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00:01What brings you to Tone One, Doc?
00:04The computer dude kidnap my son.
00:07What in the Matrix hell?
00:11Hey.
00:12What'd you do to my son?
00:13The only way you're getting your son back
00:15is if you and I play a little basketball.
00:17You want to play me in basketball?
00:23And we know you're also going to be in Space Jam this summer,
00:26you know, which is a different type of role.
00:28We know you're the villain.
00:30But what was it for you, you know,
00:31being in an animated kind of series
00:33and playing that character?
00:35Well, you know, Space Jam is a mix of animation,
00:38live action, CGI.
00:40Everything is in there.
00:42And obviously, from the Marvel stuff,
00:46I have, you know, by now, 10 years, 11 years, whatever.
00:49A lot of, you know, green screen stuff,
00:52a lot of all of that world that you have to be able to imagine
00:57while you're in these environments and just looking at 280 degrees
01:00of just screen, green screen.
01:02Yeah.
01:03It's like, this is over here and this is over here.
01:05That person is over here.
01:06And here's where the anime is like, you have to be able to,
01:08it's much harder than a show like Black Monday
01:11where you're actually talking to human beings
01:13and getting real interactions.
01:14You're trying to imagine all this stuff.
01:16But it was really great.
01:17And what was the, you know, the most exciting thing about that was,
01:20you know, seeing CJ who plays the young man in the movie,
01:23who's the young kid, and it is great.
01:24And LeBron, you know, getting their first experience
01:28in these kinds of environments and still doing great,
01:33knocking it out of the park.
01:34I think the movie's going to be really entertaining.
01:36Yeah.
01:37So I think the first time I saw you on screen was the Golden Palace.
01:41I'm a huge Golden Girls fan.
01:43And so I remember you, but I tried to look up just your career.
01:48And I think I haven't found a time like in the past 20 years
01:50that you weren't working.
01:51Like, is that fair to say?
01:53Right.
01:58Yeah.
01:59I mean, you know, it's, of course there's, there's,
02:01it's feast or famine.
02:02Yeah.
02:03Things look like it's constantly going, but you have months off
02:07where I'm not doing anything but golfing and hanging out,
02:10you know, smoking the blood on the couch.
02:12But I think it's, you know, it's something that as this is now,
02:17I don't know.
02:18I think my first professional job I had was now like 35 years ago.
02:24And it's, yeah, it's crazy.
02:27And, you know, really now it's more about only doing things
02:32that excite me and, you know, really trying to be very specific
02:36about just what's interesting to me and spending the time that I
02:41want to spend away from the business and recharging my battery.
02:45So, you know, I have something to offer when I come back.
02:48Yeah.
02:49Yeah.
02:50And I know, I mean, from what I've read,
02:52it seems like you were in theater as early as high school,
02:55like you knew.
02:56So can you talk about, you know, okay.
02:58So, you know, what was it that drew you to acting and you knew
03:02that's what you wanted to do?
03:03I don't, I don't know.
03:05I mean, I did a play, I did Charlotte's Web in sixth grade
03:09and I was in the rat and I crushed it.
03:15No, it's just, it was an experience, you know, being on stage
03:18and singing and performing and feeling the audience's reaction
03:22to that and going like, oh, wow, this is a different thing.
03:25You know, I come from a family of fools.
03:28I mean, I, in the best way, you know, my sister and brother,
03:31mom and dad, we all grew up being very playful and very, you
03:36know, joking with each other and everything was on the table.
03:40Everything could be played with, everything could be joked
03:42about, you know, as long as it wasn't mean and even the mean
03:46stuff was okay sometimes.
03:48So it was just sort of natural to do that under the, you know,
03:53guise of characters and plays and all that.
03:56Yeah.
03:57But when I was in school, I was just as much into music
03:59as I was into acting.
04:01Okay.
04:02And when I graduated from high school, I had opportunities
04:06to pursue both.
04:07I was fortunate enough to get scholarship money to either go
04:12into jazz, vocal jazz and instrumental jazz or pursue acting.
04:17Okay.
04:18You know, I kind of made a weather choice and came to California.
04:22But the music thing has never been far away from me either.
04:26Yeah.
04:27The proudest moment of my career is winning a Grammy for the album
04:30that we did for Miles Ahead.
04:32And that's like, you know, that's, that's, when I take the
04:35downtime, I'm doing a lot of music.
