October 13, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of Shaping Freedom, Lisane Basquiat sits down with award-winning actor, author, and activist Hill Harper for an intimate conversation about purpose, legacy, and the courage to live with intention. From Harvard Law to Hollywood to his recent political endeavors, Hill shares the evolution of his mission—to create positive impact that outlives the man.
Together, they unpack themes of fatherhood, emotional wealth, and the pursuit of meaningful work, exploring what it means to move from success to significance. Hill opens up about his philosophy of “sequential mastery,” his belief in seeking out failure as a form of growth, and his desire to build both impact and legacy through art, service, and action.
This heartfelt dialogue reminds us that legacy isn’t reserved for the famous—it’s built every day through presence, courage, and the willingness to live fully aligned with our purpose.
Together, they unpack themes of fatherhood, emotional wealth, and the pursuit of meaningful work, exploring what it means to move from success to significance. Hill opens up about his philosophy of “sequential mastery,” his belief in seeking out failure as a form of growth, and his desire to build both impact and legacy through art, service, and action.
This heartfelt dialogue reminds us that legacy isn’t reserved for the famous—it’s built every day through presence, courage, and the willingness to live fully aligned with our purpose.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
What creates the relevance of us being here for such
a Swiss baton is to impact something positively that lasts
beyond us. That's what art is. That's why I love art.
That's why I'm an art collector, is because the point
of art is by the maker of the art, is
(00:27):
that what they make will live beyond their flesh body.
That's legacy. So positive impact and legacy.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome to the Shaping Freedom Podcast, where we dive into
conversations that inspire personal growth, transformation and clarity and challenging times.
I'm your host, Lissan Basquiato. Today's guest is someone who's
worn so many titles from author, actor, activist, entrepreneur, father,
former US Senate candidate. None of those titles fully capture
(01:02):
the depth of the man that we're going to be
in conversation with today. There are some people who build careers.
There are others who build community. Hill Harper has built
both from Harvard Law to Hollywood, from best selling author
to political candidate. He's refused to be put into a box,
choosing instead to shape a life of purpose, healing and service.
(01:26):
But beneath the accolades is a man who asks deeper questions,
how do we close the wealth gap, how do we
raise emotionally well children, how do we live lives aligned
with our values even when it costs us something. In
this conversation, I'm hoping that we can get beyond and
beneath the accolades to explore the why behind it all.
(01:49):
What has it meant for you to pivot from success
to significance, and how do you stay emotionally grounded when
the world is watching? And how are you Hill building
a legacy that heals rather than repeats the past. I'm
(02:10):
so excited to have this conversation with you. I've been
wanting to have this conversation with you for some time.
And welcome Hill.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Thank you, thank you. I mean, I'm nervous now.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
We're going to go yes, yes, we are. I want
to have this conversation about vision and about you know you,
and we had the pleasure of sitting on a panel
discussion together at this point, I think like almost two
years ago. One of the things that I noticed about you,
(02:48):
or observed about you then was your depth and the
fact that you are an actor and you're doing all
these amazing things in the world, and that there's also
an undercurrent to what you're doing and why you're doing it,
and that's what I want to talk about with you.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for that conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Let's do it. I want to talk. Let's start first
with something a little more recent. I know that you
made the decision recently to step into politics. Where did
that decision come from?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, it was a huge, huge, huge decision for me,
and it literally came from looking at the world where
we are right now. I originally became an actor because
(03:52):
I wanted to be like Harry Bellefonte or Sidney Portier,
where I truly believe that through the arts you could
positively impact social change in scalable and measurable way. And
(04:12):
sitting back and seeing how on our watch the world
has evolved, that it's we've gotten to a point and
the viewer listener may take umbrage with what I'm about
to say, but for real, we've gotten to a point
(04:33):
where that type of scalable impact isn't available through the
arts in the type of way it was before. And
there's only two verticals right right now, and not to
say that we can't get it back there. And I
want to literally bend it back there. But and we can.
But right in this moment, in this moment in time,
(04:54):
there are only two verticals that are creating mass impact
at scale, and that's technology and politically. That's why you've
even seen the autocrats, the billionaires move into the political vertical,
and even the tech people move into the political vertical
(05:16):
because the ability to control those levers, and what we've
seen is that those levers have been pulled to destroy community,
to take wealth, to literally redistribute opportunity on mass And
(05:46):
I felt that when there was an open US Senate set,
there's only one hundred United States centers, and it's one
of the most powerful roles politically that you can hold
in this country. With the ability to control hundreds of millions,
the allocation of hundreds and hundreds of millions, if not
billions of dollars. With that open US senency, I felt
(06:09):
that there was an opportunity to reverse course, to change
the trajectory that we as a country and are headed
in politically. And unfortunately, everything that I talked about during
(06:34):
my campaign has come to pass in fact, maybe even worse,
maybe even worse. And people thought that I was you
know what, does he say, And they thought I was, whoa,
come on, man, that's this stuff is not gonna happen. Oh,
yes it's happened. It's happening and in a real way.
So the difficult moment is and the difficult thing is
(07:01):
asking people from communities that have been beaten down and
lied to so much politically getting them to believe that
their vote actually makes a difference. It's really difficult to
do that. So my biggest challenge was getting folks from
communities that have been completely disregarded over the last forty
(07:25):
to fifty years, if not more, to believe again and
to participate in There's a heavy lift, and unfortunately we
weren't able to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think one of the things that I find so
fascinating about you, or one of the things that I
find so fascinating about you as a man and as
a professional creative today, is that you graduated from Harvard.
You know, you're an actor. You are successful, full creative person,
(08:03):
and so you could do anything with that. And what
you have chosen to do is to continue to do that,
to act, you know, and to contribute in that way.
But you also have this I don't know how to
(08:24):
describe it. But like the heart to pour into art,
the heart to pour into politics, the heart to be
a single father, to take some of the circumstances and
life events that you've experienced and use that to help
(08:45):
other people. There is such a generosity about your spirit
and about what you're doing and the assignment that you're
stepping to and creating that I think, but that is.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The only reason why we're here. It's the only reason
we're here.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
To me, But not everybody sees that hill well, yeah,
you not everyone sees that you can take your you
you know, you can take your success being on the screens,
you know, the television screens or the streaming screens, and
being on these TV shows and playing in these movies.
(09:23):
And you could take all that and just like take
your suitcase and go home and chill and have a
good time, right and and celebrated in that way. And
I'm sure you do in many ways. But the generosity
of your spirit and the ways that you stand as
(09:45):
a human being, as a man, as a creative, as
a father, as a citizen, as a man who again
has experienced some things, and you take those things and
you believe that you have no other choice that that
is what your assignment, that's what we're meant to do,
(10:05):
and you model that you don't have to do that,
you don't And I thank you for just like letting
me say that, letting me get that out, thank you
for being willing to receive it. Just give me, just please.
It's as important to me that I'd be allowed to
say it as it is. You know that you that
(10:27):
you are willing to receive it because you are such
a model for so many people. What is the undercurrent
of that? What is what is the driver for you?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Impact? Impact and legacy. We're here for such a short
window of time. You know, my father died in his sixties,
my grandfather died in his seventies, my uncle died in
his forties. You know, if I make it to one hundred,
(11:05):
that's a long time, right and in this flesh body.
But it's a it's a snap. It's so short in
the context of the history of time in the universe,
and so we're barely here. And so what's what what
creates the relevance of us being here for such a
(11:27):
swisp of time is to impact something positively that lasts
beyond beyond us. That's what art is. That's why I
love art, That's why I'm an art collector, is because
the point of art is by the maker of the art,
is that what they make will live beyond their flesh body.
(11:50):
And that's legacy, so positive impact and legacy. And see,
some people just want one or the other. People some
people don't want either, so you know whatever, but some
people just want one of the other. And to me,
you need both. So because because you could walk, I mean, listen,
there's a horrific shooting yesterday. You can have impact and
(12:17):
you can go in and shoot and destructive horrible things,
acts of violence, acts of depravity. But that's impact, and
it's just sad. And then and then there's legacy with
no impact. You know, go on and have a bunch
of babies and don't raise them, you know, there's legacy.
(12:39):
But then if you didn't have you didn't raise your babies,
then there's no impact. But if you marry them too
and say I'm going to have positive impact, then legacy.
That means you have to be present. That means you're
creating things, you're sewing into people that are going to
live beyond you. That means that you're creating art and
works of art. One thing that I will say about
my acting career is that I feel like I still
(13:01):
haven't done that legacy project. Or let me put it
this way, maybe I've done the legacy project, but it
kind of just it's like any like any piece of art,
it can kind of disappear, and art is made to
be seen. You know, Van God cut off his ear
because no one was looking at his art. But if
you probably would have said, hey, man, don't go crazy,
(13:22):
don't beat yourself up. You know, one hundred and seventy
five years from now, more people will visit than any
museum in the world. More people will visit your museum
every year than the Louver in Paris. What about that?
