relationship

(27:03):
with my father because I didn't understand him until I
saw Piano less you know. So Agoust a dear friend
and someone who had a lasting impact on my life.
And that's why I named named my third son in
August because of you know, his inability to conceived. You know,

(27:24):
I mean, he did something no other writer on earth
has done. He documented a cultural. Uh he documented a
culture of people for a hundred years, and nobody gives
them props, Nobody talks about it. You know, it's is
heartbreaking at the same time, you know, that's our fun.
So folks props, folksgiving props, but maybe not enough. Maybe

(27:50):
gave him a stamp. But it depends on what you
feel like props are. If you feel like, like, do
you feel like the black community knows who he is?
Do you feel like the world should know? In the
world does know, but the theater world knows. It's kind
of it's interesting in that way because I'm like, I
feel like August Wilson has been a part of the
conversation for wait a while now, depending on who you
talking to him, he's been a part of the conversation now.

(28:12):
For I would say that because of the piano lessons,
since No, No, No, since Denzel, that's all of a sudden,
it's like, oh, we need to read this book. Oh
this should be requiring, and it's like, you know, when
he was alive, nobody gave him that. They have been
trying to movie when he was alive. Yeah, you're right,

(28:35):
you know what I mean. So he deserves that man,
you know, for all to do. What was it about
the piano lesson that helps you understand your dad? I
never realized the day to day struggles and hardships of
a black man once he left the house to the
time he got back to the house. You know, my
dad had the big barral still fight and killed to

(28:58):
make sure our roof was over our head as kids,
and then he had to come home and deal with us.
There was six of us and my mom, Andy whoever
else was in the house, you know. And I always
thought he was just a mean o dude. I always
thought he was just a detached thought dude. But no,
a month like I always wondered why my dad would
pull up to the house and sitting his truck for

(29:19):
thirty minutes before coming into man. Listen, I do it
to this day. I do it right the black Man
driveway sitting right now. That is a real thing like that.
Sometimes you just got sit in your car for twenty
five minutes so you can just chill out. I literally

(29:40):
thought that was just me alone, But that is us
and I never I never got that until I saw Fences,
when I saw, you know what Troy Maxim had to
go through, the hardships and decay that he had suffered,
the experience and and bastardizing of his masculinity he went

(30:03):
through every day, and then he had to come home
and deal with his family, and and then his family
had to come and deal with him. That's that's a
by product of everything that he had to go through.
Yes day. I thought about that when you were talking
about your father, and when Dell Pierson, I was like,

(30:23):
you know, not for nothing, it's a privilege, and even
depend on how old you are, it's a privilege to
be like emotionally evolved and all and all black men
didn't have that privilege. And I thought about your dad,
I was like, your dad really didn't have the privilege
that when Dell had had to be vulnerable to show emotion,
to do the things that required for you know, for
acting and things, because they don't know. Yeah, I don't

(30:45):
know my dad. Like I said, my dad got kicked
out of school in eighth grade. Like my dad, you know,
was born in the forty so it was a different time,
you know, we didn't you know. Benjamin E. May's, who
was the president of Morehouse College, said, our grandparents studied
agriculture so that our parents can study math and science,
so that we can study arts and literate philosophy. Right. Yeah,

(31:09):
my grandfather, and I think about my grandfather was a
share proplem daddie was a contractor, and I'm a fucking actor.
That's lineage. So my dad took bullets and my dad
took so much ship just so I can sit here
and be a goofy dude, fucking actor, just so I
can sit around and taste the coffee in the classroom,

(31:30):
you know what I mean. So it's just when you
look at it that way, I can't get in no
movie and start talking about n word this and word that.
I can't get in no movie and jeopardize the legacy
of my dad and my grandfather and everything they put
into me. I don't know. You can't do that. That's
why when you when I see these T shirts, you know,
I am not my ancestors hashtag these hands. Yeah, yes,

(31:56):
I see him online. It's it's corny. It's my ancestor.
There's that is opposite of what black one. But I
mean that's the generational thing, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
eyelashes and hookahs. That what I called. How oh is
your oldest kid? And Anthony uh fifty? Okay, that's fine

(32:21):
because I know you're dealing with it whatever the ages
all day oldest kids, he's a level. I thought you
said my oldest sip. Oh No, okay. I thought you
was joking and you wouldn't didn't want to tell me. Okay,
we good, okay, me and you were cool, okay girl.

(32:42):
So before y'all weren't cool exactly. That's fair. That fair.
So when you came to New York, did you when
did you officially start pounding the payment as far as

(33:03):
auditions are concerned with movies, Like, at what point did
you decide like, okay, I should get an agent, I
should do movies. You know, going to Juilliard. To be honest,
the agents come to us, we have auditions and they
invite all the agents. Is there an active craft? I'm
about to say, what does it look like? No, this

(33:30):
is seriously fascinated by Juilliard, and especially I got I
got accepted to Juilliard and couldn't afford to go. So
I'm kind of like scariously living through you right now. Well,
I think you. I think you did all right, So
you're saying that already agents come to see, like who's

(33:52):
We do something called the consortium audition and basically you
prepare two scenes and they pair you up with someone,
and the agents come. They watched the scenes, and then
we do a repertory season. So the agents coming, they're
interested in you, and they watch your plays in the
repertory season. That's when you get a meeting with whatever
agent is interested in you. Not an interesting thing is

(34:14):
some people get no agents and some people get all
the agents, so you know, and then there are the
people in between. I was one of those like in
between people. I didn't have a bunch of agents, but
I didn't have no agents, but the agent that I
got with, you know, in two thousand and one that's
the same person. Okay, that's what is it about UM?

