In this full circle moment, the power trio reflects on their experience as Black TV royalty and how that created a path to partnering together for a film that is receiving critical acclaim ahead of awards season.
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00:00 - That's crazy. - That's a lie.
00:01 - It didn't dawn on me until this cover.
00:04 - Yeah.
00:05 - Because none of us, we didn't,
00:06 first of all, we didn't work together in the film.
00:09 Like, none of us overlapped.
00:11 So, you know, I knew they were in the film
00:13 and I've seen the film, but it didn't,
00:15 just didn't dawn on me.
00:16 And then when the cover offer, I was like,
00:19 (gasps)
00:20 wait, this is so epic.
00:21 (upbeat music)
00:24 (upbeat music)
00:26 - I think what makes this film even more iconic
00:32 was the girlfriends living single and insecure crossover,
00:35 which we didn't know is what we needed.
00:37 - I feel really, oh, it makes me wanna cry a little bit.
00:40 I feel a little humbled and like,
00:42 tickled by, you know, the, I mean, first of all,
00:45 the opportunity that Girlfriends brought into my life
00:48 and what it did in my career
00:49 and what it brought to me as a human being.
00:52 But, you know, I, this was where I looked,
00:56 you know what I mean?
00:57 I was looking there and then there was,
00:59 it's just, I don't know, it's very special.
01:00 I can't, I can't, I can't.
01:02 Ooh, ooh, ooh, chicken skin.
01:04 Woo.
01:05 You know?
01:06 - I admire these two women.
01:09 - I got you.
01:09 - They're freaking phenomenal.
01:11 - What was it particularly that drew each of you
01:13 to this particular project?
01:15 - I mean, the script was brilliant.
01:19 I hadn't read Erasure before, but,
01:22 so my first introduction was--
01:24 - Me too.
01:24 - Kord's work and it was immediately relatable,
01:28 just even as a writer, as a black person,
01:31 just on all levels.
01:32 I thought that it was funny.
01:35 From those first five pages, I was already laughing
01:37 and it was just immediately something
01:40 I wanted to be a part of.
01:42 - Yeah, the script was, it drew me in really quickly
01:44 and also surprising 'cause I hadn't read Erasure.
01:47 So I was, I was like, wait, what is happening?
01:50 And that drew me in. - It was a nice journey.
01:53 - And then Jeffrey Wright, the opportunity.
01:55 - Oh, I mean, come on.
01:55 - Jeffrey was like, very exciting for me.
01:59 A man whose work I have just admired for so long
02:03 and the way he transforms himself in every role that he does.
02:06 And also Kord.
02:08 I was a fan of Kord's work
02:10 and I really love supporting first-time directors.
02:12 - For sure.
02:13 Everything that they said, double it up.
02:17 But imagine getting this call.
02:19 Erica, there's a director and you know him.
02:23 He won the Emmy for Watchmen.
02:26 I'm already like, huh?
02:28 And then it's a book, Erasure, Percival Everett.
02:33 And then Jeffrey Wright and you play his girlfriend.
02:39 And at the time, the movie's name was (beep)
02:43 - Yes, it was.
02:44 - I'm sorry, I started taking vitamins
02:46 and stretching that day.
02:47 I was in, I didn't need to read anything.
02:49 I was like, oh hell, this is gonna be my nine and a half
02:52 weeks.
02:53 So, you know, I was in.
02:55 I don't want much in life.
02:56 That right there, that was like a Christmas gift
02:59 from Black Santa.
03:00 - What was the day like?
03:01 - Fun as hell.
03:02 - It was really fun.
03:04 - Immediately fell into it.
03:05 Everybody looked amazing.
03:07 - Yeah, sexy.
03:09 I mean, she was all greased up finally.
03:11 That's nice.
03:12 - Wait, why did she say finally?
03:14 Why did she say finally?
03:15 - Apparently, Tracy had a very cute booty.
03:18 - I'm trying my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,
03:20 - Well, anyway, it was really fun today
03:23 and it was really comfortable.
