November 6, 2025 • 57 mins
What happens when rhythm, science, and vulnerability collide inside one artist? We sit down with Ahmed Best to explore a creative life that refuses boxes: a South Bronx kid raised by drums and physics, a performer who treats movement as first language, and an educator who teaches students to design for feeling rather than stumble into it.
Ahmed opens up about being an “emotional athlete,” choosing vulnerability on cue, and why social media’s loudness can’t replace true listening. He walks us through his Dramatic Narrative Design framework at USC—start with the emotion you want the audience to feel, then build story choices to deliver that outcome with intention.
We also talk frankly about Jar Jar Binks and the cost of pioneering performance capture. Ahmed helped shape tools and techniques still used across film and games, yet the backlash nearly ended the work he loved. His reflections aren’t bitter; they’re practical, generous, and deeply human. He explains how to endure critique without losing truth, why mastery is a series of new beginnings, and how returning to Star Wars came from love rather than nostalgia.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more curious listeners can find us.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ahmed Best (00:00):
You know, most people think that as an actor,
you're lying for a living.
It's the exact opposite.
You are being as truthful asyou can possibly be.
Yeah.
And when that is criticized,you feel it.
You know?
That's why most actors don'tread reviews.
Because it hurts.
Jennifer Coronado (00:22):
Hi, welcome to everyone is.
I'm your host, JenniferCoronado.
The intent of this show is toengage with all kinds of people
and build the understanding thatanyone who has any kind of
success is successful becausethey're a creative thinker.
So whether you're an artist ora cook or an award-winning
journalist, everyone hassomething to contribute to the
human conversation.
(00:43):
Because everyone just is.
A lot of how we get guests onthe show is related to the
friends and family or colleaguessaying, Hey man, I know someone
you should really talk to, Jen.
Our guest today is noexception.
My friend Lynn Hale has workedclosely with this guest during
his journey on the Star Warsprequels and talked with the
highest regard about him, notjust as a performer, but as a
(01:04):
human being.
There was a wonderful New YorkTimes piece that was written
about him, and I can go on andon and on, but instead I'm going
to talk to him and say it's ourpleasure to welcome Ahmed Best
to everyone is.
Ahmed Best (01:15):
Hello.
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Coronado (01:18):
Thank you for coming.
You're best known in public asGeorge R.
Binks, but I don't want tostart there.
I want to start with littleAhmed.
So where were you born andwhere did you grow up?
Ahmed Best (01:30):
Yes, I was born in New York City, New York.
I grew up in the South Bronx inNew York City, uh up until
around like junior high school.
And then I moved to Maplewood,New Jersey for a very extreme
culture shock for junior highschool and high school.
Went to Columbia High School,which is now famous, apparently.
(01:51):
Like a lot of people who havecome out of Columbia are now
people that people talk to.
Artist uh Bisa Butler came outof Columbia High School.
Fizza came out of Columbia HighSchool.
Wow.
Zach Braff came out of ColumbiaHigh School.
Lauren Hill came out ofColumbia High School.
(02:12):
Wow.
Zach and Lauren were there whenI was there.
They're a couple years youngerthan me.
And Bisa was there.
Bisa and I were in the sameyear.
So a lot of people, RoySchneider, Max Weinberg.
A lot of people who came out ofColumbia High School who are in
the Columbia High School Hallof Fame.
Jennifer Coronado (02:29):
You know what's really funny about that?
I frequently joke to uh Aaron,our producer, about things like,
you know, there's a year wheneveryone in Hollywood is making
volcano films.
Right.
And there's just something inthe air that suddenly makes it
like everybody's thinking aboutmaking a volcano film.
And it sort of feels like thatculturally, too, when all of a
(02:49):
sudden a group of people comeout of somewhere, that there's
something that attracts thatenergy there.
So it's I find that reallyinteresting.
Ahmed Best (02:58):
Yeah, there was definitely an energy at
Columbia, and it was extremelycreative there, you know, which
I I really, really enjoyed.
All of us kind of in that inthat creative world kind of knew
each other, and we all survivedthere for some reason.
You know, it was just, it wasreally magical.
Jennifer Coronado (03:18):
What did that creativity look like?
Like uh when you say it was creit had a creative energy there,
what did that mean?
Ahmed Best (03:24):
We were really encouraged to find our voices.
And there were a lot ofopportunities to do that.
You know, it was a it was avery big school, so each place
of interest had its own wing.
I think there was the musicwing, and there was the acting
ring, and there was the visualarts wing.
So we were all science andmathematics and all this stuff.
(03:46):
So we were always like indifferent parts of the school
expressing ourselves.
And I have to say we had somereally, really good teachers who
were extremely expansive withthe way they they taught that
really made us think and made usreally be interested in being
(04:07):
really good at what we weredoing.
So it really it was it wasreally about, you know, the
space to do it and theencouragement from the teachers.
Jennifer Coronado (04:16):
Did you have a favorite teacher?
A favorite subject?
Ahmed Best (04:20):
I had a couple.
You know, I had some really,really good music teachers.
My drama teacher, who was alsomy English teacher, was
incredible.
And then my physics teacher, Iwas really good at physics, and
I really loved physics.
Like science was one of theavenues that I wanted to go
into.
Before the performing artscalled me.
(04:42):
I was a nerdy kid, and youknow, it was between like music,
theater, and science.
And those were my three likebig lobs when I was coming up.
Jennifer Coronado (04:56):
Well, you know what?
It's funny because music isstructured, you know, physics,
but it's but it it's you know,obviously creative, and you can
explore particularly on the jazzside of it, right?
Ahmed Best (05:09):
Um yeah, and they all kind of correlate, right?
There's a lot of mathematics inmusic, you know, especially
when you're talking about likemusic theory and the way you
divide and subdivide notes,bars, time signatures, key
signatures, and so forth.
So there's a lot of mathematicsthat goes into it.
And it really is about likethis discovery of nature, which
(05:30):
is which I loved physics for.
It was because you got toreally look at nature and feel
nature and figure out how itworked.
Right.
And all of these magnificentdiscoveries would happen in the
physics class, and it was thesame when I was playing music.
It was all of this beautifuldiscovery that you can find
(05:53):
inside a song that people haveplayed a million times, but you
you play it differently.
Right.
So it really is about likefinding, discovering who you are
through the music andinstincting in physics who are
you in nature?
Jennifer Coronado (06:09):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (06:10):
You know?
And then with acting, like withtheater, it it it was it was
kind it was very much, you know,reading a piece of music for
me.
Like 15, I was my superpowerwas understanding Shakespeare.
And when people like in myEnglish class hated it, I loved
it.
For some reason, I got it, youknow.
(06:32):
It just all made sense to me.
Jennifer Coronado (06:35):
Also, the thing about Shakespeare, like
honestly, like music, you know,it's got the iambic pentameter.
The way he writes, people findit complicated, but it's
actually kind of how peoplespeak.
Ahmed Best (06:46):
Yeah, I mean, that poetry, that iambic pentameter,
it's like rap music.
You know what I'm saying?
It's it's it's a it's a cadencethat we're all used to in in
our, you know, popularentertainment worlds, you know,
especially when it comes topoetry.
So rhythmically, and I'm adrummer, so rhythmically, it
(07:07):
just like really made sense tome.
And uh, for some reason, I Ijust could see it every time I
read Shakespeare.
And so I really fell in lovewith it, and I just fell in love
with saying the words and thepoetry behind it.
You know, and that's that'swhat really got me into the
theater and got me into drama.
Jennifer Coronado (07:27):
And I know you went to like you mentioned,
you went you went to school formusic ultimately.
But were you doing theater atthe same time still, or what was
happening there?
Ahmed Best (07:36):
Yeah, I was always doing both.
You know, at that time peoplemade you choose.
And, you know, music called mefirst, but I was always on
stage.
You know, even when I was atManhattan School of Music, I was
always doing a play somewhere,and I was always on stage doing
something.
You know, it was alwayssomething that was in my life.
(07:57):
So it never stopped.
You know, I was always doing amillion things at once, like I
kind of am doing now.
You know, I was in the band andI was in a jazz band, and I was
like, you know, I was in theParnassion Society and, you
know, president of thisassociation, that, and that kind
of just continued until I gotto Stomp, which was like all of
(08:17):
it in one place.
Jennifer Coronado (08:19):
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that
because there's so I actually Itook my little brother, he was
like 13.
Because I have a brother who's14 years younger than me, and he
always, every time I mentionhim on a podcast, he's always
see you mentioned me as yourfavorite brother again.
That's not the case.
But um I took him when he was13 because I always want people
to see performance and see theenergy of life performance.
(08:40):
And I do that with my niecesand nephews too.
And it it was so engaging forhim, and you were actually in
that performance, which he saw.
Oh wow, get out of here.
That's great.
So I think that's great.
I mean, and I know for you, foryour family, like your sister's
a musician.
Some of your grandparents weremusicians, your brother.
Ahmed Best (08:59):
Yeah, I come from a long line of broke artists.
Um, yeah.
My uncles, my grandparents,like everybody has a
performance, some kind of aperformance of artistic
inclination.
Like my uncles were painters,my brother's a painter.
My mother can do everything.
She's a polymath, you know,she's one, she's and a
(09:20):
deconstructor, so she can likelook at something and do it,
either make it or play it orpaint it, you know.
My father is a cinematographerand a photographer, so you know,
he comes from the film worldand did TV for years, right?
He was a cameraman on Americaand wanted more of the sports,
fantasy sports.
So it was always around, youknow.
(09:42):
The arts were all allthroughout my childhood.
My uncle was a guitar playerand his wife was a singer.
So, and he had nine kids, andthey all had musical abilities.
So anytime one of the kids gotmarried, the cousins would be
the wedding band.
So no one ever had to hire awedding band.
So that was kind of theenvironment I grew up in.
Jennifer Coronado (10:04):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you say your momis a polymath, but uh aren't you
a little bit of a polymathyourself?
Ahmed Best (10:10):
I mean, you know, yeah, that's where I get it
from.
I get it from my mother, youknow, the whole polymath thing.
I'm a deconstructor as well.
I try to look at something andbreak it down and see how I can
do it, you know.
And then I try to figure outwhat it feels like in my mind,
in my body.
You know, I've I've never comeup against something that I felt
(10:30):
like I couldn't do.
I feel like everything is justonce you learn how you learn,
then you can pretty much learnanything.
Jennifer Coronado (10:39):
How do you think you learn?
What's what you said feel youmentioned your body feeling.
What and you talk aboutfeelings quite a bit and how
that works with your process.
Yeah.
Talk about it.
Ahmed Best (10:50):
Feel is a big thing for me.
You know, I'm I'm in my class,I teach at USC uh in the fall,
and I'm in my classroom rightnow, and you know, I'm I'm
really about like how you feeland how you want the people that
you are talking to, reactingto, you know, or listening to
(11:11):
how you want them to feel.
And I'm constantly talkingabout how to do that.
Right.
So the course I teach at SC iscalled Dramatic Narrative
Design, and it's a course that Icreated.
And it really talks about howyou design the drama and how you
make sure that when you aredesigning the drama, you are
(11:33):
designing the thing that youwant the audience to feel.
It really is about trustingthose, building those skills to
feel and trusting thosefeelings.
And that came from a lot oftrial and error, you know,
because I had great teachers,but I also had not so great
teachers.
And when you do have not sogreat teachers, but you have
(11:57):
this desire to want to learnsomething, you want to know
something, you try to teachyourself.
Right.
And so there are a lot ofthings that I did that I was
self-taught.
And a lot of it was becausepeople would say to me, You're
this thing, you're not thisthing.
So learn this thing and don'tlearn that thing.
Right.
Right.
(12:17):
So, you know, I was constantlymoved away from certain things,
you know, especially coming upthrough high school.
You know, I was moved away frommath and science because I had
more of an extreme talent forthe performing arts.
Jennifer Coronado (12:31):
Right.