(34:36):
One thing? I always wanting to know, what is it
about Juilliard UM that makes it such a great school?
And like what did you learn? What are some of
the things you learned they're about acting that you still
apply to your career today. UM. You know, the great
thing about Juilliard was at that time there was no technique, Like,
we didn't study Meisner, we didn't study um any of

(34:59):
the acting techniques. We literally they developed a curriculum where
you built your character from yourself and your life experiences.
Then you lay your things on that character through movement.
Then you layer cut things on that character as far
as the way he talks. Then you layer things physicality
on that character, you know, prosthetics, hair wardrobe, whatever. And

(35:23):
then when you look in the mirror, it's a completely
different person because he loves differently, silence different he acts
different than you do. It was never an idea of technique,
you know, you know, because you go to school from
then on your second year end you realize my son
doesn't work for you. You have to start. But if
you start from yourself, you build from yourself, you'll always
be able to create an honest character because you started

(35:45):
with yourself. Yeah, so from you, it was you know,
and that's why you can always tell when motherfucker's are acting.
Like when you saw Bernie mackin life, he wasn't acting,
he was that dude. You know, there's a leg There
were certain other people who tried to imitate that, and

(36:05):
you can tell they were active because they had no
substance background with that hair. Yeah. You know. So when
you get a rule, uh uh do you have to
go through that process where you write a six page
biography of what your character was. And you know, it's

(36:28):
like I heard that the exercise of writing a complete
biography of what your character was born, family, nobody, nobody
do that. Ship Quest Love Somebody was the show that
where everyone just not man graduated K A C K.

(37:00):
But I came here to act right now, right now? Well,
how you don't know something do something? I UM for
me is different. The first thing I do is I
read the script and I break it down three three ways,

(37:22):
because life is about perception. Your It's not about how
you act, it's about how people perceive you're acting. So
if I say and I'm meant to sincerely, but you
perceive it it's sarcasting. Your feelings are hurt, but I'm
meant to sincerely. So even though I was trying to
be nice, it don't matter. You took it as me
being an asshole. So now in that reality, I'm an

(37:44):
asshole because that's your perception in bright versus intent. There
you go. So that being said, when I get a script,
I read it in three different perspectives. First, one I
get a script, I tell my agents don't tell me
who I'm blank, because you know, I want to read
the script for the story or if the story don't work,
if the aeractors don't work, I'm not doing it. So
when you read a script, you read it from the

(38:05):
perspective of the writer, which no character uh delineage is involved.
It from the perspective of your character, and then you
read it from the perspective of the other characters talking
about you, and you highlight your three different colors because
then you know, if you're walking down the street and
you're like, you know, you walk up to a girl
and you're like, hey, how you doing. That's when while

(38:28):
you're walking down the street, they cut to two girls
across the street They're like, look at that old goofy
mother walking down the street. So you know, you walking goofy,
you don't look cool. You look goofy, right right right,
So that affects the way you walk, That affects the
way you handle that moment. So the best information you
get in the script is what the writer says about you.
So if you read a script from the writer's perspective

(38:50):
and they say he walked into a room mug faced, sullen,
and his first line is, oh, I'm so hungry, you
know exactly the emotion to put on that line when
you say it, you know what I mean. So you
have the three different perspectives of how you read the script.
Then once I feel like I have a grasp and
idea of the emotional state of the character, I find

(39:11):
a piece of art. I find a song, and I
find clothing that I feel captured the essence of the character.
I always I buy a piece of art for every
movie I do. What was the What was your in
terms of you know, you talk about finding yourself inside
of character. Where were you in your character for the
hurt Locker? Mm hmm, you know what? The hurt Locker

(39:33):
is that great question hurt. The hurt locker was interesting
because for me, the racial dynamic played everything about that, Um,
you have a black so just trying to make it
home to his family and trying to make it Who's
trying to make his life better so he can use
his g I bill and go to college. That's the
way I played it. That's the character I developed because
he wanted to go to engineering school because if you
look at bomb text, they're very smart guys. I mean,

(39:56):
these guys go to Georgia Tech. You know what I mean.
He's a dude who who went to undergraduate school, the
state school, went became a mom tech and now he's
hoping to get back home so he can go to
m I T or you know, Georgia Tech and become
an engineer so he can do better for his family.
That's when he don't have the privilege to come and

(40:16):
goog fall and do all this ship like the dude
you know. And once again it's an example of a
white bee getting privilege just simply because of who he is.
So that that arrogant at that dynamic of frustration is
what pushed saying Born to the point where he was like,
I might just kill his If it stands between me

(40:39):
and him going home, I will kill it. How much
of that for that particular movie? How much of that
is you bring into it versus what Catherine is like
kind of directing you to do. Oh that was my
Juilliard experience. Oh yeah. When I read that script, I

(40:59):
was like, what is Juliard? Yeah? I'm getting my ass
kicked and busting work in my fucking ass, laying under
a piano so I could work on tune in my
ears so I could hear different accents and sounds. And
this is my fun. I can't even bringing scenes in classes.
He's the lead of Late. He's the lead. And I
never got to leave my entire time was there? The
only time I gotta lead when I was at Juilliard
was when I created it. I get it. I get

(41:23):
it one time. Shame on you? What was what? What
was the song? What was your song for hurt Locker?
What was it? Remember? You know what it was? Of art?
What was it? I? Um the piece of art? I
got a uh Jacob Lawrence painting called Funeral Procession um
in which literally took my whole hurt Locker check here.

