Drama Queens - Work in Progress: David Oyelowo

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

One of our favorite guests is back on the pod! Multi-award-winning actor, producer, director, and proud father David Oyelowo has been very busy in front of and behind the camera! Currently, he can be seen in his Apple TV+ series “Government Cheese,” and if you love the art of acting, this chat is not to be missed!    The actor joins Sophia for a revealing conversation about his new show and the long road to getting it made, being a forever student of acting and storytelling, the things you can’t learn in drama school, the sheer amount of rejection you will face in this industry, and the key to successfully pitching projects!    Plus, he chats about him and his wife being “half empty nesters,” how he feels about his son going to the same drama school he did, and his current work in progress!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to Work in Progress. We are joined today by a guest who's been here before, who absolutely moved me, inspired me, got me so fired up about everything from art to existence, and he's back today to do it again. We are joined by none other than David O'Yellowo.

He's here to talk to us today about his new Apple show, Government Cheese, which is set in 1969 in the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles. The series follows the Chambers family and African-American family living here in the valley and the chaos that arises after burglar-turned-inventor, Hampton Chambers, played by Mr. O'Yilloo, returns from prison. David is an exceptional human and an exceptional artist, who you know from winning, I mean, so many awards, it would take me too long to list them all, but who you also know from coming on this show to share about his upbringing in London and Nigeria, his path to artistry, fatherhood, and faith. And today, we're going to dive into what it really means to be creating and to trust in where we're going as a society in a year like this one. Let's dive in with David.

Hi, David. I'm so happy to see you. You too, in person this time. I know. It's so nice to be off of Zoom and share. wearing a couch and also not on strike anymore. Yeah, we can talk freely this time. I know I was having to be very cagey about,

I think it was Bass Reeves back then. Yeah. Yeah. It was an interesting time to interview you about this beautiful project you'd made because we were technically also not allowed to promote things. And I remember feeling a bit like we were playing Madlibs. Yeah.

Being like, so the thing on the box looks cool. I don't know. I know. We had to dance around it a bit. But, you know, the reason I was so keen to kind of talk to you again is actually weirdly not being able to promote a project meant we got to talk about such far-reaching subjects. And it was actually cool to have just a really good conversation. It was so nice. It was fun when the team, you know, we do the overviews every couple months of who's coming.

And I was like, David's coming back. Yes. And my whole team was like, we really feel like the two of you bonded. I said we did. I just love him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Likewise. You're a wonderful spirit. Oh, you too, my friend. So, as you know, normally when we sit down with people, I really like to go back and, you know, talk about your childhood. And you've shared those stories with us. You know, our work in progress audience knows many beautiful details about your background. But you shared something with me just before we started recording, which kind of feels like a, you know, I don't know, a little energetic connection to that.

You were talking about how since we've last seen each other, now you've got two kids out of the house. Yeah, yeah. Is it sort of surreal as a father, you know, to look at these young people that you've raised and see them kind of out in the world beginning to figure out their own life and education and journey when they're not coming home and you don't get to make sure

they're safe and tucked into bed anymore? Not only does it feel surreal, it feels both very natural and also really unnatural, all at the same time, which is a very discombobulating feeling. You know, the pandemic, as we all know, was an incredibly challenging time for the world, globally speaking. But there were some really beautiful things that came out of that. I think for a lot of people, certainly that was the case for my family. We were suddenly in the house together for a very long period of time.

And the thing we came to discover is we really like each other. And it was the kind of proximity to each other that we never would have had without that kind of generational event. And, you know, my wife and I have four kids, three boys and a girl. And we just became even closer than we already were. And the extraordinary thing was even though community and friendships and family is a big thing in our lives, it was a moment where we kind of went, gosh, we are enough for each other. You know, we were, thankfully, we were blessed with a lovely property where we have a decent amount of space. We had four dogs and six chickens and two parrots.

And, you know, we sort of had this whole existence. but it meant that when the pandemic was over and when life started gaining some kind of semblance of normality again, we really missed each other when we weren't in proximity to each other in the same way. So to have had that and then suddenly we go from six in the house to four in the house was really difficult. I remember taking my... because my second son left first, he's now at drama school in London, he's in his second year now.

And we were at LAX, dropping him off, and I was trying to be very brave. And it was a real outer body experience for me because one of my most stark memories is the moment I was leaving home to go to the exact same drama school at pretty much the same age as Caleb, my second son. And it's the only time I can remember seeing my mom sob with tears. And it's an indelible memory of mine. And we were at the airport and I was like, and I'm going to be strong. You know, let's not make this about me. And my wife was taking him to London. So they turned a corner.

