Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Lamorne Morris: Breaking Barriers, Life Coaching & Different Shades of Black

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

Lamorne Morris (New Girl, Call Me Kat, Woke, Sandy Wexler, Barbershop 3, Game Night, BET personality) details how growing up in the southside of Chicago shaped his approach to navigating through equality roadblocks and the invisible entertainment gatekeeper. He and Mayim discuss how learning the history of one’s culture provides empowerment and why the media’s portrayal of marginalized communities matters. Lamorne breaks down how last year’s civil rights protests impacted his mental health, the benefits of life coaching, how he found motivation to succeed in Hollywood through defiance, his experiences playing "Winston Bishop" on New Girl and working with Mayim on the set of Call Me Kat. BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I remember when Damon came on, New Girl. It's just the most ignorant comments I would get from reporters. Now that Damon's coming back, does that mean you're going to leave? I swear to God. Because we can only have one black man on at a time. And at one point, Jake Johnson, we were drinking on a red car. It was like Golden Globes or something. And then Jake finally goes, Jake goes, that's a dog shit question.

He just goes, you gotta do a better job of what you do, man. Hi, I'm Biolic, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. It's my and be all this breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. So break it down.

Very nice to be here. We have a really exciting guest today. It is Lamorne Morris. You may recognize him from New Girl, which he was on for, I think, seven seasons. He also was on Call Me Cat. as Daniel, that's Kyla Pratt's character's boyfriend throughout the first season of Call Me Cat. He has a new show called Woke. We're going to be breaking down, well, LeMorne is going to be breaking down kind of mental health as a black man, I would say, in America.

I'm going to check in with my favorite new girl, Jonathan Cohen. Hi, I'm. It's a good one. I like my intro. Would you say that LeMorne kind of helps us break down mental health as a black man? I mean, he doesn't speak for all black men, nor would I expect him to. He definitely doesn't. You two touch on race and identity. You talk about, well, you talk about his experience being an actor in this industry and the lack of access to a lot of services and opportunities in the industry, but also you touch on Black Lives Matter and he's extremely eloquent. I take a backseat to this one, but you

two are really, have a really great conversation. Well, we actually, we, why I think it's especially special for our podcast here is that he really is talking about image, you know, and how it impacts how you see yourself, how you hold yourself, and then how you enter into relationships with other people. We do focus a lot on work and the workplace. Really is a lovely conversation, which I think people will really enjoy. You get to a place where you're talking about feeling seen and having a shared experience when you get later into the conversation around work. And I think that has a lot of relevance in mental health.

Even outside of race and identity, the notion of having a shared experience and being able to feel seen and that something that feels very weird to you, that you can look over to another person and not feel isolated or on an island by yourself, I think a lot of people will be able to relate to no matter what their background. Before I introduce Lamorne, I do want to acknowledge that Jonathan is a big fan of his. aren't you, Jonathan? Big fan. I don't try to fanboy out with most guests, but I loved his character on New Girl. Yes. Look, it's like you light up

when you talk about Lamor and Morris on New Girl. Because there's a freedom. And actually, it was interesting to hear him talk about what that process was that, like, writers would literally pitch him gags for the week. Number one, that would be my dream job, just coming up with lists of crazy things to make him do every week on a TV show.

And then two, to let know that there was that level of improv going into that show made me really happy because you know, I'm all buttoned up in this environment, but I like to be silly. Well, and his character is very silly, and also he's an alum

of not only a fancy theater department at a fancy college, but he's a second city alum. So he's an actual proper, trained, very, very skilled, trained improv actor. We're going to start improv classes, even though you hate improv, I think you and I should do it together. Our life is impromed.

prov. So I don't need to take a class with you and do that. Well, that's the first sign is yes and instead of no, but we'll work on it. Lamorne plays the, I don't know how to pronounce this word, titular, titular, title, tit, tit, he plays the lead in the live action animated Hulu series, Woke, inspired by the life and art of cartoonist Keith Knight. Very, very interesting show. That's on Hulu, if you want to see that. he's best known for playing fan favorite Winston on Fox's comedy New Girl. That's the one with Zoe Deschannel and Max Greenfield and Jake Johnson. He also was one of BET's most visible and funny on-air personalities. I believe he got his start, actually, on BET.

I wanted to ask him about that, but I forgot. He's done a ton of other guest spots, and he played opposite Adam Sandler in Sandy Wexler. He can be seen opposite Ice Cube in Barbershop 3. actually has a funny story about that. That's the next cut. And also in Game Night, where he worked opposite Jason Bateman, most recently, this is what his bio says, most recently he appeared on Call Me Cat. I think we could do better, Lamorne's publicists.

He played a very, very cool role. He was in a bunch of episodes. We loved having him on. He also has a podcast. He has a podcast, which he'll talk about. But he also is the owner of one of these heart of a champion, Kevin Hart Babies. Let's see if we can get him to... And Mayam is holding up a gold baby with a goatee and a plastic egg,

for those of you listening in audio. Let's see if we can get Lamorne to show off his heart of a champion statue. Lemorn. Break it down. How come his is sitting up? I mean, if this isn't the way to say, welcome to Lamorne, welcome. Hello, thanks for having me. Welcome to our breakdown.

Really, really nice to have you here and really nice to get to connect with you this way. Jonathan and I are very excited to talk to you. Let's just get right to it. We're big sports fans, specifically of the basketball variety. And I understand you are also, we've never talked about this on set. But I didn't realize you're such a fan. Wait, you're a huge basketball fan as well. I mean, I was raised a Knicks fan, which is a hard thing to be.

Unless you were alive in the 90s. I was. But you were probably much younger than I was. I wouldn't say maids roughly. No, I, you flatter. me, but we're not. Yeah, I grew up a Knicks fan. My parents are from the Bronx, so I grew up a proper Yankees fan, not just because they were trendy, and I grew up a Knicks fan, and the Knicks were a tremendously exciting team to follow in the 90s. You know, I was raised on Patrick Ewing and

John Starks and Anthony Mason. Like, I had a wonderful life, and then they started losing and they couldn't stop. But I root for the Warriors now because that's my kids team. Because we're Bay Area. I just want to rewind for a second. I love how you left out the part about Michael Jordan. You know what?

He got plenty of attention in the 90s. I'm from Chicago. Okay. I know you're a Knicks fan. Okay. Okay. We own Madison Squins. Goes without saying that there were many many rough years

between my nicks and your Bulls. But also, Jonathan and I watched, obviously, the last dance. I wept every episode. I mean, that era was so important to me and to so many. I apologize for not acknowledging your Chaitown roots. This revisionist history of yours. And you're a White Sox fan, correct, in addition to being a Bulls fan? White Sox fan.

And that's literally just because of from Chicago. Right. And I have, you know, Cubs or the socks. I mean, they got two teams. Like, let's not be greedy, but y'all have two teams. We have two teams. And my first television commercial was a White Sox commercial. So I had to root for, you know, I had to root for my guys.

