00:00I look like I was going to the club and at a red carpet.
00:02Like, I had a lot to learn, and I look back at those pictures and I go, you poor little
00:06girl.
00:07I didn't know nothing.
00:08I was just so fresh, green off the bus.
00:10I see ya!
00:11No pictures, please.
00:12Child, nobody want to take a picture of that outfit.
00:15Hi, I'm Taraji P. Henson.
00:17Hey, everybody.
00:18I'm Fantasia.
00:19Hi, I'm Danielle Brooks, and we are here to talk about our Hollywood Firsts.
00:30The first time I learned how to pose was we would have church pageants, and I was
00:37a pageant girl, and they taught me how to pivot my feet all pageant-y.
00:43So that's that kind of pose, and maybe not the pose that you're talking about, but yeah.
00:46Well, for me, it's been 20 years ago since Idol.
00:51Jesus Christ, I didn't have to tell that, but I don't think I got it right, but they were
00:54trying to help me.
00:55I'm a little country girl, so they would always tell me which camera to look in when you see
00:58any red light.
00:59I never looked at it.
01:00But I tried my best.
01:01That's for real.
01:02I never could find it.
01:03But I tried my best, and I think I was starting to learn then.
01:06I'm better now.
01:07Well, when I was a child, I always thought I was a supermodel, and me and my best friend
01:13used to do, like, local fashion shows, and we perfected the mannequin pose, if anybody
01:19knows.
01:20It's really nothing.
01:21We made it up.
01:22So I would have to say in my early teens, with my best friend in the whole white world,
01:27when we wore wrinkled clothes on the runway, because it was clothes out of our closets.
01:32Cute.
01:33Love it.
01:34My first emotion was, are you crazy?
01:36Did you do this?
01:38Just because this is my first big movie, and I just, I didn't know why they were calling
01:44on me.
01:45But I stepped up to it, and I did it.
01:47Well, I can't see anybody else playing a silly song.
01:50Come on, give me some.
01:52Yay!
01:53It was a lot of fun.
01:55I just remembered it ending with us doing the electric slide with Miss Oprah.
02:00Not many people can say that.
02:02It was different for me, because I thought, I think they forgot that that was my first movie.
02:07So a lot of the camera calls, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
02:11How to read them.
02:12Yeah.
02:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:14Everybody just decided, like, where do they want us to go again?
02:17What are they talking about?
02:18But I ended up getting it.
02:19You learn quick, real quick.
02:21My first time on set was with all of the lovely ladies, but I first saw Miss Oprah,
02:27and she saw me as the character of Sophia, and we both were just a hot mess, emotional,
02:31excited about what was about to take place.
02:33I got that in my phone.
02:34You do?
02:35Yeah.
02:36Why you ain't never send it to me?
02:37Because I'll send it to you.
02:38Okay.
02:39But y'all were both boo-hooing.
02:40Yeah, it was a moment.
02:41Make it yours.
02:42She told us to own it.
02:43Yeah.
02:44She just reminded me, like, I come as one, I stand as 10,000, which is something that
02:49Maya Angelou shared with her.
02:51But we're all standing as one, but for so many.
02:55I remember it was Orange is the New Black, and it was my first carpet.
03:00The whole thing went a whole mess.
03:02My dress popped, all this stuff.
03:03And I remember being so scared.
03:05All these cameras, and my tongue, my mouth just kept chattering.
03:10And I was like, I was so scared and nervous.
03:13I was like, oh my God.
03:14And I couldn't stop it because I was just so like, I can't believe this is happening.
03:18They gave us these badges.
03:19I was with Natasha Lyonne and Samir Wiley.
03:21Gave this badge that said celebrity.
03:23It was like, oh my God, we're celebrities.
03:26What is going on?
03:27I had leggings with holes in it.
03:29Oh no.
03:30And a turban and like a hot mess.
03:32It was idle for me.
03:34But honestly, I didn't really care about the cameras.
03:38So I just did my own thing because I knew nothing about nothing.
03:41I'm from High Point, South Carolina.
03:44North Carolina, you know, Carolina girls.
03:46So that was all new for me.
03:47So I just did me.
03:49And they enjoyed it.
03:51I made everybody laugh, which I still do now.
03:53And that gets me through because I try not to take it so serious.
03:55Yeah.
03:56This is interesting.
03:57So it was Undercover Brother back in the 1900s.
04:00And I didn't understand fashion and I wore my street gear and I thought I was fabulous.
04:07I had on some jeans.
04:08And you was.
04:09I'm sure you was fabulous.
04:10And you was.
04:11It just wasn't.
04:12I looked like I was going to the club and on the red carpet.
04:14Like I had a lot to learn.
04:16And I look back at those pictures and I go, you poor little girl.
04:19I didn't know nothing.
04:21I was just so fresh, green off the bus.
04:23I was here.
04:24No pictures leave.
04:25Child, nobody want to take a picture of an outfit.
04:28I'm going to say inspire.
04:30Yeah.
04:31Now I'm looking at everything.
04:33I went home for three days.
04:34I had time to like reflect.
04:36And I needed that.
04:38And I'm like, yo, sitting with these women, being around my cast, playing this role, inspire
04:46in so many ways.
04:48I want people to feel hopeful.
04:50Whatever they're going through in their life, that it's going to be okay.
04:55Yeah.
04:56You going to make it.
04:57So don't lose that.
04:58And your faith, like, that's the biggest thing.
05:01Because you can have all of the hope and desire for a thing, but faith is when you realize,
05:06like, regardless of how the pendulum swings in your favor or not, that you will be okay.
05:11Yeah.
05:12What you will see in this film is humans being humans.
05:16No one's perfect.
05:17People fall, but you get back up.
05:19People make mistakes in life.
05:21You know, this thing called life doesn't come with a guidebook.
05:25You live and you learn.
05:26How else are you going to know if the stove is hot if you don't touch it?
05:29You know, so we kind of stop punishing people for being human.
05:33You make mistakes if you're man or woman enough to own up to what you did wrong.
05:39And there's redemption there.
05:41So that's what I'm hoping.
Comments