And the moment they were out of sight, I made a sound. I will not replicate here because it's incredibly ugly but out loud in the airport and my daughter was holding my hand and she went, Dad, are you okay? And I was not okay.

No, of course now. I just was not okay and it was three weeks of real devastation I felt and my wife is sort of better at these things than me suddenly when it comes to our kids. She has a delayed reaction. I'm instantaneous.

It's like right. there. So, and then my eldest son thought, oh, well, my younger brother's out of the house, I'm, it's time for me to leave as well. So in like about the space of three months, you know, we were half empty nesters, as I like to say. And yeah, but that's exactly what you're training your kids or your, or you're cultivating your kids into, the ability to be able to leave and hopefully fend for themselves and be good citizens and all that kind of stuff. So that's the natural part. The unnatural part is just how hollowed out, I felt anyway, with them no longer in the house. Yeah. I mean, their whole lives, they've been with you. And you get used to the rhythm of

your home as a parent and the sounds and the footsteps. And, you know, when they're little, their little heartbeats when they fall asleep at night. I can't, I sort of can't imagine it. But what an amazing thing that in the in I don't even know what the word is I'm looking for it's surreal but it's also so real yes that you got to stand and know exactly how your mom felt you know you got to be in that moment you're you're watching one of your sons go to the exact same school like does it does it sort of take you back to when and you did it and then also just feel like a completely new journey at the same time well it it really typifies that we are part of this cycle of life, this web that's being beautifully woven

over time, generationally speaking, the fact that a school I went to, and I remember going to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and being the only black student in 300 students. You said that. And my son is now there with diversity as a real thing at that school. And he doesn't even have a thought about that. Like when I tell him what I, my situation was, he can't get his head around it because it's just so antithetical to what his is. And that's beautiful.

It's beautiful to see progression in a generation. But similarly, my dad. did not want me to be an actor at all. What did he call you a jester? Yeah, exactly. I remember that from last time. Or he said, why do you want to go and be a jester? You know, so, but that was, it's that thing where you cannot be what you cannot see, so to speak.

And my dad couldn't see a path for me. My son could see a path for him through me and was able to take it for granted. So that's beautiful. That's something I just feel so. proud of and people often ask me if I'm trepidacious about him becoming an actor because as you know it's a very very trepidious profession but I can't be that way because it would be hypocritical bearing in mind my parents attitude towards it thankfully he's very good you know I would have told him if he wasn't it's all subjective but I definitely would have done him that favor

and he's genuinely passionate about it so you know it's it's kind of a beautiful thing to witness. Do you, as you prepared him to go off to drama school, did you work with him? Did you give him any sort of inside tips on how you get into a script? How did you do that? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's incredible. Kids absorb so much more of what you do than what you say. So it's extraordinarily just how much, just from watching me prepare for a role or how I research or, you know, being on set with me. extraordinary how much he had already internalized. But, you know, I did help him with his audition pieces and things like that. And also just with advice, you know, drama school is a very vulnerable circumstance to find

yourself in because often you're the big fish in a little pond where you've come from and you're a tiny fish in this big pond all of a sudden. Everyone there is talented. Everyone has gone a journey to be accepted into this prestigious conservatoire, and that in and of itself is quite discombobulating. But there are syndromes, you know, the first year there's a stripping away because you've picked up bad habits. Your body is something that is being pushed, pulled and prodded in order for it to be able to, as we call it, find your zero. You know, you need to be able to play the prince and the pauper. In order to do that, you have to know what neutral is.

So you're stripping away a bunch of stuff. You feel incredibly vulnerable because everyone else in your class, it feels like they're better than you at being an actor, whether it's dance or fight or accents or whatever. And he's going at the age of 18, 19. So you're still performing as a person. So I was able to really, through my own experience, talk to him about what to anticipate, so to speak,

but also just to help him realize that his journey is very different, is going to be different than anyone else's journey. He actually didn't want to go to Lambda because I had gone there. Because he's very allergic to the idea of anyone thinking of him as gaining anything because of who his dad is or where his dad has been. But ultimately, Lambda was just the best of the schools, or he felt it was the best of the schools he auditioned out. But yeah, you know, that's been the joy as to now, especially because now he's in his second year, we have very in-depth conversations about acting and because he's so, he's drunk with it in that way that I remember being when I was his age. And that's a really wonderful thing. Because I am a forever student of acting and storytelling. And so to have those kind of conversations with my own son is really beautiful.