And they won the World Series that year. Wow. You're welcome, Chicago. Not to get off topic from sports, but because you brought up commercials, we do have to address the Canadian elephant in the room, which is that you are the face of banking. of Montreal. Jonathan's Canadian.

Which is a deep cut for a lot of people here, but our Canadian audience, who I'm representing, you are like a national treasure. What? I sure am. He's holding up a Bank of Montreal portrait for people listening in audio. A blue suit, kind of blew all over. This man is literally a Canadian icon. I'm a Canadian hero.

That's what they say. I just had to do a little ditty on the Juno Awards. if you guys are familiar with the Juno Awards. It's like the Canadian Grammys. I'm a native. So that's how I know this. As part of that contract, do they make you spend a certain number of days in Canada?

Like you can't leave us for too long without sort of plugging back in? No, I kind of wish, though. I like Canada. I do like Canada. I'd like to be paid to be in nice places. Michael Jordan aside. Let's go back to Young Lemorn.

You're from Chicago, which is technically the Midwest, but it really is a city. It's a big city. It's a big city. Tell us a little bit about kind of what you were born into. Tell us about if you want to talk about your folks. You have a brother. What was young Lamorne like? Well, Chicago, Chicago was where I'm from.

I was born the south side of Chicago, south side of the city. Jackson Park Hospital. Shout out to the doctors there who did such a great job of bringing me out of the boom. And, you know, I, let's say, I moved around a little bit when I was a kid. So it was South Side of Chicago. Then it was, you know, the Western Burbs. Then it was back to South Side of Chicago. So my whole childhood was pretty much in that type of environment. Now, South Side of Chicago, it's not necessarily what the news portrays it to be, but it's in that ballpark. Let's say someone listening has no idea what it means when you say you're from the

South Side of Chicago. So outside Chicago was quite a dangerous environment in certain areas of it, in certain pockets of it. A lot of gang violence, stuff like that, drugs. Again, my neighbors were, you know, on drugs. It was like crack. It called crack houses. It was crack houses all in the block. So there's certain houses when we would play as kids we would have to avoid and go around.

And, you know, occasionally you get approached for opportunities of employment, you know what I mean, as a young kid. But, you know, my mom did a great job of keeping that away from us as much as she could. She worked a lot of hours. So that was a little difficult for her to do. But like I said, she did a great job of keeping us surrounded by good people, good family members and stuff. So my father, when I was younger, was a drug dealer and at some point was on the stuff, you know. I don't want to expand too much on that. Sure.

He, we kind of, my mom did the best she could. She navigated us out of that scenario as well. And, you know, my dad's clean now. He lives in Belize. But that was, that was how I, that was kind of how I grew up. I have three siblings, all older. I'm the youngest and the cutest. And my brother, I have a brother, he's two years older than me.

He lives here with me. We live in L.A. together. and then my older two, they're out in Chicago. So that was kind of the, that's the basics. Those are the basics of, you know, how I grew up. So your mom worked for the Postal Service, is that correct? Yep, yep. For, I want to say almost 40 years.

Oh my gosh. God bless her. Was she creative? Was your dad creative? Were any of your siblings into the arts? I understand you were kind of a bit of a class clown and honestly being the younger of four, I mean, that you're the youngest of four, I can imagine. that gets you far.

But yeah, were you creative as a child? Yeah, was it something around you? Yeah, I think so. My mom, I learned at an early age that my mom was just as silly as I was. And my mom, like, she would pinch me in church. Whenever I was, like, making fun of the preacher. I would mock. This is what we did.

You know, the preacher sometimes his suit would match his socks, which would match his Rolex. which matches the brims of his glasses, which would match the color of the diamond in his tooth. I don't know. He was very coordinated individual. So I would mock him and do all of his isms and things like that. And my mom would like pinch the side of my leg, go, stop it, stop it, stop it.

And I would go, what? Like it's funny. And then like an older lady would look at her and go, well, you were the same way when you were his age. And so it's like, oh, this is my green light. my green light. Every time my mom would tell me to calm down from acting up or misbehaving, I would go, you did it too. So my mom then started to just say, okay, you know what, you're going to be this way. So here you go, you know. And my mom used to act in high school. She wanted to be an actor. She's a poet. She writes poetry. She's a very creative person, a very creative individual at church. I know she does a lot of the,

She handles a lot of the decorations and the programs for all the Ladies' Day things and all the festivities and the group outings. And she's always the one to kind of have her stamp on some of the more talent-based activities that they do. And she enjoys it. She always says she wants to play my younger sister in a movie. So whenever I get that opportunity to make my own movie, my mom, you're going to be right there as my younger sister. And what about your dad? Did he have a creative side? I think so.

You know, there is a, there was a, I remember one time coming home from, I don't know where I was, but I was really small. It was probably like, I remember I was walking in the house and my winter coat on and seeing my dad and his friends in the living room. And I just remember the floor was covered in bags of white stuff. let's just just say him and his friends were you know doing what they were doing and and he looks single it's going to be a white Christmas this year and I did not know what that meant and uh I know now definitely know now so yeah I mean he could be in fact I would tell you this I remember we were really small and it was me and my old my brother who's two years older than I and I would always pick on him

And like, I would like, I don't know why I did this. Until this day, I feel so bad about it. I would tap them in the balls. I would start him in the balls and then run. I don't know why I did that. I did it to my cousins, but my cousins didn't let me get away with it. It would chase me and then they would do it back to me. And my brother, I would do it.

He was like, stop, you're always being stupid, being weird. What are you doing? And my dad goes, it's okay. He's the clown in the family. He can do that. And I just, that was the one thing that I remember him saying as a kid. and that stuck with me and that resonated with me as well. So creative side, I'm not 100% sure.

He's very athletic guy. Right now he's one of the trainers and coaches for the Belize National Track Team and their national soccer team. Yeah, so he's a very athletic individual. Creative, I'm not 100% sure how funny or silly he ever was. But that white Christmas joke, that's a keeper. That was a pretty good one. It was a pretty good one.

I call you you kinds of actors classically trained. You actually studied the craft. as it were. I studied, yes. Were you professionally acting before that, or it was really after college? It was after college. When I was a high school, I mean, unless you want to say taking high school classes, is training.

No. Well, I was training, but not kind of professionally. Like, I have an agent and I'm going to get into commercials and things. Yeah. No, as soon as I left high school, I started that process. And I started literally from ground zero. I said, how do I get on a television show or a movie? I started asking these questions, sometimes to random people.

Someone said, oh, you should go and be an extra in something. I said, that's what I'm going to do. And I remember there was a movie Barbershop that was in town. I love that movie. Yep, the first Barbershop. I remember going and waiting in the longest line in history just to become an extra. And I remember the casting director saying, after I went in, she had a conversation with me and we were talking,

And she goes, you know, you're a very charming young man. You know, I'm going to see you in the movie. Wow. And I went, wow, I'm going to be in barbershop, right? Never got that call. Snake. Fast forward, I am in the third barbershop movie. That's right.

