00:00I called my mom. She said you and Shawn can move over there with her and Trish.
00:03Hello?
00:04Hey!
00:06I can't survive too many days with your sister.
00:08I just bought a new grill.
00:09Hey, girls.
00:10Hi, mom. Hi.
00:12Why are you so naked all the time?
00:14Wearing pants in the house is stupid, okay?
00:16I feel liberated. I want to feel free at home.
00:20Well, how do you feel at work then?
00:22Expensive.
00:24First and foremost, I want to ask, how did you get casted into the role?
00:33And what were your initial thoughts when you found out that you got the call for Blindspotting?
00:37Oh, man.
00:39So, I went through the initial kind of casting process where I got the self-tape audition from my agent.
00:46And I did the original self-tape.
00:48They loved me and I got a call back.
00:50And I had, like, a little call back session with Raphael and David.
00:55Great feedback, right?
00:57Sounded great.
00:58They loved me.
00:59All this stuff.
01:00And then I didn't hear anything for weeks, right?
01:03Which seems to kind of been...
01:05I've been, like, this is my fourth year of pilot season.
01:08That's kind of been what's going on, you know, where I get great feedback and I'm always so close, always so close to booking.
01:13And then, you know, they go with another actor.
01:16So, I was like, dang, God, I thought this one was for me.
01:19And I will tell you, I have a lot of faith.
01:21And I believed I was Janelle from the very first audition that I even wrote on my wall, Candace Nichols Lippman set to star as Janelle in the Blindspotting series.
01:30And that's important to remember because I didn't hear anything for weeks, right?
01:35So, weeks pass by, I get a call from my agent like, hey, they want to see you again.
01:39And I was like, oh, okay.
01:41So, then I go through, oh, my goodness.
01:44I go through all these other producer sessions.
01:47The director, Seth, was on one of the calls.
01:50I had to do the chemistry with Benjamin and Jasmine.
01:53All this stuff.
01:55Next thing you know, they're still like, oh, you have to do another screen test.
01:59And I'm like, oh, my goodness, Jesus, how many of these auditions do I got to do?
02:03And mind you, sis, I'm still believing that this role is for me, right?
02:07And they're still posting about my role.
02:10They're still casting for Janelle.
02:12And I'm like asking my agent, like, oh, my goodness, is it for me?
02:15You know, anyway.
02:16So, fast forward, I have one more audition that I think I have to do.
02:22Next thing you know, I get a call from my agent.
02:25He's like, psych.
02:27I have good and bad news.
02:28And I said, what?
02:29He said, bad news.
02:30You won't be available for, like, the next four months, he said.
02:33But the good news is you booked it.
02:35I started screaming, praising God.
02:39I'm like, thank you, Jesus.
02:42And then immediately I got a FaceTime call from Raphael and David.
02:47I even showed them my, you know, my thing on the wall where I was believing and manifesting
02:53and telling them, like, you guys, I believe from the very first audition that I was Janelle,
02:57even though it didn't look like it.
02:58You know, even though it didn't look like I was going to book it.
03:01And then the celebration had to end really quickly because it was 10 o'clock at night
03:05and I had a table read at 9 a.m. the very next morning.
03:09So, I had to rush to FedEx, print the script out.
03:12Listen, it was a whole situation.
03:16But, yeah, that's basically what happened, you know.
03:19But I never gave up and I kept the faith.
03:21And what attracted you to the project?
03:26Because as I was watching, I realized that there is a lot of different pieces in the story
03:32that I can relate to, that my mom can relate to, that friends can relate to, especially
03:35because, you know, some people I know are raising their, you know, children with their partners
03:39incarcerated or they're elsewhere.
03:40So, what attracted you to the project and what personal places did you pull from to tap
03:46into Janelle?
03:47What attracted me to the project is because I could literally relate to it as well as Janelle.
03:53So, I'm from Sacramento.
03:55Janelle is from Oakland.
03:56You know, I was raised, as they say, in the hood or the low-income neighborhood as Janelle,
04:03you know, and the same as, like, Janelle, we are both two women trying to exist in two
04:09different, trying to exist in the world, right?
04:13So, I was really attracted to the message behind Blonde Spotting.
04:19I'm one of those actors, I don't ever just say yes to things just to do them.
04:22It's really important to me.
04:23What's the message?
04:24What are we trying to get across to the world?
04:26What are we saying?
04:27What is my art saying to the world?
04:29So, the message behind Blonde Spotting, and especially because, again, it was so relatable.
04:35Like, I felt like, I'm like, I am Janelle, or I know and I can relate to the people and
04:40the characters and the story because I live this myself, you know?
04:44So, it was definitely the relatability and also the message.
04:47And what do you love most about Blonde Spotting and what can we expect to see from it?
04:57What I love most about Blonde Spotting is that we are touching on subjects that are extremely
05:04important, but we're doing it kind of in a comedic way.
05:09Not mocking or making fun of these situations, but letting you know that there is still joy
05:14within the sorrow and hardships, you know, that we want you to see yourself when you watch
05:19this series.
05:20You know, we want you, we want you to be able to relate to us.
05:26And we want you to be able to see that, you know what, there is humanity in those who make
05:30mistakes, there is, you know, there is, there is forgiveness, there is life after, you know?
05:38And we just want people to walk away feeling hopeful.
05:41We want people to walk away laughing.
05:43We want people to walk away, hopefully willing to see us again for season two.
05:46Yes.
05:48Yes.
05:50And my last question to you is, as a Black woman, how important was it for you to play
05:56a role, not only, you know, written by, you know, it goes without saying that David is
06:01just a freaking genius, but how does it feel as a Black woman to be part of a project with
06:07such a diverse cast?
06:08You know, you have white, you have Hispanic, you have Black, especially during times where
06:12racial differences or racial justice are at the center of a lot of our conversations.
06:19I feel extremely honored and blessed because again, like I said about, I'm always very conscious
06:24on the work that I choose to do or be a part of.
06:27It's about the messaging.
06:29And for Janelle specifically, I'm a dark-skinned Black woman in the show, you know?
06:34And I feel extreme, an extreme responsibility to do her justice.
06:41I want every little dark-skinned, brown-skinned little girl or woman that's watching Janelle
06:46to be able to see themselves.
06:48So when I had moments of asking, which is another reason why I love Raphael and David and working
06:52with them, it was such a collaborative workspace.
06:55I had so much creative freedom, which I never got to have as an actor, for me to be able
06:59to go to Raphael and say, hey, in this scene, I think Janelle should have a hair wrap on.
07:04Like, or I feel like Janelle should be able to change her hair.
07:07Like, as Black women, we are so versatile.
07:09We are Black girl magic all the time, you know?
07:11And I want to make sure that everything with Janelle is extremely relatable and authentic
07:16to all the other Black sisters that's going to be watching the show and be like, man,
07:20that's my sister right there, that's my cousin, that's me, you know?
07:24So I'm very honored and blessed to be able to have this platform to be able to share such
07:32a powerful message with the show being led by women of color and to also be a dark-skinned
07:38woman in the show and being able to stay grounded in my roots as a dark-skinned Black woman.
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