Ahmed Best (12:31):
And so the the general idea is if you want to
get a job, you move more towardswhere you are talented.
And then you you you know,cultivate those talents in order
to create something in whichyou can be employed.
Yes.
But that's not that interestingto me.
(12:52):
I actually want to learn aboutthings that I don't have a
talent for.
You know what I'm saying?
I love mathematics, but I neverhad that prodigious proclivity
or talent for it.
That doesn't mean I can't learnit, and that doesn't mean I
can't love it, you know.
So I learned how I learn, whichwas a challenge.
(13:16):
But now that I can do that, Ican pretty much learn anything.
And, you know, I'm I'm atactile learner, I'm a I'm a
visual learner, I'm a storylearner.
And as a professionalstoryteller and, you know, as an
emotional athlete, I like tocall myself, you know, if I can
(13:38):
get something in my body, I cando it.
You know, if I can feel how itis, I can do it.
Jennifer Coronado (13:47):
And you talk about your emotional engine
quite a bit too.
So that's that's what thatconnects to, like the thing that
feeds you, right?
Ahmed Best (13:54):
Yeah.
So emotional engine, when Italk about it in my classroom, I
define it as the drivingemotional force that moves you
forward towards change.
Right.
We are trapped in the present,but we have the ability to
perceive the future andrecognize the past, right?
(14:16):
And at Stanford, I teach aclass called Inventing the
Future.
And I also have a company thatis a futurist company.
Jennifer Coronado (14:24):
Right.
Ahmed Best (14:25):
That is, that is, you know, really foundationally
afro-futurist.
And one of the things that Ithink moves us forward as human
beings, you know, with apreferable cortex is our
experiences emotionally, right?
But we all have that emotionalengine that is the main reason
(14:49):
why we move forward and why wechange in our lives.
And when we find that emotionalengine, then it is very easy to
articulate what that thing isand share what that thing is and
grow it.
You know, the hardest part, Ithink, about the emotional
engine is admitting to yourselfthat you have one.
And that is the thing that ismotivating you.
Jennifer Coronado (15:12):
Why do you think that's hard?
Why do you think that's hardfor people or for yourself,
even?
For me, it's not that hard,right?
Ahmed Best (15:18):
Because as a as a performing artist, that's what I
crave, right?
In order you for you to reallyknow who you are emotionally,
you have to be extremelyvulnerable.
And that is scary.
And it's scary for most people.
Most people, most of us, wetrain ourselves out of
(15:41):
vulnerability.
Right.
We put ourselves in theseplaces where we can just protect
ourselves because it's veryhard to go through this world,
especially in America where thecompetition is just how
everything is really driven.
It's very hard to go throughthat and be open and honest
because you can be takenadvantage of.
(16:02):
And, you know, rightfully so.
It's scary.
But actors, musicians, likethose of us who spend our lives
in front of people, we are, youknow, crazy enough to want that
in our everyday.
We want that vulnerability.
And we try to cultivate it, wetry to crave it, right?
That's that's kind of our breadand butter, the ability to be
(16:24):
vulnerable when we need to bevulnerable, right?
That's why I call us emotionalathletes, right?
If you ask us to be vulnerablein 15 minutes, we can be
vulnerable in 15 minutes.
That's the training.
Yeah.
But most people don't want tobe vulnerable at all.
So as we get older, as kids,we're completely vulnerable.
(16:47):
We're open.
The older we get, the more wemask it.
Um, the more we create thefacade.
And then we start putting outas people what we want people to
see when they see us.
And then we live in thatidentity.
I mean, that's why social mediais what it is, because it is
(17:10):
how you see, how you want peopleto see you.
Right?
It's not even how you seeyourself.
Jennifer Coronado (17:17):
Yeah, and it's so performative, and I I uh
but not in a way that isauthentic.
Do you know?
Ahmed Best (17:24):
Yeah, that's the goal.
The goal is for it not to beauthentic.
You're putting out yourgreatest hits.
So if you can be glamorous andsexy and always camera ready,
and that's what you want peopleto see from you.
Social media is the platformbuilt for that.
Jennifer Coronado (17:48):
Right.
And you know it's so funny tome, social media is more
isolating now than it isconnecting, in my opinion.
Because you're sort of likeyou're sort of like Cassandra
shouting into the void, right?
You think you're making apoint, but the other person in
order for people to hear yourpoint, they have to be
listening.
But people aren't listening onsocial media.
Ahmed Best (18:08):
No, they're not.
It it really is about you andyour ego being heard and heard
really, really loud.
And it works because I think asprey animals, as we were for a
very, very long time, wegravitate towards protection uh
(18:33):
in groups.
So if you want protection as ahuman being, we learned, you
know, back when we were evolvingin the African savannah that
we're probably safer togetherthan we are individually.
Jennifer Coronado (18:47):
Right.
Ahmed Best (18:48):
And we keep feeding that, you know, fear part of our
brain, right?
And it's fed to us that we aregoing to be attacked, right?
We are constantly under siegeby, you know, the powers that be
in order to, you know, getmoney.
It's the it's the money game.
(19:08):
You know, they collect thedata, they sell the data, they
make the money, right?
And so the more eyes onplatform, the more money we they
can make.
So they're playing on ourpsychology to make money.
And our psychology is that thatscarcity mentality, that prey
mentality.
And then we tribal, we all gettogether and we all shout into
the void, and nothing ever getssolved.
(19:31):
But that's the that's you know,design.
Right.
Which is why, which is why whatI I teach what I teach, right?
Because when you see thedesign, it's a lot harder to
fall into it.
Right.
And in the movies, that's ourjob, right?
Our job in the movies is tomake you feel the way we want
(19:54):
you to feel.
It's not an arbitrary thing,right?
And so, what are the skills andtools to do that?
That's what's being done to usin our news cycle, that's what's
being done to us in our socialmedia.
So once you see it and you cananalyze it, it's a lot harder to
be a victim of it.
Jennifer Coronado (20:14):
Yeah.
I and it's interesting becauseI want to get a little bit back
to the performance side of you.
And and maybe I don't know ifyou're teaching this, but
there's something when you'reconnecting with an audience,
right?
There's a mutual energy thatyou're sharing with each other.
(20:34):
Yes.
And uh in some of theperformance that I see you do,
do you do you know to TadashiSuzuki, the theory?
Yes, of course.
Ahmed Best (20:45):
Yeah, I studied Suzuki performance.
Jennifer Coronado (20:47):
I I was gonna say, I see a lot of that in
your physicality, like thatgrounding energy that you bring
to performances and and how yourbody, you talked about how your
body is so in to performance.
So I wonder if you could talkabout what your influences
continue to be as you'reteaching and learning more about
yourself every day.
(21:07):
Where where are the things thatyou draw from, you know?
Ahmed Best (21:11):
Yeah, I mean, for me, when it comes to performance
and from and and you know, howI move on stage, I've changed a
lot as I've gotten older.
When I was younger, I justwanted to move.
I didn't care, you know whatI'm saying?
I just wanted to fly, you know,and a lot of times in Stomp, I
(21:34):
was very rarely on the ground.
I was always like jumpingsomewhere, flying somewhere.
And you know, I loved thatathleticism.
I've always loved performerswho, uh, especially actors who
used their bodies, you know.
A lot of actors are trained touse their voice.
Jennifer Coronado (21:55):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (21:56):
You know, actors mostly come from voice uh
influentially and not theirbodies.
Like when you studyShakespeare, you know,
Shakespearean actors don'treally move.
Yeah, it's the shoulders, yeah,ear, and they'll move their
head and they'll think likethat, but they don't, you know,
or they aren't really grounded.
(22:16):
My mother uh is uhpercussionist as well.
And she plays an Africaninstrument called the Shaker,
which is from West Africa.
And, you know, percussion anddance, when you're talking about
African or African diasporicmusic going in the game.
(22:38):
Yeah.
Right.
Very rarely does somebody playa drum and people sit down and
watch it.
It's really like a call to moveor a call to communicate or a
call to speak.
So a lot of my impetus formovement comes from that, right?
So finding the rhythm of what'sgoing on on stage and being
able to respond to the rhythm ofthings with my body.
(23:02):
So I I move first, right?
I don't speak first when itcomes to the performing arts.
The other thing is, you know,I've been a martial artist all
my life.
You must start it.
Jennifer Coronado (23:18):
Is there anything you don't do, dude?
Ahmed Best (23:21):
Is there anything?
I that's a really goodquestion.
I don't know yet.
I haven't found it yet.
Jennifer Coronado (23:27):
I see, I love that.
I love that you're like, I cando everything, and I but I just
haven't found my my wall versuspeople who are like, I don't, I
don't know if I can do it.
No, no, and that's such awonderful way to push through
life.
Ahmed Best (23:39):
You know, yeah, you know, I like the try.
That's one one one line inEmpire that I disagree with,
with Yoda, you know, do or donot.
No, there's no, I I dig thetry.
You gotta start somewhere, youknow?
Yeah.
And if you don't try, you'llnever do.
Look, it might not be for you,you know, but try it once.
(24:02):
You might you might discoversomething about yourself.
I think everything that I I dois an exploration into who I am.
So who am I as a martialartist?
Who am I as a musician?
Who am I as an actor?
Who am I as a cook?
You know?
But it really is about me.
(24:23):
I, you know, as much as I do alot of things, I'm really only
doing one thing, and that's me.
And how do I express myself inthese other things, right?
Like Bruce Lee, who was a biginfluence of mine, because I'm a
(24:44):
martial artist, you know, Igrew up watching Bruce Lee
movies and listening to BruceLee.
And Bruce Lee created thismartial art called Jake, and
that was his expression of hisexperience as an artist.
And he gave it a name, right?
And as a kid, that's what Ireally loved.
(25:07):
I loved the fact that you cancreate your own expression of
yourself through these things,and that has always been my goal
for myself, right?
So, regardless of the style ofmartial art I do, my question to
(25:29):
myself was how do what who am Iin this art?
Right?
I'm not necessarily worriedabout what anyone thinks of me
in the art.
And I'm not trying to be who myinstructors are, right?
Some people are are like that.
Some people look at theirinstructors and they copy
(25:51):
everything that they do.
Right.
You know, like when I wasstudying Jee Kundeau with guru
Danny Nassanto here inCalifornia, in LA, you know, I
would go to his class.
And then when I would go toother people's classes, they
would be teaching like him,right?
They would have the same handon the hip, they would do the
(26:12):
same gestures, they would talkin the same cadence, right?
That was never for me.
You know what I'm saying?
I wasn't interested in beingDan Inn Santo.
He's himself.
And he's wonderful.
And there was no way I wasgonna out Dan Inno Santo, Dan
Inno Santo, you know?
(26:32):
My question is, what do I looklike to Ingenie Krypto?
How do I express myself in thisart created by Bruce Lee?
And I didn't really find thatuntil like last year.
You know what I'm saying?
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, and that's the otherthing about exploring yourself
(26:55):
through these things, right?
It takes as long as it takes.
There's no time limit on it.
So I'm not stressed out aboutit.
I'm just like, yeah, when Ifind it, I'll find it, you know?
Jennifer Coronado (27:07):
Where does that come from?
Where's that patience comefrom?
That patience for exploration?
Because it feels to me likeyou've had a life of epiphanies,
right?
Where you've hit differentmetrics that maybe even
surprised you at some point.
But where does that where'sthat source come from?
Does that come from yourparents and how they educated
you, or is it just something younaturally came to?
Ahmed Best (27:28):
Yeah, I think it comes from me being impatient
and having no other choice.
Okay.
Right?
Because I've I've always beenlike, I need it now, I need it
now, I need it now.
And you go, what's everybodydoing?
Right.
But as much as I've done that,time I don't control.
You know what I'm saying?
So it's just like, it's gonnacome when it's gonna come,
(27:51):
whether I like it or not, orwhether I want it to be now or I
don't.