It took a minute. It worked out somehow. So let's kind of go back to sort of, you know, this notion you had that like this is what I want to do. Because I'm going to tell a little story that is not your story. and it's different than your story, but there's some similar elements and I'm curious how you navigated them. I was in school plays,

and I started professionally acting when I was 11 and a half because I heard that kids do that. You know, I mean, like, obviously, I watched television, and this was 1986. So at that time, there was something called

the All-American look for what kids were supposed, I know, it's funny, that there was even a notion that that would come down in character, breakdowns. We're looking for an all-American kid. And I did not get sent for those auditions because I looked pretty similar to what I do now, except that my body was smaller, which means my head looked very, very large. But, you know, growing up, I saw what the image of America was

on television. You know, it was white people with blonde hair and blue eyes and small features and kind of a permanent smile. You know, these were very congenial children. And I, I, I knew I wasn't that. You know, I didn't look like that. And I was, you know, teased my whole life as unusual-looking children are or anyone who's kind of outside of what people expect. And I also knew I didn't have that, like, shiny disposition of those Hollywood kids who had been acting since there too, you know, which is essentially who I ended up kind of going up against for auditions. Jason Bateman. Correct.

Well, and like, you know, my first audition. My first audition. Just call them up. My first audition was for full house, for the older sister. on Full House. Now, I didn't get that for many reasons because it was my first audition and I was rushing and I, you know, talk like a small New Yorker.

But mostly I think about, I don't think they could have cast a family around this face, you know? Like, that's not easy to do. It's like you got to go deep into the, you know, the woods of Long Island to find... To find... San Francisco, they were going to do a reboot

based in the Bronx. That's right. If they do the one in the Bronx, I think we could find a family for me. But I'm wondering for you, and again, not comparing my situation, I have white privilege, I'm not, you know, trying to say that I don't, but I do want to know about this notion of like, when you grow up and you don't really see people that either look like you, act like you, or are telling your stories, what does it feel like? You know, did you feel like, oh my gosh, this is going to be hard, or I want to destroy this world and create a new one? Like, what did it feel like? Originally, it didn't feel like

anything because that was the structure. The structure was this is not for you. So you don't, you don't even consider it an option. You consider it basketball. And this is a real thing. In those environments, you consider selling drugs or playing ball. Yep. Becoming a rapper. Like, that's what we saw. So, you know, those are our celebrities. Those are our heroes. I grew up playing basketball. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to play basketball. So you then start to realize you have this other talent, this other thing that you really want to express and really want to do. So you do watch television and you go, there was a black person in an episode once, you know, of my favorite show or family matters is a thing.

Yeah. You know, so you start to put it together and go, wait a minute, there is an avenue for me. However, it's so rare that you don't even know where to begin, that even those folks on television start to seem fake and not real. It's TV. None of it's real. Like, you guys are grown in a farm, and you're owned by some rich old person

who's going to put you on television, and I can't get into this club. So, again, that's why I go back to saying, I didn't know how to begin, and I didn't know where to start. So I just started asking questions and said, I'm going to tackle it on a very macro level. How do I move from one step to the next?

And it felt impossible. Still to this day, there are times, you know, there are projects that I want to do or things that I want to achieve. And I just, there still feels like some invisible gatekeeper, these crazy weird metrics that don't apply to me. So the way I navigated it is I, and the way I currently navigate it is one step out of time. And now it's becoming more of a defiant thing. It's become more of a, well, what do you mean? I can't do that. Well, I have some resources I'm going to do it by myself then.

You know, I'm going to break down these walls and these barriers. It's a slow process, but if there's something you want to do, you definitely tackle it. So as a kid, when I tell you, you don't see folks that look like you. Initially, it doesn't feel bad because you just, it doesn't feel like that's what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. My MBialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine. Drink more water.

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And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. I want to push you a little more on this point because it's a conversation that's also been happening in this country, rightfully so. You know, this is not news to many people that there is systemic racism, injustice and oppression. And really an ignorance of. of communities of color and in many cases a blatant and obscene disregard for those stories and that process.

I was raised by civil rights activists in case you couldn't tell already. But, you know, the notion that we've had this kind of awakening and, you know, as I describe it, when people are like, you know, when I've gone on talk shows or done publicity, you know, for Call Me Cat, you know. How was COVID for you? Like, how's it going? And I was like, well, Black Lives Matter happened. Like that was a huge part is that we had front row seats from our living room to the country being brought to its knees. That's how it was, you know.

That was a huge component of what this year has been for our collective consciousness. So the rhetoric that I've been hearing my whole life, and I'm sure you've heard it your whole life, is like, I don't get it. Like, why is that a thing? Why can't people get over it? And so I'd like you to speak a little bit to kind of what it's like to say, these are the options that were evasive. to me with, you know, like, what is that avenue out? Can you speak to that a little bit more? Right. So we, we form all of our, a lot of how we form our opinions is based in media and it's based on television. And it's, it gives a person in the deep south who has a racist gene in their

body, a reason to be this way. They watch TV and they see how we're portrayed in television, you know, even going back to the minstrel show days to how, how we are portrayed now. And it gives them this very one-sided opinion of who we are. And then it becomes a mass thing where it forms this ignorance like you're speaking about. Like, I don't get it. Well, you're not going to get it when television tells you one side of, most of the time, not even an accurate side of the story. So again, when you go back to representation in television, to hear about these stories of, you know, marginalized communities of, you know, how black folks are living in certain ways, are Asian are living over here, how Spanish folks are living in these impoverished neighborhoods,

and we're not allowed to tell our stories, people can't see the humanity in us. You know, people can't see it. So then when you cut to modern day and you cut to like real life currently and someone says, well, my kid is not getting the proper education and not being told the right things about their history, well, this is American history. So maybe we should be only speaking about it like this. And it's like, well, he's always going to be at a disadvantage based on the information that you're pushing my kid to understand. And then when they get older, they're a little further behind.

And so then that's when people look back and go, well, we've been given the same opportunities. And it's like, no, you have not. You have not been given the same opportunities. And no one's fighting to get ahead. We're fighting to be equal. And it's not like we're trying to. it's like we're trying to take over the world and destroy things. We're just, we're merely saying, hey, you've been given a leg up thus far.

You know, this goes all the way back to loans being given like post-slavery to white communities and not been given to black folks. Right. When you have a group of folks who don't have education, who don't, who is illegal for us to have an education. It's illegal for us to know how to read. And then you put on the street and says, go fend for yourself. for yourselves in this unfamiliar land that you live in. And the other folks are giving a leg up.