(41:45):
I mean, but it's a it's a it's art. You
can't you can't not I've seen that. Yeah, you know,
I got a piece called Funeral Prossession because you know
when when I when I at that piece and I
thought about the dignity of this man coming home and
his mama taking him to church and saying, look, my

(42:05):
baby made it through the war. You know how important
is that to a soldier for his mama to see
her baby coming up to drive man? You know? Oh yeah,
it's the famous Yeah, it's the whole episode on it.
And the song. I can't remember the song. I remember
it was a Tupac song because all I listened to

(42:27):
was but I can't remember which one it was. I'm
sure it had a you know, motherfucker kick as ship.
Now something about that the enemies Henesse, I wish I
wish they would have known. I wish they would have
said something because in the marketing for Notorious, because when

(42:49):
I saw Notorious, and I mean, I've seen you in
a lot of stuff, proud of that, but I was like, yo,
why did they cast Anthony Mackie's part? Like that didn't
make sense to me until they gave you the story
is Yeah, But now I'm hearing is something like, damn,
why didn't they make a little bit in the pressed
but some context? Yeah, yeah, because because that would have
set it up. That would have set you up so
much better in my opinion, just to give contexts as

(43:11):
to why you were playing that role. Um. The interesting
thing about Tupac because my first job, like I said,
I played Tupac off Broadway, right, Um, and his mama
came and its sister came, and all the boys came.
They were like, yo, you killed that ship. So when
they said that, nobody else opinion matter. Like the biggest thing,

(43:32):
the biggest thing I got from people about Notorious was
he don't look like too And I'm like, if that's
the only thing you can say, then I won food. Yeah.
And if you can say, oh, he was good, but
it don't looked like Tupac, alright, fine, you go cast
somebody that looked like Tupac and see how that work. Yeah,

(43:52):
you know what I'm saying. And they do that so
much like they cast people that can sing and can't act,
and then you see the movie and it's like, I'm like,
why didn't he just cast somebody who could act? And
dumb the secrets. You're right, You're right. You know, if
all of us was Jennifer Hudson, she wouldn't be special.

(44:14):
You can you talk about the process that led up
to UM. What I'm assuming is your first film, which
is eight Mile UM at the time when it was
presented to you, doc, Yeah, at the time when it
was presented to you, did you think that this would
be Oscar caliber and critically acclaimed? Because even even when

(44:39):
I heard about the rumors of eight Mile happening, I
think in my mind I just filed it in the
kind of somewhere in between Dr Dre's The Wash and Brain. Yeah,
And at the time, it's just like eminem is doing
a movie. Okay, cool, But you know, I was shocked that,

(45:01):
you know, everyone it was it was. I was shocked
that it was great. So, you know what, what was
the process of of you getting the role? Like the
audition process? And well, the ironic thing was, so I
had just got out of school. My first movie I
did was this movie called Brother The Brother, which to

(45:24):
me is some of the best acting or the best
acting I've done in my career, which is sad to
say because it was my first movie. But I'm gonna
ask you about that. I'm gonna ask you about that.
When I was doing Tubak off off Broadway, UH at
New York Theater Workshop and this woman Molly Finn got
rest her. So one of the best casting agents in
the business came to see the play because she was

(45:46):
doing a movie about hip hop. She came backstage afterwards.
It was like, you know, I want you to audition
for the movie. She called my agent going for Kurt.
So when I read the script, the script was very
different than the way it is in the movie. The
script was very very different, like Scott Silver, like got
We We completely rewrote that script. Eminem and Mackay completely

(46:09):
rewrote that script every day before we walked on set um.
But it became his truth. You know, everything about that
movie was truth, even his battle against me, calling me
Clarence because my parents had a good marriage. I went
and I went to private school. You know, he just

(46:30):
used those facts from your actual life against you and
and wrote a rap about Wow. That's why I was
so mad at the end. I was like, am I
gonna have to sneak in manim on stage? And you
and you didn't know that he had written that before
you didn't know until you heard it. No, he came
up to me before and he was like, yo, you know,

(46:52):
I just wanted to warn you, like there's no reason
for me not to like your character, Like your characters
are cool, dude, Like you were a cool dude. I
was like thanks, and he was like, so, you know,
I went online got some stuff and you know, I
wrote a rap. I wrote a rap, and you know
I'm gonna do it when we, you know, get on stage.
I was like, man, that's all you got, That's it.

(47:20):
Then he opened his fucking mouth and I was like, motherfucker,
how many that? Uh one? Because the crazy thing about
the wrap back of the rap battle scene him and
it was sick, so he couldn't do a lot of takes.
So he literally did it in one take and then

(47:41):
after that it was just like him lipping it and
like doing the motions and they will play it back
on the speaker. But the ship he did like that,
and anybody will tell you when we did that rap
battle scene, they literally brought in like three hundred people
in this stage they built, and um, they were everybody.