And it only when I realize it,only when I realize it do I
realize, oh, okay, that's takingsome time.
But it's taken me a really longtime to be okay with learning
(28:12):
slow, right?
Because in general, I'm a fastlearner, right?
But there's something to besaid about learning slow and
learning over time, and nottrying to be, and I think this
is the the biggest thing that'schanged.
I wanted to be, when I wasyounger, I wanted to be
(28:35):
excellent fast.
You know, like I wanted tolearn something and perfect it
and be an expert at it in theshortest amount of time, right?
Like when I got my black beltin Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I did it
in six years, and the averageis 10.
And I was like, I'm gonna do itin six, and I did.
(28:58):
And then I got a black belt,and then I was just like, okay,
now what?
I did it.
Jennifer Coronado (29:05):
Um, do you feel like you didn't enjoy the
journey as much as you couldhave?
Because you when you wereyounger, yeah.
Ahmed Best (29:12):
I did, I enjoyed the journey, but what I had to
realize was the journey doesn'tend.
You know what I mean?
It's only a series of newbeginnings.
So when I think about gettingthere to the finishing line, you
(29:32):
know, and achieving the thing.
You know, before it was justlike, okay, now I'll know.
But now I'm just like moreexcited to not know.
You know, when I get to thefinish line, I'm just like, oh,
okay, now there's this, these,there are these set of things
that I don't know.
What is there to discover inthis?
Jennifer Coronado (29:56):
That's interesting to say that because
you you know we talked earlierabout how you know when you're
young.
You tend to be more open, youknow.
Ahmed Best (30:04):
Vulnerable.
Jennifer Coronado (30:05):
But it feels to me like do you think that
you've gotten more open andvulnerable as you got you've
gotten older?
Or no?
Ahmed Best (30:12):
Oh yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (30:12):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (30:13):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And helping, giving it a nameand and also teaching helps that
a lot.
You know, because you go itebbs and flows, you go through
these periods, you know.
Like in my 20s, I thought Iknew everything.
And I was indestructible.
Jennifer Coronado (30:30):
Well, you were also producing albums in
your 20s, which is somethingthat most 20-year-olds are not
doing.
Ahmed Best (30:35):
Yeah.
Yeah, I was producing recordsand Star Wars happened in my
20s.
Right.
But then, you know, you get toyour 30s, your 40s, and your
50s.
And, you know, you have to moveforward.
You know, we are trapped inthis timeline.
You can't stay still and youcan't go backwards.
(30:57):
And so moving forward, you haveto have something that moves
you forward and you know, forcesyou to change.
And that's that emotionalengine piece.
Jennifer Coronado (31:10):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (31:10):
Once I figured that out for myself, I was like,
okay, now I know how to moveforward.
Because I know what this thingthat's driving me.
Jennifer Coronado (31:18):
Yeah.
Your father.
Right.
And do you feel like this isthis is stuff that you are
imparting to your kids at thispoint?
Or are you letting are you orare you a parent who wants to
let them explore and then maybegive them advice on the side?
I mean, all kids are different,so it's Yeah.
Ahmed Best (31:37):
I'm a little of both.
You know, I I've always wantedto be a father.
It's it's something that if ifanything is the thing that makes
me the happiest, and somethingthat I'm the most proud of, is
being a father.
I always tell my son, you'vemade me the man of my dreams,
(31:57):
you know.
So he is everything to me.
And I just want to make surethat he's good.
So whenever he needs words, Igive them to him.
But a lot of times I let himdiscover, right?
(32:19):
I don't see myself as a parentwho has to helicopter or or
control, right?
I'm I'm not a controllingparent.
I see myself as more like atailor, you know, where if the
pants are a little bit too long,I just gonna hem up, give them
(32:42):
a little hem, right?
If, you know, if the jacketneeds to come in a little bit, I
can just take it in a littlebit.
You know what I'm saying?
So for me, his lessons aren'tthat you should or you
shouldn't.
Right.
For me, his is just like, youmight want to think about, you
know, taking it in a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, and then ultimately Ilet him make his decisions.
(33:05):
Uh I'm not, I'm not, I'm thereto make sure that he at every
point in his life can get backup until he doesn't need me and
he can get back up on his own.
Jennifer Coronado (33:17):
Right.
I want to uh, you know, Istarted off by saying I didn't
want to talk about Jar Jar,yeah.
And then I want to talk aboutJar Jar.
And I want to talk about itbecause you had a pretty
vulnerable moment in the Lightin Magic documentary that you
read, where you talked aboutjust the deep psychological toll
that it it took on you at thattime.
(33:38):
And I wonder, you know, and youtalk about whatever you're
comfortable talking about, but Iwonder what that made you feel
about people at that time.
How that may have evolved foryou and how you how you feel
(33:58):
about that that experience now,you know, 20 20.
Ahmed Best (34:02):
Yeah.
You know, I've always beenproud of that experience.
Even at its most challengingtimes.
The hardest part about it allfor me was the fact that there
was some really great work beingdone.
(34:23):
You know, and I felt like Ikind of found I I've I found it,
you know.
Like when I was coming up as ayoung actor, I always wanted to
be uh a character actor.
You know, I always wanted to bethat actor who could disappear
into roles.
And, you know, I wanted to bethe guy who was like, everybody
(34:46):
would be like, man, I don't knowthat guy's name, but he's great
in everything.
Who is that guy?
You know what I'm saying?
I've always wanted to be thatactor.
And Jar Jar was that, like tothe tenth degree.
It was like, I totally coulddisappear and lose myself in
this thing.
And this character lives andexists and breathes.
(35:10):
And I just loved it.
I loved every minute of thework.
I loved the challenge of comingup with a walk and a voice and
an interaction.
I loved the technology of it.
Like it filled my entire likescience jones that I still have
to this day, right?
(35:31):
I loved working with RobColeman and John Noel at ILM and
having them and George go, wedon't know if this can be done.
Can you do this?
And I'll go, yeah, let's tryit.
And we would try some stuff andit would work.
Yep.
So there's your trial.
(35:51):
Yeah, I mean, it was absolutelyphenomenal.
And what broke my heart was thefact that I felt like it was
done.
It was over.
I could never do that workagain.
And at 26, you know, which iswhen I went through this severe
depression, at 26, and thinkingthat your life is over, it was a
(36:18):
lot to handle.
You know, and I was just like,I'll never find anything like
this again.
Like I'll never find, like Ifound my thing.
I found the thing that I can beme in completely, totally.
And no one has ever done thisbefore.
Like, I'm not only am I as aperformer fulfilling everything,
(36:42):
but as a pioneer in film, Ifound this thing.
Jennifer Coronado (36:46):
Right, which keeps all of the things you've
talked about really wanting,right?
Ahmed Best (36:50):
Absolutely.
And, you know, George Lucastrusts me to make decisions in,
you know, his movie.
And, you know, Star Wars wasthe first movie I ever saw as a
kid.
So it was like not only a dreamcome true, but it was like the
respect that I got from all ofmy peers in the movie and the
(37:11):
trust that George had in me.
And you know, coming togetherwith ILM and making this thing,
it was just amazing.
And it it all of the hopes ofwhere it could go came crashing
down.
Jennifer Coronado (37:27):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (37:27):
And that's what was so terrible to me.
Like the fame and the money andthat kind of stuff, you can
have it.
That's not for me.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I that's not why I didit.
Right.
You know, that wasn't importantto me.
It's still not.
What's important to me waslike, we could like really
create something special here.
(37:48):
We can do some pioneering work.
Jennifer Coronado (37:51):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (37:52):
You know, and I wanted to evolve with the
technology.
I wanted to craft this new wayof acting that now all of a
sudden exists called performancecapture.
I wanted to be at the forefrontof all of that.
Jennifer Coronado (38:07):
Right.
Ahmed Best (38:08):
And I couldn't.
Jennifer Coronado (38:10):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (38:10):
And I couldn't, not because of me.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it was completely out ofmy control.
Jennifer Coronado (38:17):
Right.
Ahmed Best (38:18):
So that's what was really heartbreaking about the
situation.
Jennifer Coronado (38:23):
When I think about the age you were at that
time, too.
You know, we talked about thefrontal cortex.
Yours had just developed.
Ahmed Best (38:29):
Yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (38:30):
And suddenly it was being assaulted.
You know what I mean?
Ahmed Best (38:33):
Yeah.
By the world.
By the world.
All over the world.
And you know, I always say Iwas a skinny kid from the South
Bronx.
You know what I'm saying?
Thrust into this place whereall of a sudden I had to be like
media savvy and, you know,publicity savvy and know how to
handle myself with, you know,journalists who were coming for
(38:59):
my throat and George's throatthrough me.
Jennifer Coronado (39:02):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (39:03):
You know?
And I didn't have anyprotection.
You know what I'm saying?
I didn't have a publicrelations person just working
with me.
Right.
You know?
And and then I kicked into whateverybody else did.
Like I tried to protect George.
And I would again, you knowwhat I'm saying?
Because I believe in the work.
Jennifer Coronado (39:23):
Yeah.
Well, and that's the thingabout being a performer.
And you may have understoodthat I was a performer in the
past.
Otherwise, I wouldn't bring upTadashi Suzuki.
You you become vulnerable.
You put yourself out there.
And so what's great about thatis the emotional highs from
connecting with people and anaudience and all of that is
(39:45):
fantastic.
But when something doesn'twork, it can be soul crushing
because you've put your wholeself into it.
Right.
Ahmed Best (39:54):
Yeah.
I don't think people reallyunderstand that, you know, when
you're a civilian.
You know, they don't reallyunderstand how much of ourselves
we put in this work.
I think every role that we playis a piece of us.
Jennifer Coronado (40:09):
Right.
Ahmed Best (40:10):
And, you know, we we find ourselves in the
character.
You know, most people thinkthat as an actor, you're lying
for a living.
It's the exact opposite.
You are you are being astruthful as you can possibly be.
Yeah.
And when that when when that iscriticized, you feel it.
(40:34):
You know, that's why mostactors don't read reviews.
Because it hurts, you know,like people don't really realize
like we're human beings at theend of the day.
That shit hurts.
So for some reason, peopledon't believe that it hurts when
it does.
Jennifer Coronado (40:50):
Yeah.
And the interesting thing toois like you talked about there's
a piece of the character thatstays with you always because
you've played it, right?
I think.
And particularly when youoriginate a character, right?
Yeah.
But then you was all there'salso a piece of you you leave
with the character, right?
Yeah.
So it's an experience.
Ahmed Best (41:07):
And with with me, it wasn't just an experience,
right?
I was helping create software.
Right.
That is like being used to thisday when you're talking about
performance capture, right?
So not only is my performanceas an actor there, but my
(41:33):
performance was digitized andcopied and distributed, and now
is the DNA of every performancecapture everywhere in the world
today.
Jennifer Coronado (41:44):
Yep.
Ahmed Best (41:44):
You know, and I don't get anything from that.
Not even the recognition.
Which is the the hardest partof it.
Right.
That's the hardest part becauseI I want to be able to make an
impact.
I want to be able to innovatethe work.
(42:06):
You know, and I want to be ableto continue the work.
You know, I it's it's somethingthat I love that I wanted to
keep doing.
And and those opportunitiesjust went away.
So that was hard.
Jennifer Coronado (42:21):
Yeah.
Well, you have come back todoing some Star Wars stuff.
You know, you were in Mando,and you've done some the Lego
Star Wars, right?
Ahmed Best (42:30):
Did Lego.
I did Clone Wars.
Jennifer Coronado (42:32):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (42:33):
I mean, I love Star Wars.
And one of the reasons why ithurt so much is because I love
it so much.
Jennifer Coronado (42:39):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (42:40):
And it raised me.
You know, I was raised by StarWars and Marvel Comics.
Jennifer Coronado (42:45):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (42:46):
That was my life.
So being in it was a dream cometrue.
And then, you know, beingostracized from it was
heartbreaking because it it hasso much with my heart.