And the other folks are given the grants and the federal funding to go and build these communities and these establishments. And then when we try, black Wall Street happens. There are all these roadblocks that folks like to ignore. There's all these roadblocks that folks don't like talking about. So here we are. And I say to those folks who would make those comments like you said, that would say, hey, why don't you, you know, we've been given the exact same opportunities.

I will say to those folks like, hey man, cut your legs off and then try to play me in a game on one-on-one. Do it. Just do it. Just see how it works out for you. You know what I mean? We've been cut off at the needs and we're just looking for a leg up. And I think one of the most powerful things also, which I think ties into, you know, our craft,

as it were, is the notion and, you know, it's something that that most of us as part of a standard education don't learn is that Africa is a wide and varied and beautiful continent. And to take people from different cultures, even within that continent, and to bring them to this country, there's a narrative. There's a cultural narrative that is disrupted when you put people together who do not have the ability to even build that shared narrative. So you literally have a starting from the ground up, also in a situation of literal slavery. So you're trying to build a culture. You're trying to build a combined culture.

And so what you see is you see art, you see music, you see poetry, you know, you see a communal reckoning by a group of people who did not come from necessarily the same narrative. And that's something that so many people don't realize, that is, critically important to the development of the confidence of a people and of the love of being part of. And it is it is not possible to be part of when you're constantly being told you're not. Or when you're constantly being told the only history you have is when we owned you. And we've given you this freedom. You've been you've been so blessed. Like you know, we made you.

Essentially that's the narrative that's being told to kids. When I was growing up, I knew that's the narrative was. It was, what is Africa? Africa's, like, all you hear is Africa's a place where savages are running around and everyone's scared and everyone's like, oh, you know, that's where King Kong lives, you know. So, but you, you tell these folks sometimes that a kid, a kid who only knows a very limited part of their history will be a very limited individual. When you grow up knowing that you come from a group of folks that are beautiful, that kings and queens existed in our history in Africa. There's entire civilizations of folks.

We had ships. We were sailing all over the world. What is it? Is it a rumble in the jungle? And I think it's Foreman who says, they got a black pilot on this plane. He's like, where I come from, we barely can drink from the same water fountain.

There's a black man flying this plane. It's like such a great moment. It's crazy to me. It's crazy to me. And I think me and my sister had a conversation about this the other day about how we were talking about the discrepancy and pay for women and for black folks and for different people who aren't like white males. And it was like, you know, we were talking about how I could be number one on the call sheet on my show. And a friend who is on another show could be number five. on the call sheet, they make three times as much as I do.

And my show could be going into a second season. And their show is on the first season. And it's like, well, how does that work? You know, so we were just having these conversations about, she said, well, sometimes you got to have a white man's energy. You kind of walk in a room and say, it's already mine. You know, you got to just do it. You just got to have this privilege about you and just, this is what we were having

this conversation. And I was like, that doesn't, at first I was kind of like, no, you kind of work and do this and do that. And I just thought we're coming from this energy that we should be grateful to be here. We should be, we should, and everyone should be grateful to have life. I think life is beautiful, we all should embrace it.

But I mean, in this, like on, like in this, to share the same space with folks. Like, you know, we're too apologetic at times for being ourselves. Yeah, that leads to kind of my next question. And I watched, this is gonna sound like a real hoot in my house, my boys and I watched the crack documentary on Netflix, which is a really, really, really phenomenal documentary, though.

And one of the things that it talked about was sort of, you know, it talked about boys in the hood. It talked about an aspect of black life in certain neighborhoods that has been shared. And I wonder if you're, I wonder if you have any notion of which stories should and shouldn't be told, like from your perspective, right? Like, if we want to show all aspects of any particular experience, is there a place for that?

Like, where do you feel you're at now in terms of what you would like to put out there? I think that's up to the creator. And I think a lot of times we will tell other folks how they should put their stuff out to make us feel better. You know, it's like, well, you know, art is art, right? And if you want to share this, if a rapper wants to talk about how they grew up, like, why should I censor that? Now, you know, you can put a label on it and says maybe kids shouldn't listen to this until they're a certain age. I don't know. You know, like going back to the whole NWA CDs and tapes when they would like burn them and roll over them with steamrollers in the middle of the street.

But I feel like that was true to those individuals. That helped a lot. That went real well. Oh, yeah. 100%. Like, we're going to stop you by breaking these CDs. It's like cut to biggest group of all time. So, yeah, I just feel like that's up to the creator.

Me, myself personally, I love when people share their stories. I don't like one-sided viewpoints. Right. That's all. You know what I mean? I'm on a show right now. I want a show right now on Hulu called Woke. I was going to ask you about it, yes.

Yeah. And part of the idea of our show is on the surface, people think it's about a guy who got, you know, kind of roughed up by the police and stop police brutality and all this stuff. That's just a kind of a surface level angle of the show. But when you watch the show, it's really about the different shades of black culturally, you know, and different shades of just people. And it doesn't mean, you know, what it means to be walking that line, where the stereotype is that black people are mad and black people are angry.

That's it. where it's like, well, some of us are. Some of us are not angry. Some of us are very conservative. Some of us are far left. Some of us don't let politics play any, you know, hand in their lives. And that's fine because that's what it means to be human. And our show talks about the microaggressions that happen, you know,

the things that, it's something that was interesting that would happen during the, you know, the protests and the Black Lives Matter movement and all the in LA, all the, the protests and things that are happening in the street all over the world, really. And I would get a lot of messages from friends that I haven't heard from in like a long time. Like I'm talking like years. What were they saying? Hey, just checking on you and making sure you're okay. And like, what do you think we need to do to fix this? I'd be like, We didn't start this shit. Why, I got to fix it.

I'm just trying to go to the mall and buy some shoes. I just, you know, but now they're free apparently. So, thank you. This window was cracked when I got here. I will be taking these headphones. Lamarne, stop it. Well, it's funny. No, it's funny you brought that up because, so you and I work together on Call Me Cat.

And we really, really enjoyed having you with us and hope that... Can I just say you're one of the greatest performers of all times? Oh my gosh. Stop! That's so awkward! I'm sorry, I'm going to do it. My first day on set, I think you were dancing, singing, playing the piano, acting, telling jokes, not telling jokes. I was like, Jesus.

Okay. I said, oh, my God. She was doing a talent show every episode. I was like... And then in the break room, she was like... She's teaching a neuroscience class on Zoom and then coming back to set. Oh my God.

