00:00Okay, here we go.
00:05We're hitting the road to shine a light on women who inspire us to be bolder and braver.
00:11Leadership doesn't look one way.
00:13It's a giant rainbow.
00:15You're not gonna break me down.
00:16You'll get worn out before I do.
00:17Women who push us outside our comfort zone.
00:19You got this.
00:20And make us laugh.
00:22I'm in deep Georgia, and they might have never met a Muslim.
00:26Or they don't know they have.
00:27Or they don't know they have.
00:28Because we walk among you.
00:30Hello, I'm Brady Victoria with Essence Magazine.
00:32How are you both?
00:33Hi, Brady.
00:34How are you?
00:34Nice to talk with you.
00:36Same here.
00:37I would love to start with you kind of explaining how the concept for this show came about.
00:41And what interested you in taking it on with this approach?
00:45Well, it came out of a book that we wrote together called The Book of Gutsy Women.
00:49And that was a result of a conversation we've been having ever since Chelsea was a little girl.
00:54You know, I was, you know, always telling her stories about unusual women.
00:59And women in history and women in, you know, present time who were great athletes or great scientists.
01:07And so we wrote the book.
01:09And then we were thrilled that it ignited an interest in a number of companies that approached us and asked if they could make a series out of it.
01:19And we worked with Apple TV Plus because we knew that these stories were not just important to us.
01:26They were really universal stories.
01:28And we thought if we could figure out a way to take the storytelling and highlight these women and get involved with their lives, it might be of interest to a much broader audience.
01:42And to answer your question about this approach, when we decided to kind of go on the journey of making Gutsy as a docuseries, we knew that we wanted to kind of engage with a broad swath of women who were being gutsy and in different ways, kind of prompted by different reasons.
02:01Because we knew that while there were kind of different themes we wanted to focus on mothers and daughters, criminal justice reform, kind of protecting Mother Earth, we knew there were just so many different ways of being gutsy in those relationships or in that vital work.
02:18And we didn't want to just kind of talk to this woman, finish that conversation, talk to that woman, finish that conversation, we wanted to have shared experiences, even while talking about really tough things like standing up to hate, and we let the women that we were interviewing decide what we would do.
02:38And so that's how we wound up tangoing or beekeeping or painting or rappelling down a mountain.
02:45I mean, I don't know if any of those would have been on my bingo card, like what we would have done, and yet we did all of that and more.
02:53Do you have a favorite experience or overall episode?
02:57Oh my gosh, I couldn't pick a favorite overall episode.
03:01I think what was probably the most personally revealing to me about myself was everything we did in the comedy episode, including going to clown school, which was really hard.
03:13Really hard to be that vulnerable on stage with people we had just met, really vulnerable even for me at least to kind of open myself to recognize there are different forms of comedy that a lot of comedy can be elevating and challenging.
03:32As Wanda Sykes says, you throw rocks up when you're doing it right, not kind of throw rocks down.
03:38So for me, everything in that was really challenging and also revelatory and illuminating and meaningful.
03:48And, you know, there are so many Black women, you know, have been gutsy over the years and pioneers in the area of politics.
03:54Secretary Clinton, I'd love to ask you, you know, has there been one Black woman who's been particularly inspirational to you throughout your career?
04:00You know, I have been so inspired by the stories of the individual women and then collectively what they represent, because we were determined we were going to have diverse voices, diverse experiences.
04:17Because, you know, it's hard, that old saying, you can't be what you can't see.
04:23And we're hoping that as people watch this series, they too will be inspired and motivated and maybe relating to a story that they learn about for the first time.
04:35I didn't know what to expect going into it.
04:37I think both Chelsea and I were, you know, a little bit bewildered because this was all new to us.
04:45But I'm so grateful we had the chance to do this because the level of honesty that every one of these women displayed.
04:56And of course, we thought if they're going to be so honest and open, we've got to be honest and open.
05:00We have to share, you know, the challenges in our own lives.
05:04And I look back on that, you know, period, because we were filming during COVID and it was very challenging because we had to comply with all these protocols.
05:15But what a gift we were able to enjoy because we got to be inspired like every week meeting these different, you know, women.
05:26Well, and, you know, she asked about Black women in politics who had inspired you.
05:30And I can certainly speak as a little girl.
05:32So much of what my mom exposed me to were political leaders.
05:37I mean, sometimes through going to meet people who were in Little Rock, the mayor, when I was a young girl, Lottie Shackelford was a Black woman.
05:45And so I grew up thinking, well, that's what leadership looks like.
05:49But I remember how much, particularly Barbara Jordan, who we do write about in the book of gutsy women.
05:54And Shirley Chisholm.
05:55And Shirley Chisholm, you know, meant to my mom and how those stories were part of me growing up and just understanding, well, this is what leadership is in our country.
06:04You know, I loved the Women Seek Justice, Mariska Hargitay.
06:08I loved, like, her story that she told that really stuck with me throughout the series.
06:15I imagine our audience would be particularly interested in the Megan Thee Stallion conversation.
06:20I'm curious, you know, what stands out to me most from your experience with her?
06:25Well, she certainly is a better artist than either of us, which will surprise no one.
06:31I mean, she was painting these, like, beautiful swirls, and I'm trying to, like, paint the trees, and none of them looked like trees.
06:40I think what struck me so much was just not only how unapologetically she is herself, how unapologetically she is in her joy.
06:50Right. And just that she is determined to find and nurture that joy every day.
06:58So not only the work that she feels called to do as an artist, you know, in her own mind, kind of in her work on stage, as an advocate kind of for her community, for the elderly,
07:12that she just refuses to do any of that without the joy that she believes that she absolutely has a right to.
07:20Yeah.
07:20And I found that incredibly inspiring, because I think so often we as women think, oh, well, I shouldn't enjoy this accomplishment too much,
07:32or I shouldn't enjoy this work too much, or I shouldn't kind of enjoy this platform too much,
07:37that somehow that, you know, the not enjoying it will make me less of a target.
07:42And she's like, well, I'm going to be a target anyway, so I'm going to be joyful, and I'm not going to give up my joy,
07:47and I'm going to claim my joy, and I'm going to enjoy my joy, and I'm going to share my joy.
07:50And I was like, wow, you're such a role model to me.
07:55Like, I need to work more on that.
07:57Yes, absolutely.
07:58Well, thank you so much for this series.
08:01Thank you very much.
08:02I hope you enjoy the series.