Like I've I loved it before Iwas even in it.
So I will never really say noto Star Wars.
(43:06):
You know, it's it's alwayssomething that is going to be a
part of me.
And it's something that I'vealways wanted to be a part of,
as heartbreaking as you knowthat time was.
It's not like I don't want todo it.
Of course I want to do it.
I mean, right.
I'm a little bit more aware ofwhat could happen.
(43:28):
But that just makes me strongerwhen it comes to doing things.
Jennifer Coronado (43:34):
Yeah, I get that.
I the first film I rememberseeing, other than Annie, uh,
was Star Wars.
And my dad took me, I was threeyears old.
My dad took me because my momdidn't want to go.
And I remember sitting in thattheater and then the ship coming
up.
(43:54):
Yeah.
You know, and I I was like,whoa.
And to this day, my husbandsays, that's my home is sitting
in a theater seat and watchingin the dark, watching something
come to life.
It's a it's a it's alife-changing experience,
really.
Ahmed Best (44:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yes.
I feel the exact same way.
That was my experience as a kidwatching it.
It's just as soon as thatdestroyer comes in.
That was like I was poked.
Jennifer Coronado (44:19):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (44:20):
From the scary.
Yeah.
And it's that that feeling hasnever left me.
Jennifer Coronado (44:28):
Yeah.
You're a very generouseducator.
You you see you seem to me likeyou're lifting kids up, you
know, helping them find findthem, find themselves in their
space.
One of the things I always tellpeople is feel free to advocate
for yourself.
Nobody goes to sleep at nightthinking about you but you.
And those are life lessons thatI think we need uh to think
(44:52):
about.
I want to talk about whatyou're doing with some of the
museum stuff you were doing inLos Angeles as well.
And can you talk a little aboutthat and your connection to
tech and art and science and howthey collide?
Ahmed Best (45:04):
Yeah.
So the Getty does this thingevery five years called PST,
which used to be called PacificStandard Time, but now it's just
called PST.
And this go-around, it wasabout art and science.
And those, that's my those aremy two things.
Like I love art and I lovescience.
And so I was working with theNational Academy of Sciences,
(45:26):
Art and Entertainment Exchangefor a while.
So I was hosting some eventsand I was creating, I was
crafting some events, workingwith the NAS.
And so doing that, I got on theGetty's radar and they asked if
I wanted to be the spokespersonfor uh PST Art and Science
Collide.
And I couldn't say no.
It was just one of those thingsthat really resonated with me.
(45:48):
And, you know, Jar Jar was artand science colliding.
And I I felt like I embodiedthat in my work and in my
performance.
So it it just was a uh it wasjust it just fit me just really
well.
And so I ran around the worldwith the Getty Museum, trying to
(46:08):
get people to Los Angeles tosee all of these exhibits that
were around LA that had to dowith an artist and a scientist
coming together and makingsomething completely original.
And it was extremely special.
I met a lot of wonderfulartists and a lot of great
scientists and got to listen alot.
And I realized how much scienceneeds art, and vice versa.
(46:33):
Yeah.
The artists were always moreopen to the collaboration than
the scientists were, and I thinkthat's because of the culture
of science, you know?
Scientists aren't used to beingin the spotlight.
And they're used to be theythey they want to be taken
seriously.
(46:53):
Right.
And a lot of them kind ofdidn't trust the fact that if
they worked with an artist, thatthey'd be taken seriously.
A lot of it just had to do withlike insecurity.
And then when you meet them andyou start talking to them, you
realize that art artists andscientists are way, much more
aligned than even they thinkthey are.
So it was just wonderful seeingthe collaborations happen.
Jennifer Coronado (47:16):
Yeah, it goes back to that idea of creative
thinking, right?
Ahmed Best (47:19):
Yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (47:20):
You just have your different ways of thinking
creatively.
It doesn't mean that you're notcreative thinkers.
You're just a scientist tryingto discover a cure for something
or or a particle.
And how what how much how muchmore drama is there than that,
right?
Trying to just some discovery,right?
Ahmed Best (47:37):
Yeah.
I mean, I was talking to the toone of the scientists who
discovered gravitational waves,right, in the universe.
And there was this machine thatthey built down in Louisiana
that, you know, it was like oneof four that could detect
gravitational waves.
And when he got the email thatthey detected the waves, he was
(48:00):
like, I didn't believe it.
I thought it was a hoax.
I thought somebody was likepranking me.
Wow.
And that's when I was justlike, oh my God, you're a human
being.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, he was, he, he, he didn'tbelieve it.
Like, lead scientist helpedbuild the thing, had the theory,
(48:20):
and then the thing happened,and he was like, nope, nope,
can't believe it.
This this is this is the hoax.
And it wasn't until the secondevent that he was just like,
okay, maybe this thing could betrue.
And the thing that's sodramatic about it is like, what
is that thing that made me thinkit was the hoax?
Like, you came up with thescience.
You helped build the machine.
You're at the forefront of theresearch.
(48:42):
It's like you don't believeyourself.
Like you don't believe you canbe smart enough and and and
prepared enough to actually seethe proof of the event that you
knew was coming.
Jennifer Coronado (48:55):
It's interesting.
Ahmed Best (48:56):
It was fascinating.
Jennifer Coronado (48:57):
Yeah, I think I think it comes too from
theory, theory, theory, theoryis what you're talking about
when you're working on ascientific discovery.
And then the actuality happensand you're like, wait a minute,
I'm over here in theory.
Ahmed Best (49:08):
And I was right.
See, I think people have thisidea that scientists sit in labs
all day and come up withtheories and then tell everybody
else that they're stupid andsmoke a cigarette and drink a
glass of whiskey.
Yeah.
Like that's not what'shappening.
Right.
Scientists are some of the mostlike insecure people who enjoy
(49:36):
being proven wrong so much thatwhen they're right, it's
surprising.
Right?
They are wrong most of thetime.
Jennifer Coronado (49:47):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (49:48):
And it's not like religion, right?
They're not looking forvalidation for their beliefs.
They're looking for theopposite of that.
So when they have validationfor their beliefs, it's
unbelievable.
They're like, we're, no, that'snot right.
I must have made a mistake.
And in the climate of rightnow, where everyone has become
(50:10):
so anti-science in, you know, inthe popular discourse, right?
I don't think they know enoughscientists because they think
that the scientists are justsitting on high, going, you all
are dumb, listen to us, do whatwe say.
And it's the opposite of that.
Right.
They are people with families.
(50:30):
Yeah.
And they want their families tobe just as safe as everybody
else.
And that's where they'reworking from.
Jennifer Coronado (50:36):
Yeah, totally.
And and when you think aboutit, performing, you know, when
you're performing, you'reconstantly being told louder,
taller, softer, do this, dothat, do this.
It's kind of the same withscience, right?
Scientists peer review, actual,we found this.
This is wrong.
You should re rerun this.
It's the same kind of humanexperience, you know.
(51:01):
Yes.
And right.
People don't recognize thatbecause scientists are more
self-contained, right?
Ahmed Best (51:06):
Yeah.
I mean, most of them sit at abench and, you know, look at the
smallest parts of our universeand write it down.
That's all they're doing.
They're not, you know, wringingtheir hands going, how can I
take over the world?
Like they're not that creepy.
Yeah, they're not like, wow,wait till I put this microchip
(51:27):
in these vaccines.
That's not what they do.
No.
You know, that's not what theydo at all.
But the narrative out therehas, I think, painted scientists
in an unrealistic light.
And, you know, some of it istheir fault.
Some of it is they don't sayenough.
It's a communication thing.
Yeah.
And one of the biggest reasonswhy I did PST, Part of Science
(51:50):
Collide, is because I thinkscience has a communication
problem.
And who better to handle thatcommunication problem than the
performing artists?
Jennifer Coronado (51:59):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (51:59):
You know?
Alan Alda has an entirefoundation where he teaches
scientists how to talk topeople.
And he does like impromptucomedy with them and gets them
out of their shell so they canbe better communicators.
So we know how wonderful thescientists are.
Jennifer Coronado (52:15):
Yeah, you just made me love him even more.
Ahmed Best (52:17):
Yeah, he's awesome.
Jennifer Coronado (52:19):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (52:19):
You know?
And I love that as well, right?
Because science was like theother avenue that I wanted to
take, that I did take.
I've always kind of wanted tostay science adjacent.
And so working with the NAS andthe science and entertainment
exchange has kept me in thatworld so much that now I have so
(52:41):
many scientists that I can calllike really great friends.
And I can help them talk topeople.
Yeah.
Um, because that's what we allneed.
We all need to know ascientist.
Jennifer Coronado (52:56):
Yeah, totally.
I have we're running up ontime, so I want to ask you a
final question.
And I'm gonna James Luton ithere.
You know, he always had thatlist of questions that he had,
right?
Your favorite cursed word and soexactly your favorite cursed
word.
And I this one I thought aboutthis morning.
I was like, I really want toask him this question because I
don't think because we've talkedabout it, and now I know you
(53:16):
don't fit into a box.
Ahmed Best (53:19):
Yeah, no, I'm I've never I've never been a in a put
in a box kind of person.
Jennifer Coronado (53:24):
Yeah.
So I I want to ask you thisquestion.
What profession other than yourown would you like to attempt?
Ahmed Best (53:34):
Attempt.
Jennifer Coronado (53:35):
Attempt.
Ahmed Best (53:36):
I would love, you know, I have a I have a really
great friend, Spiral Mikolakisat Caltech, who is a quantum
physicist.
Uh he's a theoretical physicistand a quantal physicist and a
quantum physicist.
(53:58):
And every time I talk to him,it's like building and
discovering new worlds andrealms.
It's amazing.
I mean, I just love being inthat mind space, that headspace.
And you know, a lot of myheroes in the science world were
(54:18):
in that, in the physics realmof a biology.
I'm getting really big intobiology.
So I would, I would love to bein that quantum physics space,
in that quantum physics world.
Or I would either do that, orI, you know, I would love to be
an astronaut.
You know, NASA just announcedall it is to do astronauts uh a
(54:39):
couple of days ago, and there'snobody black.
And there used to be a wholebunch of black astronauts that
we could talk about, right?
Like one of my heroes is RonMcNair.
He he died on the Challenger,and this guy was like physicist,
(55:00):
astrophysicist, scientist, beatthe odds, became you know, an
astronaut.
And I would love to do that.
I would love to explore space.
Jennifer Coronado (55:14):
Well, here's to hoping that's your next
thing.
Ahmed Best (55:18):
We'll see.
I would definitely do itthrough NASA and and not through
the private companies because Ithink there's a little bit more
of uh an experience you canhave through NASA.
Jennifer Coronado (55:30):
Yeah, I agree because it's pure science and
it's not the money boys.
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (55:34):
Yeah, yeah, and you're doing it for the sake of
doing it.
Jennifer Coronado (55:36):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (55:37):
You know, you're doing it to help out humanity.
And I think you know, I think alot of times we are very
anthro-procentric.
I think human beings need to bea little bit more humble when
it comes to this earth.
So there's this thing that Icall earthling culture, which,
(55:58):
you know, I helped develop witha couple friends of mine who
with whom I teach at Stanford,right?
So one of my great friends, hisname is Drew Endy, and he's a
synthetic biologist.
And he would always ask thisquestion in our class, he would
say, What does the banana slugwant?
And I love that kind ofthinking because you are
(56:23):
thinking of the earth from thepoint of view of the banana slug
and not from the human.
And when we when we stopthinking anthropocentric and
start thinking about all theother things on this earth, we
start thinking differently.
And we take uh these otherperspectives, become our
(56:45):
reality.
So earthling culture to me is areally big deal because we can
think what does the banana slugwant.
And I think we all need tothink more like banana slugs
these days.
Jennifer Coronado (56:59):
I think you're right.
Well, thank you for joining ustoday.
We really appreciate it.
Ahmed Best (57:05):
My pleasure.