When I first watched it, when I first started watching your podcast, I was like, how, what is she? What? I got to Google everything she's saying. This woman. Well, that is very kind. I like to say that Call Me Cat is like

if my mom when I was 11 could have designed a TV show for me because my mom would have been like, she sings, she dances, she's cute like this. Look at her calves. She's so cute. Like, that's what this show feels like. But let's get back.

to not talking about me. Sorry. Sorry. So our show obviously started before COVID. You know, we were gearing up to start working. And, you know, I had only met our cast. We had only met at casting sessions. Yeah. And I remember, you know, we were grounded, you know,

and we're having this quarantine. And it's funny because when all the protests started hitting, you know, really all over this country, I felt really awkward and I didn't do that I didn't say like how can we fix it but I remember you know we have two cast members

two of our regulars Kyla Pratt and Julian Gant and I reached out to them I mean we had been talking about other things it wasn't like the first time but I said this it feels really awkward not to reach out to you

and say hello right now and I don't know if this is the right thing and I'm totally just going to take a risk and just say hi, you know, and I hope you're well. And it was really, you know, it's hard because while I understand that people don't just want to be checked in on when the country's on fire, you know. Yeah, yeah. There was also this notion of like, we're in this together, whatever this existence is. And I happen to have been placed with two people who I know have a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts and a lot of experience, especially.

in the public eye as black people, you know? So I'm glad that I didn't say, what can we do to fix it? But it actually opened up some really nice conversations, you know? And I was just hoping that they don't think like, what the hell is that? Why? Why is she, you know? There's nothing wrong with checking in on folks and being like, hey, because it's very obvious what's happening. And it's probably affecting your cast members more than it's affecting you.

So you're like, hey, we, we're working. together. We have a, we work so much together, it's like we become a family. So you do have to check on, you do have to check on folks. But it was, you know, a lot of times for me, it was when the conversation would, for example, when it started happening, I wasn't shocked or surprised. No, most people weren't who were kind of paying attention for the last couple hundred years. I was like, this is what happens, right? Yep. You know, then it'll die down. Then it'll happen again 10 years later. Yep. It'll die down. It happened. I was like, we, we, this is history and it's just going to keep repeating itself.

And when I would have conversations with folks who want to get activated, they don't know how to, they do feel passionate about it. And for the first time, it's affecting their lives. But this is the life that I live. You know, these are the same streets that I walk down while black, the same aggressions that happen and microaggressions that happen while I'm black. So when someone checks on me and I just, and I have a very nonchaline attitude about it.

I'm like, yeah, man, it's crazy out there, dog. It's crazy out there. Anyway, you're trying to go eat or you... What? Man, you got to get out in these streets. You've got to... We've got to... We've got to get water and we've got to...

You've got to go do this. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can go protest. Cool, cool, go, cool, go. I can't tomorrow, though, but I will go today. And it's like, what? You got to go, hey, man, man, look, I get it. I appreciate that effort.

and that energy. You're right. We all should be protesting. We all should. But don't stop once the protest stop. That's right. You know what I mean? We can do more to be effective than just being in the streets, right?

We can. There are other things that we could be doing. There are a lot of grassroots projects that people can be, you know, organizations that people can be a part of. You know what I mean? There are a lot of charitable organizations you could donate to. Well, also, you can, there's a level of education also that most people don't don't seem to have about, first of all, about history.

Like, I'm a big fan of just like, have you read roots? Have you even, maybe watch it, you know? Yeah, just watch it. It's much easier. Like, what, like, but what's the history? And, like, you know, also, do you know who Langston Hughes is? Do you know who Frederick Douglass is? Do you really know who Harriet Tubman was, right?

Like, like, learn the history of people who, I mean, to me, that's just like, that's part of the education, I think, that everyone needs to be giving children. but I have a friend, she's a Jew of color. She's a black Jew. And, you know, all of a sudden, when, what did you say? Tiffany Haddish? No, it's not Tiffany Haddish. But, you know, all of a sudden people were asking her like, hey, can you come speak on this panel?

Can you come speak on this panel about like blacks and Jews? And she was kind of like, well, where were you all before? I've been here my whole life. Yeah. I've been here my whole life reading from the Torah and we're in a doo rag at night. Yeah. She's like, this has been my experience in my whole life. And, you know, and part of it makes me feel bad because, like, yes, finally, people want to know.

What's that like, you know? What are those identities like? And also, and I hope you don't mind me kind of, you know, twisting it a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about, either from your experience, you know, I'm not asking you to speak for all black people. That would be stupid. I am the delegated black person. No, but I do want you to speak to sort of, you know, if you think about the mental health impact, right, of what we're describing. And we talk about communities that forget about mental health resources.

We're talking about educational resources, nutritional resources, you know. But if you can just like turn your lens for a bit on sort of what your experience was in terms of, you know, where does mental health fit into it? Where does mental wellness fit into this? Is there time for that, you know? Is there space for it? And how does it feel different for you from your perspective as a black man? There's a notion in the black community that we don't talk to therapists. Like we know, as is something, we talk to God.

We don't, you know, Jesus is our therapist. That's how, that's kind of how you grow up and you don't really seek the advice of, you know, of other folks. That's family business, what we're doing, you know. If someone's a little mentally disturbed or all for being, you know, what's not normal. Then we go, oh, he's a little slow. Why is that? I mean, I have several theories, and I know there are academic theories, but can you speak to

what is that? I don't know. I just think a lot of times when you're a group of folks that are constantly having to band together to get basic rights, you keep everything that you have intact and you don't want to let white folks know what's going on. Because if a black person's autistic and a white person's autistic, the medical field and the science field will try to figure out what's going on with the white kid but the black kid in the black community we don't get that same attention you don't get it and so

and you're looked at as crazy if you speak a certain way or if you think a certain way you're looked at as crazy and so we try to protect our own by saying hey we don't keep that internal we're not going we're not going to let nobody come in here and tell us how we are and you know finagle and do all your weird voodoo science on us and do experiments, you know, like how our history has shown, you know, they have been doing, they have done experimentation on a lot of black folks. The Tuskegee experiment being, yeah, the Tuskegee experiment being the most prominent. And I think also that's, I just want to, I want to reinforce what you're saying, that kind of mistrust in the establishment, it is not easily eliminated.

It's not at all. Because when you've had any breach of trust, especially of medical trust, that becomes part of a generational trauma. I mean, it is. 100%. 100%. I mean, we're generations removed from it, you know, and who's the... I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm like, who's to say it's still not going on? Like, you don't...

Yeah. We don't know. That's why we're so... Sometimes we're kind of like, I don't know, you keep that over there. Yep. But those walls are kind of being broken down where... You know, we see therapists. We seek mental health.

When I was a kid, we had preachers that would come to our school and teach us about self-esteem. And a lot of times, black kids in these communities didn't have it. You know, we had to, like, chant this thing called pride. I forget how it goes. It's like we would say it every morning before school. We would say that we would do the Pledge of Allegiance and then, you know, And then we would do, we've got pride. How has to go?

P, personal growth and self-esteem. R, respect and dignity. I. Individualized expectations. D. I don't remember what D was. Determination. Excitement for learning.