And you know, so chill out and just keep creating.
He may not have, you know, done all that. But
the point is is that I've done some work that
(13:44):
I'm extremely proud of, but no one really saw. So
it kind of like a tree falling in the woods.
I still haven't done that legacy project that has an impact.
You know that it's a wonderful life project, the Black
Panther Project, the project to do the right thing, you know,
(14:05):
you know these projects that are seminal projects. So hopefully
before I hang up completely the acting shoes, I'll do
a legacy project at some point. If someone is listening
right now to this and has has has this script
that's been collecting dust on their shelf that is like
the most amazing story, please send it to me, because
(14:28):
that's the hardest thing to find, are these extremely well
written projects, because it all starts with the writing anyway.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
But we digress, Actually we don't, because yeah, I don't
think we're we digress because I think that that speaks
to the man that you are. You want to have impact,
you want to do the big things, like you said,
you know.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Paint on is what I always say. I say, we're here, listen,
my goal is to paint on big canvases. Yeah, And
I don't begrudge anybody that wants to just do sketches
on little notebooks and do their thing and be happy
and just chill, chill out. But that's not me. I
want to paint on big campuses.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah. What has being a father taught you about yourself?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I used two really really believe in nurture over nature,
But being a father has made me completely think differently,
really yeah, I mean, I just I just see that
(15:45):
my son is is who he is, and and I
can try to nurture this and nurture that and try
to do this, but you know, he's going to be
His nature is his nature, and that's partly it. And
and so I feel like I can impact the margins,
but the fact, but the fundamental nature of who he
is is who he is. And and that's an interesting
(16:07):
thing because I really felt I'd always felt much differently
about that. I always felt I was a much much
much heavier nurture. Nurture. Nurture wins. You know, sow the
seeds da da da da da, but the seed actually wins.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's right. You have to meet the person where they are.
You have to meet the person where they are and
not where you believe they they be. And once you
meet that person where they are, then you and that
person whole hands and you get to wherever.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But but it's like who you are is who you are?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yes, okay, totally, And that's it's been. That's become very
clear to me in a very powerful way. And also
it's a great way because as long as he's happy,
that's that's my whole thing is now keep him safe
and hopefully keep his mental uh in a way that
(17:02):
he feels good about himself.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah. I think I was talking to someone just not
too long ago about and I say this often about
generational wealth and how we talk so much about generational
wealth and there's such a focus on it, and a
lot of it is around financials and material and the
right schools, the right situations, the right education, the right
(17:27):
career path and all of that, and that is amazing
and very important. I think that I believe that the
mental and emotional legacy that we leave behind is the
thing that's going to impact that person's ability to make
(17:49):
something out of nothing or to take what we bestow
and turn it into something different for them. Yes, but
what's important is that emotional and mental wealth being And
I think that I cannot say that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Enough totally agree and even and even and even like
digging even deeper than that is the ability to question
what that what something is because you said, you know,
make something. It's like we're told what we think other
people believe making something or success or whatever that is.
(18:24):
But the idea of being confident and feeling good enough
for ourself to say, hey, I'm actually going to redefine
what something is. You know, I'm not even gonna go
with your definition. I'm going to live in a completely
different way, in a completely different plane. Is interesting, I've been.
(18:55):
It reminds me. I've been working on this project that
hasn't been announced yet at where the person I'm working
with is extremely accomplished movement artist, and I was fascinated
by her work and the idea of going deeper into
(19:18):
the body. And I, as an artist, is more intellectual
work than body work. Right, I'm not a movement artist.
I'm not a dancer, so I was I've been fascinated
by this idea of how do you combine the mental
(19:39):
depth with the exploring your body. And we're trying to
come up with a seminar for a weekend, which would
be a kind of a retreat where you would, you know,
maybe there's fifty people at the retreat and it's a
two day seminar. And we've been sort of mad out
(20:00):
what that's going to be. And I'm really interested and
excited about it because it's sort of trying to break
the idea of what the something is. I you know,
I think it's interesting. I'll let you know, maybe you
want to come. If you want to come, I'd love
to have.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I was like, I'm gonna, like,
you know, ask them about it. But because I think
this is so important because today there's so much focus
on what's happening up here, right, we're so cerebraus in
the way that we are living and surviving sometimes and
(20:36):
just getting from day to day and even in our
approach to parenting and all these other things. And I
think that there is what I believe is raising its
hand for attention, is to drop in a bit more,
to drop into like what's all happening in here, and
to connect, and we don't have in our work in
(20:59):
the way that we walk this culture today, we don't
have a lot of opportunity to do that because it's
not valued. And so the more opportunities that we have,
like the one that you will announce eventually, you know,
to lean into that, to step into that and to
move in that way, I think the better off we
(21:20):
all are because we're all up here and our heads
are getting ready to explode.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's too much. Yeah, it's all all the relationship through
technology is cerebral exactly. That's not about about depth into
our bodies at all. And the only thing that's referenced
around body is physical health, which is more about body
engineering than death.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Exactly. Was it always your intention to act and to
do the things that you're doing today? Where this or
how did you get to be Hill Harper?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
How how did and not the whole like? You know,
I was born in a you know whatever. I don't
mean that, but was what was the trajectory for you?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Well, as far as acting goes, we can be very specific.
I go to Brown University first semester freshman year. I
wanted to play on the football team, so I needed
a class that met, you know, for a certain time
to get out before before football practice on a particular day.
(22:31):
And the good thing about Brown is was very open curriculum,
no general d requirements. Of course, catalog is fully open.
And I'd always been curious about acting, performing, et cetera.
And and good old Spice has come to say hello,
I might as.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Well puppy, Hello, puppy.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
A little scared, it's a little scared becomes a were high.
And so if I take this class Voice for the Actor,
Shakespeare Theater Arts twenty one taught by Professor Barbara Tannenbau,
and she was just it was great. She was a
great professor. It's a wonderful class. I loved it. I
(23:17):
just enjoyed it. And so I wasn't thinking at the time, Oh,
I'm going to become a professional actor. This is going
to be my career. I just loved it. So I
took another class and I loved it. Took another class
and I loved it. So I was like, Wow, I
really love this this thing, yeah, this thing, And so
I decided I was going to go to grad school.
I want a fellowship to study public policy. So I
(23:38):
was interested in government, impact of government and public policy.
So I went an Alfred Peace Sloan Fellowship study public policy.
So I applied to do a joint degree at Harvard
Law School and the Harvard's County School the government to
do a jd MPa program. So I did that, and
I joined a repertory company in Boston called the Black
Folks Theater Company in Boston where I could do little
(24:00):
plays in theater while I was in grad school. Continued
to love it, got more and more into it. By
my second year in grad school, I was going down
to New York to audition for things, thinking about, Okay,
maybe there's a way I could do this professionally. I
started doing some more acting and some television stuff in
Boston my last two years of grad school, and by
(24:23):
the time I finished grad school, I was like, I
love this and enjoy this so much. I'm going to
be a professional actor.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And you said I'm going to be a professional actor,
and then you just became one.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And I took a job waiting cables from eleven to
night to seven in the morning so I could be
available during the day to do auditions and go to
acting class in the evening. And you know, I'd be
fighting rush hour traffic home at seven am, smelling like
burgers and fries, and take a shower, go to bed,
(24:58):
sleep till like noon one, and get up and pound
the pavement, and then go to acting class at around seven,
get out acting class around nine thirty, take a nap
from like ten to ten thirty, not forty five to
ten thirty, and then to go to work at eleven
eleven night, seven in the morning. Some of the best
people I've ever met in my life were people I
(25:22):
worked with at that diner. At twenty four hour Diner,
and some were writers, some were just that was just
their job. Then the bus boys nicknamed me zapato, which
means shoo, obviously in Spanish, because because they like after
we get a big rush, after the two am clubs
let out, and we'd have a rush from like two
(25:42):
am to four am or five, and after that they
wanted to clean the mats, and I may I was
like sitting there reading scripts or doing whatever I was doing.
They were like Zapatos, like move your feet, and so
they because I was standing on the mats, so they
called meto.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
You know, it's really interesting about this conversation there. So
there's something happening. I'm being told not to worry about it. Right,
there are so many distractions during this particular conversation, right,
the technologies maybe not catching up, and there's some garbly
things happening. There are a couple of motorcycles going by,
(26:21):
all kinds of strange things happening during this conversation. And
something has said to me, just keep talking, let's just
keep it going, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And let's keep it.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Let's just keep let's just keep it going. Because it
kind of mimics what happens in life. Right, there's so
much noise, There's so many things going on.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yes, right, and there's things I want to talk to
you about it. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
My question for you is how how do you And
this is for the folks who are doing the same
thing right, maybe in a different way, but you know,
working and your political ambitions and you're a father, and
you have a puppy, and you have a life, and
you're an adult and all this, like, how do you
(27:09):
stay focused? How do you stay focused? Hell on a
day to day basis with all the CRISI that's going
on in the world.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, I you know, full transparency, I probably have add
adhd blah blah blah d d D. So I the
way I like to refer to it is sequential mastery.