It's been awesome.
Jennifer Coronado (57:08):
Thank you for listening to Everyone Is.
Everyone Is is produced andedited by Chris Hawkinson.
Executive producer is AaronDusseau.
Music by Doug Infinite.
Our logo and graphic design isby Harrison Parker, and I'm Jen
Coronado.
Everyone Is is a slightlydisappointed productions
production dropping every otherThursday.
So make sure to rate and reviewand like and subscribe.
(57:29):
Thanks for listening.
You know, most people think that as an actor,
you're lying for a living.
It's the exact opposite.
You are being as truthful asyou can possibly be.
Yeah.
And when that is criticized,you feel it.
You know?
That's why most actors don'tread reviews.
Because it hurts.
Jennifer Coronado (00:22):
Hi, welcome to everyone is.
I'm your host, JenniferCoronado.
The intent of this show is toengage with all kinds of people
and build the understanding thatanyone who has any kind of
success is successful becausethey're a creative thinker.
So whether you're an artist ora cook or an award-winning
journalist, everyone hassomething to contribute to the
human conversation.
(00:43):
Because everyone just is.
A lot of how we get guests onthe show is related to the
friends and family or colleaguessaying, Hey man, I know someone
you should really talk to, Jen.
Our guest today is noexception.
My friend Lynn Hale has workedclosely with this guest during
his journey on the Star Warsprequels and talked with the
highest regard about him, notjust as a performer, but as a
(01:04):
human being.
There was a wonderful New YorkTimes piece that was written
about him, and I can go on andon and on, but instead I'm going
to talk to him and say it's ourpleasure to welcome Ahmed Best
to everyone is.
Ahmed Best (01:15):
Hello.
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Coronado (01:18):
Thank you for coming.
You're best known in public asGeorge R.
Binks, but I don't want tostart there.
I want to start with littleAhmed.
So where were you born andwhere did you grow up?
Ahmed Best (01:30):
Yes, I was born in New York City, New York.
I grew up in the South Bronx inNew York City, uh up until
around like junior high school.
And then I moved to Maplewood,New Jersey for a very extreme
culture shock for junior highschool and high school.
Went to Columbia High School,which is now famous, apparently.
(01:51):
Like a lot of people who havecome out of Columbia are now
people that people talk to.
Artist uh Bisa Butler came outof Columbia High School.
Fizza came out of Columbia HighSchool.
Wow.
Zach Braff came out of ColumbiaHigh School.
Lauren Hill came out ofColumbia High School.
(02:12):
Wow.
Zach and Lauren were there whenI was there.
They're a couple years youngerthan me.
And Bisa was there.
Bisa and I were in the sameyear.
So a lot of people, RoySchneider, Max Weinberg.
A lot of people who came out ofColumbia High School who are in
the Columbia High School Hallof Fame.
Jennifer Coronado (02:29):
You know what's really funny about that?
I frequently joke to uh Aaron,our producer, about things like,
you know, there's a year wheneveryone in Hollywood is making
volcano films.
Right.
And there's just something inthe air that suddenly makes it
like everybody's thinking aboutmaking a volcano film.
And it sort of feels like thatculturally, too, when all of a
(02:49):
sudden a group of people comeout of somewhere, that there's
something that attracts thatenergy there.
So it's I find that reallyinteresting.
Ahmed Best (02:58):
Yeah, there was definitely an energy at
Columbia, and it was extremelycreative there, you know, which
I I really, really enjoyed.
All of us kind of in that inthat creative world kind of knew
each other, and we all survivedthere for some reason.
You know, it was just, it wasreally magical.
Jennifer Coronado (03:18):
What did that creativity look like?
Like uh when you say it was creit had a creative energy there,
what did that mean?
Ahmed Best (03:24):
We were really encouraged to find our voices.
And there were a lot ofopportunities to do that.
You know, it was a it was avery big school, so each place
of interest had its own wing.
I think there was the musicwing, and there was the acting
ring, and there was the visualarts wing.
So we were all science andmathematics and all this stuff.
(03:46):
So we were always like indifferent parts of the school
expressing ourselves.
And I have to say we had somereally, really good teachers who
were extremely expansive withthe way they they taught that
really made us think and made usreally be interested in being
(04:07):
really good at what we weredoing.
So it really it was it wasreally about, you know, the
space to do it and theencouragement from the teachers.
Jennifer Coronado (04:16):
Did you have a favorite teacher?
A favorite subject?
Ahmed Best (04:20):
I had a couple.
You know, I had some really,really good music teachers.
My drama teacher, who was alsomy English teacher, was
incredible.
And then my physics teacher, Iwas really good at physics, and
I really loved physics.
Like science was one of theavenues that I wanted to go
into.
Before the performing artscalled me.
(04:42):
I was a nerdy kid, and youknow, it was between like music,
theater, and science.
And those were my three likebig lobs when I was coming up.
Jennifer Coronado (04:56):
Well, you know what?
It's funny because music isstructured, you know, physics,
but it's but it it's you know,obviously creative, and you can
explore particularly on the jazzside of it, right?
Ahmed Best (05:09):
Um yeah, and they all kind of correlate, right?
There's a lot of mathematics inmusic, you know, especially
when you're talking about likemusic theory and the way you
divide and subdivide notes,bars, time signatures, key
signatures, and so forth.
So there's a lot of mathematicsthat goes into it.
And it really is about likethis discovery of nature, which
(05:30):
is which I loved physics for.
It was because you got toreally look at nature and feel
nature and figure out how itworked.
Right.
And all of these magnificentdiscoveries would happen in the
physics class, and it was thesame when I was playing music.
It was all of this beautifuldiscovery that you can find
(05:53):
inside a song that people haveplayed a million times, but you
you play it differently.
Right.
So it really is about likefinding, discovering who you are
through the music andinstincting in physics who are
you in nature?
Jennifer Coronado (06:09):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (06:10):
You know?
And then with acting, like withtheater, it it it was it was
kind it was very much, you know,reading a piece of music for
me.
Like 15, I was my superpowerwas understanding Shakespeare.
And when people like in myEnglish class hated it, I loved
it.
For some reason, I got it, youknow.
(06:32):
It just all made sense to me.
Jennifer Coronado (06:35):
Also, the thing about Shakespeare, like
honestly, like music, you know,it's got the iambic pentameter.
The way he writes, people findit complicated, but it's
actually kind of how peoplespeak.
Ahmed Best (06:46):
Yeah, I mean, that poetry, that iambic pentameter,
it's like rap music.
You know what I'm saying?
It's it's it's a it's a cadencethat we're all used to in in
our, you know, popularentertainment worlds, you know,
especially when it comes topoetry.
So rhythmically, and I'm adrummer, so rhythmically, it
(07:07):
just like really made sense tome.
And uh, for some reason, I Ijust could see it every time I
read Shakespeare.
And so I really fell in lovewith it, and I just fell in love
with saying the words and thepoetry behind it.
You know, and that's that'swhat really got me into the
theater and got me into drama.
Jennifer Coronado (07:27):
And I know you went to like you mentioned,
you went you went to school formusic ultimately.
But were you doing theater atthe same time still, or what was
happening there?
Ahmed Best (07:36):
Yeah, I was always doing both.
You know, at that time peoplemade you choose.
And, you know, music called mefirst, but I was always on
stage.
You know, even when I was atManhattan School of Music, I was
always doing a play somewhere,and I was always on stage doing
something.
You know, it was alwayssomething that was in my life.
(07:57):
So it never stopped.
You know, I was always doing amillion things at once, like I
kind of am doing now.
You know, I was in the band andI was in a jazz band, and I was
like, you know, I was in theParnassion Society and, you
know, president of thisassociation, that, and that kind
of just continued until I gotto Stomp, which was like all of
(08:17):
it in one place.
Jennifer Coronado (08:19):
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that
because there's so I actually Itook my little brother, he was
like 13.
Because I have a brother who's14 years younger than me, and he
always, every time I mentionhim on a podcast, he's always
see you mentioned me as yourfavorite brother again.
That's not the case.
But um I took him when he was13 because I always want people
to see performance and see theenergy of life performance.
(08:40):
And I do that with my niecesand nephews too.
And it it was so engaging forhim, and you were actually in
that performance, which he saw.
Oh wow, get out of here.
That's great.
So I think that's great.
I mean, and I know for you, foryour family, like your sister's
a musician.
Some of your grandparents weremusicians, your brother.
Ahmed Best (08:59):
Yeah, I come from a long line of broke artists.
Um, yeah.
My uncles, my grandparents,like everybody has a
performance, some kind of aperformance of artistic
inclination.
Like my uncles were painters,my brother's a painter.
My mother can do everything.
She's a polymath, you know,she's one, she's and a
(09:20):
deconstructor, so she can likelook at something and do it,
either make it or play it orpaint it, you know.
My father is a cinematographerand a photographer, so you know,
he comes from the film worldand did TV for years, right?
He was a cameraman on Americaand wanted more of the sports,
fantasy sports.
So it was always around, youknow.
(09:42):
The arts were all allthroughout my childhood.
My uncle was a guitar playerand his wife was a singer.
So, and he had nine kids, andthey all had musical abilities.
So anytime one of the kids gotmarried, the cousins would be
the wedding band.
So no one ever had to hire awedding band.
So that was kind of theenvironment I grew up in.
Jennifer Coronado (10:04):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you say your momis a polymath, but uh aren't you
a little bit of a polymathyourself?
Ahmed Best (10:10):
I mean, you know, yeah, that's where I get it
from.
I get it from my mother, youknow, the whole polymath thing.
I'm a deconstructor as well.
I try to look at something andbreak it down and see how I can
do it, you know.
And then I try to figure outwhat it feels like in my mind,
in my body.
You know, I've I've never comeup against something that I felt
(10:30):
like I couldn't do.
I feel like everything is justonce you learn how you learn,
then you can pretty much learnanything.
Jennifer Coronado (10:39):
How do you think you learn?
What's what you said feel youmentioned your body feeling.
What and you talk aboutfeelings quite a bit and how
that works with your process.
Yeah.
Talk about it.
Ahmed Best (10:50):
Feel is a big thing for me.
You know, I'm I'm in my class,I teach at USC uh in the fall,
and I'm in my classroom rightnow, and you know, I'm I'm
really about like how you feeland how you want the people that
you are talking to, reactingto, you know, or listening to
(11:11):
how you want them to feel.
And I'm constantly talkingabout how to do that.
Right.
So the course I teach at SC iscalled Dramatic Narrative
Design, and it's a course that Icreated.
And it really talks about howyou design the drama and how you
make sure that when you aredesigning the drama, you are
(11:33):
designing the thing that youwant the audience to feel.
It really is about trustingthose, building those skills to
feel and trusting thosefeelings.
And that came from a lot oftrial and error, you know,
because I had great teachers,but I also had not so great
teachers.
And when you do have not sogreat teachers, but you have
(11:57):
this desire to want to learnsomething, you want to know
something, you try to teachyourself.
Right.
And so there are a lot ofthings that I did that I was
self-taught.
And a lot of it was becausepeople would say to me, You're
this thing, you're not thisthing.
So learn this thing and don'tlearn that thing.
Right.
Right.
(12:17):
So, you know, I was constantlymoved away from certain things,
you know, especially coming upthrough high school.
You know, I was moved away frommath and science because I had
more of an extreme talent forthe performing arts.
Jennifer Coronado (12:31):
Right.
Ahmed Best (12:31):
And so the the general idea is if you want to
get a job, you move more towardswhere you are talented.
And then you you you know,cultivate those talents in order
to create something in whichyou can be employed.
Yes.
But that's not that interestingto me.
(12:52):
I actually want to learn aboutthings that I don't have a
talent for.
You know what I'm saying?
I love mathematics, but I neverhad that prodigious proclivity
or talent for it.
That doesn't mean I can't learnit, and that doesn't mean I
can't love it, you know.