03:24 It was really easy.
03:25 - It was.
03:26 - It was hot though too.
03:27 - It was like we were friends.
03:28 - Yeah, not in the sexy way.
03:30 In the temperature way.
03:31 - No, it was hot.
03:32 - Yes.
03:33 - Humid way.
03:33 - It was sexy.
03:34 - She brought the heat.
03:35 Erica brought the heat.
03:36 - No, Erica was hot.
03:37 (upbeat music)
03:39 - I can answer that question easy.
03:45 No, but I have eaten some things on set
03:48 that I wish I hadn't.
03:49 - I can't.
03:49 (laughing)
03:50 - I cannot.
03:51 I can't.
03:52 - I'm gonna say yes, because things have,
03:55 a lot of things have changed, you know,
03:57 especially, you know, post-strike, all those things.
04:00 But even pre that, there are budget restraints.
04:05 And there are certain times when you imagine
04:07 if I could do so much more creatively,
04:10 if you give me what I had last year, like, you know,
04:13 I could just knock it out the park.
04:15 But beyond that, I think I tend to fight
04:20 for my creativity.
04:21 - I tend to fight too.
04:22 (laughing)
04:23 I tend to do--
04:24 - I'm a fighter.
04:25 - I tend to do, no, not doing that.
04:27 (laughing)
04:28 That doesn't feel right.
04:29 I'm the big why girl.
04:32 Why though?
04:32 Why are we doing that?
04:33 - It's good to know.
04:34 - Yeah, right?
04:35 - It's good to know.
04:36 - Yeah, but I feel like you need to, like--
04:37 - Yeah, you know somebody--
04:38 - Especially if it's something that feels compromising,
04:40 you're like, but what's the why?
04:42 - And then are you actually looking for an answer?
04:45 - Yes.
04:45 - You're like, no matter what answer I get,
04:46 it's still secret.
04:47 - No, because I have gotten good answers,
04:49 and I'm like, then I shall.
04:50 - Well, thank you.
04:51 - Yes.
04:52 - When in your career did you feel like
04:53 you could be confident enough to say, I'm not doing that?
04:56 - I know the moment it happened for me.
04:57 - Come on.
04:58 - Tell me.
04:59 - There was a director, and he was probably,
05:01 well, he thought he was doing right.
05:04 He wanted to rehearse us in the sitcom I was in,
05:07 Everyone Knows Me For, over and over and over again.
05:09 - And which one was that?
05:11 - Living Single.
05:11 - Oh!
05:12 (laughing)
05:13 - Living Single.
05:14 - Oh, it matters.
05:17 Okay, thank you.
05:18 You know, aren't they lovely?
05:19 I love 'em, wanna kiss 'em.
05:21 Okay, you know what, anyway.
05:22 And he, and it was a heavy week for me, and I said no.
05:27 And this was a very, I mean, he is a heavy director.
05:30 I said, I'm sorry, we can't,
05:32 because one thing about comedy,
05:34 you can rehearse it until it's gone.
05:37 And I think he did it for one reason,
05:39 'cause he was nervous.
05:40 But also, I also think, and I do think
05:42 that race can play a thing,
05:44 where he didn't want us to mess up.
05:47 And I thought, you know, we're individuals,
05:50 and I get that you're first time on our set,
05:53 but we've been doing this a while.
05:55 And so if you're gonna over-rehearse us,
05:56 you should ask, give us a reason why, she says.
05:58 But I said no, and then I walked out.
06:01 And I felt really weird, because I'm my mother's daughter,
06:03 my father's daughter, I don't wanna be rude to anyone,
06:06 and people show up to work hard.
06:08 But it was, that day, it was freedom,
06:10 but it was also pressure.
06:12 'Cause I felt like, did I have the right,
06:14 have I earned the right to say no?
06:16 But when I was in my trailer, I talked myself into it,
06:19 and said, no, you've absolutely,
06:20 and then when we pulled it off, fine.