I hate the saying don't be a jack of all
(27:40):
trades and a master of none, because that basically negates
the idea that we can be a master of many things.
And I truly believe all of us have the capacity
to be masters of many, many, many things. But you
can't try to do it all at once. And so
what I do is like when I'm acting, that's all
I'm the When i'm the parent, that's all I'm doing.
(28:04):
When I'm I'm yeah, attempting to be a mentor, that's
all I'm doing. And so I call it sequential. So
once you start doing something, ultra focus hyper focus in that,
and then when you stop, it's over, move on and
then on next. The problem I think you that I
(28:28):
run into if I try it, and maybe the same
for other people, is that if I'm trying to do
over here, but I'm still thinking about this thing over here,
or dang, I wish I would have done this, why
I need to? Oh, I got to cost a return
this email, you know, And and to be honest, I'll
miss some stuff because I'm maybe I was sequential on
the you know, but that that stuff I missed, and
(28:48):
that's just gonna be the way it's going to be. Yes,
my friend just texted me, are you okay? And I
was like, yeah, what's wrong? Well, you didn't respond to
my message the other day and I was like, oh, dang,
I'm just seen it, you know, because I didn't see
it when it came through, so it got pushed down
and so then it's yes, you know, yes, So that
(29:09):
that's going to happen, and then hopefully you have people
in your life that understand that there are certain you
kind of shut off this part and turn on this
part and shut off this part at different times. And
that's that's kind of way I see it. It's sequential mastery.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. It has you have
to I've not heard of that term, you know, sequential mastery,
but I love that because sometimes we're trying to do
all the things to be all the things to all
the people all at the same time, and it's impossible.
We're human beings, right, and so's right. So focusing on
(29:48):
that one thing is what helps us, I believe, to
make the progress toward reaching whatever that end goal is.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You know, that's right, And it's up to you to
decide how the time you give that thing, meaning you
could do give that thing ten minutes, you could give
it the whole day, but it's your call.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think there. I think that is the key.
That's the key, And I think that there's so many
people who believe that in some way they're failing because
they can't answer every single call around them at the
same time, whether the call is you know, focus on
a thing or something that you're thinking about as you're
(30:28):
working on something else. Being present in the moment, I
think is what helps us to stay together. Yes, And
the more that's going on, the more we need to
come to center and be present in the moment. We
try to like fragment and be out there, you know,
(30:50):
doing fifty thousand things, and it's just it's impossible. It's painful,
and then you're not showing up for anybody, you know. Yeah,
I said you wanted to flip the script, so in
the last few minutes, I want to hear that.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, so a couple things you just said. There's people
out there that think they're failing. I just want to
say this is that one way that I do live.
And this is something that some people don't understand when
I say it, and they're like, eh, I don't know.
(31:26):
I actually go seek out failure. And the reason why
I do is because I believe if you're not failing
in quotes, then you're not living because failing doesn't really exist.
It's not real because there's no such thing as failure.
(31:47):
It just doesn't like it goes back to the point
we talked about originally. We're here for such a short
period of time, there is no failure. It's we're here
like this, because if you're just here this much, there's
no failure because there's no zero. It's not there, there's
no such thing. So what you do is you seek
(32:09):
it out. You seek out ways to bump up against
your edges, because really, what people talk about when they
talk about failure is that they're talking about outcomes, and
they're talking about the outcome not happening the way you
either wanted it to or envisioned it to. Right, Like
me running for political office, I certainly did not run
(32:30):
to lose. Let's be clear. You know I'm not up
here saying oh yeah, I ran as to send a message.
I really wasn't trying to win. No, I was trying
to win the seat so I can make impact. I lost.
I lost. I was beaten because my opponent got more
votes than I did. I was disappointed that I couldn't
(32:52):
turn out the community that I was attempting to talk
to and represent, and the voting numbers just showed that
they did not turn around, and that was tough. But
I was seeking out in a way failure, right, because
you're seeking there was there was going to be an
outcome either in my favor or not, and therefore so
(33:15):
bump up against your edges. I could have very easily said,
you know what, I'm not gonna run because if I lose,
that's not going to be a good look.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
That's right before you even got out, that's right, yeah,
or even did it.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
So what you want to do in whatever arena, seek
out failure or you'll never start, You'll never take risk,
and taking risk is such a big part of living.
I've been thinking about this, to be really completely honest,
I've been thinking about this from my relationship life. I've
(33:47):
never at this point taken the risk yet to get married.
And it's something that I think I've been trying to do,
you know, my own level of analysis and all of
that to say, am I is it a fear or
is it not having the right person partner this? And
(34:09):
you know how have I not met her I? Or
have I met her thirty times? You know what I'm saying?
And I didn't do right? And so you know, that's
an area where I really have to analyze. Have I
been willing to let myself fail in that area? And
its to me the answers know, so therefore I need
to put I need to do that. And in other words,
(34:32):
this is stuff that comes up for me. And so
I'm not saying it's from some on high places. Everyone
else needs to take risk, but I'm not going to.
I attempt to identify the areas of my life where
I haven't sought out failure and to seek it out.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
That's an interesting because when you said you were seeking
out failure, I was like, well, what is he going
to say next? That's interesting, But it's being willing to
take that risk, being willing to do things that you've
not yet mastered so that you can have your next situation.
You can start at a further place, from a further place.
(35:09):
But if you're never willing to take that step, then
you don't know whether or not you are able to
win the you know, a seat on the Senate. You
don't know, right, but you've done it. And if you
were to choose to do something the same thing or
something different, you've learned so much that you can now
(35:30):
bring into that next experience and you are knocking these
things out like you Hill Harper, actor, author, Black Wall
Street Father. You know, now you're going to figure out
the marriage thing. I guess you know you started a museum.
(35:52):
I mean all of these different things. I think that
what you model is just this willingness to live, willingness
to be alone.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Speaking of that, I wanted to I wanted to surprise
you by bringing on uh a work that I collected
from Jean Michelle Well. I didn't collect from Damachelle, but
I collected from you know, I bought from a collector,
and I was going to bring it on and do
a show and tell. But I'm not in I'm not
(36:23):
where it is, so I didn't have access.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
To come on.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
But I wanted to do it. It's you know, I couldn't.
I I've always so. First of all, collecting that work
is completely against how I collect. Meaning, let me just
say this, I collect my I've built. My whole collection
(36:50):
is collecting living artists, and in all African American contemporary
artists that are still alive at time of collection. I
believe everyone needs to have kind of their their their
frame or lane of how they collect or what they
like to do. I love getting to know the artists.
I love going to the studio, and I love the
fact that if I'm collecting their art it's supporting more
(37:14):
of their art, you know, God bless them. You know,
Rome are beard and you know, I love you, But
that's not really what I'm collecting, right, So there's nothing
people who do you know that that they built collections
of catlets and beardings and you know, all sorts of things.
So but but there's my heart in respect for Jean
(37:40):
Michel Boskat's work and what it represents and all, and
also a regret that I could have been. You know,
I'm old enough to have could have been in New
York City as a young guy at the time, uh
when he was there, and because I ended up coming
a few years later and collecting art from you know,
(38:03):
there was a brother who used to be on the
streets near NYU all the time that would use ink
on on like styrofoam, and his name was Jibolo. You
must have seen Gibolo at some point because he was everywhere.
And I collected some Gibolos and you can actually go
online now and buy some Gebolos. You know, he is
all over plate selling his styrofoam for twenty five dollars.
(38:28):
But I had, you know, you know, I have such
an affinity for that time because I do believe there was,
you know, an era in New York that started a
little bit too early for me. It started in like
around seventy seven with Max's Kansas City, lou Reed, Patty Smith,
(38:53):
the first season of Saturday Night Live, Andy Warhol and
that and that, you know, that continued, so you had
the literally the invention of of of hip hop and
wrap punk rock, you know, really interesting avant garde artistry,
(39:17):
contemporary artistry with Keith Herring and Maplethorpe and Warhol, Baska Yacht.
There was just this art and and consciousness and explosion
happening in New York. And so when there was an
opportunity to purchase a work, it was its very simple work.
(39:37):
It has like a line and a thing and it's
and it says, you know, it's like got a little
outline of popcorn and it says, I can't it's been
a while since I've even seen it because it's in storage.