And we were, yeah. And we were kids. We had to say this. We had to chant this over and over again. And then we'd have these speakers that would come in and let the kids know how worth it they were. And because you didn't see, like you, it goes to our earlier point, you didn't see it on television. And it forms the way you think going forward. You know, it forms, you know, I have to, my hair has to look a certain way or it has to be blonde. It has to be straight. And,

and, you know, my, I need contacts in my eyes to make my eyes look this color. And I, you know, I have to, you know, I just have to be this, I just have to speak a certain way in, in order to fit in and assimilate with, with a group of folks that don't like me. I think about this as a woman growing up in, you know, largely a patriarchal, you know, structure and society, but I think it's so significant that when you think about who you would go to for help, it's very difficult when you don't see yourself reflected in the people also who should be helping you, meaning, of course, I could go to a black therapist, and of course you could go to a white therapist, right? But especially for young people, when you're looking at who are these group of adults,

especially in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, not necessarily the best representation also of the best kind of help to get, just because our culture hadn't even moved past understanding that kids learn differently, you know? So I'm also thinking what that's like, you know, I'm thinking of a mom and her kid needs help and she walks into a place and everybody's white there, right? Or all the people that she has to confide in are white.

Of course, there may be people who understand her experience, But that's a huge impediment also. So you add that to mistrust and you have a really complicated, nuanced system of mistrust and fear. Oh, absolutely, 100%. It follows you deeper into your life than you realize. I now have a therapist, but I also have a life coach, which I didn't think was a real thing. Ooh, that's fancy. You know, a friend suggested it.

And it's been very helpful, you know. She has these three-hour sessions, so sometimes I can't do it. I just don't have a time. But, you know, she's very, very effective with me. And it's all about changing, taking the history of your life and the things that you've gone through. And legit writing down how they have affected you, trying to pinpoint all these moments in your life. You know, who you are emotionally as a person. A lot of times young men, we're eight years old still emotionally.

You know what I mean? Something happened when we were kids and how do we take that? How do we live in that space? Jonathan's 14, Lamarne. You're 14, you're okay, cool. I'm still working on graduating to nine years old right now. But it has taught me how to take the things that have happened to me as a kid. The way I grew up, what we see on TV, what I was told of how we should be and how we should

behave and how it's affected me thus far. where am I in terms of my peers and what do I need to do to break those chains? That's awesome. Yeah. I have to ask, is she black? No.

Am I allowed to ask? I don't know. I'm just curious. She's not black. And what's interesting about her is that we actually don't agree on a lot of things, especially politically. We just don't.

We've taken away all those things that don't matter and said, who are you? Like, who are you? What are you going to do? How has that affected you? How do you smack that in the face? And how do you build?

How do you build for yourself, for your family? And it's just an exercise that you, I wake up in the morning as a daily exercise that I do. I just sit. It's not really meditation. It's more so, maybe it's meditation. It's more so just identifying, clearing my head first, and then identifying where I want to go, what I need to do, what I need to accomplish. and what will the roadblocks be? How will I let it affect me?

And I'll play out these weird scenarios in my brain and see what's the worst I could happen. Let's say you walked out of the street, you get hit by a car, what's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, you fix it. And then these fears, these mental blocks and these fears of just being dynamic throughout the day kind of go away.

They kind of fade away. And that's kind of the exercise that I do every morning. And then everything else in my life, I take it in stride. But yeah, I don't know. It goes, again, it goes, this all goes back to growing up thinking that these things aren't possible. No one tells you these things. No one talks to you about these things because we're just told to keep your head down and, you know, play along and get along.

And then you'll, you know, you'll be fine. This actually, to me, sounds a lot like therapy because therapy to me is not sitting in the room once a week. It's a mindset and it's a way of thinking about your life. evaluate how the things that you've gone through have shaped you. Yeah. And where you're getting stuck, how you unpack that getting stuck, and then building those strategies for, as you said, you know, changing your thinking. Yeah.

Changing the like, oh, yeah, let me play that out. Let me learn the skill to be able to play out that fear so that I'm not just ruminating it on and all day. Because when you do that, you end up like shutting down. You're not as present. You can't be as engaged, whatever that might be. 100%. No matter what your background, most people have not been taught those skills at all. At all.

Our level of emotional intelligence as a global society is infantile for the most part. And I don't mean that like we're infants, but it's just like we're so early in the process of really prioritizing that and doing that work and providing people the systems to do that work. It's just like to me, that's as important as learning math. Like how am I going to be able to make sure that, you know, whatever I experienced at 14 or 8 or whatever age that is can not define me the rest of my life as a reaction because we build these reactions. And, you know, when we say that we're 8 or however, like there's all these adults walking around making decisions for our society, our countries, our communities who are emotionally stunted and responding from these like really deep. wounds. And I don't want to go too hippie here, but like, it's a little bit frightening when you think about that people are making decisions based off of these unresolved issues. Right. One hundred percent.

Lemorn, speak a little bit to your experience. I'm just curious. I don't want you to like say how amazing your time was on Call Me Cat, but I will say that we got to be together, you know, during a global pandemic in a pretty also interesting time in our countries. you know, history as well. You know, Kyla Pratt is one of those people, you know, it's like she's born to perform and she's a very, very, very natural performer. She's a very natural comedian. And I learn a lot from her.

And in particular, I've learned a lot from kind of hearing about how she holds herself differently, in particular as a black woman. And I'm not telling Kyla's story. That's not what I'm asking you to also speak to. But, you know, sometimes she'll say. something and she'll say to me like, that was too ghetto. I need to do that again, you know. She'll say like, I'm forgetting where I am, you know. And I wonder, you know, your character plays a successful lawyer in a law firm. I think it's, what is it the, we named it as a black-owned,

you know, the first black-owned law firm or something. I have that line. And also, my character kind of has a crush on you. I mean, she's sort of like in love with people who are in love. But in particular, you know, when you're not looking, I definitely make googly eyes at your your character when I'm off camera, but I get to be watching you. But can you speak a little bit to sort of how you, I mean, we really wanted you for this role. We wanted you. We wanted your comedy, your face, your presence, you know. But speak a little bit to what it's like to sort of also kind of slide into a character

that's, you know, not in every episode, but talk a little bit about sort of where you saw your role, especially in the context of, you know, half of our cast, you know, being black and us trying to be a diverse environment, you know. I like to point out a lot of our atmosphere looks a lot more like a cross-section of a city than many atmosphere extras, you know, departments do, and it's something we work very hard at to show

a diverse community, you know, in our world as much as we can. No, it was great. It was great. Okay, great. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks, Jess. It was fine. No, it was cool. It was really cool because, like you said, it's a very diverse cast. I remember I remember looking at a photo of everyone.

And I was like, this ain't what television used to look like. I just thought, like, what a poster this is, you know? I remember when Damon came on, New Girl, it was like, we would get a lot of remarks and a lot of comments. And when I just absolutely fucking ignorant, and I'm sorry to swear on it, but it's just some of the most ignorant comments I would get from reporters that would go, now that Damon's coming back, does that mean you're going to leave? What? I swear to God. Because we can only have one black man on at a time. Oh, my God. I was like, are they serious? That's so embarrassing.