06:22 I think he saw, but I also was, I was relieved.
06:25 Because the last thing I wanted to do
06:26 was come and mess it up after I said no.
06:29 But that was a big deal, to push back on something.
06:31 (upbeat music)
06:34 (upbeat music)
06:36 - I don't think there's any burdens to being a black woman.
06:48 I don't know that I would describe it that way.
06:50 There are certain, there are obstacles that we face,
06:55 that most of us are able to overcome.
06:58 That's, I don't even wanna say the magic in us,
07:00 that's the profound human nature.
07:04 But to speak to my character,
07:06 she wanted to come out on top.
07:10 You know, it's just, there's a,
07:12 in my opinion, I felt like she was tired of being slept on.
07:17 She saw the games being played.
07:19 She knows that she's an excellent writer,
07:21 and she was like, you know, fuck it, I'll play the game too.
07:24 And I think that so much of being a black woman is,
07:28 is sometimes that, of just like, you're gonna try to play me,
07:31 but I will, I will overcome and I'll play the game better.
07:34 And I honestly love that part of it.
07:36 - I think Lisa, I think that was one of the things
07:39 that really drew me to the role.
07:41 The first thing though,
07:43 is that she was a Planned Parenthood abortion doctor.
07:46 A Planned Parenthood doctor.
07:49 But just to play that on screen,
07:53 in and of itself, felt important to me.
07:55 And who Lisa is in Monk's world.
08:00 And the role that she was left with in her family
08:03 when her two brothers sort of went off and did their thing.
08:06 That she took the burden of the family,
08:07 the responsibility of their mother.
08:10 And there's that Audre Lorde quote that black women
08:14 are asked to, or taught to be all things
08:18 to all people at all times.
08:20 And I think that is something that I was interested
08:25 in portraying through Lisa.
08:27 The responsibility that was on her shoulders
08:29 and the result of that.
08:31 - I think that Cord's genius was that he recruited
08:34 collaborators who had already done so much
08:37 in their individual careers.
08:39 And they come together as ensemble players,
08:41 as character actors, but they're all leading people.
08:45 Like that's really saying, you know what,
08:47 if I had my pick and they could say yes,
08:50 you know, what would I put together?
08:51 And trust me, when I saw their names, I was like,
08:56 I'm already there, you know, in my mind.
09:00 But I hadn't thought just like Tracy
09:02 about the significance of what it meant
09:04 for these three women and what we have represented
09:08 over the years in comedy.
09:09 That's a tough space.
09:10 It's a tough business, you know,
09:12 and to be here in this moment, I mean,
09:15 I'm so grateful I don't know what to say.
09:16 - And can I also say that these two women
09:18 were very early supporters of my work
09:21 when I was doing the web series,
09:22 running into you at the Art Walk.
09:25 And I haven't been back since,
09:26 'cause why would you go back?
09:28 (all laughing)
09:29 And now like you championing my work,
09:32 the entire cast running into you at,
09:34 I want to say, what was it like?
09:35 - I remember where we were.
09:36 - Yes, and we, like that to me,
09:39 like their words are the same.
09:41 - It's like, it's so good.
09:42 - The encouragement, those words of affirmation,
09:44 it just felt, it felt so good to be acknowledged by,
09:48 you know, people that I look up to,
09:51 that I grew up watching, that I, you know, aspire to.
09:54 And so this is such a full circle moment.
09:56 - It's really, I'm amazed that,
09:59 also in the script, and I think the three of us
10:03 are people who've made choices in our careers
10:05 and have played roles in our careers
10:08 where we do have a whole life and a whole story.
10:11 It is not easy as an actress, as a woman,
10:15 but as a black actress to find roles
10:17 where you are not written in context of something else,
10:21 where your identity is not because of something,
10:24 or you're just the setup for,
10:26 or you establish something and then you're gone
10:29 and just used in that way.
10:30 And what Cord did in these split seconds,
10:33 in these moments that we appear on the screen,
10:35 is that we are whole people.