But but but it's like cotton as something about cotton and.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Origin of cotton and.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Origin of cotton. Yes, but then I think there's like yeah,
And then I purchased a Rashid Johnson work where he
took all of these cotton seeds and put them all
over the work. This is years ago, and I was,
(40:22):
in my fantasy world was going to put the cotton
piece and Rashid Johnson piece next to each other. Rashie
Johnson was really big, and the Gean Michelle pieces is like,
you know tiny, it's like this big and it's just
black and white sketch. And I was gonna put that
(40:43):
next to each other and talk about how cotton has
played a role obviously in our lives but also in
contemporary art.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
But so all that's to say is the question I
have for you is, given your family legacy and how
you are continuing that legacy, what does depths mean to
you and impact mean to you? And how do you
(41:29):
frame it? Because you, to me, you have the ability
to You're you're you're experiencing it in a completely different
way than all of us, right, So you your your
relationship to impact and legacy is different because it's there
(41:51):
in you know, every time you turn a corner and
you see some artists who's basically doing some you know,
not so good imitation of of work that's been inspired
by you know, or a great version or something, or
you know, you see a Mari to Piece or whoever.
It doesn't matter, we can name anybody, but the the
(42:16):
your relationship to legacy is different, and I'd love to
hear about it.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I mean, I think that my relationship to legacy as
it relates to je Michelle is to Jea Michelle Bosquilla
is different jem Michelle Bosquia. Right, My relationship to that,
to that idea maybe different, but I don't. But I
(42:42):
think that my I believe that my relationship to legacy
is no different than it would be for anyone who
honors their name, who loves their family, who chooses to
(43:04):
stand for their family, who understands that we have an opportunity,
this incredible opportunity and challenge to be alive until we die,
and also to take the moment to look at what's
(43:31):
happening in our lives, to look at that emotional and
mental legacy that we're passing along to the people that
are around us, the people that are within our families,
to our neighbors, to our colleagues, you know, so on
and so forth. And so I don't know that you know,
(43:54):
you could say, well, your relationship to legacy to the
idea of legacy. But we are all somewhere on the
legacy train, all of us, right, And I think that
we miss the point when we look outside at that
other person like Hill Harper does not have any more
(44:16):
in my opinion, of a relationship with legacy than does
Lissan Boskia or you know, I don't know whomever Gloria Best.
I don't know who Gloria Best is. I just made
the name up, right. We all have a relationship to legacy.
It's what are you doing to first acknowledge the fact
(44:40):
that you're part of legacy and how are you moving
the needle forward? Not by looking at what the other
folks who are in the tribe are doing, but at
what you're doing and how you're contributing to the legacy
of your name, of your family, of your tribe, of
(45:01):
your block, of your building, of your neighborhood, your school,
your workplace, your country.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
I think that is that's the question for each one
of us now in terms of the legacy as it
relates to Jean Michelle Basquilla, which is you know, kind
of the macro. My relationship to that is it fluctuates.
I mean, it's part of assignment. It's part of my
(45:31):
assignment during my short stint on this planet is to
move his legacy forward and to remember who he is
and to remember and to the best of mine and
Jennine's ability, Jennie being my sister, to make decisions that
we believe he'd feel good about, while also balancing the
(45:55):
fact that he's not here right and so there's this
balance that happens. You know, what would he want us
to do, and you know what would he want us
to do as sixty four year old je Michelle versus
you know today. But I just don't want people to
lose sight of their ability to have impact right now,
(46:23):
right now in their own lives. I think we spend
a lot of time looking at outside and trying to
find people are situations that we I think what I
would love is take if there's something about what our
family is doing that feels right, take that and bring
(46:45):
that into your own family. Do the work. If there
are patterns in your family that are not working for
the whole, do the work. You know, if there's someone
in your family who needs to be honor them, have
their back, look out for them. You know, for me,
(47:07):
there is my father, my mother, and my brother and
my grandparents. Those are the people in my family who
have died. It includes Jean Michel Boskia. But I think
that that could help a lot of what's going on
(47:29):
right now in the world.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I agree, I agree. You know, I don't think you
would know this, but I ah, because there's no way
you would. And I don't know what you feel about
the film, but I screen tested. It was super beginning
of my career as a professional, and I don't think
(47:53):
i'd even even done a big project, but I screen
tested to play him in the film that Jeffrey Wright
ultimately played him in, and oh, I wanted that role
so bad, but it was I don't think, you know,
I would have loved to have done it. Let me
(48:14):
just put it that way. But I think the studio
or whoever felt that I was too new for that.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Jeffrey was pretty new at that time. Who would have thought?
Who would have thought like that film came out? And
not to go down into a tangent, because I'm trying
to be respectful of your time, but who would have thought?
You know that that film and there were, you know,
some thoughts around it, and I won't go too deep
into it right now. But it's challenging to have someone
(48:43):
decide to portray your brother, right, not the big Jemmachelle Basquet,
but your brother. And people tell the story that they
want to tell about your life, right, and not good
or bad in this case, there are some things I'm like,
(49:06):
come on now, But people tell the story that if allowed.
People tell the story that they choose to tell about
your life. And so that is true of a movie,
but it can also be true of the interactions that
people have on a day to day basis with you know,
cousin Bob. Right, there's something to owning your own story.
(49:30):
There's something to creating your own story and to owning
your own story. And just so I complete the thought,
who would have known that that film would have helped
to share the good word about Jem Michelle Baskia.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yes, and you know you wouldn't know this, but I
invested in a hotel in New Orleans, and I love
New Orleans, and Jean Michelle did a trip to New
Orleans and there was a director that I worked with
who was on that trip with him, and I found
(50:15):
out about the footage. And I think I mentioned this
to you last time I saw you about the footage
that that he had, and I approached him, I said,
you know, what are you going to do with that?
You know, I would love to participate in a documentary
and introduce you to Lisan, who I who I met.
And but he's just he showed me some of the
(50:38):
footage on his computer and he's just I don't know
what his thoughts are, but he's just sitting there. But
that was There's some polaroids from that time that I've
seen for sale online. But yeah, there's there's there's stories
out there to tell that in terms of travel and
(51:05):
touching folks and all of that. So anything I can
do to help in whatever way, please let me know.
And I'd love to stay engaged however, and whatever. The
next time it surprise you with this art, I'm going
to show up. I'm going to show up in the
studio with this work of art.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
You love the surprises. The last time when we were
on that panel together, you'd had a little surprise that
day too.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Now it's a pattern surprise.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
You love surprises. I want to say this. I know
how very very busy you are, and I appreciate so
much your generosity of your time, of your spirit, of
your talents, of whatever it is that you get inspired
by that you then choose to turn into something to
(51:58):
go fail at. Right. Yeah, And it doesn't go unnoticed.
It doesn't go unnoticed. And I remember when I was
looking online and I saw I started to see the
momentum build, you know, as you were on your campaign.
I was like, go ahead on, Okay, I love that,
(52:19):
Like go ahead, right. And so I just want to
say that one of the things, if I haven't said,
if I didn't say this earlier, that you model and
I see this in everything that you do, is you
are building a legacy. And I don't know this for
a fact, but it doesn't seem like your It's not
(52:45):
the performance in it. It's how fully you're choosing to live.
And I think that if there's nothing else that a
person listening or watching this conversation gets from this, what
I would love for anyone watching or listening to get
from this is this is a man who models living
(53:11):
doing a lot of things, doing whatever you you know,
decide to do, creating things, creating movements, and pouring into
the community. And that's what we need. There's so much
you talked in the beginning. I'm not going to go
down that tangent. But you talked about like if you're
going to be a dad, show up and be that dad, right,
(53:33):
do something, do something to contribute. And I love that
you that you're standing in that and all of it.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
And if you have an in and if you have
an intuition to take an action, you you were gifted
that intuition for a reason. Go for it. That's right,
Come on.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's right. I mean feels Spice feels the same way
Spice like I want to be on the camera, so
you know what't pick me up? Hill, Thank you so
so very much. How I do have one question. I
do have one question before we close out. How can
we support you, sir? You know, besides if you have
(54:19):
an incredible script, okay.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yes, if you have an incredible story script.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Yes, he has something he wants to pour into. He
wants to do something that is something that is substantial,
something that is going to something meaningful. If you have, yes,
and how.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
We have that and and other ways, you know, check
out my Instagram. It's just at Hill Harper and follow
because there's usually when I'm doing something, I post about
it and I'll put it in there, and there's ways
that people can participate. For for instance, just did a
huge back to school drive in Detroit for families in
(55:05):
need in a space that we're turning into Opportunity Roasters,
which is going to be a workforce development and training
program for baristas, young people learning how to do lots
of art and cafe work. You know, if you can
become a good barista, you can work anywhere in the world.
And it doesn't it takes like two weeks to become
(55:26):
a decent good barista, right and and then you refine
it as you work, and and so you know, it's
called Opportunity Roasters. I'm excited about that. We're gonna definitely
need help once we launch that because the more young
people we can get through training the better. And and
you know, it's it's going to be basically got to
pay pay for each person. So I'm excited about that.
(55:49):
That's going to be out of in Detroit in a
place called the Derfy Innovation Society, which was an old
middle school called Durfy that shut down on Detroit's West Side.
And in the museum I'm working on, you know, a
master plan for this museum to house my art collection
(56:12):
and other art and and and and have artists and residence.
