00:00Please welcome a Walk of Famer in her own right, Viola Davis!
00:07I'm introduced, I always want to say the Malcolm X quote, which is, make it plain.
00:35But I have to believe that Chadwick is still alive.
00:49I can't use the word gone or death, really, when thinking about him.
00:59You know, it's like the quote, you know, when the last person who dies who has a memory
01:05of you, that's when you'll truly be dead.
01:14My memory of Chadwick is, we did Ma Rainey's Black Bottom soon before he left us.
01:29And he was always trying to engage me on the set, always sort of telling me in like unassuming
01:39ways that I think that he understood the cap of success.
01:50But the true power and significance of transcendence.
01:56And that was usually the gist of all of our conversations of sort of what happens when
02:04you realize that you're possibly transitioning, that there's something else, right?
02:20And I would say to him, you know, Chadwick, I sort of agree with you.
02:26There is a cap to success.
02:30I haven't found my thing yet.
02:33When I'm not acting, I don't know who I am.
02:35He was like, oh no, Viola, you can't let that happen.
02:40What I do is I carry my djembe drum everywhere I go.
02:44I don't care if it gets in the way of luggage, I don't care if, you know, I have to argue with
02:50the airline students of where I'm going to put it.
02:54I need my drum.
03:00And you know, that djembe drum is a talking drum, y'all.
03:05And he would play it on the set.
03:08You could hear it in his trailer.
03:11It was more than just a sound.
03:16It was more than just music.
03:20I mean, it resounded through the entire sound stage.
03:25And he would play it fervently.
03:33Chadwick, you channeled the divine.
03:35You were a conduit, a source of connectiveness that every single human being that's faced who
03:51is on this earth is searching for, trying to connect to each other, trying to connect to our
04:01art, trying to know, like the Cherokee birth blessing, may we live long enough to understand
04:09why we were born.
04:13That was Chadwick.
04:15More than just an actor who you can observe on screen doing wonderful work.
04:21It was work that reminded us that we are less alone.
04:26It's best to use all of life.
04:39Leave death nothing but the dregs.
04:42Nothing but a burnt out castle.
04:46And Chadwick was a castle.
04:48Chadwick was a mighty, mighty elixir that sort of stirred up that alchemy that we're all
05:00in search of, which is meaning.
05:06I celebrate him today.
05:08And I say to him, I hope all the angels in heaven just sang him to a beautiful rest.
05:22And I thank him for what he left behind in me, which is a burning amber that always guides
05:33me to a higher meaning of my work and my purpose.
05:41This star, as beautiful as it is on the walk of fame, shines a whole lot less brighter than
05:50Chadwick is in heaven.
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