And at one point, Jake Johnson, we were drinking on a red car. It was like Golden Globes or something. We'd heard that question maybe 10 times. And then Jake finally goes, Jake goes, that's a dog shit question. He just goes, you got to do a better job of what you do, man. You got to do a better job. And I just was like, thank you, bro, because I didn't, I didn't. I didn't want to, you know, I don't want to touch that one.

But it was great coming on the show to know that you guys are looking at the world the way it is. You know what I mean? It's a very, very eclected group of folks who walk these streets. And it was fun to kind of slide right in and very weird to not be on every week. I was like, I never, I never. And I wasn't getting all the scripts, so I would have to get like a catch up and a refresher. Like, oh, they broke up while you were away, but you guys are back. together, so come back next week.

Yeah, I'd be like, wait, what happened? Oh, is that, oh, okay. Okay, cool. How do I feel? I'm not sure yet. I'm working out in my dressing room. And so that was the only part of the show that was hard to do, was always figuring out, wait, where are we?

What's the dynamic in the room now? Right. Has Kat told Max that she's interested yet? Has she confessed her love? We kept you on the edge of your seat. seat. You are our target demo. That's exactly what we want people thinking. What's going on here?

So yeah, it was, it was really, it fit in seamlessly because, again, everybody on the show is kind of clicking on all cylinders. I didn't know what multicam life was like. I didn't. I, you know, we would do a couple takes. We're like, moving on. We got it. Everyone's excited. We're not going, we're not going to switch the camera and do a whole thing. We're not going to. We got it in two days. All the cameras on at once. But you were part of that beastly episode where we had like a 12-page scene in that diner. Do you remember?

Yes, I do. We had like three different things. It was me and Chris Revis over here and then you and Kylo over there. It was a crazy, crazy episode. And what's funny is that I find that you say that that's beastly of a scene and that's crazy. Have you ever shot a ballroom scene on a single cam

where you've got 10 storylines going on? No. That one scene. will take you four days to shoot. That's not acceptable. I'm a sitcom actor. I go home at 4 p.m. Yes. So I was going great. This is absolutely fantastic. Sitcom is really, I mean, schedule-wide. And we worked long days as our first year and we're still getting our feet under us. But yeah, very different. So Jonathan, do you want to talk to Lamorin about your favorite thing that Lamorin has ever been in?

Well, I've watched Woke. It's not my favorite thing. My favorite thing is the Bank of Montreal. Just because every time I log on to look at my Canadian account, I see Lamorne. So he and I are tight. Okay, but tell him your favorite thing. But I did. I loved you as Winston. That character is just so goofy and hilarious. Thank you.

And that was just a special moment in little TV viewing because it's just like, it's just such a unique, ridiculous character. You know, he had so much fun. And anytime you turned him on, you were like, okay, he's just going to be absolutely ridiculous. And I don't know, there's a silliness that I don't think I embody it all. And so watching that in you was always a treat. Ever since I told him you were going to be on Call Me Cat, he gives me that same spiel. Every time I mention your name, he's like, I love him on New Girl. I know, Jonathan.

I know. And then when we were going to have you on, he's like, remember, I love him on New Girl. I know Jonathan. So I thought it would be only fitting for him to get to talk to you about it. That's like Winston was one of those characters that didn't happen originally, the it was the way it ended up being. You know, at first he was this very confident, leading person, you know, that's what they were going for.

Then they realized that that dynamic wasn't working with the whole group in the loft, that personality trait. So what do we switch? What do we change? I came in on the second episode. Now, Liz Mayweather had been developing these characters in their head for years, it on paper for years, except for my character. I was a replacement character.

So when I came in, I had to learn on the fly. Did you replace another black man? I did. I had to replace another black person that they brought back. Which is why I knew I wasn't going to get fired because, oh, my gosh, I could have had the most dog shit performances. They would have been like, well, we can't fire them, though, because optics. So thanks, Fox. So I just remember, I remember struggling in the first season.

and a half maybe going, I mean, these scripts, they're not really writing for me. They're in a very plain dialogue. I'm trying to figure out how to build a character out of this. And to be fair, it was partly on me because I didn't, as my first time doing a television series. I didn't know what to do. Very grateful to have it, but I was kind of going,

am I needed here? And then we kind of got into a rhythm. We got into a rhythm of the weird. We embraced the second city of it all. you know, the character work that I knew how to do, that I know how to do, and I love doing. So every week, Winston would become somebody different. It's like, okay, this week, Winston's got his period.

It's like, what? All right, this week, Winston has, Winston, for some strange reason, gets erections out of nowhere. I was like, what are we doing? But it was really fun to play. Winston sometimes breaks into like an old black, like Baptist preacher for no reason. And I was just like, man, I really love this because I'm not confined to one set of rules for how my character is supposed to act. He's going to be this way.

It was like a sketch comedy show for me, you know? And I loved every minute of it. Every week a writing would come to me and start laughing before they pitched me the idea. And it would be like, I'm sorry, man, you're going to, okay. And now I loved it. I loved it. It's like, okay, great. What am I doing this episode?

You know, I'm bleaching my hair and like leopard and flashback into my old basketball days where I couldn't play basketball. So I just, you know, I enjoyed it. And when people tell me how much they love it, I just, I will never not get excited to hear it. Just because, again, this goes back to when you're a kid, you're not supposed to be here. You know, this is, I'm glad to show a different face. for young kids to look up to and young kids to identify with. And I just remember being on Instagram and Twitter, when you first started getting messages from fans.

And it was a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of young black kids going, man, you're like me. Oh, Winston's like me. Like, oh, man, people call them, people say, I'm the Winston of the group. And I would be like, oh, so we're not all gangbangers like the movies say. You know what I mean?

like, oh, okay, we could be weird too. Black people could be weird. And so that's what I loved about. That's the quote we're going to pull. Listen to Lamarne on Miami-B-Alex Breaktown. Black people can be weird. You know what's interesting about Call me Cat? I didn't know how much of an envelope I could push with weirdness.

I was like, I wonder if I should do this character. When I first got the offer, I was like, I wonder if I should do his character with a list. I was like, I'm at home workshopping these ideas going, he should have like a problem with his lower back. He's got a limb and a lisp and he wears an eye patch. Is that too weird? But then I just thought about it. It was like, no, he's, that's not, I don't think that's,

we're a show about cats. I think we need someone to be the straight guy here. Like I'm always falling and kicking people. Just come on and say your lines, okay? If someone would have said to me, if someone would have said to me, Lamourne, your job for this character is to be the straight man. I would have been like, got it. Got it, got it, got it.