This is in in Detroit as well. So there's there's
a lot going on in Detroit that I'm gonna need
folks help with because in many ways Detroit has has
been ignored and the communities are hurting. The communities are
(56:32):
definitely hurting.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
And you're doing something to help, which is more than
not the observation. It's observation and then action. And so yes, again,
one good thing that you do that that gives people
a lot of different ways to participate, to contribute, to
help support, is that you keep things up to date.
So follow Hill Harper. If there's some place where you
(56:58):
feel it in your heart too uh participate or contribute,
please do that. And Hill, thank you so much, thank.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
You, thank you, such a wonderful conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
M h m hm
Speaker 3 (57:16):
Hmmm
What creates the relevance of us being here for such
a Swiss baton is to impact something positively that lasts
beyond us. That's what art is. That's why I love art.
That's why I'm an art collector, is because the point
of art is by the maker of the art, is
(00:27):
that what they make will live beyond their flesh body.
That's legacy. So positive impact and legacy.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome to the Shaping Freedom Podcast, where we dive into
conversations that inspire personal growth, transformation and clarity and challenging times.
I'm your host, Lissan Basquiato. Today's guest is someone who's
worn so many titles from author, actor, activist, entrepreneur, father,
former US Senate candidate. None of those titles fully capture
(01:02):
the depth of the man that we're going to be
in conversation with today. There are some people who build careers.
There are others who build community. Hill Harper has built
both from Harvard Law to Hollywood, from best selling author
to political candidate. He's refused to be put into a box,
choosing instead to shape a life of purpose, healing and service.
(01:26):
But beneath the accolades is a man who asks deeper questions,
how do we close the wealth gap, how do we
raise emotionally well children, how do we live lives aligned
with our values even when it costs us something. In
this conversation, I'm hoping that we can get beyond and
beneath the accolades to explore the why behind it all.
(01:49):
What has it meant for you to pivot from success
to significance, and how do you stay emotionally grounded when
the world is watching? And how are you Hill building
a legacy that heals rather than repeats the past. I'm
(02:10):
so excited to have this conversation with you. I've been
wanting to have this conversation with you for some time.
And welcome Hill.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Thank you, thank you. I mean, I'm nervous now.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
We're going to go yes, yes, we are. I want
to have this conversation about vision and about you know you,
and we had the pleasure of sitting on a panel
discussion together at this point, I think like almost two
years ago. One of the things that I noticed about you,
(02:48):
or observed about you then was your depth and the
fact that you are an actor and you're doing all
these amazing things in the world, and that there's also
an undercurrent to what you're doing and why you're doing it,
and that's what I want to talk about with you.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for that conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Let's do it. I want to talk. Let's start first
with something a little more recent. I know that you
made the decision recently to step into politics. Where did
that decision come from?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, it was a huge, huge, huge decision for me,
and it literally came from looking at the world where
we are right now. I originally became an actor because
(03:52):
I wanted to be like Harry Bellefonte or Sidney Portier,
where I truly believe that through the arts you could
positively impact social change in scalable and measurable way. And
(04:12):
sitting back and seeing how on our watch the world
has evolved, that it's we've gotten to a point and
the viewer listener may take umbrage with what I'm about
to say, but for real, we've gotten to a point
(04:33):
where that type of scalable impact isn't available through the
arts in the type of way it was before. And
there's only two verticals right right now, and not to
say that we can't get it back there. And I
want to literally bend it back there. But and we can.
But right in this moment, in this moment in time,
(04:54):
there are only two verticals that are creating mass impact
at scale, and that's technology and politically. That's why you've
even seen the autocrats, the billionaires move into the political vertical,
and even the tech people move into the political vertical
(05:16):
because the ability to control those levers, and what we've
seen is that those levers have been pulled to destroy community,
to take wealth, to literally redistribute opportunity on mass And
(05:46):
I felt that when there was an open US Senate set,
there's only one hundred United States centers, and it's one
of the most powerful roles politically that you can hold
in this country. With the ability to control hundreds of millions,
the allocation of hundreds and hundreds of millions, if not
billions of dollars. With that open US senency, I felt
(06:09):
that there was an opportunity to reverse course, to change
the trajectory that we as a country and are headed
in politically. And unfortunately, everything that I talked about during
(06:34):
my campaign has come to pass in fact, maybe even worse,
maybe even worse. And people thought that I was you
know what, does he say, And they thought I was, whoa,
come on, man, that's this stuff is not gonna happen. Oh,
yes it's happened. It's happening and in a real way.
So the difficult moment is and the difficult thing is
(07:01):
asking people from communities that have been beaten down and
lied to so much politically getting them to believe that
their vote actually makes a difference. It's really difficult to
do that. So my biggest challenge was getting folks from
communities that have been completely disregarded over the last forty
(07:25):
to fifty years, if not more, to believe again and
to participate in There's a heavy lift, and unfortunately we
weren't able to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think one of the things that I find so
fascinating about you, or one of the things that I
find so fascinating about you as a man and as
a professional creative today, is that you graduated from Harvard.
You know, you're an actor. You are successful, full creative person,
(08:03):
and so you could do anything with that. And what
you have chosen to do is to continue to do that,
to act, you know, and to contribute in that way.
But you also have this I don't know how to
(08:24):
describe it. But like the heart to pour into art,
the heart to pour into politics, the heart to be
a single father, to take some of the circumstances and
life events that you've experienced and use that to help
(08:45):
other people. There is such a generosity about your spirit
and about what you're doing and the assignment that you're
stepping to and creating that I think, but that is.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The only reason why we're here. It's the only reason
we're here.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
To me, But not everybody sees that hill well, yeah,
you not everyone sees that you can take your you
you know, you can take your success being on the screens,
you know, the television screens or the streaming screens, and
being on these TV shows and playing in these movies.
(09:23):
And you could take all that and just like take
your suitcase and go home and chill and have a
good time, right and and celebrated in that way. And
I'm sure you do in many ways. But the generosity
of your spirit and the ways that you stand as
(09:45):
a human being, as a man, as a creative, as
a father, as a citizen, as a man who again
has experienced some things, and you take those things and
you believe that you have no other choice that that
is what your assignment, that's what we're meant to do,
(10:05):
and you model that you don't have to do that,
you don't And I thank you for just like letting
me say that, letting me get that out, thank you
for being willing to receive it. Just give me, just please.
It's as important to me that I'd be allowed to
say it as it is. You know that you that
(10:27):
you are willing to receive it because you are such
a model for so many people. What is the undercurrent
of that? What is what is the driver for you?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Impact? Impact and legacy. We're here for such a short
window of time. You know, my father died in his sixties,
my grandfather died in his seventies, my uncle died in
his forties. You know, if I make it to one hundred,
(11:05):
that's a long time, right and in this flesh body.
But it's a it's a snap. It's so short in
the context of the history of time in the universe,
and so we're barely here. And so what's what what
creates the relevance of us being here for such a
(11:27):
swisp of time is to impact something positively that lasts
beyond beyond us. That's what art is. That's why I
love art, That's why I'm an art collector, is because
the point of art is by the maker of the art,
is that what they make will live beyond their flesh body.
(11:50):
And that's legacy, so positive impact and legacy. And see,
some people just want one or the other. People some
people don't want either, so you know whatever, but some
people just want one of the other. And to me,
you need both. So because because you could walk, I mean, listen,
there's a horrific shooting yesterday. You can have impact and
(12:17):
you can go in and shoot and destructive horrible things,
acts of violence, acts of depravity. But that's impact, and
it's just sad. And then and then there's legacy with
no impact. You know, go on and have a bunch
of babies and don't raise them, you know, there's legacy.
(12:39):
But then if you didn't have you didn't raise your babies,
then there's no impact. But if you marry them too
and say I'm going to have positive impact, then legacy.
That means you have to be present. That means you're
creating things, you're sewing into people that are going to
live beyond you. That means that you're creating art and
works of art. One thing that I will say about
my acting career is that I feel like I still
(13:01):
haven't done that legacy project. Or let me put it
this way, maybe I've done the legacy project, but it
kind of just it's like any like any piece of art,
it can kind of disappear, and art is made to
be seen. You know, Van God cut off his ear
because no one was looking at his art. But if
you probably would have said, hey, man, don't go crazy,
(13:22):
don't beat yourself up. You know, one hundred and seventy
five years from now, more people will visit than any
museum in the world. More people will visit your museum
every year than the Louver in Paris. What about that?
And you know, so chill out and just keep creating.
He may not have, you know, done all that. But
the point is is that I've done some work that
(13:44):
I'm extremely proud of, but no one really saw. So
it kind of like a tree falling in the woods.
I still haven't done that legacy project that has an impact.