That's beautiful. I think there's something, there's something, there's something. something so beautiful about being an artist because it is that the potential at least of being able to remain an eternal student being able to be curious forever and I would imagine there's a there's kind of a purity of you know a 19 year old boy finding his way and as you said you're you're developing your brain is still developing he's finding his voice and his art and then also able to talk to his dad about it. It must put you, too, in this really interesting dance together. Yeah, it's, it's, I can always feel the moment where he pushes away because he wants to find his own way and the moments where he leans in because he recognizes and appreciates he

has a bit of a cheat code in terms of of having a dad who's experienced, um, a lot of the, specifics of what it is to be an actor because it's incredibly nerve-wracking, especially what he's dealing with now. In the second year is you're already coming to the end of your training because the third year is you're now doing shows.

And those shows are where agents are coming, producers, directors are coming, basically potential employers of yours or people or facilitators of yours in terms of agents.

And so there is no real way that a drama school can fully train you for what it is to be a professional actor in terms of the day-to-day. No. No one can teach you how you are going to react to the sheer amount of rejection that you will have to endure. The financial insecurity that comes with that. How do you deal with bad reviews? How do you deal with doing eight shows a week? You know, when you've been at drama school and you do three performances of a show, now you're professionally expected to turn up every day at a certain amount of time,

and no matter whether you've had a cold, a bereavement, whatever it is, you're expected to be on that stage at a certain time, giving a performance that is worthy of the money paid by the people who are coming to see the show. Those are all things that you learn on the job, even silly things. I remember the first time being on a movie set and seeing all. all these different colored bits of tape on the floor. And I'm going, are those? I don't.

I know they're important, but I don't. But why? And then I would see other actors walk up to this colored tape and hit that mark perfectly without looking down at it. That's something that I hadn't been taught at drama school. I think they do that more now at drama schools. They teach screen acting and the technicalities of it. But, you know, that was like such a vulnerable,

moment. He has, I mean, I remember the day, the moment actually, when I thought, oh, I think he's got the bug. And it was on the set of Salma. He was playing my son in it. There was no, no dialogue. And they'd set up this scene. The camera was facing this dining table. And the chairs were all around the table. I watched my son and he, gosh, that was, so he probably was seven, eight, something like that. Maybe, maybe, yeah, eight. And he walked onto the set, looked at where the camera was,

and then found the chair that was directly in line with the camera, sat in that chair, regardless of anyone else who was going to be in the scene, and just looked down the barrel of the lens, smiling. And I thought, oh dear. here we go. Here we go. And, you know, he was sort of on a trajectory to being an actor ever since. But he has been on set. So for him, he knows what a mock looks like. Yes. Because he's been there. He's so comfortable in that environment, which I think has given him a leg up to speak in a good way. But again, you know, talking about these things with him is a real joy

for me. Yeah. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. one of the things that excites me about about it about for our friends at home government cheese is it's this world that is so delicious to step into and look at and all of these people is quirky and hilarious and there was a moment when I first started watching you going, what is it? What is it about this show? And I like to watch them before I, you know, read the reviews. But then after the first episode, I'm like, okay, let me go read all the articles you've been doing about it. Right. And you talked about how you've been in the time period before. And yes, how important the time period is to reflect on truthfully. You know, our history matters to us.

if it didn't, they wouldn't be trying to ban all the history books. Right. But also how refreshing it is for you as an actor to be in this period with no trauma, strife, no civil rights fight, no, you just get to be this family in this time and place. And I thought, I think that's what it is. I haven't seen it when it hasn't been historic. Right.

With the real heaviness of the history. history. And I was like, God, I'm having so much fun watching you have fun. Right, right, right, right. I mean, that's incredibly astute because one of the phrases that has come up time and again from people who watch the show is I haven't seen anything quite like it before. And I think that's to do with the tone. That's to do with the characters. That's to do with this black family in the San Fernando Valley in the 60s. But I think that's also to do with how indelible, from an African-American standpoint, the 60s are in relation to strife, civil rights,

racial unrest, trauma. And I have been someone who's participated in projects that I am deeply proud of that have showcased that very important part of America's history. But that is not the totality of what black people people generally were experiencing in this country at that time. And that's a product or a byproduct of being marginalized. When you're marginalized, your story tends to be told in very compartmentalized ways. So if you're Hispanic, you are just constantly subjected to the narcos kind of narrative.

or being, you're very rarely seeing Hispanic characters that are lawyers and doctors and presidents and, you know, captains of industry and who are aspirational. But in a narrative, they will be the house cleaner or the gardener or the whatever, which is a part of that experience. It's not the totality of that experience. If you're a woman, you're constantly objectified or you're the girlfriend, you're the wife, the mom. Yeah, you're the arm candy of the, you know, and that is part of the experience. It's not the totality of the experience. If you're African American, you're a criminal, you're a drug dealer, you're a slave, you're whatever, you know, that there are black people who have been those things in American history and life. That is not the totality as someone of African descent myself, you know, it's the African despot.

