00:00Tech is the future.
00:02Riri, you can actually help people.
00:04I know.
00:16My name is Oakley Jones with Essence, Dominique Anthony.
00:19How you doing today?
00:19What's up, O'Gro?
00:20How you doing?
00:21How's you?
00:21I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
00:24Dominique, my first question is asked for you.
00:26In what ways do you think the character of Riri has changed since we last saw her in Wakanda Forever?
00:31Oh man, in Wakanda Forever we were seeing this young girl in a fight or flight situation.
00:40Definitely under duress.
00:43In a situation she never could have imagined.
00:46I think for Riri, a lot of her focus was local, absolutely.
00:50Of course, being a young tech genius, she was very well aware of the Wakandans, but I think that Tala Keneal and that whole experience definitely heightened her sense of urgency when it came to protecting herself and also wanting to fix her mistakes.
01:09There was just a lot of panic behind the choices that were being made.
01:18This time around, we're going back to her hometown.
01:21This is an area that she's very familiar with.
01:24We're going into her heart.
01:27We're seeing the people that she's come from, the streets that she comes from, the ones who are closest to her who've made her who she is, her family and friends.
01:37And with that return home also comes a return to a lot of grief and a little bit of trauma that she hasn't fully acknowledged or processed, but probably through her time at MIT and that whole Wakandans journey was kind of able to push off for a prolonged period of time.
01:57And now we've kind of, we've met Mr. Parker Robbins over here who isn't really allowing her to run away from those internal questions of who she is and who she wants to be and who she's going to be on the other side of the tragedy that she's experienced.
02:12He's not really allowing her to run away from that anymore.
02:15So Anthony, the character of Parker Robbins that you just discussed, he's a villain, but as I was watching the show, I found myself really empathizing with him at times too.
02:26What initially drew you to that character?
02:29I think just, you know, what you just talked about, right?
02:34Like, you know, I didn't want to, you know, we didn't want to just make a character who's a bad guy.
02:38You know, we've seen that before, right?
02:40We want to feel, we want to feel this person.
02:43We want to understand, like, why, like, what made them that way, right?
02:48You know, you think about some of the great villains, Loki or, you know, not to bring up a Hamilton reference, but, you know, Aaron Burr.
02:56Like, these are people who we empathize, right?
02:58We empathize with them.
02:59We're like, dang, like, I wish you didn't do that, but I understand why you did that, right?
03:04And I think that, you know, Parker is one of those people that, you know, we said, you know, we just saw a big opportunity to make this guy a relatable person, right?
03:14Like, every villain, every person who does bad things, they got a reason, you know, whether we agree with their reason or not, they have a reason, you know?
03:23And, you know, somebody steals maybe because they don't have the money to get what they need, right?
03:29Like, you know, right, somebody sought revenge on somebody, that's maybe because that person hurt them, right?
03:37Whether we agree with them or not, you know, there's still reasoning behind it.
03:43And I think that I just wanted to find those human parts of him that, you know, people could empathize, you know, whether you agree with him or not.
03:51You still could understand why he is the way he is and why he does what he does.
03:55So, Dominique, there was a really powerful scene in the series that I saw where RiRi asks Zay, am I a good person?
04:04And I know the dynamic between, like, good and evil is something that RiRi battles with throughout the whole series.
04:09Looking at some of the decisions she made throughout the course of this season, do you think she's a good person and why?
04:15Oh, man. Yeah, that's a tough question, you know, because you never want to just judge or hate.
04:24Literally, like what Anthony is saying right now, I think it's real easy to understand or to see the weight that this young girl is under a bit because of this genius that she was born with.
04:39I think the mental toll that she's carrying is something that we only begin to explore in, like, bits and pieces because of this trauma.
04:51But for other, all intents and purposes, there really is no one that she's met so far that can help unburden her in that regard.
05:01And I think she kind of spirals a bit like we see. And so when she gets to that moment of asking if she's a good person, it's like wanting to lean on, you know, her homeboy, this dude who knew her since she was a kid.
05:14Her best friend's not here anymore. So if anybody knows her, it's going to be going to be him.
05:19And I think I have to see Riri as a good person. I have to see her as, you know, a young girl just trying to do the best that she can and really working to be the best version of herself that she can be.
05:32And when she is operating at the level of genius, the potential and what that the bar is set super high.
05:42Yeah. Well, Anthony, Dominique, thank you so much. I really appreciate you, too.
05:46It's an amazing show and I can't wait for the world to see it.
05:48Thank you. Thanks.
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