00:00I made a ghetto lunch, and I can really say was...
00:03Wait, what's a ghetto lunch?
00:04I made some hamburgers, and I chopped the hamburgers up.
00:08Oh no, I'm not ready.
00:11Noni here for Essence News. We're here with Laurel.
00:15Welcome to Essence.
00:16Thank you, thanks for having me.
00:17Yeah, so you're in a movie, Brittany Runs a Marathon. Tell me about it.
00:22It's a dramedy starring Jillian Bale, along with me.
00:26Tobey Maguire is one of the producers of the movie.
00:28It's about a young lady who joins one of those running groups on Saturdays in New York.
00:33You know, those people that go jogging together Saturday mornings.
00:37And eventually she ended up joining a marathon.
00:39But she did all that, you know, more or less to lose weight, but ended up helping her confidence.
00:45But at the same time, as it was helping her, she ended up backtracking and going back into that place
00:49where she felt, you know, very insecure.
00:51And, you know, a lot of those insecurities and things she felt about herself she would put on other people.
00:56And I think Jillian did a good job of playing both sides of that.
01:00And my character kind of more or less plays a father figure.
01:04I'm married to a sister.
01:06And I basically raised her since her pops died.
01:09So it's a very interesting story.
01:11Even the character is a very fatherly character.
01:16And that's something I wanted to do.
01:17And when I read the script, I thought the heart was great in it.
01:20And when I talked to our director and Toby, you know, I told them how I felt about the film
01:25and what I thought, you know, was missing.
01:28And Paul went and rewrote what he needed to rewrite and created a whole new character, which is mine now.
01:35Wow, very nice.
01:37So I noticed you always play, like, the sneak attack hero.
01:40And it seemed like you kind of are playing that role here.
01:42Yeah, it's just a different version of it.
01:45You know, what I'm finding fascinating is what a hero is to people, you know what I mean?
01:50And, you know, these are not superhero roles, right?
01:54It's just doing regular stuff.
01:55Like, Get Out, Rod was just a good friend.
01:58You know what I mean?
02:00He didn't do anything.
02:01He didn't kill anybody, just pull it up.
02:02Because he was worried about his friend.
02:04It's more or less just having a good heart.
02:06And I think, you know, one of the reasons why I'm a big fan of like Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams especially,
02:13all his characters had a lot of heart in it.
02:15I want to make sure my characters got a heart, that's all.
02:17Yeah, yeah.
02:18So you tweeted out recently that you get tagged in the most random things.
02:23Like, can you give us a few examples?
02:25Well, I tweeted that today because either we get either me and T-Pain in the same person.
02:32Which we've done videos.
02:33This is not T-Pain, guys.
02:34We've taken pictures together.
02:36But this thing about it, cadences and stuff, like when we talk, it feels like I'm talking to my cousin.
02:42Yeah.
02:42Which is why we cool.
02:43Yeah, right.
02:43So he's really dope.
02:45So you, we were talking before we started filming and you said Get Out was like kind of a sneak attack of premiere at Sundance.
02:54This is your first official Sundance premiering.
02:57I'm wondering like when your movie is shown at Sundance, is there any kind of added pressure that you feel knowing that everybody in the audience is either in the industry, a critic or a movie buff?
03:08Yeah, I don't think there's no pressure among the Hollywood folk because that's who you experience, talk to all the time.
03:15Right.
03:16I'm always excited to see how a core audience reacts to it that's not in the business, that's not in the industry.
03:24And seeing, you know, what they get from a film.
03:27I think a lot, because a lot of times we have critics that be saying, like I love Adam Sandler movies, but critics almost hate every movie he does.
03:36Right.
03:36They're hilarious to me.
03:38And I think sometimes critics don't know how to just be a consumer and sit there and enjoy a movie.
03:44So you've been out today at Sundance.
03:47What is the vibe here?
03:48Like a lot of people come here for the networking, for the panel discussions.
03:52Like what have you gathered from being here so far?
03:55This is probably a terrible question to ask me because I like the fact that it's relaxing.
04:01You know, I'm not the biggest networker.
04:04And I was telling somebody this last night and they're like, what?
04:07But I'm like, yeah, I don't really go.
04:09I don't go to stuff to like, oh yeah, hey, it's me.
04:13I've never done that.
04:15I'm just me chilling.
04:16I'm more observant.
04:18A lot of times with me, I like seeing other artists and creatives that I've never met before.
04:23And I can be like, hey man, I love your work.
04:25And that's more exciting for me.
04:27But I've been chilling.
04:28I went grocery shopping today.
04:30I made some lunch.
04:31I made a ghetto lunch.
04:33And I can really say it was...
04:34Wait, what's a ghetto lunch?
04:35I haven't made this in a year.
04:37What is that?
04:39So I bought some noodles and noodles.
04:41I made some hamburger.
04:43And I chopped the hamburgers up.
04:45Oh no, I'm not ready.
04:46And I put it in my noodles.
04:47But that's...
04:48I haven't made that since I first started doing stand-up.
04:52I don't know if you can blame that on the ghetto.
04:54Like that's just something I've never heard of.
04:56That's a hundred percent.
04:57Never heard of.
04:57Let me say this too, y'all.
04:58I don't use the term ghetto as a bad thing.
05:00People think that's bad.
05:02I think that's a part of...
05:03Even though we don't want to admit to it, it's a part of the culture.
05:06Like we've made ghetto cool.
05:08So I'd never be ashamed of where I'm from and how we did things.
05:11But I don't know if I felt...
05:12That might be delicious though.
05:13It was really good.
05:15I haven't done that in years.
05:17Yeah.
05:18Like maybe like over 10 years.
05:20What?
05:21Yeah, I chopped up four hamburgers.
05:24Four?
05:25Put some seasoning salt on it.
05:27Made my noodles.
05:29Put the hamburger meat in the pot.
05:31Because I did it with the pot.
05:33And I put it in the microwave.
05:34I did it the right way.
05:36And I enjoyed it and watched The Dark Knight.
05:41Okay, so you got that recipe from Lil' Ralph.
05:43The Ghetto Lunch.
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