(48:04):
It was supposed to be the Saint Andrews, but this
was a room that they built on the stage. Okay, right,
so they bring us in there and everybody else was
like a budding wrapper. So everybody was looking at me like, Yo,
why the funk they cast this dude to play a rapper.
We're gonna sucking up when we wrapped, And I'm like, uh,
we're acting, sir, so we're acting. Curtis Hanson was like, Yo,

(48:28):
you know, we need some b roll of people rapping
against him and him so we can see him working
his way up the ladder of beating people. So we're gonna,
you know, we we need six of you guys to
come up and freestyle against him. He's not gonna say
anything because he's feeling kind of the weather under the weather.
We just need footage of you, like rapping against him.
So these six motherfucker's got up and the first dude

(48:50):
got up and was like, blah blah blah blah, you
suck blah blah blah, and the audience was like yeah,
go yeah. Second person got up and it was a
little chick, and a little chick gave Eminem his lunch
and when she finished, the crowd went crazy. It was
like a rap. It was. It was the Apollo when
this motherfucker it was crazy. So then Eminem looked at

(49:13):
the crowd and looked at her and was like, nah,
funk this. He turned the microphone and you see the
little girl face like what are you doing? You're not
supposed to what do you do? You know? And off
the domes he roight. I mean literally he finished this

(49:37):
girl to a point. I'm sure she went and became
a nurse and gave never heard of. And then the
next dude gets up and he's like, oh, ship um, Emine,
it was Mica. It's okay, I like your rhymes. So

(50:00):
when when they were doing b role were they were
they addressing him as Rabbit but just kind of suddenly
using UHM references that you know exactly they were talking
about because you know, they were talking about him as Eminem,
but they were like, yo, you know when you talk

(50:20):
about him, you know, talk about him as rapid, not
as Hminem. So they're like who because you know, all
these two really talented rappers. So they were just coming
off their heads, like for freestyle ship Man that it
was it was dumb game. Did you did you not fear?

(50:43):
But were you concerned that you actually had to prep
as a freestyle MC to nail this role. Man, I'll
tell you like I told Curtis Hands and I was like,
you give me a week, I could fly helicopter. He was.
He was like, he was like because when I first
got the role, the what was funny? I only had
four lines and three scenes and I wasn't supposed to

(51:04):
be there a week. And the longer I was there,
Curtis started developing a role. Because we got along together
so well, he started giving me more scenes. Then he
was like, yo, can you stay longer? I was like, hell, yeah,
I ain't got no job. So I literally stayed there
and then he comes up to me one day and
he's like, yo, Anthony, can you wrap? And I'm like, yep,

(51:32):
I'm like can you wrap? Can they read Shakespeare? No?
Out of it? So when you wrote your rhyme during
that battle, no, there was this uh this uh freestyle
rapper and Crims. Yeah. No, we worked together and I

(51:55):
gave him. I gave him some ship and he took
it and made it into a rap because when I
did it, it was like yo, yo, check it, check
it yo. Get you killed in the battle, you gotta
come right off. You gotta come right off with it,

(52:19):
can I askte is yo yo? Uh the black version
of well my name is done and I'm here to
say here to say right right straight up staling bro said, yo,
check it for like sixteen balls. And this Motherer's like

(52:39):
all right, said I But he really, you know, we
sat down for like forty five minutes and really crafted
some ship where I could get you know, griming and
emotional with it and really show like the skills of
Papa Doc as a as a battle rap, as a
freestyle wrapper. And you know, so I owe it all
to him. I mean, if was of him out to

(53:00):
look like booty up him. Alright, So I have I
have a question about brother the brother. So of course
now in We're slowly becoming more evolved when when dealing
with people who are culturally different than the rest of
the world. Um, your character was a homosexual in this film.

(53:24):
So you know, I remember distinctly an interview that Will
Smith gave and which he said that um Denzel told
him right. He he gave a warning about six degrees
and said that you know, be careful how you play
this role because this could destroy your career where you know,

(53:45):
of course, now again, we're inching towards being involved as
humans in but back in two thousand and four we
weren't quite there. So how difficult or or hard was
it to accept this role? As you're the first So
technically you're saying that this is the first movie that

(54:05):
you made, even though eight Mile came out first. Yeah, okay,
asked for I asked for that role. The young man
Rodney Evans who wrote Brother to Brother. Um, he offered
me the role of the poet that was played by
Larry Gillier because he felt like he needed a game
to play the gay role. He was like, you played Tupac.

(54:27):
There's no way you can play a game, Carol. What.
I went to Juilliard? So I literally said, I went
to Juliard. I read a scene for him and he
was like, all right, I'll give you the role. You
can play the role. And uh, you know what was weird?
Like when I was in school, I realized that I

(54:49):
was a sexist homophobia. Yeah, a whole black man in
the ninetiesh what made you realize that? Um? There was
this act. Uh. My freshman summer, I went to Chautauqua,
New York to do a Shakespeare and I said something
stupid about my gay teacher, and this other actor came

(55:13):
up to me and set me straight. You know, I
just felt like less than a human being for even
looking at thinking, for thinking it was okay to look
at another human being that way, just because of their
sexual preference. And I was ashamed. I was literally ashamed
of myself. UM and it took me those three years

(55:35):
to exercise that demon. And the cumbination of that was
when I read Brother Brother. I was, look, look, if
I'm an actor, you know, I need to play this
role so that I can understand the day to day
struggles or what a young gay black man goes. And
did the role help you understand? That changed my life.
It changed my perspective on life. So talk about that