So I learned how I learn, whichwas a challenge.
(13:16):
But now that I can do that, Ican pretty much learn anything.
And, you know, I'm I'm atactile learner, I'm a I'm a
visual learner, I'm a storylearner.
And as a professionalstoryteller and, you know, as an
emotional athlete, I like tocall myself, you know, if I can
(13:38):
get something in my body, I cando it.
You know, if I can feel how itis, I can do it.
Jennifer Coronado (13:47):
And you talk about your emotional engine
quite a bit too.
So that's that's what thatconnects to, like the thing that
feeds you, right?
Ahmed Best (13:54):
Yeah.
So emotional engine, when Italk about it in my classroom, I
define it as the drivingemotional force that moves you
forward towards change.
Right.
We are trapped in the present,but we have the ability to
perceive the future andrecognize the past, right?
(14:16):
And at Stanford, I teach aclass called Inventing the
Future.
And I also have a company thatis a futurist company.
Jennifer Coronado (14:24):
Right.
Ahmed Best (14:25):
That is, that is, you know, really foundationally
afro-futurist.
And one of the things that Ithink moves us forward as human
beings, you know, with apreferable cortex is our
experiences emotionally, right?
But we all have that emotionalengine that is the main reason
(14:49):
why we move forward and why wechange in our lives.
And when we find that emotionalengine, then it is very easy to
articulate what that thing isand share what that thing is and
grow it.
You know, the hardest part, Ithink, about the emotional
engine is admitting to yourselfthat you have one.
And that is the thing that ismotivating you.
Jennifer Coronado (15:12):
Why do you think that's hard?
Why do you think that's hardfor people or for yourself,
even?
For me, it's not that hard,right?
Ahmed Best (15:18):
Because as a as a performing artist, that's what I
crave, right?
In order you for you to reallyknow who you are emotionally,
you have to be extremelyvulnerable.
And that is scary.
And it's scary for most people.
Most people, most of us, wetrain ourselves out of
(15:41):
vulnerability.
Right.
We put ourselves in theseplaces where we can just protect
ourselves because it's veryhard to go through this world,
especially in America where thecompetition is just how
everything is really driven.
It's very hard to go throughthat and be open and honest
because you can be takenadvantage of.
(16:02):
And, you know, rightfully so.
It's scary.
But actors, musicians, likethose of us who spend our lives
in front of people, we are, youknow, crazy enough to want that
in our everyday.
We want that vulnerability.
And we try to cultivate it, wetry to crave it, right?
That's that's kind of our breadand butter, the ability to be
(16:24):
vulnerable when we need to bevulnerable, right?
That's why I call us emotionalathletes, right?
If you ask us to be vulnerablein 15 minutes, we can be
vulnerable in 15 minutes.
That's the training.
Yeah.
But most people don't want tobe vulnerable at all.
So as we get older, as kids,we're completely vulnerable.
(16:47):
We're open.
The older we get, the more wemask it.
Um, the more we create thefacade.
And then we start putting outas people what we want people to
see when they see us.
And then we live in thatidentity.
I mean, that's why social mediais what it is, because it is
(17:10):
how you see, how you want peopleto see you.
Right?
It's not even how you seeyourself.
Jennifer Coronado (17:17):
Yeah, and it's so performative, and I I uh
but not in a way that isauthentic.
Do you know?
Ahmed Best (17:24):
Yeah, that's the goal.
The goal is for it not to beauthentic.
You're putting out yourgreatest hits.
So if you can be glamorous andsexy and always camera ready,
and that's what you want peopleto see from you.
Social media is the platformbuilt for that.
Jennifer Coronado (17:48):
Right.
And you know it's so funny tome, social media is more
isolating now than it isconnecting, in my opinion.
Because you're sort of likeyou're sort of like Cassandra
shouting into the void, right?
You think you're making apoint, but the other person in
order for people to hear yourpoint, they have to be
listening.
But people aren't listening onsocial media.
Ahmed Best (18:08):
No, they're not.
It it really is about you andyour ego being heard and heard
really, really loud.
And it works because I think asprey animals, as we were for a
very, very long time, wegravitate towards protection uh
(18:33):
in groups.
So if you want protection as ahuman being, we learned, you
know, back when we were evolvingin the African savannah that
we're probably safer togetherthan we are individually.
Jennifer Coronado (18:47):
Right.
Ahmed Best (18:48):
And we keep feeding that, you know, fear part of our
brain, right?
And it's fed to us that we aregoing to be attacked, right?
We are constantly under siegeby, you know, the powers that be
in order to, you know, getmoney.
It's the it's the money game.
(19:08):
You know, they collect thedata, they sell the data, they
make the money, right?
And so the more eyes onplatform, the more money we they
can make.
So they're playing on ourpsychology to make money.
And our psychology is that thatscarcity mentality, that prey
mentality.
And then we tribal, we all gettogether and we all shout into
the void, and nothing ever getssolved.
(19:31):
But that's the that's you know,design.
Right.
Which is why, which is why whatI I teach what I teach, right?
Because when you see thedesign, it's a lot harder to
fall into it.
Right.
And in the movies, that's ourjob, right?
Our job in the movies is tomake you feel the way we want
(19:54):
you to feel.
It's not an arbitrary thing,right?
And so, what are the skills andtools to do that?
That's what's being done to usin our news cycle, that's what's
being done to us in our socialmedia.
So once you see it and you cananalyze it, it's a lot harder to
be a victim of it.
Jennifer Coronado (20:14):
Yeah.
I and it's interesting becauseI want to get a little bit back
to the performance side of you.
And and maybe I don't know ifyou're teaching this, but
there's something when you'reconnecting with an audience,
right?
There's a mutual energy thatyou're sharing with each other.
(20:34):
Yes.
And uh in some of theperformance that I see you do,
do you do you know to TadashiSuzuki, the theory?
Yes, of course.
Ahmed Best (20:45):
Yeah, I studied Suzuki performance.
Jennifer Coronado (20:47):
I I was gonna say, I see a lot of that in
your physicality, like thatgrounding energy that you bring
to performances and and how yourbody, you talked about how your
body is so in to performance.
So I wonder if you could talkabout what your influences
continue to be as you'reteaching and learning more about
yourself every day.
(21:07):
Where where are the things thatyou draw from, you know?
Ahmed Best (21:11):
Yeah, I mean, for me, when it comes to performance
and from and and you know, howI move on stage, I've changed a
lot as I've gotten older.
When I was younger, I justwanted to move.
I didn't care, you know whatI'm saying?
I just wanted to fly, you know,and a lot of times in Stomp, I
(21:34):
was very rarely on the ground.
I was always like jumpingsomewhere, flying somewhere.
And you know, I loved thatathleticism.
I've always loved performerswho, uh, especially actors who
used their bodies, you know.
A lot of actors are trained touse their voice.
Jennifer Coronado (21:55):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (21:56):
You know, actors mostly come from voice uh
influentially and not theirbodies.
Like when you studyShakespeare, you know,
Shakespearean actors don'treally move.
Yeah, it's the shoulders, yeah,ear, and they'll move their
head and they'll think likethat, but they don't, you know,
or they aren't really grounded.
(22:16):
My mother uh is uhpercussionist as well.
And she plays an Africaninstrument called the Shaker,
which is from West Africa.
And, you know, percussion anddance, when you're talking about
African or African diasporicmusic going in the game.
(22:38):
Yeah.
Right.
Very rarely does somebody playa drum and people sit down and
watch it.
It's really like a call to moveor a call to communicate or a
call to speak.
So a lot of my impetus formovement comes from that, right?
So finding the rhythm of what'sgoing on on stage and being
able to respond to the rhythm ofthings with my body.
(23:02):
So I I move first, right?
I don't speak first when itcomes to the performing arts.
The other thing is, you know,I've been a martial artist all
my life.
You must start it.
Jennifer Coronado (23:18):
Is there anything you don't do, dude?
Ahmed Best (23:21):
Is there anything?
I that's a really goodquestion.
I don't know yet.
I haven't found it yet.
Jennifer Coronado (23:27):
I see, I love that.
I love that you're like, I cando everything, and I but I just
haven't found my my wall versuspeople who are like, I don't, I
don't know if I can do it.
No, no, and that's such awonderful way to push through
life.
Ahmed Best (23:39):
You know, yeah, you know, I like the try.
That's one one one line inEmpire that I disagree with,
with Yoda, you know, do or donot.
No, there's no, I I dig thetry.
You gotta start somewhere, youknow?
Yeah.
And if you don't try, you'llnever do.
Look, it might not be for you,you know, but try it once.
(24:02):
You might you might discoversomething about yourself.
I think everything that I I dois an exploration into who I am.
So who am I as a martialartist?
Who am I as a musician?
Who am I as an actor?
Who am I as a cook?
You know?
But it really is about me.
(24:23):
I, you know, as much as I do alot of things, I'm really only
doing one thing, and that's me.
And how do I express myself inthese other things, right?
Like Bruce Lee, who was a biginfluence of mine, because I'm a
(24:44):
martial artist, you know, Igrew up watching Bruce Lee
movies and listening to BruceLee.
And Bruce Lee created thismartial art called Jake, and
that was his expression of hisexperience as an artist.
And he gave it a name, right?
And as a kid, that's what Ireally loved.
(25:07):
I loved the fact that you cancreate your own expression of
yourself through these things,and that has always been my goal
for myself, right?
So, regardless of the style ofmartial art I do, my question to
(25:29):
myself was how do what who am Iin this art?
Right?
I'm not necessarily worriedabout what anyone thinks of me
in the art.
And I'm not trying to be who myinstructors are, right?
Some people are are like that.
Some people look at theirinstructors and they copy
(25:51):
everything that they do.
Right.
You know, like when I wasstudying Jee Kundeau with guru
Danny Nassanto here inCalifornia, in LA, you know, I
would go to his class.
And then when I would go toother people's classes, they
would be teaching like him,right?
They would have the same handon the hip, they would do the
(26:12):
same gestures, they would talkin the same cadence, right?
That was never for me.
You know what I'm saying?
I wasn't interested in beingDan Inn Santo.
He's himself.
And he's wonderful.
And there was no way I wasgonna out Dan Inno Santo, Dan
Inno Santo, you know?
(26:32):
My question is, what do I looklike to Ingenie Krypto?
How do I express myself in thisart created by Bruce Lee?
And I didn't really find thatuntil like last year.
You know what I'm saying?
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, and that's the otherthing about exploring yourself
(26:55):
through these things, right?
It takes as long as it takes.
There's no time limit on it.
So I'm not stressed out aboutit.
I'm just like, yeah, when Ifind it, I'll find it, you know?
Jennifer Coronado (27:07):
Where does that come from?
Where's that patience comefrom?
That patience for exploration?
Because it feels to me likeyou've had a life of epiphanies,
right?
Where you've hit differentmetrics that maybe even
surprised you at some point.
But where does that where'sthat source come from?
Does that come from yourparents and how they educated
you, or is it just something younaturally came to?
Ahmed Best (27:28):
Yeah, I think it comes from me being impatient
and having no other choice.
Okay.
Right?
Because I've I've always beenlike, I need it now, I need it
now, I need it now.
And you go, what's everybodydoing?
Right.
But as much as I've done that,time I don't control.
You know what I'm saying?
So it's just like, it's gonnacome when it's gonna come,
(27:51):
whether I like it or not, orwhether I want it to be now or I
don't.
And it only when I realize it,only when I realize it do I
realize, oh, okay, that's takingsome time.
But it's taken me a really longtime to be okay with learning
(28:12):
slow, right?
Because in general, I'm a fastlearner, right?
But there's something to besaid about learning slow and
learning over time, and nottrying to be, and I think this
is the the biggest thing that'schanged.
I wanted to be, when I wasyounger, I wanted to be
(28:35):
excellent fast.
You know, like I wanted tolearn something and perfect it
and be an expert at it in theshortest amount of time, right?