10:36 And it was on the page.
10:38 And that is, I think that's, we were drawn to the script,
10:42 but that is a spectacular thing.
10:44 And it's not, it's rare.
10:46 - The theme for our January, February issue is black love,
10:48 but for so many of us,
10:49 our first true love is our girlfriends.
10:51 Each of you represent an iconic character in shows
10:56 that embody the full identity of black sisterhood.
10:58 Is there a character on any of these shows
11:00 that is most similar to you?
11:02 - I mean, on both of you guys' shows,
11:05 I'm definitely, definitely a Joan,
11:09 and I'm definitely, I would say that I'm a blend
11:12 between Maxine and Khadijah.
11:15 'Cause I have that hard Maxine exterior to the (beep)
11:20 (all laughing)
11:22 Like with my girlfriends, I'm Khadijah.
11:25 - I think I was Khadijah.
11:27 And I think I'm Issa.
11:30 And I'm sadly very Joan.
11:32 (all laughing)
11:34 I've evolved and I'm a little,
11:36 I've grown up a little more than Joan now.
11:38 I'm a little less anxious
11:39 and I have a lot more faith than Joan.
11:44 And I'm not waiting to be chosen.
11:46 - I know that's right!
11:48 I know that's right!
11:49 - Because her little journey,
11:50 sometimes I look back, I'm like, girl!
11:52 - Stand down! - Come on!
11:54 For God's sakes, you're a lawyer,
11:55 you're now a restaurateur, like what is happening?
11:58 Yeah, I don't know if she should go back to William.
12:00 I didn't say that.
12:02 Although they were real cute.
12:04 - What about you?
12:05 - Well, I'd like to think I have the schizophrenia
12:06 to think I'm all of these women.
12:08 You know, 'cause frankly,
12:09 I could see myself in every single one.
12:11 I really could.
12:12 I'm very awkward and I'm from Arizona,
12:14 so up in the mountains, I'm very awkward.
12:16 So when she was doing that, I thought, oh wow,
12:18 that represents somebody more like me.
12:20 Except I have the confidence in another mind
12:23 of a Joan who's accomplished,
12:24 who's trying to juggle a lot of things
12:26 and testing the waters and not really knowing.
12:28 I really love that.
12:30 And I like the strength of what she's put forth.
12:34 Obviously written by really strong women,
12:37 both of those shows.
12:38 And also Issa Rae's show written by her and a whole team.
12:41 So I mean, that's what I feel,
12:44 but I also am a little on Esther.
12:45 I'm all these things that Whoopi Goldberg
12:48 and all these people put in you,
12:49 what you see in us is what they put out there.
12:51 And so we gotta give thanks to Marla Gibbs
12:54 and Rwanda Page on Esther and Whoopi, all of them.
12:59 They made it possible.
13:01 (upbeat music)
13:03 - It's funny.
13:11 I said it a second ago,
13:12 but the truth is that I don't think I realized
13:15 while I was playing Joan that for eight years,
13:19 I was speaking the dialogue of a woman
13:22 who was waiting to be chosen.
13:23 - Hmm, damn.
13:24 - And it took me, which is one of the reasons
13:27 that publicly I speak so clearly and all the time
13:32 about that not being a choice for me
13:37 and to sort of break that mold
13:41 because I think there's,
13:43 I don't want young girls or boys,
13:46 but young girls to be taught to grow up
13:48 dreaming of their wedding.
13:49 I want young girls to grow up dreaming of their lives,
13:52 who they wanna be and what they wanna give to the world.
13:55 So it was sort of the opposite for me with Joan,
13:58 although I really loved her clothes
14:01 and a lot of them were mine and I have a lot of them.
14:05 - Um, so interesting.
14:08 I think that there's four shows about friendships
14:12 and about sort of the connection between women
14:17 and how we become each other's chosen families, you know,
14:20 and the importance of that bond.