It's the flies on the little baby's face. It's all of those tropes and caricatures, which the more prevalent they become, the more oversized and outblown they are in people's minds as the truth of what those people are experiencing. Well, when the oppression becomes the identity, when the suffering becomes the identity, you know, when for so long, I remember hearing Naomi Watts talk about this, that, you know, I don't even remember what the script was. Just the thing she said rocked me when she said, oh, this was the first script I'd read in however many years of my early acting career

where the woman I was auditioning to play was not the victim of a sexual assault. Wow. And I was like, oh, you know, because when you were trying to get a role on TV or whatever, the case of the week, if you're a woman. And it's that. It's that you start to forget. not that it's not incredibly important to always know our history

to tell those stories to not shy away from them or sanitize them or whitewash them but I think it's important also to understand how things are sized in our kind of mind's eye when you look at the flat map of the world why have the America's been drawn so enormously

and why has the African continent been shrunken on the map? It's the human version of that to me where we've outsized the reality of people's experiences And, you know, I think back to years ago, you know, when Moonlight was nominated for everything, I loved that movie. And I really love movies and TV shows that allow my black friends and actors I admire to shine and that don't have to be about trauma. I like watching a group of women, you know, the reason I think Sex in the City was so revolutionary to women in my age range is that.

because these were four successful women meeting for lunch on breaks from their high-powered jobs and their busy lives. And they were just crushing it as these women. And we were like, what does this mean? And, you know, now we look back and we're like, no, not all of that age so well. But at the time, it felt like a shock. Right. And it's important to see people, as you said, spread into other spaces of their totality. Yeah. And I don't think I would have necessarily put my finger on it so quickly had I not read all the things you said about it after watched the first episode. But I was like, that's the thing I'm, that's it.

I don't get to see this a lot. And, you know, I mean, you know, wardrobe, the cars, the set deck. It's like every department head on your show deserves an award. It's so beautiful. But it must be, I don't know, it must be just like a different kind of joyful to get to go and do that comedy in that time? I mean, you've hit on the word, it's joy. It's joy to be able to celebrate a character, a family, a show that genuinely colors outside the lines.

The quirk factor is something that, you know, you very rarely see with a black family. because there are so few at-bats for us as a people group. And so the reality is you're constantly feeling the need to explain your existence. Because you feel that, you know, if you're writing a script and you have a character who does something extraordinary, you feel the need for your first act to be contextualizing who that person is. by the time they do the amazing thing, you go, oh, that is amazing because they started here and then they did this and then they did that and then that happened and then there's the ending. Now, if you're a white male actor, storyteller, the cheat code you have is you have a hundred

and something years of cinema and television that has given so much context to your existence and experience, that means that you can get to the dramatic stuff very quickly. You know, so when you see Robert De Niro and taxi driver, you see Daniel Day Lewis and there will be blood, or you see Joaquin Phoenix and walk the line, and they're playing these anti-heroes. Those are not heroes, the anti-heroes. Or when you watch the work of Martin Scorsese and you see people doing bad stuff,

but you still go the journey with them, the reason you do that is because you have context, for who that people group is and so you are giving them the benefit of the doubt when you're watching them going but they're a human being so let me invest in why they're making those choices so would you say that context also gives you the space to imagine their redemption absolutely because you're used to that people group being worthy of redemption if if primarily what you've seen of Hispanic people is that they are domestic servants or they're criminalized or they're a part of some drug cartel. There's a part of your brain that is not disposed to their redemption when they are

central in a narrative. So when you put them central in a narrative, you feel the need to do more legwork to contextualize why you should tether yourself to that protagonist. And that ladens down the story. So there is literally, in my opinion, a correlation between what streaming has afforded and us having more of these stories because what happened in Hollywood is that for many years there was network, which did what network did, which is to make sure that the advertisers were happy. And so the storytelling was, in my opinion, fairly basic because you just want it to be the kind of storytelling that, you know, you go make a cup of tea. you grab a drink doing the commercials or whatever or even better still stay for the commercials let us sell

you the soft drink and the burger and all that that stuff and so it was a sort of a transactional way to watch a story whereas film elevated i've got to get you out of the house i've got to get you into the movie theater so i've got to cultivate movie stars that are rarefied in a way whereby you as the audience go that is an event yeah so i'm going to leave my house so who gets to be an event well a certain demographic of person and who gets to select who is an event, a certain demographic of person who then dictates whether something gets the requisite marketing and gets to be international. And so these are all circumstances where people are using their own bias to decide what is going to be culturally impactful. Right. Now.

