00:00So my character in The Hate U Give is Khalil Harris.
00:02Khalil is 17 years old. He lives in the hood.
00:05He's dealing with a lot right now.
00:07His grandmother, he's found out his grandmother has cancer.
00:10His mom is strung out on drugs, and he has to try to provide for his 10-year-old little brother.
00:15So he can't get a job, and so the quickest thing to him is to make money is to go through the local gang in the neighborhood
00:20and, you know, get his money up.
00:22And so he's faced with this unfortunate situation to where he has to do something he really doesn't want to do,
00:27but he's doing it for his family.
00:28I relate to Khalil a lot. I feel like Khalil's passion, Khalil's a big Tupac fan.
00:34He's, you know, he's a real family person, and he's a young black man in America.
00:39And I feel like I'm standing in a gap, and I'm representing for anybody that this has happened to.
00:44So it's a big responsibility because I'm being a vessel.
00:46With my art, I feel like I don't just want to, I don't want to just be an entertainer
00:50that just tickles ears or just makes something good for you to see.
00:54I want to also have a message with what I say.
00:56And so when I saw what this meant and I read the script and I seen the importance of it
01:01and how timely it was, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
01:04I wanted to, you know, be able to have a voice.
01:06I think there's problems within our justice system.
01:08There's problems within, you know, the whole systematic thing that we're just pushed into.
01:13I believe that within this movie there are a lot of nuances.
01:16There are a lot of truths.
01:17And I'll point out a couple.
01:19For one, there is a, I respected Fox and I respected director George Tillman because they made sure
01:24that they made the black man present in the home.
01:27And they made him a loving black father.
01:29And they made him a teaching black father.
01:31And he wasn't out doing crazy things.
01:33He was actually there.
01:34And he was caring about his kids.
01:35So I respected that.
01:37I respected the fact that there was a huge family aspect.
01:40There was a huge love aspect.
01:41And they gave you every side of it as well.
01:44And so I feel like with the Black Lives Matter movement, this will just open people's eyes a little more
01:48and help the conversation continue.
01:50This movie will definitely help people understand what Pac meant
01:53because it not only expresses it verbally, but it expresses it visually as well.
01:59Thug Life, it just means where I take it as and what Khalil took it as is
02:04everything that they feed us when we're younger, no matter whether it's in the movies,
02:09whether it's in the music, whether it's in the art, whatever it is, whatever seed is planted into you,
02:15that's what comes out when you grow older.
02:17So if you constantly keep what they call a minority down and you keep them suppressed and oppressed
02:25and you keep them just feeling like they're not enough, when they grow up and they get older,
02:30that's what's going to come out.
02:31Whatever you plant to me as a seed, that's what you're going to have to deal with when I grow up.
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