00:00Congratulations on just a great series. I loved every minute of it. Courtney, I would
00:23love to start with you. You know, being from Detroit, you know, when do you remember first
00:28hearing about Aretha and experiencing her music? Right away. We lived eight doors down from
00:39Hitsville, so the music was, you know, it was a completely Black community. We grew up in a
00:46Black community from birth, and we all grew up with that music. It was just in us, so I didn't
00:55know nothing about them. But, you know, there wasn't no internet. I know, you know, if you
01:00had an Encyclopedia Britannica, you were rich. So if you wanted to find out about somebody,
01:06you couldn't. Yeah. You ain't going to find out what we can find out today by hitting a
01:10button and go C.L. Franklin and get all of it. Right. But so there's no way for you to find
01:16out about who he was. Yeah. You know, and in a real sense, I didn't care. Okay. Anybody
01:23who became somebody was somebody. Yeah. Because it was so messy, and so the whole system was
01:31against Black people. So if you became somebody at that time, Black folks just went, okay.
01:38Okay. But don't you know that he, look, he's somebody. Leave him alone. I mean, so it was,
01:44you know, and white folks couldn't understand that because they, it was, if cause and effect,
01:50wasn't no cause and effect. Yeah. So, so what? He broke through and so what? Leave him alone.
01:57That's the way they found. That's what his church was, you know, they knew what he was,
02:01what he'd done, what he was doing, what he did. It was like, leave him alone. Yeah. He's done a lot
02:05of good for us. He helped me. Yeah. You know that, I love that you said that because I was watching
02:13and I was struggling with your character, with C.L. Franklin, and I was like, I'm looking
02:19at this from a 2021 lens, you know, and it's, it's different, you know, it's a whole different
02:24time.
02:25You got to go back to the 50s and the 40s and the 60s. You got to, you got to be, put
02:29yourself back there to understand the groups that got the worst of the worst from Black men
02:34and white men were Black women and Black children. Yeah. And they suffered. Yeah. That's,
02:43you know, all our families, we got stories of, you go back far enough. My father's mother
02:48had six childbirths, stillbirths, before she was 15. Oh my goodness. Hallelujah. Right.
02:56Oh my God. Yeah. So what's your take on him? Or are you on that? Yeah. Oh, the man was
03:06absolutely crazy, but that's, that's, that's, he had to be there to get out of where he came
03:14from. He was in, Cheyenne, you know what I'm saying? He was, he was, his father, his stepfather
03:20said, the pulpit or the plow, choose right now. Yeah. And he chose the pulpit and this
03:26at 16 or 17, his father kicked him out of the house. Yeah. So the, there was no, no
03:33place for, for folks at that time to, to grow up or, I mean, which is why Cheyenne, uh,
03:40little Reed, you know, at 12 had to, it's like, come on, girl, come on, big with a baby.
03:47Okay. Big mama, you still gonna do what you're gonna do. And you're gonna take that
03:50baby too. Come on. We got to go sing and we got to get ready for the solo and get the
03:55baby a little bit. I mean, that's, that was, he said, you still gonna do what you're gonna
04:02do. What God got for you to do. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. And was he wrong? Absolutely. Yeah.
04:10But did we get Aretha? Yes, we did. Right. Yeah. No, I hear you. I hear you. Cheyenne,
04:19Cheyenne, I would love to hear from you when it was like, number one, being on set with Courtney
04:28B. Vance. Cause I'm loving every moment. Uh, but also, you know, for this to be your first really
04:35major, um, acting role. Well, my first role at all, um, where I'm working with Mr. Courtney,
04:44amazing, like amazing. Um, he's such an amazing person. He was always so supportive and like,
04:52we created a family on set. So it was so awesome being able to connect with them, being able to talk
04:58with them, have fun at the same time, not just strictly business. We were all having fun. Me and
05:04Mr. Courtney, me and Mr. Courtney, we would have this ritual for every scene. I would pat down his
05:09mustache to make sure it was okay. Um, make sure it was, I had a fake mustache on when I was with
05:15her. So she, it kept flying off. So she had to, before each tape, you know, you should have got
05:26in a union for that. You should have been in a hair union. You should have been in a hair union.
05:32Next time you go.
05:33And then also you singing, you know, did you get any tips from Cynthia Rebo, uh, with your scenes?
05:46Uh, I didn't get tips from her, but just listening to her, it was just, I kind of tried to apply that
05:52to like how she sang and tried to apply that and like sing and like bring out that same emotion. I
05:58didn't necessarily get tips, but I still learned from her and looked at her.
06:03Yeah.
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