04:37I'm in the studio a lot.
04:38Okay.
04:39Okay.
04:40And who were some of your mentors, you know, if anyone,
04:43just when you were starting out?
04:46I had a lot of influences in the business.
04:49Okay.
04:50Not a lot of mentors.
04:52I don't think a lot of people, you know, my mentors came from
04:55the roles, from the, whatever project I was on.
04:57Okay.
04:58I would always try to make sure to soak up whatever the people
05:02were doing around me.
05:03And not just in my profession, not just as the actors, but the
05:05directors and the DPs and I wanted the editors.
05:10I wanted to understand every aspect of this business.
05:14And I was somebody who, you know, when they yell cut, you
05:17know, we're doing Bullworth.
05:19I'm working with Warren Beatty.
05:20I would sit next to Warren Beatty and get stories.
05:22But his DP, Vittorio Storaro, one of the biggest, you know,
05:25directors of photography in the business, I'd sit with him.
05:28Or we did Devil in the Blue Dress, you know, that have
05:31Carl Franklin, who directed right there, or Denzel.
05:33And I go sit with Denzel and tell me stories about the business.
05:36So, it was whoever I was dancing with, you know, at the time.
05:40Okay.
05:41Who I was trying to soak up.
05:43Okay.
05:44From.
05:45I didn't have any sort of person I would always go back to that
05:47was telling me now, make sure you do this, make sure you do
05:49that.
05:50Okay.
05:51Just always the dude observing how everybody did everything.
05:55Yeah.
05:56You know, as an actor, when you're the performer, you're kind
05:59of this, this, the hub of the wheel and everything's kind of
06:02focused on you.
06:03Yeah.
06:04So, if you're paying attention and if you have your eyes and ears
06:07open, you get to learn a lot about what's happening around you.
06:11And I wanted to be eminently hireable.
06:14So, I kind of wanted to know how to do everything.
06:17You know, I was like, I want to talk to the writers.
06:19What's the writing, you know, experience?
06:21Yeah.
06:22Written plays and written screenplays and sold movies.
06:24And I've directed and I've, you know, obviously acting and
06:28produced.
06:29So, I just always wanted to have my hand in the storytelling,
06:32you know, in general.
06:33Overall, I wanted to know how to be a storyteller in this space.
06:37Yeah.
06:38I, my mom had called me and she asked what I was doing later.
06:41I was like, I'm talking to Don Cheetah later.
06:44And her husband comes on and he's like, if you didn't want him dead,
06:47you shouldn't have left him.
06:48Really?
06:49It's that's funny.
06:50It's my life.
06:51It sounds funny.
06:52Yeah.
06:53Is there a line, you know, people shout out to you most or a role
06:57that they remember you for the most?
06:59Well, like you said, it's probably, it's obviously a lot of it's generational.
07:03Yeah.
07:04And a lot of it is sort of, you know, I used to try to play the game when
07:08somebody would come up to me and I, and they'd say, I love, I try to go,
07:11wait a minute.
07:12I try to guess what we're going to say.
07:13Cause there's specific demographics, you know, I'm like.
07:16Yeah.
07:17Dude, your, your, your mom's husband is like temporary probably my age.
07:21I'm like, they love Moss.
07:23Yeah.
07:24And there are people that obviously now from the Marvel stuff that just know
07:28me as roadie and just know me as war machine, young kids, you know,
07:33that's what they're perving off of.
07:34And so it's, it's always, it's nice to have been able to be in a lot
07:40of different kinds of projects with a lot of different storylines
07:45and comedies and dramas and action movies and very small, simple,
07:49understated movies.
07:50Yeah.
07:51And I, and I love them all for different reasons, you know?
07:53Yeah.
07:54Is there, you know, to that point, cause you've done, you know, action,
07:57dark humor, you know, drama, all of that.
07:59Is there a role you have in mind that you haven't gotten to do yet
08:02or something you might be fashioning?
08:04I was literally talking to my wife about this last night.
08:07Okay.
08:08The same question.
08:09I asked her, I said, what do you want to see me play?
08:11And she was like, Oh, I don't know.
08:13You know, we should talk about sort of only dramas and, and, you know,
08:18I think there's so many stories that, that, that black people have
08:23and black families have, and sort of migratory stories that we have
08:27from, you know, my family, our history is the Cheetos were, you know,
08:32owned as slaves by the Choctaw, by the Chickasaw Indians,
08:37who did not give, who did not after emancipation proclamation was claimed,
08:43give up their slaves for 30 more years.