And then they tell you it's equated with value. Exactly. Oh. And they are not even having to tell you that. The billboard, the posters, the marketing, the production value, the budget attributed to the show or the film is all telling you that. And the lack thereof for other people groups is also telling you how they are valued or not as well. But what streaming has done, it is come along and giving us data of who's actually watching what. So I can clearly see an uptick in representation on screen, the projects I've been afforded the opportunity to be a part of, I don't think Bass Reeves happens in a world before streaming. I don't think government cheese does either, because you now have data that's saying people like these shows, and not

just black people want to see black stuff. You know, people, when they see humanity represented in a fun, dramatic, entertaining, thought-provoking way, they will tune in. Now, when 12 guys, in Burbank somewhere are making all those decisions and deciding, no, they're not going to watch that, or that story doesn't have value. And we're all sort of internalizing that lie, that then becomes the cultural norm. So how do you, I mean, listen, you've got to do your thing as who you are as an artist, as an individual. Then there is the beautiful, you know, partnership, not only in your family, but in your work that you and your wife have, you know, your production company, you've done this deal with Apple, which is where the show comes from.

You obviously understand it because you've done this as talent, you've done this as a producer, you have this hybrid world where you do it all at the same time. How did this show come to be in the first place? Like, because you do have the data now. you do know there isn't a hypothetical, well, we don't know if the demo is going to like that. I laugh, I think about years ago when Nia, who's, you know, my best friend and my better half, when we started our business, she would hear a lot of like, well, you're not exactly the demo. And now we walk into rooms and do panels.

And she's like, I'm a black woman in my 40s with expendable income. I'm exactly the demo. And every panel she says it on, the whole audience goes crazy. And it's like my favorite moment of the day. Yeah. And so for us, even when we analyze how to support women in the workplace, how to close the gender lending gap in the world of finance, the data is invaluable to us. Finance is hard enough.

And a lot of people say entertainment's harder. So for people at home that are like, but then how did you get on the other side of it? How did you figure this out? you know, how did you begin to say, this is my moment, this is time to pitch this show. Did the show come to you? Did you go out and find it? Like, how does it come to be that we're sitting here in May of 2025 talking about this show that is on streaming? You know, showing people these other avenues, metrics, families, worlds. It's a great, great question. And the primary element is tenacity.

This show came to me in 2018, end of 2018, as a short film script. Paul Hunter sought me out and said, I have this idea based on my childhood growing up in the valley and you're the guy who I really want to do it with. And it's to play a version of my dad. He was in and out of prison, but he was this amazing guy. He was an inventor. he was a visit and I read the script and I hadn't read anything like it before I was actually dissuaded by my manager at the time from doing it because it's like oh why do you want to go and

do this little thing but I saw something in it that was so unique and I thought that to me is what artistry looks like when I find something that I haven't seen the likes of before or I find something that I think has a special quality, that, of course, is what you're looking for. So, you know, I didn't have any expectations that it was going to spin into a show, but we made this short film over four days in early 2019, and that quirky, unique quality that I felt on the page manifested in what we shot, and that became a proof of concept that we ended up taking to Apple, and we spun into a show. And that has been the mark of a lot of the key elements in my career.

It was the same thing with how I got to work with Ava Duvonnei on Selma. It was sitting next to a guy on a plane, him watching on his iPad, me in a show that I had done back in the UK, turning to me and saying, is this you? I'm watching on my iPad? I said, yes. He goes, is putting money into movies a good idea? I said, well, give me some context. He said, well, there's this lady called Ava Duvinae. She's doing a film called Middle of Nowhere.

She asked me for $50,000 towards her film. I said, okay, let me read it. I read it. I thought, this is fantastic. I said, not only am I going to tell you to put money into that, I'm calling this lady and asking her if I could do her movie. Called her up because, you know, it was the title, her name, and her number was on the cover of the script.

Called her up and she said, oh my gosh, I cannot believe you're calling me about, you were on my list, but I was like, there's no way you would ever do this. I said, this is exactly the kind of film I grew up wanting to be in because it feels like early Spike Lee to me. It feels like she's got to have it, Mo Better Blues. It feels like that. And that's how I ended up doing that film for $100 a day. Again, my reps at the time told me literally the phrase was

this is not the kind of movie you want to be seen doing because it was a smaller movie. But I was like, I beg to differ there. And so that was a film I did with her. We made it for $200,000 all in. She ended up winning best director at Sundance for that. And that gave me the tools I needed when we were struggling to get Selma off the ground to say, I found the lady to direct this movie.