You know that it's a wonderful life project, the Black
Panther Project, the project to do the right thing, you know,
(14:05):
you know these projects that are seminal projects. So hopefully
before I hang up completely the acting shoes, I'll do
a legacy project at some point. If someone is listening
right now to this and has has has this script
that's been collecting dust on their shelf that is like
the most amazing story, please send it to me, because
(14:28):
that's the hardest thing to find, are these extremely well
written projects, because it all starts with the writing anyway.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
But we digress, Actually we don't, because yeah, I don't
think we're we digress because I think that that speaks
to the man that you are. You want to have impact,
you want to do the big things, like you said,
you know.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Paint on is what I always say. I say, we're here, listen,
my goal is to paint on big canvases. Yeah, And
I don't begrudge anybody that wants to just do sketches
on little notebooks and do their thing and be happy
and just chill, chill out. But that's not me. I
want to paint on big campuses.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah. What has being a father taught you about yourself?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I used two really really believe in nurture over nature,
But being a father has made me completely think differently,
really yeah, I mean, I just I just see that
(15:45):
my son is is who he is, and and I
can try to nurture this and nurture that and try
to do this, but you know, he's going to be
His nature is his nature, and that's partly it. And
and so I feel like I can impact the margins,
but the fact, but the fundamental nature of who he
is is who he is. And and that's an interesting
(16:07):
thing because I really felt I'd always felt much differently
about that. I always felt I was a much much
much heavier nurture. Nurture. Nurture wins. You know, sow the
seeds da da da da da, but the seed actually wins.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's right. You have to meet the person where they are.
You have to meet the person where they are and
not where you believe they they be. And once you
meet that person where they are, then you and that
person whole hands and you get to wherever.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But but it's like who you are is who you are?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yes, okay, totally, And that's it's been. That's become very
clear to me in a very powerful way. And also
it's a great way because as long as he's happy,
that's that's my whole thing is now keep him safe
and hopefully keep his mental uh in a way that
(17:02):
he feels good about himself.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah. I think I was talking to someone just not
too long ago about and I say this often about
generational wealth and how we talk so much about generational
wealth and there's such a focus on it, and a
lot of it is around financials and material and the
right schools, the right situations, the right education, the right
(17:27):
career path and all of that, and that is amazing
and very important. I think that I believe that the
mental and emotional legacy that we leave behind is the
thing that's going to impact that person's ability to make
(17:49):
something out of nothing or to take what we bestow
and turn it into something different for them. Yes, but
what's important is that emotional and mental wealth being And
I think that I cannot say that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Enough totally agree and even and even and even like
digging even deeper than that is the ability to question
what that what something is because you said, you know,
make something. It's like we're told what we think other
people believe making something or success or whatever that is.
(18:24):
But the idea of being confident and feeling good enough
for ourself to say, hey, I'm actually going to redefine
what something is. You know, I'm not even gonna go
with your definition. I'm going to live in a completely
different way, in a completely different plane. Is interesting, I've been.
(18:55):
It reminds me. I've been working on this project that
hasn't been announced yet at where the person I'm working
with is extremely accomplished movement artist, and I was fascinated
by her work and the idea of going deeper into
(19:18):
the body. And I, as an artist, is more intellectual
work than body work. Right, I'm not a movement artist.
I'm not a dancer, so I was I've been fascinated
by this idea of how do you combine the mental
(19:39):
depth with the exploring your body. And we're trying to
come up with a seminar for a weekend, which would
be a kind of a retreat where you would, you know,
maybe there's fifty people at the retreat and it's a
two day seminar. And we've been sort of mad out
(20:00):
what that's going to be. And I'm really interested and
excited about it because it's sort of trying to break
the idea of what the something is. I you know,
I think it's interesting. I'll let you know, maybe you
want to come. If you want to come, I'd love
to have.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I was like, I'm gonna, like,
you know, ask them about it. But because I think
this is so important because today there's so much focus
on what's happening up here, right, we're so cerebraus in
the way that we are living and surviving sometimes and
(20:36):
just getting from day to day and even in our
approach to parenting and all these other things. And I
think that there is what I believe is raising its
hand for attention, is to drop in a bit more,
to drop into like what's all happening in here, and
to connect, and we don't have in our work in
(20:59):
the way that we walk this culture today, we don't
have a lot of opportunity to do that because it's
not valued. And so the more opportunities that we have,
like the one that you will announce eventually, you know,
to lean into that, to step into that and to
move in that way, I think the better off we
(21:20):
all are because we're all up here and our heads
are getting ready to explode.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's too much. Yeah, it's all all the relationship through
technology is cerebral exactly. That's not about about depth into
our bodies at all. And the only thing that's referenced
around body is physical health, which is more about body
engineering than death.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Exactly. Was it always your intention to act and to
do the things that you're doing today? Where this or
how did you get to be Hill Harper?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
How how did and not the whole like? You know,
I was born in a you know whatever. I don't
mean that, but was what was the trajectory for you?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Well, as far as acting goes, we can be very specific.
I go to Brown University first semester freshman year. I
wanted to play on the football team, so I needed
a class that met, you know, for a certain time
to get out before before football practice on a particular day.
(22:31):
And the good thing about Brown is was very open curriculum,
no general d requirements. Of course, catalog is fully open.
And I'd always been curious about acting, performing, et cetera.
And and good old Spice has come to say hello,
I might as.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Well puppy, Hello, puppy.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
A little scared, it's a little scared becomes a were high.
And so if I take this class Voice for the Actor,
Shakespeare Theater Arts twenty one taught by Professor Barbara Tannenbau,
and she was just it was great. She was a
great professor. It's a wonderful class. I loved it. I
(23:17):
just enjoyed it. And so I wasn't thinking at the time, Oh,
I'm going to become a professional actor. This is going
to be my career. I just loved it. So I
took another class and I loved it. Took another class
and I loved it. So I was like, Wow, I
really love this this thing, yeah, this thing, And so
I decided I was going to go to grad school.
I want a fellowship to study public policy. So I
(23:38):
was interested in government, impact of government and public policy.
So I went an Alfred Peace Sloan Fellowship study public policy.
So I applied to do a joint degree at Harvard
Law School and the Harvard's County School the government to
do a jd MPa program. So I did that, and
I joined a repertory company in Boston called the Black
Folks Theater Company in Boston where I could do little
(24:00):
plays in theater while I was in grad school. Continued
to love it, got more and more into it. By
my second year in grad school, I was going down
to New York to audition for things, thinking about, Okay,
maybe there's a way I could do this professionally. I
started doing some more acting and some television stuff in
Boston my last two years of grad school, and by
(24:23):
the time I finished grad school, I was like, I
love this and enjoy this so much. I'm going to
be a professional actor.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And you said I'm going to be a professional actor,
and then you just became one.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And I took a job waiting cables from eleven to
night to seven in the morning so I could be
available during the day to do auditions and go to
acting class in the evening. And you know, I'd be
fighting rush hour traffic home at seven am, smelling like
burgers and fries, and take a shower, go to bed,
(24:58):
sleep till like noon one, and get up and pound
the pavement, and then go to acting class at around seven,
get out acting class around nine thirty, take a nap
from like ten to ten thirty, not forty five to
ten thirty, and then to go to work at eleven
eleven night, seven in the morning. Some of the best
people I've ever met in my life were people I
(25:22):
worked with at that diner. At twenty four hour Diner,
and some were writers, some were just that was just
their job. Then the bus boys nicknamed me zapato, which
means shoo, obviously in Spanish, because because they like after
we get a big rush, after the two am clubs
let out, and we'd have a rush from like two
(25:42):
am to four am or five, and after that they
wanted to clean the mats, and I may I was
like sitting there reading scripts or doing whatever I was doing.
They were like Zapatos, like move your feet, and so
they because I was standing on the mats, so they
called meto.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
You know, it's really interesting about this conversation there. So
there's something happening. I'm being told not to worry about it. Right,
there are so many distractions during this particular conversation, right,
the technologies maybe not catching up, and there's some garbly
things happening. There are a couple of motorcycles going by,
(26:21):
all kinds of strange things happening during this conversation. And
something has said to me, just keep talking, let's just
keep it going, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And let's keep it.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Let's just keep let's just keep it going. Because it
kind of mimics what happens in life. Right, there's so
much noise, There's so many things going on.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yes, right, and there's things I want to talk to
you about it. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
My question for you is how how do you And
this is for the folks who are doing the same
thing right, maybe in a different way, but you know,
working and your political ambitions and you're a father, and
you have a puppy, and you have a life, and
you're an adult and all this, like, how do you
(27:09):
stay focused? How do you stay focused? Hell on a
day to day basis with all the CRISI that's going
on in the world.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, I you know, full transparency, I probably have add
adhd blah blah blah d d D. So I the
way I like to refer to it is sequential mastery.
I hate the saying don't be a jack of all
(27:40):
trades and a master of none, because that basically negates
the idea that we can be a master of many things.
And I truly believe all of us have the capacity
to be masters of many, many, many things. But you
can't try to do it all at once. And so
what I do is like when I'm acting, that's all
I'm the When i'm the parent, that's all I'm doing.