Like when I got my black beltin Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I did it
in six years, and the averageis 10.
And I was like, I'm gonna do itin six, and I did.
(28:58):
And then I got a black belt,and then I was just like, okay,
now what?
I did it.
Jennifer Coronado (29:05):
Um, do you feel like you didn't enjoy the
journey as much as you couldhave?
Because you when you wereyounger, yeah.
Ahmed Best (29:12):
I did, I enjoyed the journey, but what I had to
realize was the journey doesn'tend.
You know what I mean?
It's only a series of newbeginnings.
So when I think about gettingthere to the finishing line, you
(29:32):
know, and achieving the thing.
You know, before it was justlike, okay, now I'll know.
But now I'm just like moreexcited to not know.
You know, when I get to thefinish line, I'm just like, oh,
okay, now there's this, these,there are these set of things
that I don't know.
What is there to discover inthis?
Jennifer Coronado (29:56):
That's interesting to say that because
you you know we talked earlierabout how you know when you're
young.
You tend to be more open, youknow.
Ahmed Best (30:04):
Vulnerable.
Jennifer Coronado (30:05):
But it feels to me like do you think that
you've gotten more open andvulnerable as you got you've
gotten older?
Or no?
Ahmed Best (30:12):
Oh yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (30:12):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (30:13):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And helping, giving it a nameand and also teaching helps that
a lot.
You know, because you go itebbs and flows, you go through
these periods, you know.
Like in my 20s, I thought Iknew everything.
And I was indestructible.
Jennifer Coronado (30:30):
Well, you were also producing albums in
your 20s, which is somethingthat most 20-year-olds are not
doing.
Ahmed Best (30:35):
Yeah.
Yeah, I was producing recordsand Star Wars happened in my
20s.
Right.
But then, you know, you get toyour 30s, your 40s, and your
50s.
And, you know, you have to moveforward.
You know, we are trapped inthis timeline.
You can't stay still and youcan't go backwards.
(30:57):
And so moving forward, you haveto have something that moves
you forward and you know, forcesyou to change.
And that's that emotionalengine piece.
Jennifer Coronado (31:10):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (31:10):
Once I figured that out for myself, I was like,
okay, now I know how to moveforward.
Because I know what this thingthat's driving me.
Jennifer Coronado (31:18):
Yeah.
Your father.
Right.
And do you feel like this isthis is stuff that you are
imparting to your kids at thispoint?
Or are you letting are you orare you a parent who wants to
let them explore and then maybegive them advice on the side?
I mean, all kids are different,so it's Yeah.
Ahmed Best (31:37):
I'm a little of both.
You know, I I've always wantedto be a father.
It's it's something that if ifanything is the thing that makes
me the happiest, and somethingthat I'm the most proud of, is
being a father.
I always tell my son, you'vemade me the man of my dreams,
(31:57):
you know.
So he is everything to me.
And I just want to make surethat he's good.
So whenever he needs words, Igive them to him.
But a lot of times I let himdiscover, right?
(32:19):
I don't see myself as a parentwho has to helicopter or or
control, right?
I'm I'm not a controllingparent.
I see myself as more like atailor, you know, where if the
pants are a little bit too long,I just gonna hem up, give them
(32:42):
a little hem, right?
If, you know, if the jacketneeds to come in a little bit, I
can just take it in a littlebit.
You know what I'm saying?
So for me, his lessons aren'tthat you should or you
shouldn't.
Right.
For me, his is just like, youmight want to think about, you
know, taking it in a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, and then ultimately Ilet him make his decisions.
(33:05):
Uh I'm not, I'm not, I'm thereto make sure that he at every
point in his life can get backup until he doesn't need me and
he can get back up on his own.
Jennifer Coronado (33:17):
Right.
I want to uh, you know, Istarted off by saying I didn't
want to talk about Jar Jar,yeah.
And then I want to talk aboutJar Jar.
And I want to talk about itbecause you had a pretty
vulnerable moment in the Lightin Magic documentary that you
read, where you talked aboutjust the deep psychological toll
that it it took on you at thattime.
(33:38):
And I wonder, you know, and youtalk about whatever you're
comfortable talking about, but Iwonder what that made you feel
about people at that time.
How that may have evolved foryou and how you how you feel
(33:58):
about that that experience now,you know, 20 20.
Ahmed Best (34:02):
Yeah.
You know, I've always beenproud of that experience.
Even at its most challengingtimes.
The hardest part about it allfor me was the fact that there
was some really great work beingdone.
(34:23):
You know, and I felt like Ikind of found I I've I found it,
you know.
Like when I was coming up as ayoung actor, I always wanted to
be uh a character actor.
You know, I always wanted to bethat actor who could disappear
into roles.
And, you know, I wanted to bethe guy who was like, everybody
(34:46):
would be like, man, I don't knowthat guy's name, but he's great
in everything.
Who is that guy?
You know what I'm saying?
I've always wanted to be thatactor.
And Jar Jar was that, like tothe tenth degree.
It was like, I totally coulddisappear and lose myself in
this thing.
And this character lives andexists and breathes.
(35:10):
And I just loved it.
I loved every minute of thework.
I loved the challenge of comingup with a walk and a voice and
an interaction.
I loved the technology of it.
Like it filled my entire likescience jones that I still have
to this day, right?
(35:31):
I loved working with RobColeman and John Noel at ILM and
having them and George go, wedon't know if this can be done.
Can you do this?
And I'll go, yeah, let's tryit.
And we would try some stuff andit would work.
Yep.
So there's your trial.
(35:51):
Yeah, I mean, it was absolutelyphenomenal.
And what broke my heart was thefact that I felt like it was
done.
It was over.
I could never do that workagain.
And at 26, you know, which iswhen I went through this severe
depression, at 26, and thinkingthat your life is over, it was a
(36:18):
lot to handle.
You know, and I was just like,I'll never find anything like
this again.
Like I'll never find, like Ifound my thing.
I found the thing that I can beme in completely, totally.
And no one has ever done thisbefore.
Like, I'm not only am I as aperformer fulfilling everything,
(36:42):
but as a pioneer in film, Ifound this thing.
Jennifer Coronado (36:46):
Right, which keeps all of the things you've
talked about really wanting,right?
Ahmed Best (36:50):
Absolutely.
And, you know, George Lucastrusts me to make decisions in,
you know, his movie.
And, you know, Star Wars wasthe first movie I ever saw as a
kid.
So it was like not only a dreamcome true, but it was like the
respect that I got from all ofmy peers in the movie and the
(37:11):
trust that George had in me.
And you know, coming togetherwith ILM and making this thing,
it was just amazing.
And it it all of the hopes ofwhere it could go came crashing
down.
Jennifer Coronado (37:27):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (37:27):
And that's what was so terrible to me.
Like the fame and the money andthat kind of stuff, you can
have it.
That's not for me.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I that's not why I didit.
Right.
You know, that wasn't importantto me.
It's still not.
What's important to me waslike, we could like really
create something special here.
(37:48):
We can do some pioneering work.
Jennifer Coronado (37:51):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (37:52):
You know, and I wanted to evolve with the
technology.
I wanted to craft this new wayof acting that now all of a
sudden exists called performancecapture.
I wanted to be at the forefrontof all of that.
Jennifer Coronado (38:07):
Right.
Ahmed Best (38:08):
And I couldn't.
Jennifer Coronado (38:10):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (38:10):
And I couldn't, not because of me.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it was completely out ofmy control.
Jennifer Coronado (38:17):
Right.
Ahmed Best (38:18):
So that's what was really heartbreaking about the
situation.
Jennifer Coronado (38:23):
When I think about the age you were at that
time, too.
You know, we talked about thefrontal cortex.
Yours had just developed.
Ahmed Best (38:29):
Yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (38:30):
And suddenly it was being assaulted.
You know what I mean?
Ahmed Best (38:33):
Yeah.
By the world.
By the world.
All over the world.
And you know, I always say Iwas a skinny kid from the South
Bronx.
You know what I'm saying?
Thrust into this place whereall of a sudden I had to be like
media savvy and, you know,publicity savvy and know how to
handle myself with, you know,journalists who were coming for
(38:59):
my throat and George's throatthrough me.
Jennifer Coronado (39:02):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (39:03):
You know?
And I didn't have anyprotection.
You know what I'm saying?
I didn't have a publicrelations person just working
with me.
Right.
You know?
And and then I kicked into whateverybody else did.
Like I tried to protect George.
And I would again, you knowwhat I'm saying?
Because I believe in the work.
Jennifer Coronado (39:23):
Yeah.
Well, and that's the thingabout being a performer.
And you may have understoodthat I was a performer in the
past.
Otherwise, I wouldn't bring upTadashi Suzuki.
You you become vulnerable.
You put yourself out there.
And so what's great about thatis the emotional highs from
connecting with people and anaudience and all of that is
(39:45):
fantastic.
But when something doesn'twork, it can be soul crushing
because you've put your wholeself into it.
Right.
Ahmed Best (39:54):
Yeah.
I don't think people reallyunderstand that, you know, when
you're a civilian.
You know, they don't reallyunderstand how much of ourselves
we put in this work.
I think every role that we playis a piece of us.
Jennifer Coronado (40:09):
Right.
Ahmed Best (40:10):
And, you know, we we find ourselves in the
character.
You know, most people thinkthat as an actor, you're lying
for a living.
It's the exact opposite.
You are you are being astruthful as you can possibly be.
Yeah.
And when that when when that iscriticized, you feel it.
(40:34):
You know, that's why mostactors don't read reviews.
Because it hurts, you know,like people don't really realize
like we're human beings at theend of the day.
That shit hurts.
So for some reason, peopledon't believe that it hurts when
it does.
Jennifer Coronado (40:50):
Yeah.
And the interesting thing toois like you talked about there's
a piece of the character thatstays with you always because
you've played it, right?
I think.
And particularly when youoriginate a character, right?
Yeah.
But then you was all there'salso a piece of you you leave
with the character, right?
Yeah.
So it's an experience.
Ahmed Best (41:07):
And with with me, it wasn't just an experience,
right?
I was helping create software.
Right.
That is like being used to thisday when you're talking about
performance capture, right?
So not only is my performanceas an actor there, but my
(41:33):
performance was digitized andcopied and distributed, and now
is the DNA of every performancecapture everywhere in the world
today.
Jennifer Coronado (41:44):
Yep.
Ahmed Best (41:44):
You know, and I don't get anything from that.
Not even the recognition.
Which is the the hardest partof it.
Right.
That's the hardest part becauseI I want to be able to make an
impact.
I want to be able to innovatethe work.
(42:06):
You know, and I want to be ableto continue the work.
You know, I it's it's somethingthat I love that I wanted to
keep doing.
And and those opportunitiesjust went away.
So that was hard.
Jennifer Coronado (42:21):
Yeah.
Well, you have come back todoing some Star Wars stuff.
You know, you were in Mando,and you've done some the Lego
Star Wars, right?
Ahmed Best (42:30):
Did Lego.
I did Clone Wars.
Jennifer Coronado (42:32):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (42:33):
I mean, I love Star Wars.
And one of the reasons why ithurt so much is because I love
it so much.
Jennifer Coronado (42:39):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (42:40):
And it raised me.
You know, I was raised by StarWars and Marvel Comics.
Jennifer Coronado (42:45):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (42:46):
That was my life.
So being in it was a dream cometrue.
And then, you know, beingostracized from it was
heartbreaking because it it hasso much with my heart.
Like I've I loved it before Iwas even in it.
So I will never really say noto Star Wars.
(43:06):
You know, it's it's alwayssomething that is going to be a
part of me.
And it's something that I'vealways wanted to be a part of,
as heartbreaking as you knowthat time was.
It's not like I don't want todo it.
Of course I want to do it.
I mean, right.
I'm a little bit more aware ofwhat could happen.
(43:28):
But that just makes me strongerwhen it comes to doing things.
Jennifer Coronado (43:34):
Yeah, I get that.