And that's how Eva ended up directing Selma. So the point being that how I have been very blessed to be where I am now is the projects that have been most meaningful, to me, have taken an average of five to ten years to get off the ground. You know, Bastries was 10 years, Selma was seven years, government cheese was six years, the United Kingdom was seven years. And it's all about going, okay, I believe in that. And every single day I'm going to do something to move the needle towards it coming to fruition. And the entertainment industry is inherently fear-based, not faith-based.

And if you are able to go into rooms, with a degree of faith rooted in tenacity and how much energy you have put into the project, that's something people feel able to bank on. Yes. Because, okay, if you believe in it that much, I'm skeptical about it, you've done work that I respect,

the combination of your advocacy for it, the things I've seen you do, and my slight trepidation about it, which is being upset by your disposition is the thing that's going to make me lean towards you. And, you know, Bass Reeves got rejected by the entire industry three times before it came to fruition. I put on the weight I needed to play Dr. King twice

and had to then drop the weight because the film didn't go. So, you know, those are all moments where you could have gone, you know what, I just can't do this anymore. That's what it takes. It's tenacity. I love that. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.

When you talk about, and you've said this a few times that the things that you produce are gifts to your younger self. I think about that in terms of, what you said about representation, how different it was in your class at Lambda versus how it is for your son. I think about what it means to get to see yourself and to know that your younger self is seen in the work you do. And now I think about how that tenacity, that self-assuredness in a way has to be a gift to him too.

Yes. To know that that thing you were convinced us. of when you were young and didn't have the proof, but had the feeling, is true. Yeah. I would say that's cultural. The gift of that, I think, came from having about seven years in my youth where we moved back to Nigeria. And just to be in an environment where your marginalization, your unnormalization is not prevalent, where you go, oh, everyone looks like me. Every opportunity on offer in this society is mine for the taking.

And to have that be something you're around enough for it to become internalized mentally, even though I now find myself back in the UK, now in America, in environments where that is not necessarily the case being a black man but I felt it in my body enough I have muscle memory I have muscle memory of what it feels like to walk into rooms and not have to explain my existence or apologize for my existence and then what starts to happen or what happened for me is that that disposition started being rewarded with people leaning towards you because you know there's a phrase I use often which is people treat your home the way you you treat it. And people treat you the way you treat yourself to a certain degree. And it's a quality

that I recognize hugely with Sydney Poitier, for instance. You know, there's no way he's achieving what he achieved when he did, considering the levels of racial discrimination that were going on in this country at that time. If he's not in a disposition that defies expectation, which has people kind of going, okay, I guess we'll give it to you. Yeah. And I think there is a degree of that. The way you move through the world. I mean, it's a generalization to a certain extent, but it's my lived experience. So it is specific to me that I know those years living in Nigeria were formative for me. And I will say this. It's something that, you know, you have to be careful about from a generalization standpoint. But slavery in this country, one of the things that it set out to do is to destroy the agency, the power, the self-esteem of black people.

It didn't succeed in doing those things, not totally, but it certainly stymied those things. And that is an active, it is an active means of engendering supremacy. You know, the way you achieve supremacy is for everything you do to suggest that you are supreme over the person you want to subjugate. And so you have that disposition of supremacy and then you subject the person. person you're oppressing to feeling lesser than. And that's the way you gain control. And we see it even till this very day. The things that are being attacked currently in this culture is all about a certain section of society feeling like it has power and supremacy over another. I don't care how you reframe it, how you try to excuse it. That's what it is. Well, you can't reframe it or excuse it

because it's simply true. When you see a decorated general get fired and replaced with an alcoholic from Fox News, like, what are we talking about? Right. Just what are we talking about? But there's very, very clever language that gets used to excuse those things. There are very clever qualifiers. And systems of oppression are becoming more and more sophisticated.

Yes. And you see that with slavery migrating into the prison industrial complex. Yep. You know, so it's different phraseology. You're not a slave. You're a sharecropper. You know, and these are all things to be mindful of because the central thought is the same. And when you really think about the fact that for all of,

It requires kind of a both and, right? Like a willingness to hold dialectics that many things can be true at the same time. And I think about what for me is sort of the seesaw of America, which is some of the most exquisite ideals of any nation in the world that we have often failed to achieve and some of the most horrific acts done in the building of a nation with really incredible ideals, but that sought them out. at the time it was founded for very few people, certainly not you and certainly not me.