14:23 And yet in the world, it's often like, you know,
14:26 there's competition between women.
14:28 It's not been my experience.
14:30 - No, I mean, I have to agree.
14:32 I mean, I think thinking about my own role,
14:36 like this show changed my life
14:39 and I played a character
14:42 that was a younger version of myself or so I thought,
14:45 and I didn't recognize that I still exhibited
14:50 these insecure traits,
14:53 the lack of confidence in some areas
14:55 and doing this show made me so confident, you know,
15:00 playing this character who was uncertain of herself,
15:04 similar to you, it was just like,
15:05 I'm very much not that anymore.
15:07 And I'm very sure of myself in what I'm doing.
15:12 I'm sure of myself behind the scenes
15:14 and it taught me a lot of lessons
15:16 that I put into place in my real life.
15:20 So I thank her for kind of shining light on my strength.
15:24 - It'll be 30 years this year for "Living Single."
15:29 - Wow.
15:30 - 40 years next year for "Me and the Business."
15:32 - Wow. - Wow.
15:33 - I'm tired.
15:34 I'm just gonna say, I'm tired.
15:36 I ain't gonna lie.
15:38 And I gained strength by thinking that something,
15:42 just like Tracy said,
15:43 I'm not thinking at the moment we're doing the show
15:46 about any effect it's going to have.
15:48 You're just hoping that you can do the show well
15:50 and keep moving 'cause those shows are being filmed
15:53 26 per year and whatnot.
15:55 It's a grind.
15:56 - How many did you do?
15:57 - Not 26, barely.
15:58 - We did 24. - 24.
15:59 - 24, yeah, okay, 26, 24.
16:01 It's a lot.
16:02 But I have to say,
16:04 I've also lived long enough to see grown women
16:08 who have grown up come up to me and said
16:11 that the character meant something to them
16:13 and they went out to leadership,
16:14 they went into politics,
16:17 they pursued tough careers.
16:21 People like Stacey Abrams, Ayanna Pressley.
16:23 - Wow.
16:24 - It's amazing.
16:25 - It's amazing.
16:26 So I give that back to, again,
16:29 something that someone put into me
16:32 and I'm just, for that brief period,
16:35 able to sort of tap into that and put it out in the world.
16:39 But thank goodness for all the people who came
16:42 and provided those opportunities
16:44 because that's what I see in it.
16:45 I see all the instructors,
16:47 I see my mom, my father in it.
16:49 I certainly see people like Whoopi,
16:50 she played my mother in a whole 'nother film
16:52 before I got there.
16:53 Yeah, so you see that haircut?
16:56 That's Whoopi.
16:56 - Oh, wow.
16:57 - That's Whoopi.
16:58 It's in there.
16:59 But it was Cecily Tyson who told me,
17:01 "Don't ever let anybody tell you
17:02 what to do with your hair."
17:04 That was before I got there.
17:05 You know, and then we had the great Phylicia Rashad
17:08 being that lawyer,
17:09 showing us how to do that.
17:11 But then I'm a preacher's daughter.
17:13 If I walk in the room,
17:14 I'm just doing my best to strut around
17:15 and act like I know.
17:17 These are all the things that make up,
17:19 you know, the things we're pulling from.
17:21 And so when people say that inspired them,
17:23 I'm saying good because I'm inspired
17:24 and I aspire to those people.
17:26 So I'm grateful for it.
17:28 And Boomshakalaka, you know,
17:31 good luck to everybody
17:32 'cause this is a tough business.
17:33 - Boomshakalaka is also 30 years old today.
17:36 (all laughing)
17:39 (upbeat music)
17:41 - Support it.
17:46 There's what other publications are out here
17:49 trying to represent us to the fullest,
17:51 doing their best to showcase all our multifacetedness.
17:55 Like there are no other publications
17:57 that care about us like Essence does.
18:00 So support Essence.
18:03 - Yeah, I think that closes us out beautifully.
18:06 - No doubt.
18:07 (upbeat music)
18:10 ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