(55:57):
in relation to UM, to your Black Mirror episode Striking Vipers,
because that was like next level. It was decades afterward
that episode went in the direction I did not, and
it didn't, but I was. I was so here for
it because it was so it always makes you think differently,

(56:17):
and it always makes you think that ship could happen.
So I was here for these two black men having
this this beautiful moment. I don't know what do you
what do you say? The idea of Striking Vipers, which
was so funny. It's the point essential romance. Every dude
would agree. When you out with your boys and you're
having a good time and your girl called, you're like, fuck,
give me a minute, and up right, I'm just killing

(56:44):
and then she's like come on, and you're like, damn,
I don't want to leave my boys because I'm having
so much fun, you know. So it's the same thing
with Sprik and Vipers. It's just they took it in
a virtual sense. And the funny thing about it was
when I ran for Striking Vipers, it was supposed to
be two white dudes. Then the director was like, maybe
it could be white dude and the black dude. And
then one to the director, the director was like, I've

(57:07):
of homosexuality and the black community. Wouldn't we funk people
up if we do it with two black dudes? Yes? Yes?
And I was like, yes you would. And he's like,
I think black people need to see this, and I
was like, yes, they do. Yes. So it was literally
this little white European director who was like, Yo, I'm
putting this ship out there own blacks, yo, And the

(57:29):
two actors, and it's so dope too because it could
have been two perfect actors. You and y'all. I like,
especially the perception and the roles that you'all have already
paid in the past. So that's whyte was probably how
everybody felt because they would have never imagined these two actors. Yeah,
I didn't see that that episode going in that direction.
Was sitting on in the airport. There was a dude

(57:49):
sitting across from me playing his low like Nintendo switch, right,
So he's playing the switch and he looks up and
he sees my face and he's like, he turned and
switched off and put it in his bag. Because because

(58:10):
not for nothing have you have you heard any feedback
from any especially gay black man. I have a gay
black brother that talks about this episode. He's a fan.
He's a big Marvel head anyway, so he's a Mackie fan.
But for him it meant something different as well. So
I was curious if you got any feedback about that.
You know, time out, time out, Time out, Margaret, you
have a brother, a black you know my play brother

(58:33):
black people? Alright? Good? Sorry lies all Wolf tickets and
ship It was just five years into the show, like,
wait a minute, you have a brother, you have a
sibling right now, all only children got a bunch of
fake brothers and sisters. That's just what we do. Sorry,
I only cleaned my own good And that's why I

(58:53):
did the episode because I expected that, like the conversation,
the acknowledgement to feedback, appreciation, and I haven't got that
at all. If anything, I've gotten the direct opposite. What
you mean, are black people watching Black Mirror? Yes, yeah,

(59:13):
that's why it's called black Mirror at least at least
at least a black museum. That was the whole Black
Museum season. So yeah, but what was the other reaction
that you think, um, just like you know, a lot
of um negative no, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's
interesting the the the connotation of you know, um negative

(59:38):
feedback as far as you know, you know, questioning if
one I was gay, you know, their opinion of what
homosexuality was, their opinion of what you know it means, um,
which is something I definitely expected and was ready to

(59:58):
question and right down as soon as the conversation came up.
But I was just surprised by the fact that, you know,
I went out there and like nobody had my back.
Oh I got you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yah, yeah. I
know there are people out there that, dude, but there's
been times where, you know, you gotta let somebody know

(01:00:18):
that you're in the gym and you bench pressing two times.
There's been a few instances like that, you know. Yeah, yeah,
I did not know. Well, I felt the way of
that role. I felt the way to that role, especially
for you. I really liked that episode. I didn't think
there would be any feedback. It was a great experience. Yeah, um,

(01:00:43):
all right, before we get to she hate Me, I
do have to briefly ask, even though it wasn't a
major role, Um, but uh, could you talk about Manchurian
candidate and sort of like the process of doing that
and how was that for you? Man? Shearing was hell
on earth. I mean I was only there a few

(01:01:03):
days because I was doing another movie, and I literally
did it just because I wanted to work with Jonathan Demi,
you know, being an actor in New York. Johnathan Demi
was at the you know, a guy like a thing
of folklore and legend. So you know, when when he
because he knew me from theater and independent films, in

(01:01:24):
New York. So he was like, you know, I'm doing
this little movie you know. You know, Denzel said, yes,
so I have another role for you. I'm like, so,
you know, he brought me out. He's really he was
really good at casting people. He'd liked to be around
people he considered friends. Um, so it was it was
more so the experience just to be on set with

(01:01:46):
him and see him direct. But they didn't tell us
we was gonna be in New Jersey and two ft
of snow and fucking January, trying to act like we
were in the desert and showing some T shirts like somebody,
you know, hey take it. Also before before we before

(01:02:07):
were I just wanted before because I know you're about
to go in half Nelson, Man, that's one of my
favorite roles of yours. I thought that script was very
it was it was yeah, that ship was it was.
It was it was a chance. I mean it was risking,
you know what, mecuse it could be interpreted in a
lot of ways. But tell me about that role and

(01:02:29):
like working with like Ryan Gosling and what was it
like shooting at uh you know, have Nelson was dope.
We literally shot that belly of Brooklyn, And you know,
working with Ryan at that time was interesting because he
wasn't Ryan Gosling, you know, so he was taking chances
and doing things in a different type of way. It
was a different understanding of the way he was working,