(28:04):
When I'm I'm yeah, attempting to be a mentor, that's
all I'm doing. And so I call it sequential. So
once you start doing something, ultra focus hyper focus in that,
and then when you stop, it's over, move on and
then on next. The problem I think you that I
(28:28):
run into if I try it, and maybe the same
for other people, is that if I'm trying to do
over here, but I'm still thinking about this thing over here,
or dang, I wish I would have done this, why
I need to? Oh, I got to cost a return
this email, you know, And and to be honest, I'll
miss some stuff because I'm maybe I was sequential on
the you know, but that that stuff I missed, and
(28:48):
that's just gonna be the way it's going to be. Yes,
my friend just texted me, are you okay? And I
was like, yeah, what's wrong? Well, you didn't respond to
my message the other day and I was like, oh, dang,
I'm just seen it, you know, because I didn't see
it when it came through, so it got pushed down
and so then it's yes, you know, yes, So that
(29:09):
that's going to happen, and then hopefully you have people
in your life that understand that there are certain you
kind of shut off this part and turn on this
part and shut off this part at different times. And
that's that's kind of way I see it. It's sequential mastery.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. It has you have
to I've not heard of that term, you know, sequential mastery,
but I love that because sometimes we're trying to do
all the things to be all the things to all
the people all at the same time, and it's impossible.
We're human beings, right, and so's right. So focusing on
(29:48):
that one thing is what helps us, I believe, to
make the progress toward reaching whatever that end goal is.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You know, that's right, And it's up to you to
decide how the time you give that thing, meaning you
could do give that thing ten minutes, you could give
it the whole day, but it's your call.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think there. I think that is the key.
That's the key, And I think that there's so many
people who believe that in some way they're failing because
they can't answer every single call around them at the
same time, whether the call is you know, focus on
a thing or something that you're thinking about as you're
(30:28):
working on something else. Being present in the moment, I
think is what helps us to stay together. Yes, And
the more that's going on, the more we need to
come to center and be present in the moment. We
try to like fragment and be out there, you know,
(30:50):
doing fifty thousand things, and it's just it's impossible. It's painful,
and then you're not showing up for anybody, you know. Yeah,
I said you wanted to flip the script, so in
the last few minutes, I want to hear that.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, so a couple things you just said. There's people
out there that think they're failing. I just want to
say this is that one way that I do live.
And this is something that some people don't understand when
I say it, and they're like, eh, I don't know.
(31:26):
I actually go seek out failure. And the reason why
I do is because I believe if you're not failing
in quotes, then you're not living because failing doesn't really exist.
It's not real because there's no such thing as failure.
(31:47):
It just doesn't like it goes back to the point
we talked about originally. We're here for such a short
period of time, there is no failure. It's we're here
like this, because if you're just here this much, there's
no failure because there's no zero. It's not there, there's
no such thing. So what you do is you seek
(32:09):
it out. You seek out ways to bump up against
your edges, because really, what people talk about when they
talk about failure is that they're talking about outcomes, and
they're talking about the outcome not happening the way you
either wanted it to or envisioned it to. Right, Like
me running for political office, I certainly did not run
(32:30):
to lose. Let's be clear. You know I'm not up
here saying oh yeah, I ran as to send a message.
I really wasn't trying to win. No, I was trying
to win the seat so I can make impact. I lost.
I lost. I was beaten because my opponent got more
votes than I did. I was disappointed that I couldn't
(32:52):
turn out the community that I was attempting to talk
to and represent, and the voting numbers just showed that
they did not turn around, and that was tough. But
I was seeking out in a way failure, right, because
you're seeking there was there was going to be an
outcome either in my favor or not, and therefore so
(33:15):
bump up against your edges. I could have very easily said,
you know what, I'm not gonna run because if I lose,
that's not going to be a good look.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
That's right before you even got out, that's right, yeah,
or even did it.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
So what you want to do in whatever arena, seek
out failure or you'll never start, You'll never take risk,
and taking risk is such a big part of living.
I've been thinking about this, to be really completely honest,
I've been thinking about this from my relationship life. I've
(33:47):
never at this point taken the risk yet to get married.
And it's something that I think I've been trying to do,
you know, my own level of analysis and all of
that to say, am I is it a fear or
is it not having the right person partner this? And
(34:09):
you know how have I not met her I? Or
have I met her thirty times? You know what I'm saying?
And I didn't do right? And so you know, that's
an area where I really have to analyze. Have I
been willing to let myself fail in that area? And
its to me the answers know, so therefore I need
to put I need to do that. And in other words,
(34:32):
this is stuff that comes up for me. And so
I'm not saying it's from some on high places. Everyone
else needs to take risk, but I'm not going to.
I attempt to identify the areas of my life where
I haven't sought out failure and to seek it out.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
That's an interesting because when you said you were seeking
out failure, I was like, well, what is he going
to say next? That's interesting, But it's being willing to
take that risk, being willing to do things that you've
not yet mastered so that you can have your next situation.
You can start at a further place, from a further place.
(35:09):
But if you're never willing to take that step, then
you don't know whether or not you are able to
win the you know, a seat on the Senate. You
don't know, right, but you've done it. And if you
were to choose to do something the same thing or
something different, you've learned so much that you can now
(35:30):
bring into that next experience and you are knocking these
things out like you Hill Harper, actor, author, Black Wall
Street Father. You know, now you're going to figure out
the marriage thing. I guess you know you started a museum.
(35:52):
I mean all of these different things. I think that
what you model is just this willingness to live, willingness
to be alone.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Speaking of that, I wanted to I wanted to surprise
you by bringing on uh a work that I collected
from Jean Michelle Well. I didn't collect from Damachelle, but
I collected from you know, I bought from a collector,
and I was going to bring it on and do
a show and tell. But I'm not in I'm not
(36:23):
where it is, so I didn't have access.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
To come on.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
But I wanted to do it. It's you know, I couldn't.
I I've always so. First of all, collecting that work
is completely against how I collect. Meaning, let me just
say this, I collect my I've built. My whole collection
(36:50):
is collecting living artists, and in all African American contemporary
artists that are still alive at time of collection. I
believe everyone needs to have kind of their their their
frame or lane of how they collect or what they
like to do. I love getting to know the artists.
I love going to the studio, and I love the
fact that if I'm collecting their art it's supporting more
(37:14):
of their art, you know, God bless them. You know,
Rome are beard and you know, I love you, But
that's not really what I'm collecting, right, So there's nothing
people who do you know that that they built collections
of catlets and beardings and you know, all sorts of things.
So but but there's my heart in respect for Jean
(37:40):
Michel Boskat's work and what it represents and all, and
also a regret that I could have been. You know,
I'm old enough to have could have been in New
York City as a young guy at the time, uh
when he was there, and because I ended up coming
a few years later and collecting art from you know,
(38:03):
there was a brother who used to be on the
streets near NYU all the time that would use ink
on on like styrofoam, and his name was Jibolo. You
must have seen Gibolo at some point because he was everywhere.
And I collected some Gibolos and you can actually go
online now and buy some Gebolos. You know, he is
all over plate selling his styrofoam for twenty five dollars.
(38:28):
But I had, you know, you know, I have such
an affinity for that time because I do believe there was,
you know, an era in New York that started a
little bit too early for me. It started in like
around seventy seven with Max's Kansas City, lou Reed, Patty Smith,
(38:53):
the first season of Saturday Night Live, Andy Warhol and
that and that, you know, that continued, so you had
the literally the invention of of of hip hop and
wrap punk rock, you know, really interesting avant garde artistry,
(39:17):
contemporary artistry with Keith Herring and Maplethorpe and Warhol, Baska Yacht.
There was just this art and and consciousness and explosion
happening in New York. And so when there was an
opportunity to purchase a work, it was its very simple work.
(39:37):
It has like a line and a thing and it's
and it says, you know, it's like got a little
outline of popcorn and it says, I can't it's been
a while since I've even seen it because it's in storage.
But but but it's like cotton as something about cotton and.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Origin of cotton and.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Origin of cotton. Yes, but then I think there's like yeah,
And then I purchased a Rashid Johnson work where he
took all of these cotton seeds and put them all
over the work. This is years ago, and I was,
(40:22):
in my fantasy world was going to put the cotton
piece and Rashid Johnson piece next to each other. Rashie
Johnson was really big, and the Gean Michelle pieces is like,
you know tiny, it's like this big and it's just
black and white sketch. And I was gonna put that
(40:43):
next to each other and talk about how cotton has
played a role obviously in our lives but also in
contemporary art.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
But so all that's to say is the question I
have for you is, given your family legacy and how
you are continuing that legacy, what does depths mean to
you and impact mean to you? And how do you
(41:29):
frame it? Because you, to me, you have the ability
to You're you're you're experiencing it in a completely different
way than all of us, right, So you your your
relationship to impact and legacy is different because it's there
(41:51):
in you know, every time you turn a corner and
you see some artists who's basically doing some you know,
not so good imitation of of work that's been inspired
by you know, or a great version or something, or
you know, you see a Mari to Piece or whoever.