And when you see the kind of cyclical violence of white supremacy, you see the cyclical violence of patriarchy, it is not lost on me that when you talk about what a different world your son is experiencing, what a different world I experience as a woman and a woman who is a CEO of my life and all of the things, the difference in my life to my mothers, the extreme difference in my life to my grandmother's,

my grandmother who was born in a stone farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in Italy with no running water and no electricity. Wow. And I think about how so much of what fueled the building of this country that was hidden, the history they didn't want to teach and they really don't want to teach now, is that we used bodies as fuel, largely black bodies. Yeah. And by happenstance, the harm done by the people doing that was also done to the women who look like me, who unfortunately have often cozied up to white supremacist patriarchy because they think it will protect them.

And I'm like, girly pops, it has nothing for you either. Run. Right. And what's fascinating to me is the backlash we see. the fact that you were no longer allowed to discriminate against the best applicant if that applicant were a woman if that applicant were a black man

and so on down the line no one wants to talk about the fact that the greatest recipients of DEI in America are white women it is not lost on me that just in a generation where we have certainly not achieved equity to 400 years of a power structure for white men

but where we've gotten to pretty decent places as other groups, the backlash is so crazy. Yeah. They want to eradicate diverse classes in colleges. They want to take away women's access to birth control and health care. And I just, I wonder to what end. Because I also look around and... I know they don't have it the hardest,

but I also know white men in this country are killing themselves at higher rates than anybody else. Right. So I'm like, well, clearly this isn't working for you either. I don't know. I don't know where we go or what we do necessarily when the backlash to even the illusion of more equitable power systems is so intense.

do you feel like you are on the outside of it as a man of color, but also on the inside of it as a man, as a patriarch? Do you kind of have to figure out how to hold all of these truths at the same time? Because you strike me. I know we don't know each other that well, but I do feel like we did the energetic, like, sparkly thing. And now we're connected in that way. Like, you strike me as a non-exam,

toxic man. Yes. You are, I think a wonderful father, a wonderful husband, you exemplify a really, what appears to be healthy, kind, patriarchal energy. I'm like, that's a good dad. Right. That's like my kind of guy. So like, how do you, I don't know, how do you wrestle with all of this stuff?

And also, how do you leave all this stuff at the door and just find joy in the way you talk about with your show? How do you do it all? It's challenging. I don't feel on the periphery of it. I feel very much in the center of it. But the thing I know to be true is that foundations are incredibly important. Foundations dictate what the building is, how strong it's going to be, how integrity

it's going to be, and whether anyone cares to admit it or not. The foundation, the building blocks of America, are pretty gnarly. You stole a country and then stole the people to build that country. And that's foundational, regardless of the tenets and the philosophies that came after that, some of which are incredibly beautiful around equity. around how to build a society but if the foundation is so compromised if in the soil

is murder and pillage and rape and all of these things that are also foundational to the creation of this country whether people care to admit it or not which again is why the history is being obfuscated

then the only way to offset that truth is repentance. Yeah. Is to go, whoa, I didn't commit those things, but my forefathers who we are lionizing in this country and celebrating and therefore suggesting that they were above reproach did perpetuate these things. And then there are descendants of people who are alive today who are the victims of what those

forefathers perpetuated. At some point, there has to be some kind of acceptance of the fact that what we all get to enjoy is built on an incredibly questionable foundation. And the only way you can move forward from that in a healthy way is the acceptance of that, the repentance on behalf of your forefathers for that, in order that you can have a chance to move forward, Better than that was. And now for our sponsors. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. Sophia Bush is here.

Tell me how that feels to be a hot, considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny? When you're actually more fluid with your sexuality, the swing goes from nobody gives a shit who you're sleeping with to you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls?

I've been kissing on camera. Hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen, these are the times, right? We've had like the most hopeful and happy sections of the discussion, and we have to have the heavy and the real because that's life. Yeah.

As you try to balance all of it for yourself, and you mentioned earlier, to be in joy in the work that you make. You have it with your family. How do you do it? How do you balance? Are there practices you have, not just as, you know, David the performer,

but as David the man, what are your practices for keeping your sort of sphere, space, joyful? Well, I count my blessings. and and um you know uh a huge part of that is my wife my kids my health uh i get to do for work that which i love and would probably do for free don't tell apple um and never never for free a raise in season two um but it's it's that It's that. It's counting my blessings. My faith is a huge component of my life personally.

