00:00This could only happen to a guy like me.
00:04Who do you work for?
00:05I ain't work for nobody.
00:06I'm a free agent.
00:07Walter Flynn.
00:09You make quite an impression on my family.
00:12This could only happen in a town.
00:15My name is Revae Ruff, and I'm from Essence.
00:17How are you doing this morning?
00:18Hey, Revae, how are you?
00:19I'm doing fantastic.
00:20I'm so excited for the show to come out,
00:22so I got nothing but energy.
00:23I'm excited as well.
00:24It was a great first episode.
00:26Very exciting.
00:27I noticed Tommy's always kind of been a wild card
00:31on his previous shows.
00:32He kind of never knew what he was going to do,
00:34and he was kind of bringing this crazy energy,
00:36this crazy element.
00:37You weren't really sure what was what.
00:39But now, him being the protagonist of his own show,
00:43do you see there's going to be a situation
00:45where he's going to have to kind of calm down
00:47and keep his wits about it,
00:48but not just bring the wild and crazy,
00:50or is it more of the same?
00:52Well, I think that just as we saw in the Power Show,
00:54Tommy is a fully actualized character.
00:56I think we saw him at the highest of the high.
00:58We saw him be incredibly aggressive,
01:00but we saw him be very tender and loving
01:01with Cash and Lakeisha.
01:03So I think that we're going to have more of that.
01:05However, we're going to see somebody
01:06who's lost all of that.
01:08So we're seeing somebody in dire straits.
01:10We're seeing a guy that is usually cocksure
01:12and confident in New York, in his blood,
01:15wearing his own skin,
01:17and very sure of not only himself,
01:20but his surroundings.
01:21So we've taken both of those things away from him.
01:23We've taken his family away from him,
01:25his brother in Ghost.
01:27Tasha and Tariq have turned their back on him.
01:31His mother has disowned him.
01:33The mob is against him.
01:34The Serbs are against him.
01:35The Tejadas are against him.
01:37So Tommy's got a lot of people against him.
01:40So he literally can't go back home again.
01:42And I wonder if people, I think,
01:44are really going to tap into that feeling
01:45of what it's like to be locationally orphaned
01:51and very alone and to see how he survives.
01:54Because like the poster says,
01:55it's a different city.
01:56It's different rules, but it's the same Tommy.
01:59And if I know Tommy, which I have,
02:00you know, I know him pretty well,
02:02he's going to change those rules.
02:04Tommy's going to live by Tommy's rules.
02:06Like I was saying before,
02:07is that Tommy is like a wolf
02:08that gets caught in a trap.
02:09He's going to chew off his own leg to survive.
02:12He's truly a survivor.
02:14He's not going to give up.
02:15Now Tommy has to make a lot of adjustments.
02:18The new city, fish out of water,
02:19just as you said,
02:20but also new relationships in his life
02:23without spoiling too much.
02:26Do you feel that Tommy
02:27is kind of trying to replace
02:30the things he had in New York?
02:32Or is he prepared to kind of move
02:33into a new chapter in life?
02:36You know, Tommy, unlike most of us,
02:38lives in the present.
02:39So I don't think that he's thinking as much.
02:41He's carrying the weight of his love
02:45of certainly of Lakeisha.
02:47That's going to be ever present,
02:49regardless of what relationships
02:50Tommy gets into.
02:52I think it's always with,
02:53please baby, forgive me,
02:56or please baby, show me guidance.
02:58Or, you know, he's not ready
03:00to give that up at all.
03:01Just like he's not ready
03:02to give up his brother Ghost.
03:03But I think that what the legacy
03:06of the Ghost character
03:08is that Tommy and Ghost
03:09were two sides of the same coin.
03:11And just because Ghost is gone
03:13doesn't mean that that spirit
03:14and that wisdom of Ghost
03:16is not going to live on
03:17through Tommy.
03:18So it's the same Tommy.
03:20But Tommy, just like we saw
03:21in the Power Show,
03:22Tommy was through a lot of
03:24eureka moments of serendipity
03:26of saying, oh, wait,
03:27I've been doing that.
03:29You know, I was just,
03:30I was just like,
03:31I let my brother do it
03:32this whole time.
03:33And he let me do this.
03:34But I can do this.
03:36So it's always been in there.
03:38Now, Tommy, even though he is
03:39kind of a cold-blooded killer,
03:41it's also like the funniest
03:42character on the show.
03:44How do you feel like
03:44you're able to,
03:45is it just from your own
03:47personality and life
03:48or what is it that makes you
03:50able to make this character
03:51that really is kind of
03:52a scary guy,
03:53so likable and so funny
03:54for people?
03:55Well, I think that
03:56in the first season,
03:58you know, we're getting
03:59to know these characters.
03:59So I thought,
04:00what don't I see on the page?
04:03So what I didn't necessarily
04:04see on the page
04:05was the lightness,
04:06the lightheartedness,
04:07the comedy.
04:08When Tommy's walking
04:09Holly into his apartment
04:12for the first time
04:13and there's a gun
04:15on the pool table
04:16and he's like,
04:16let me put a coat
04:17over that real quick.
04:18So you do some of that
04:19and then the writers
04:20start writing for you.
04:22So you have to make
04:23those decisions
04:23for yourself as an actor
04:25of what to fulfill
04:26that character
04:27to make it a real human.
04:29And so that's where
04:30I went with it
04:30because otherwise
04:31it just would have been,
04:32you know,
04:33all steam ahead,
04:34all aggression,
04:35all crunched brow.
04:37And so to make it
04:38a full character
04:39that we could all relate to,
04:40you have to find
04:41the funny in the situations
04:42because I think that in life
04:43that's really what happens.
04:47We definitely appreciate that.
04:48Thank you so much
04:49for your time this morning.
04:50My pleasure.
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