(01:02:50):
you know, and that movie made him put him on
the map. And you know, for me growing up in
New Orleans, like the drug dealers I knew were the
ones who took care of the neighborhood. It took care
to block. So if you were a smart kid with
good grades and you come out and you're like, yo,
I wanta sell rocks there, like you don't, you just

(01:03:11):
ain't for you, you know. So when I read that script,
I talked to the producer and uh Ryan Anna who
directed it, and I was like, this is this is
this He's taking care of Chicken, making sure that she's
you know, provided for and taking care of in a
situation where she has no one. You know, He's that
dude that take care of the block. He's providing jobs

(01:03:34):
and economic structure for his community when the government has
basically bastardized and and condemned them to nothing. So that
was that was something that I predicated on. That role
and wanted to, you know, grow immature that character into
because I knew those dudes. I grew up with those dudes.

(01:03:54):
You know when I needed when I wanted to pay
Jordan's and my mama wouldn't buy me Jordan's. You know,
my my dude on the corner made sure that we
had Like when I had to take the bus at
five thirty to make it to school by eight, my
dude on the punam made sure I didn't get beat
up on my way to the bus. You know, so

(01:04:15):
the drug deal is literally found out. I was a
little answer dude, and they took care of me. And
right I never got jumped on the way home. Wow,
because if you stepped on if you stepped in busto
Ville and tried to steal up on me, the boys
was still you would talk. Listen, I don't have a

(01:04:38):
lot of are we already? We had Spike Lee on
the show. I told him She Hate Me was always
an interesting movie for me, just from the storyline of
you and the ladies and impregnating them, said Spikes mid
life prices. I agree with you. I agree with you,
and so did his wife and his daughter. But listen,
my question to you about She Hate Me outside of
the draw of this phenomenal cast, because it should not

(01:04:59):
be forgotten. Nett Linette Mgee, Jim Brown, Ozzy Davis, the Window, everybody,
everybody was in this movie. Because I know that was
a draw. But really tell me, Anthony Mackie, when you
read this script the way you do with your three layers,
did you read it three times? What was the real
draw of this script? To be honest? Uh, Jeffrey Wright

(01:05:21):
was offered She Hate Me and he turned it down. Sorry,
Dashon and Jeffrey right, WHOA. I didn't want to see
him in that physical position like you. I was. I
was working with Spike on so I hold the record
of being the lead of two Spike lead movies. Nobody saw.
Oh so the movie the movie I was working on

(01:05:41):
the Spike it was called Sucker Free City. It was
a movie we did. Oh yeah, yeah, I totally forgot
about that one. But yeah, So when we were doing
Soccer Free City, Spike was like, man, I got this
movie War War Woman. It's gonna be crazy. You know.
Jeffrey Wright most death World War Warm. Razzario All said,
I'm like, bet let me know when you need me.

(01:06:03):
So two weeks later, he comes back. He's like, yo,
my next project, would you be interested in doing it?
I'm like, hell yeah, I'll be interested in Dan. So
the crazy thing was when I read the script to me,
because of Michael Jane wrote it, it read like a
Shakespearean play. If you read a Shakespearean play, you have
plot subplot, you have four different storylines and they all

(01:06:24):
culminate into one story. If you look as She Hate Me,
it's really Shakespearean in the way it's written. Because you
have plot subplot, you have two or three different storylines.
And the crazy thing about it is people say it
was spikes middle aged crisis. You know what was the
cover of the New York Times magazine the week She

(01:06:44):
Hate Me came out looking for Mr Good sperm women
over forty paying young men for sperm instead of going
to sperm banks. But they and these women were rich
in what was what was not even connected, not not

(01:07:06):
even not at all, not connected at all, and what
was crazy or this was the same time that that
doctor had impregnated like a hundred It was timely, it
was timely, even with the embezzlement and stuff like that,
but it was just so it's easy. It's easy. It's

(01:07:28):
easy to say that, you know, a midlife crisis of
a man or a man's dream and a sexist connotation
that men disrespected. But the reality of it is it
was very timely and on point. That's a nice lady
little box. I mean, I think two in that movie too.

(01:07:50):
I mean they were the thing I liked about it.
I mean, both parties they were making a choice, you
know what I'm saying. It wasn't you know what I mean.
It wasn't like there was this guy that, like you said, homie,
that was just giving women his own ship, unknowingly without
their knowledge or whatever. Both parties were consenting that this
is what they wanted to do. We live in a
day and age where consent it's okay, Yeah, yeah, it's mandatory.

(01:08:23):
There are there are a lot of aspects of me
that enjoyed that movie. I just you know what you
didn't like about like that was it? That was? It
was just always odd to me that this man was
having physical sex and they were enjoying it. And these
women were not queer women. They were supposed to be
like straight up lesbians. So I was like, well and they,
well did they not just ask this man for the

(01:08:45):
Turkey based to where they do that, but I is
it is it is it? Anthony was okay? At least
was the original the original script? Well wound up on
the final uh the final cut or whether adjustments made
or appreciate me. Yeah, no, that was pretty much the

(01:09:10):
original script. I mean when I came on board, Michael
Jane had to change some things, but for the most part,
that was the script I read. I mean it was
pretty it was pretty you know, when Spike comes on board,
he does his Spike is but you know, it was
it was pretty much the script I read. So this
is why I love your journey like you're at Like