I the first film I rememberseeing, other than Annie, uh,
was Star Wars.
And my dad took me, I was threeyears old.
My dad took me because my momdidn't want to go.
And I remember sitting in thattheater and then the ship coming
up.
(43:54):
Yeah.
You know, and I I was like,whoa.
And to this day, my husbandsays, that's my home is sitting
in a theater seat and watchingin the dark, watching something
come to life.
It's a it's a it's alife-changing experience,
really.
Ahmed Best (44:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yes.
I feel the exact same way.
That was my experience as a kidwatching it.
It's just as soon as thatdestroyer comes in.
That was like I was poked.
Jennifer Coronado (44:19):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (44:20):
From the scary.
Yeah.
And it's that that feeling hasnever left me.
Jennifer Coronado (44:28):
Yeah.
You're a very generouseducator.
You you see you seem to me likeyou're lifting kids up, you
know, helping them find findthem, find themselves in their
space.
One of the things I always tellpeople is feel free to advocate
for yourself.
Nobody goes to sleep at nightthinking about you but you.
And those are life lessons thatI think we need uh to think
(44:52):
about.
I want to talk about whatyou're doing with some of the
museum stuff you were doing inLos Angeles as well.
And can you talk a little aboutthat and your connection to
tech and art and science and howthey collide?
Ahmed Best (45:04):
Yeah.
So the Getty does this thingevery five years called PST,
which used to be called PacificStandard Time, but now it's just
called PST.
And this go-around, it wasabout art and science.
And those, that's my those aremy two things.
Like I love art and I lovescience.
And so I was working with theNational Academy of Sciences,
(45:26):
Art and Entertainment Exchangefor a while.
So I was hosting some eventsand I was creating, I was
crafting some events, workingwith the NAS.
And so doing that, I got on theGetty's radar and they asked if
I wanted to be the spokespersonfor uh PST Art and Science
Collide.
And I couldn't say no.
It was just one of those thingsthat really resonated with me.
(45:48):
And, you know, Jar Jar was artand science colliding.
And I I felt like I embodiedthat in my work and in my
performance.
So it it just was a uh it wasjust it just fit me just really
well.
And so I ran around the worldwith the Getty Museum, trying to
(46:08):
get people to Los Angeles tosee all of these exhibits that
were around LA that had to dowith an artist and a scientist
coming together and makingsomething completely original.
And it was extremely special.
I met a lot of wonderfulartists and a lot of great
scientists and got to listen alot.
And I realized how much scienceneeds art, and vice versa.
(46:33):
Yeah.
The artists were always moreopen to the collaboration than
the scientists were, and I thinkthat's because of the culture
of science, you know?
Scientists aren't used to beingin the spotlight.
And they're used to be theythey they want to be taken
seriously.
(46:53):
Right.
And a lot of them kind ofdidn't trust the fact that if
they worked with an artist, thatthey'd be taken seriously.
A lot of it just had to do withlike insecurity.
And then when you meet them andyou start talking to them, you
realize that art artists andscientists are way, much more
aligned than even they thinkthey are.
So it was just wonderful seeingthe collaborations happen.
Jennifer Coronado (47:16):
Yeah, it goes back to that idea of creative
thinking, right?
Ahmed Best (47:19):
Yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (47:20):
You just have your different ways of thinking
creatively.
It doesn't mean that you're notcreative thinkers.
You're just a scientist tryingto discover a cure for something
or or a particle.
And how what how much how muchmore drama is there than that,
right?
Trying to just some discovery,right?
Ahmed Best (47:37):
Yeah.
I mean, I was talking to the toone of the scientists who
discovered gravitational waves,right, in the universe.
And there was this machine thatthey built down in Louisiana
that, you know, it was like oneof four that could detect
gravitational waves.
And when he got the email thatthey detected the waves, he was
(48:00):
like, I didn't believe it.
I thought it was a hoax.
I thought somebody was likepranking me.
Wow.
And that's when I was justlike, oh my God, you're a human
being.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, he was, he, he, he didn'tbelieve it.
Like, lead scientist helpedbuild the thing, had the theory,
(48:20):
and then the thing happened,and he was like, nope, nope,
can't believe it.
This this is this is the hoax.
And it wasn't until the secondevent that he was just like,
okay, maybe this thing could betrue.
And the thing that's sodramatic about it is like, what
is that thing that made me thinkit was the hoax?
Like, you came up with thescience.
You helped build the machine.
You're at the forefront of theresearch.
(48:42):
It's like you don't believeyourself.
Like you don't believe you canbe smart enough and and and
prepared enough to actually seethe proof of the event that you
knew was coming.
Jennifer Coronado (48:55):
It's interesting.
Ahmed Best (48:56):
It was fascinating.
Jennifer Coronado (48:57):
Yeah, I think I think it comes too from
theory, theory, theory, theoryis what you're talking about
when you're working on ascientific discovery.
And then the actuality happensand you're like, wait a minute,
I'm over here in theory.
Ahmed Best (49:08):
And I was right.
See, I think people have thisidea that scientists sit in labs
all day and come up withtheories and then tell everybody
else that they're stupid andsmoke a cigarette and drink a
glass of whiskey.
Yeah.
Like that's not what'shappening.
Right.
Scientists are some of the mostlike insecure people who enjoy
(49:36):
being proven wrong so much thatwhen they're right, it's
surprising.
Right?
They are wrong most of thetime.
Jennifer Coronado (49:47):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (49:48):
And it's not like religion, right?
They're not looking forvalidation for their beliefs.
They're looking for theopposite of that.
So when they have validationfor their beliefs, it's
unbelievable.
They're like, we're, no, that'snot right.
I must have made a mistake.
And in the climate of rightnow, where everyone has become
(50:10):
so anti-science in, you know, inthe popular discourse, right?
I don't think they know enoughscientists because they think
that the scientists are justsitting on high, going, you all
are dumb, listen to us, do whatwe say.
And it's the opposite of that.
Right.
They are people with families.
(50:30):
Yeah.
And they want their families tobe just as safe as everybody
else.
And that's where they'reworking from.
Jennifer Coronado (50:36):
Yeah, totally.
And and when you think aboutit, performing, you know, when
you're performing, you'reconstantly being told louder,
taller, softer, do this, dothat, do this.
It's kind of the same withscience, right?
Scientists peer review, actual,we found this.
This is wrong.
You should re rerun this.
It's the same kind of humanexperience, you know.
(51:01):
Yes.
And right.
People don't recognize thatbecause scientists are more
self-contained, right?
Ahmed Best (51:06):
Yeah.
I mean, most of them sit at abench and, you know, look at the
smallest parts of our universeand write it down.
That's all they're doing.
They're not, you know, wringingtheir hands going, how can I
take over the world?
Like they're not that creepy.
Yeah, they're not like, wow,wait till I put this microchip
(51:27):
in these vaccines.
That's not what they do.
No.
You know, that's not what theydo at all.
But the narrative out therehas, I think, painted scientists
in an unrealistic light.
And, you know, some of it istheir fault.
Some of it is they don't sayenough.
It's a communication thing.
Yeah.
And one of the biggest reasonswhy I did PST, Part of Science
(51:50):
Collide, is because I thinkscience has a communication
problem.
And who better to handle thatcommunication problem than the
performing artists?
Jennifer Coronado (51:59):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (51:59):
You know?
Alan Alda has an entirefoundation where he teaches
scientists how to talk topeople.
And he does like impromptucomedy with them and gets them
out of their shell so they canbe better communicators.
So we know how wonderful thescientists are.
Jennifer Coronado (52:15):
Yeah, you just made me love him even more.
Ahmed Best (52:17):
Yeah, he's awesome.
Jennifer Coronado (52:19):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (52:19):
You know?
And I love that as well, right?
Because science was like theother avenue that I wanted to
take, that I did take.
I've always kind of wanted tostay science adjacent.
And so working with the NAS andthe science and entertainment
exchange has kept me in thatworld so much that now I have so
(52:41):
many scientists that I can calllike really great friends.
And I can help them talk topeople.
Yeah.
Um, because that's what we allneed.
We all need to know ascientist.
Jennifer Coronado (52:56):
Yeah, totally.
I have we're running up ontime, so I want to ask you a
final question.
And I'm gonna James Luton ithere.
You know, he always had thatlist of questions that he had,
right?
Your favorite cursed word and soexactly your favorite cursed
word.
And I this one I thought aboutthis morning.
I was like, I really want toask him this question because I
don't think because we've talkedabout it, and now I know you
(53:16):
don't fit into a box.
Ahmed Best (53:19):
Yeah, no, I'm I've never I've never been a in a put
in a box kind of person.
Jennifer Coronado (53:24):
Yeah.
So I I want to ask you thisquestion.
What profession other than yourown would you like to attempt?
Ahmed Best (53:34):
Attempt.
Jennifer Coronado (53:35):
Attempt.
Ahmed Best (53:36):
I would love, you know, I have a I have a really
great friend, Spiral Mikolakisat Caltech, who is a quantum
physicist.
Uh he's a theoretical physicistand a quantal physicist and a
quantum physicist.
(53:58):
And every time I talk to him,it's like building and
discovering new worlds andrealms.
It's amazing.
I mean, I just love being inthat mind space, that headspace.
And you know, a lot of myheroes in the science world were
(54:18):
in that, in the physics realmof a biology.
I'm getting really big intobiology.
So I would, I would love to bein that quantum physics space,
in that quantum physics world.
Or I would either do that, orI, you know, I would love to be
an astronaut.
You know, NASA just announcedall it is to do astronauts uh a
(54:39):
couple of days ago, and there'snobody black.
And there used to be a wholebunch of black astronauts that
we could talk about, right?
Like one of my heroes is RonMcNair.
He he died on the Challenger,and this guy was like physicist,
(55:00):
astrophysicist, scientist, beatthe odds, became you know, an
astronaut.
And I would love to do that.
I would love to explore space.
Jennifer Coronado (55:14):
Well, here's to hoping that's your next
thing.
Ahmed Best (55:18):
We'll see.
I would definitely do itthrough NASA and and not through
the private companies because Ithink there's a little bit more
of uh an experience you canhave through NASA.
Jennifer Coronado (55:30):
Yeah, I agree because it's pure science and
it's not the money boys.
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (55:34):
Yeah, yeah, and you're doing it for the sake of
doing it.
Jennifer Coronado (55:36):
Yeah.
Ahmed Best (55:37):
You know, you're doing it to help out humanity.
And I think you know, I think alot of times we are very
anthro-procentric.
I think human beings need to bea little bit more humble when
it comes to this earth.
So there's this thing that Icall earthling culture, which,
(55:58):
you know, I helped develop witha couple friends of mine who
with whom I teach at Stanford,right?
So one of my great friends, hisname is Drew Endy, and he's a
synthetic biologist.
And he would always ask thisquestion in our class, he would
say, What does the banana slugwant?
And I love that kind ofthinking because you are
(56:23):
thinking of the earth from thepoint of view of the banana slug
and not from the human.
And when we when we stopthinking anthropocentric and
start thinking about all theother things on this earth, we
start thinking differently.
And we take uh these otherperspectives, become our
(56:45):
reality.
So earthling culture to me is areally big deal because we can
think what does the banana slugwant.
And I think we all need tothink more like banana slugs
these days.
Jennifer Coronado (56:59):
I think you're right.
Well, thank you for joining ustoday.
We really appreciate it.
Ahmed Best (57:05):
My pleasure.
It's been awesome.
Jennifer Coronado (57:08):
Thank you for listening to Everyone Is.
Everyone Is is produced andedited by Chris Hawkinson.
Executive producer is AaronDusseau.
Music by Doug Infinite.
Our logo and graphic design isby Harrison Parker, and I'm Jen
Coronado.
Everyone Is is a slightlydisappointed productions
production dropping every otherThursday.
So make sure to rate and reviewand like and subscribe.
(57:29):
Thanks for listening.
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