08:46We were slaves.
08:47The Cheetos were slaves of the, those people because they were like,
08:50well, we're not recognized as Americans.
08:52So we don't have to live by your rules.
08:54I'm not giving up our slaves.
08:55Yeah.
08:56And then, you know, we migrated to Oklahoma and then migrated to Kansas City
08:59and then kept moving, you know, north to Denver.
09:01And then I moved to California.
09:02I'm the furthest extension of the family that's sort of was moving north
09:06and west.
09:07And just the dynamics that, that, you know, a lot of our families have
09:11that we don't really see a lot played out.
09:14You think of a movie like Minari that was really great this year.
09:17Yeah.
09:18Or, or two years ago, the Oscar winner in a different frame.
09:23Oh, Parasite.
09:24Yes.
09:25You know what I mean?
09:26It's like the black family version of Parasite,
09:28which would be amazing to see.
09:30Yes.
09:31So something like that, you know, I'm a dad.
09:33My kids are kids or, you know, 24 and 26 now.
09:37But I love acting with young people.
09:41I love being a dad.
09:42I love playing a dad.
09:44So I don't know what it would be.
09:46I mean, I'm very fortunate that I've gotten to do a lot of different stuff
09:49and I don't have that one that I'm like, man, I never got to do that.
09:53But the good thing is, I think if there were something like that,
09:56that bubbled up in my head, now I can create that opportunity for myself.
09:59Yeah.
10:00Yeah, for sure.
10:01Are there any roles we'd be surprised to know you passed on?
10:04Huh.
10:05There have been a couple just lately that, yeah, I passed on.
10:12I don't know that I want to share them because of the people who came behind me and did them.
10:18I don't want them to be like.
10:19What are you saying?
10:20Yeah, what are you trying to say?
10:22I'm not saying anything, Will Smith.
10:24I'm not saying anything.
10:25I was saying you wanted to do it and I didn't want to do it.
10:28I'm not saying anything, Jamie.
10:30We don't all have the same taste.
10:31That's all.
10:32That's all.
10:33Got it.
10:34I love it.
10:35Oh, did I say Will Smith?
10:36I didn't mean the one you're thinking of.
10:37Oh, okay.
10:38Okay.
10:39Jamie Wolf, not Jamie Fox.
10:40They're different people.
10:41Got it.
10:42Yes.
10:43Okay.
10:44And thinking about music, you know, have you thought about putting out another album of
10:55just like your music?
10:57I don't know about just my music.
10:59Okay.
11:00But I did.
11:01I have been going to the studio back with Rob Glasper, who we both did the music together
11:08for Miles Ahead.
11:09He was the composer for the show.
11:11And we've talked about remixing that album and kind of doing some different things on
11:16that or just doing, yeah, just doing some new music and going back in and just, just
11:21playing with that.
11:22It really is, you know, if I wasn't doing, if I wasn't acting, that's what I would be
11:27doing.
11:28And I threatened yearly to quit this and just that.
11:35Okay.
11:36There's just nothing that's more rewarding.
11:39There's nothing that's more rewarding than creating music.
11:42There's nothing that feels like that.
11:44I'm talking about in the creative space.
11:46There's things in life obviously that are just as rewarding, but there's nothing more
11:50rewarding than going into a room with a bunch of different people.
11:54And even if it's a bunch of different people who don't speak the language, everyone can speak
11:59the language of this music and everyone is, no one's leading, but everyone's leading, everyone's following.
12:08You know, it's just a kind of a creative soup that happens that doesn't happen anywhere else.
12:14And that's, that's something that I always am desirous of more.
12:19And so, wait a minute, give me a round of applause.
12:21What's the play that played along with the меш community?
12:23So I'm going to go for it.
12:24I don't want to play a round of applause for that.
12:25I'm going to have a round of applause for the language.
12:26I've got a round of applause for the new music.
12:27I'll be right back.
12:28And I'll be right back.
12:29And I'll be right back.
12:30Bye.
12:31Bye.
12:32Bye.
12:33Bye.
12:35Bye.
12:36Bye.
12:37Bye.
12:38Bye.
12:40Bye.
12:41Bye.
12:42Bye.
12:43Bye.
12:44Bye.
12:45Bye.
12:46Bye.
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