(01:09:30):
I loved watching your active journey because I don't know,
every role stood out and every roll had a meaning
and it was deeper than he thought. The same thing,
know what you're doing right now with the falcon, because
I was like, it's ill that the falcon is getting
a little deep. I was like, you know what I'm saying.
You put a little Anthony on the falcon. Yeah, man, yeah,
we all to talk about yeah, like how did you
come into the Marvel universe. I mean we know, like
the um uh Terence Howard. He originally was no, that

(01:09:55):
was yeah, it was and iron Man want and then
yeah because he became a war machine. But how did
your journey come into it? Um? You know, my Marvel
experience was very different. Um. They came to me and uh,
I was asking them to be a part of the

(01:10:16):
Marvel universe around the time of Iron Man to Iron
Man three. And then they asked me to come out
to l A to have a meeting, and uh, literally
we had lunch and they said, Okay, we can't tell
you what movie, we can't tell you what character, but
if we asked you to be in the Marvel universe,
would you do it? And you wait, and I said,

(01:10:41):
would you? Would you want to tell them about that gunline?
Both stay Misissippi and miss Who did you in a
dream world? Don't? Anthony? I mean, I'm sorry, but who
would you have wanted to? Is there a did you
have a press Black Panther? No? No, no, no, no

(01:11:04):
yeah no no no no no. For me, it was
either because I didn't think they were going to bring
the Falcon into the fold. For me when I was
harassing them, I was harassing him about Black Panther because
I thought that would for me. If you look up
any press I did before they even announced it, I
said very specifically that the movies they should do was

(01:11:25):
Black Panther and Wonder Woman. Oh yeah, okay, because little
brown boys and girls need representation. How how steep? How
steep were you into the universe of Marvel before you
actually got involved in the film. Uh, not at all.
I was never a comic book kid. Like, That's why

(01:11:47):
it's so funny to me. That's why I'm so funny
to me now when people say, oh, I'm a nerd,
I break. I'm like, if everybody was reading comic books,
why did all the comic book stores go out of business?
The movie? And they're so Betty and Veronica and the
grocery stores too, But nobody was reading comic books. Yeah. Uh.

(01:12:11):
In my five year history of this show, I was
nervous about you coming on, only because I know that
there there's such a there's a contingent, or or at
least a certain fan base. You know those uh in
San Diego, what do you call them? Comic connors? Yeah,
that are so deep into the ship, and I I'm not.

(01:12:32):
It's not like I'm not a Marvel head. I just
didn't grow up reading comic books and whatnot. I knew
nothing about the Marvel. I didn't know that deep and
I was afraid. I was like, yo, if I haven't
on this show and don't ask him some deep easter
a question, that's okay, I have notes. What do you need?
Because I want you to hurt him. Get your question
because I Marvel notes. You have to. You have to
look at comic could like you right now, you can.

(01:12:57):
You have to. You have to look at comic Con
this way. Every year, you know, ten to fifteen thousand
people go to San Diego for Comic Con. How many
people are in America? Very true? But there, But Anthony,
don't you agree there are levels of these people, Like,
it's not just Comic Con or a mirror there are
like elite, different levels in between Comic Con and the

(01:13:18):
mirror of But I'm saying the whole thing of I'm
not at the bottom. I see these films. Now, somebody
you talked to throw up reading comic books and knowing everything.
I'm like, that's not true. That's not true that people
Everyone has the Internet now, yeah, that's what it is.
Right now, you can go back and read you can

(01:13:42):
become a retroactive comic book fans. It's you read it, yeah,
because you didn't show up dressed as Laya at comic Con,
you know, and they're trying to impress her by telling
her about the Captain America Truth series. It's like, come on,
stop it stopping stopping. Well, what is that process like

(01:14:04):
like doing like living up to an expectation of you know,
having to go to comic Con and meet these you know,
these trekky like nerds and whatnot, Like is it exhausting,
Like do you have to do it in the marble
world or yeah, you definitely have to do it. Um,
you know. But the big thing is it feels good

(01:14:26):
to be appreciated. You know, there's so many as as artists.
How many times have you created something and put it
out there and you know, no one has reacted or
responded to or even worse, you put something out there
and motherfucker who's never made an album, a motherfucker with
no talent us whoever saying your ship sucks right, you know,

(01:14:46):
so it feels good. Imagine every time you put something
out you know, motherfucker like, yo, this is the best
ship ever. Yeah. But Okay, I have my version of
comic Con and that's called Okay Player, but for real,
for real, No, but it's it's like it's there's there's
a danger in that. I feel like there's a day.

(01:15:07):
I know you're saying that it's it's it's great to
be loved and appreciated data da da, But then I
just see comic colm people as like extreme level of
nerdness and not all music nerds different. Yeah, that's what

(01:15:29):
it is. So, I mean, it's also the thing where
on Okay Player, you know, uh, there's equal amount of
hate and disdain and criticism for the roots in quest
love as there is love, probably more than so. Yeah.
Well for Marvel folks, I think it's more about the
writers and directions they go on with the characters, and

(01:15:50):
that's when the fans get mad, depending on if they
go off script. So that's how I worked there. That
being said, Anthony, can I ask you, one of my
Marvel heads wanted me to ask you, do you think
that the world was We're ready for a black Captain America? Uh?
What his role was? Um? I think the idea of
you know, was the world ever ready for a green Hulk? Right,