It doesn't matter, we can name anybody, but the the
(42:16):
your relationship to legacy is different, and I'd love to
hear about it.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I mean, I think that my relationship to legacy as
it relates to je Michelle is to Jea Michelle Bosquilla
is different jem Michelle Bosquia. Right, My relationship to that,
to that idea maybe different, but I don't. But I
(42:42):
think that my I believe that my relationship to legacy
is no different than it would be for anyone who
honors their name, who loves their family, who chooses to
(43:04):
stand for their family, who understands that we have an opportunity,
this incredible opportunity and challenge to be alive until we die,
and also to take the moment to look at what's
(43:31):
happening in our lives, to look at that emotional and
mental legacy that we're passing along to the people that
are around us, the people that are within our families,
to our neighbors, to our colleagues, you know, so on
and so forth. And so I don't know that you know,
(43:54):
you could say, well, your relationship to legacy to the
idea of legacy. But we are all somewhere on the
legacy train, all of us, right, And I think that
we miss the point when we look outside at that
other person like Hill Harper does not have any more
(44:16):
in my opinion, of a relationship with legacy than does
Lissan Boskia or you know, I don't know whomever Gloria Best.
I don't know who Gloria Best is. I just made
the name up, right. We all have a relationship to legacy.
It's what are you doing to first acknowledge the fact
(44:40):
that you're part of legacy and how are you moving
the needle forward? Not by looking at what the other
folks who are in the tribe are doing, but at
what you're doing and how you're contributing to the legacy
of your name, of your family, of your tribe, of
(45:01):
your block, of your building, of your neighborhood, your school,
your workplace, your country.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
I think that is that's the question for each one
of us now in terms of the legacy as it
relates to Jean Michelle Basquilla, which is you know, kind
of the macro. My relationship to that is it fluctuates.
I mean, it's part of assignment. It's part of my
(45:31):
assignment during my short stint on this planet is to
move his legacy forward and to remember who he is
and to remember and to the best of mine and
Jennine's ability, Jennie being my sister, to make decisions that
we believe he'd feel good about, while also balancing the
(45:55):
fact that he's not here right and so there's this
balance that happens. You know, what would he want us
to do, and you know what would he want us
to do as sixty four year old je Michelle versus
you know today. But I just don't want people to
lose sight of their ability to have impact right now,
(46:23):
right now in their own lives. I think we spend
a lot of time looking at outside and trying to
find people are situations that we I think what I
would love is take if there's something about what our
family is doing that feels right, take that and bring
(46:45):
that into your own family. Do the work. If there
are patterns in your family that are not working for
the whole, do the work. You know, if there's someone
in your family who needs to be honor them, have
their back, look out for them. You know, for me,
(47:07):
there is my father, my mother, and my brother and
my grandparents. Those are the people in my family who
have died. It includes Jean Michel Boskia. But I think
that that could help a lot of what's going on
(47:29):
right now in the world.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I agree, I agree. You know, I don't think you
would know this, but I ah, because there's no way
you would. And I don't know what you feel about
the film, but I screen tested. It was super beginning
of my career as a professional, and I don't think
(47:53):
i'd even even done a big project, but I screen
tested to play him in the film that Jeffrey Wright
ultimately played him in, and oh, I wanted that role
so bad, but it was I don't think, you know,
I would have loved to have done it. Let me
(48:14):
just put it that way. But I think the studio
or whoever felt that I was too new for that.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Jeffrey was pretty new at that time. Who would have thought?
Who would have thought like that film came out? And
not to go down into a tangent, because I'm trying
to be respectful of your time, but who would have thought?
You know that that film and there were, you know,
some thoughts around it, and I won't go too deep
into it right now. But it's challenging to have someone
(48:43):
decide to portray your brother, right, not the big Jemmachelle Basquet,
but your brother. And people tell the story that they
want to tell about your life, right, and not good
or bad in this case, there are some things I'm like,
(49:06):
come on now, But people tell the story that if allowed.
People tell the story that they choose to tell about
your life. And so that is true of a movie,
but it can also be true of the interactions that
people have on a day to day basis with you know,
cousin Bob. Right, there's something to owning your own story.
(49:30):
There's something to creating your own story and to owning
your own story. And just so I complete the thought,
who would have known that that film would have helped
to share the good word about Jem Michelle Baskia.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yes, and you know you wouldn't know this, but I
invested in a hotel in New Orleans, and I love
New Orleans, and Jean Michelle did a trip to New
Orleans and there was a director that I worked with
who was on that trip with him, and I found
(50:15):
out about the footage. And I think I mentioned this
to you last time I saw you about the footage
that that he had, and I approached him, I said,
you know, what are you going to do with that?
You know, I would love to participate in a documentary
and introduce you to Lisan, who I who I met.
And but he's just he showed me some of the
(50:38):
footage on his computer and he's just I don't know
what his thoughts are, but he's just sitting there. But
that was There's some polaroids from that time that I've
seen for sale online. But yeah, there's there's there's stories
out there to tell that in terms of travel and
(51:05):
touching folks and all of that. So anything I can
do to help in whatever way, please let me know.
And I'd love to stay engaged however, and whatever. The
next time it surprise you with this art, I'm going
to show up. I'm going to show up in the
studio with this work of art.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
You love the surprises. The last time when we were
on that panel together, you'd had a little surprise that
day too.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Now it's a pattern surprise.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
You love surprises. I want to say this. I know
how very very busy you are, and I appreciate so
much your generosity of your time, of your spirit, of
your talents, of whatever it is that you get inspired
by that you then choose to turn into something to
(51:58):
go fail at. Right. Yeah, And it doesn't go unnoticed.
It doesn't go unnoticed. And I remember when I was
looking online and I saw I started to see the
momentum build, you know, as you were on your campaign.
I was like, go ahead on, Okay, I love that,
(52:19):
Like go ahead, right. And so I just want to
say that one of the things, if I haven't said,
if I didn't say this earlier, that you model and
I see this in everything that you do, is you
are building a legacy. And I don't know this for
a fact, but it doesn't seem like your It's not
(52:45):
the performance in it. It's how fully you're choosing to live.
And I think that if there's nothing else that a
person listening or watching this conversation gets from this, what
I would love for anyone watching or listening to get
from this is this is a man who models living
(53:11):
doing a lot of things, doing whatever you you know,
decide to do, creating things, creating movements, and pouring into
the community. And that's what we need. There's so much
you talked in the beginning. I'm not going to go
down that tangent. But you talked about like if you're
going to be a dad, show up and be that dad, right,
(53:33):
do something, do something to contribute. And I love that
you that you're standing in that and all of it.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
And if you have an in and if you have
an intuition to take an action, you you were gifted
that intuition for a reason. Go for it. That's right,
Come on.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's right. I mean feels Spice feels the same way
Spice like I want to be on the camera, so
you know what't pick me up? Hill, Thank you so
so very much. How I do have one question. I
do have one question before we close out. How can
we support you, sir? You know, besides if you have
(54:19):
an incredible script, okay.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yes, if you have an incredible story script.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Yes, he has something he wants to pour into. He
wants to do something that is something that is substantial,
something that is going to something meaningful. If you have, yes,
and how.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
We have that and and other ways, you know, check
out my Instagram. It's just at Hill Harper and follow
because there's usually when I'm doing something, I post about
it and I'll put it in there, and there's ways
that people can participate. For for instance, just did a
huge back to school drive in Detroit for families in
(55:05):
need in a space that we're turning into Opportunity Roasters,
which is going to be a workforce development and training
program for baristas, young people learning how to do lots
of art and cafe work. You know, if you can
become a good barista, you can work anywhere in the world.
And it doesn't it takes like two weeks to become
(55:26):
a decent good barista, right and and then you refine
it as you work, and and so you know, it's
called Opportunity Roasters. I'm excited about that. We're gonna definitely
need help once we launch that because the more young
people we can get through training the better. And and
you know, it's it's going to be basically got to
pay pay for each person. So I'm excited about that.
(55:49):
That's going to be out of in Detroit in a
place called the Derfy Innovation Society, which was an old
middle school called Durfy that shut down on Detroit's West Side.
And in the museum I'm working on, you know, a
master plan for this museum to house my art collection
(56:12):
and other art and and and and have artists and residence.
This is in in Detroit as well. So there's there's
a lot going on in Detroit that I'm gonna need
folks help with because in many ways Detroit has has
been ignored and the communities are hurting. The communities are
(56:32):
definitely hurting.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
And you're doing something to help, which is more than
not the observation. It's observation and then action. And so yes, again,
one good thing that you do that that gives people
a lot of different ways to participate, to contribute, to
help support, is that you keep things up to date.
So follow Hill Harper. If there's some place where you
(56:58):
feel it in your heart too uh participate or contribute,
please do that. And Hill, thank you so much, thank.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
You, thank you, such a wonderful conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
M h m hm
Speaker 3 (57:16):
Hmmm
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