But, you know, my wife and I have a two-week rule. We're never apart for more than two weeks. I love that you do that. Yeah. So no matter where I am in the world. Like we recently, so she had to be in Hawaii for a retreat. And then I was going to Qatar to set up a film. And then I had to be in. London and this meant that we were going to go over by 14 hours no 14 days no we weren't going to go over we were going to be apart for 14 days in like six hours or something like that and it was the the assistant's phones blown up right okay so I am going to I have to take her to the airport at this time that you have to change my flight because we can't oh

No, we're still at an hour over. We're still at an hour and a half over. No, because we went over by 11 hours once. And I can't do it. It's for me, like a once I commit to something, that is it. And, you know, I've been married 26 years now. So it's working. It's working.

But honestly, it is, it can sound a little cheesy. It can even sound like it's work. but love is something you work at. Yes. And when I talk about counting your blessings, it's going, I have someone, I want to be back in proximity of no, like, 40. Yeah, no more than 14 days.

I'm already in trouble after like two days with my life. So the point being, and we worked it out, and we were well within the 14 days at the end of the day. But it's the small things actually, you know. But what that says to me is also, It's promises made, promises kept. Yes. Love is something you work at.

Yeah. And I think if you wake up in your life and you realize you, quote, have love that no one's working at. Yeah. Then you don't have love. Right. Then you have a business partner or a roommate or whatever. Right. And so even the fact that after 26 years, you two are like, hold on, six hours too many.

For me, I'm tickled by that. Right. Because what it is to me is that the promise is so important. Yeah. It's not just the rhythm you keep. It's that you commit to keeping the rhythm. Correct. It's beautiful.

Right. Thank you. Thank you. And I have kids who are healthy and who love mommy and daddy and like being in proximity of them. You know, I've seen what I've been around great wealth. I've been around great fame. I've been around the things that people truly seem to have.

or aspire to, I'm telling you right now, for anyone listening who thinks that there is something out there in those realms that is going to transcend, if you have someone you like curling up on a couch with and you have food in your stomach and you are happy and keen to be in proximity of people who may be your kids, maybe your spouse, maybe your family, maybe your friend, and the notion of not having to talk to each other and yet be comfortable around each other is yours, you have heaven on earth.

Because you're not having to work to be safe, to feel loved, to love, to touch, to you know all of those things nothing there is no place i've been to so many places in the world there's no place i feel more like i'm i'm in a heaven on earth situation than curled up on my couch with my kids with my wife maybe watching movie maybe we're just all laughing each other whatever it is that's as good as it gets here on earth guys it's that's as good as it gets and it's not to do with the couch it's not to do with the movie it's due with the people And that you want to be in proximity of those people.

And so those are the blessings I count amongst other things. And that's where my joy comes from. And the reality is those things are finite. You know, I've lost both my parents. I know that these things are finite. And so every day you have them, they are to be embraced with a veracity that is just, you know, every ounce of energy within you. That's beautiful. And it's a lovely reminder to focus on the right things.

It seems that you're so practiced at it. That's a muscle that you work, that gratitude. Does it feel like something that will always be your work in progress? Or is that something else? Is it a project, an idea? It will always be a work in progress because you don't know what's going to come along to upend it. You know, when I lost my mom, that took my piece for years. You know, she had a brain aneurysm and she was in a vegetative state for three years and I'm the eldest son and I felt

the need to sort of look after my brothers and my dad and I didn't do grieving particularly healthily. I sort of tried to push it away. And so, So I am still a work in progress when it comes to that. Just forgiving myself for things that I probably don't need to forgive myself for in relation to my, oh gosh, maybe I should have been there to make sure she was taking the high blood pressure medicine and all the things, you know, that are tied to love. You know, how much you miss someone is relative to how much you loved them. Yeah. So that's kind of healthy, but also if you're, if you're crippled by that feeling, that's unhealthy. So that's a work in progress. All of it is a work in progress. I think that's the gift of life. I think, you know, you're given this project, which is your life. And, you know, you're, I'm never going to be the totality of the actor I aspire to be or the father I aspire to be or the husband that I aspire to be or the human being because fallibility is what. is by definition what makes you a human being. But the journey of that is where the excitement lies

and the days where, oh gosh, I think I was a pretty good father today. And then most days, oh, gosh, I didn't think I was a very good dad today. You know, so I, to be alive is to be in a work in progress circumstance. And I like being alive. So being being being being a work in progress is indicative that we're still here. I love it. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and heart with us again today. Thank you.

I always love speaking to you. Me too. This is an IHeart podcast.