(01:16:12):
you know, it was never How could you accept the
green dude and not accept the black? You know what,
I guess because it's Captain America is such an institution,
and the way he's looked at it's different than a
black panther, You know what I mean? I think, you
know what, I'll be honest, I think, like especially being
do you have kids, No that I know something, Okay,

(01:16:33):
one thing I know about kids and one thing I admire.
Kids aren't racist, Yeah, Like they're pretty open minded. We
teach them racism. So if you're making a comic book
for kids about a character, no matter what color he is,
if he has cool power. Right, but that's assuming that
they make all these things for kids, like at this point,

(01:16:54):
Marvel's an institution. Right wait wait wait but the key
phrase at this point at this point, right, so you know,
before you know, it was cool to be a quote
unquote nerd, before you know, comic cons and people dressing
up and doing cosplay books for teenagers at kids. You know,

(01:17:17):
so if you present them with a black Captain America,
they'll grow up with a black Captain America. They wouldn't
know any different. So how could they not be ready
for something they don't even know. They don't even they
wouldn't know anything, as opposed to Black Captain America one,
because nobody can plain when they made British Captain British America. Yeah.

(01:17:40):
I always want to ask you about painting game, saying
the game bro, Like how busted you have to like
put on for that? Like what was your training bridgement
for that? I put on? Like I went up to
about two twenty Okay, so I was one before I
started training for that. Uh, And I just literally ate

(01:18:01):
steak and potatoes in the morning and six eggs and
oatmeals for breakfast. And it was yeah, six, no, six
and six eggs and oatmeals with berries for breakfasts. And
then lunch I would do like a weight of masking
and protein shake with a steak and some eggs, and

(01:18:21):
then I would have like four more meals because I
was eating like thirty five cast Good god man, what
was that experience? Like? I like that movie. I think
I might be one of the only people actually went
up for that movie that fun with that movie. But
but what was it like working with Mark and Uh
in the Rock? It was great? Man? You know what?
Mark is one of the coolest dudes I've ever worked with,

(01:18:42):
and you know, he really gave me an opportunity with
that joint. We had a great time. Like we literally
every day came and set shot the ship, had fun.
I mean it was like it was you know, Michael
Bay gave us the keys to the car and was like,
be as ridiculous as you want to be. Wow. I
was gonna ask you on some insiderer Marvel Baseball on

(01:19:03):
the on the season two episode with the the Young
the Older black Man and the Young Black Man, I
heard those are actual Marvel characters. I was just gonna
ask you if that was gonna develop into something. I
don't know, but Isaiah brand a lot of people isah, yeah,
a lot of people don't know that. The Super Soldiers
serum was originally was originally tested on Tuskegee soldiers and

(01:19:30):
it was a comic book came out in the early
two thousand's called The Truth and Um. Isaiah Bradley was
There was a limited run. People like talk about it,
so it went away. But the writer name was Morales
and he created this cartoon series where basically Isaiah Bradley

(01:19:53):
and a bunch of Tuskegee soldiers were being injected with
the simples the super Soldier serum so that they can
perfect it. And once they perfected it, they gave it
to Steve Rogers. Wow. So and so the rumor is
that the grandson is going to become a young Avenger.

(01:20:15):
I'm just no, that's that's that's that's from the comic.
One thing that the real Marvel never takes the comic
books word for word, not for not. So even if
you look at the comic book when Falcon first he
was introduced, he was a hustler from Harvl you know.
So if you watch the movie, the Falcon is from Louisiana,

(01:20:37):
so you know, it's a completely different world. It's a
completely different universe. So it's not something where they take
the comic book word for word or no for And
have you put any anthony into any of these storylines? Um, no,
not at all, because I didn't you know, Malcolm Spellman,
our writer, you know him, and the Marvel crew and

(01:20:59):
carry our director, they were the ones who came up
with the storyline and ideas. That one came to me.
It was like, that's what we're thinking, So you know,
it wasn't me. It's dope. I have two questions and
then we'll let you go. One is about just the
secretive process in the Marvel world, how airtight or Fort

(01:21:19):
Knox light? Is the the process of actually getting the
physical script, Like do they have to like hand delivered
to you? Like is it? You know, it's so crazy.
No matter what happens, if you lose your your your
three or something. Yeah, no matter where you are in
the world, they send someone to come to you. You

(01:21:42):
signed a letter saying that you received it. That person
turns around, goes back to the airport, gets on the airplane,
it flies back to l Well that's it. O. My
final question is are you going to do anything for
a raisons into h directing. Actually, I'm working on that now.
I'm working there. Um this story that I'm acquiring the

(01:22:03):
rights to um about this young girl during civil rights
who was the first person, the first woman to sit
on the track, to sit on the bus and not
get out. Yeah, okay, nice nice ship. Yeah, oh man,
before we before we go, I got it. I have

(01:22:23):
to deliver this specially to be mad. Omar Dorsey wanted
me to ask you why did everyone already he said,
why does everybody call you an asshole, but they love
him because Omar out here selling his booty for Calm Bred.

(01:22:45):
That was another episode of Question Love Supreme with may
you got dunk on? Bro, you got dunked on? I'm
sorry in the world. Thank you and we see you Supreme.
I'll see away. Get your Wolf ticket. Hey, this is

(01:23:12):
Sugar Steve. Make sure you keep up with us on
Instagram at q l S and let us know what
you think you should be next to sit down with us.
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. What's Love Supreme
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

(01:23:37):
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