But there was this internal battle every single, every single take. Memorial, just do the list. Go cross-side in the middle of the scene. Go cross-side. I call it pulling a Justin Long. Justin Long, when he was on New Girl, would just do the strangest bits out of nowhere. My character's name is Winston,

and there was a scene where he wouldn't call me Winston. He would go, hey, Wimstims. Hey, what? And there would go, Justin, the director was, Justin, can you just say, we got you saying it, and it's funny. You say it was Winston this next day? We need a clean take of him. You say Winston.

He's like, oh, I'm sorry, yeah, I got it. I was just doing it back. You'd come back. Hey, Wimbledoms. What? Did you just say? Or he would just randomly sprint in the middle of a scene and just run. You can do that on a single cam,

sitcom, we don't have time for that kind of play. Just like, we gotta keep, we gotta keep going. I definitely want to be on set when you do that. And I want to see Mime's reaction to this. Oh, I'll match him. You go cross-eyed in the middle of the scene. I'll go cross-eye in the middle of the scene.

You two have not had an official scene yet together, is what I hear. No. I mean, well, and also, I don't know Lamar and if you were watching, we've got a little Kyla Julian romance brewing. You know what's so funny? I predicted that. Day one. Really?

Because they're both black? What? They can't be with white people, LeMorn? No, but what I knew, what was happening was, I said, I said, my character is going to come in, and I knew how many episodes, and I was like, then he's going to leave, and there's going to be some hormones raging. It's going to be some, you know, and then Julian, have you seen this man with his shirt off? I know.

This dude is a, this dude. Dude, he's Photoshop. Yeah, he's pretty exquisite. Yeah, I was like, I got a feeling. He didn't take his shirt off this season, though. So we'll see. If we get a second season, maybe we'll have some. I'm petitioning the producer for more Lamor.

Wait, well, he wasn't even in our gym episode. I was. No, you were. Julian wasn't. Oh, Julian wasn't. Yeah. Like, we didn't even get to see him in the gym except for a curtain call. Yeah, that's right.

Okay, let me ask my. last question, which might be weird. There's something about an environment also on our set that I wonder if you can speak to. And it does relate to mental wellness in a workplace. And what that is is that I can't imagine, for example, if Kyla were the only person of color on our cast, what that would be like for her. And, you know, most of the crews I've worked on my whole life, there's been no black people. Or there's been one black person. You know, I would always say, you know, I would always say like what what what must that be like you know to be essentially the only person that you see reflected you know in some sense who's like you and of course there's this huge diversity but

I think about also what a joyful workplace we have because there's camaraderie and I don't mean that black people can only hang out with black people and we you know we hang out all different ways but I also know that I'm so glad that in every aspect you know even of our crew and our staff that we're trying to create an environment where people aren't the only one. And I wonder, you know, kind of your perspective in terms of, I mean, that is. That's sort of like your mental health in the workplace, you know? So what does that mean kind of for you in terms of workplaces and especially our industry? Ooh, this can, we can go a while for this one just because I've, I've had some ups and downs in this business with that very idea.

I couldn't get a haircut for a while without having. to go to the barber shop at 4.30 in the morning having my barber come to the, no barber wants to wake up at 4 in the morning, you know, to go open up his shop so I can come in and cut my hair, then drive to set to get a haircut because it wasn't in the budget to for me to get my haircut, which is insane, which is insane. And we had to nip that in the bud as quick as we could, but it took a while. It took maybe season or two, two seasons, to get my barber to be able to come to set.

Can you explain for people who don't know why it's an issue? Black hairstyles. The way I wear my hair is different from the way, you know, my white counterpart might wear their hair. But when my white counterpart goes to work, they're on the clock. They're being paid. And there's someone who's designated to professionally cut their hair

to make them look the best they can be for millions of people to watch. But then I go to work, and I don't have that person. So already I'm at a disadvantage because now I'm in my head about how I look. I mean, as part of this business is vanity. I mean, we do need a makeup artist. We do need to get our hair cut,

and we want to look a certain way. And for people not following along at home, not every hairstylist who is trained in our industry knows how to hand. I mean, Kyla has stories of people who thought, let's add water to this and see what happens. You know? Exactly.

And same with makeup. I mean, we have heard stories of makeup artists saying, I just, I can't do makeup on black people. I just don't know how to do that. And in that case, we need to find someone who does. Exactly. And I'm going, look, there's nothing wrong with that. But you know you've got black folks here.

So what are we going to do about it? You know, you know, and we don't have time for you to learn today. So, bye, bye, bye, you know, if I'm not qualified for the job as an actor, you go and you get somebody who is. And the same should be the case behind the camera as well. And I've had plenty of incidents, incidents where this has happened and it's affected me dramatically,

where I've had to have big talks with studio, management companies, unions, the big initiatives going on right now to just try to get equal footing behind the camera for basic things. And hair makeup and wardrobe are some of the hardest, some of the hardest positions for people of color also getting into the union is extremely difficult

and it's usually because you know someone and of course white people know black people and black people know white people but by and large those industries have been really really historically white yeah 100% and so now going to set with the only black folks on set are you

now you're a barber and you're standing I love your barber, by the way. He always wears a puppy vest, and I'm super into that. Oh, yeah. He's the absolute best. And he wears ski goggles instead of, like, the shield. And I'm like, this guy's amazing.

Rob is the best. He looks like he owns the joints. Rob is one of my favorite people on planet on planet Earth. Shout out to Robert Matthews, everybody. He's the greatest barber. But he, you know, he was somebody who, when I would be on set, occasionally what happens on set is that you're asked to do something that you're not comfortable with, and that it is coming from a place of who you are and who you represent to

black folks. Sometimes you just don't know if you feel comfortable. You're like, wow, they want me to say what or do what? If you look over and there's no other black folks to kind of give you the nod or, you know, or to confer with, you feel like you're on an island. And you try not to bring race into the situation because usually everybody you work with are on the same page. Everybody are decent people and nice folks.

But sometimes when people can't see that you are, there are some things that are inherently different about us. When people can't see it, I know people say I don't see color, but you see color. You don't see color. You're ignoring the thing about me that's important. You know what I mean? That's a very important part of who I am. I come from a place, you know what I mean? I have a point of view that's not like yours.

So when I don't feel comfortable saying a line and I don't have anybody around me that can, like, vouch for me, for me. I don't, and I'm just like, okay, I'll say it. And then it gets on television and then you get, you know what I mean? So we didn't have that. A lot of times on my old show, New Girl, and they got it right. They definitely, after some talks and stuff, they got it right towards the second half of our run. But we didn't have a lot of black folks working on our crew. We didn't have a lot of black folks working, you know, in our offices. But they fixed it. They got it right. And it wasn't To me, I don't think it was a malicious thing because I knew all those people. It wasn't a malicious thing.

It was more so like, we just weren't aware. Like, sorry, we're making a show, but you're right. You're absolutely right. Like, this is crazy. No black writers. We had a couple black writers here and there. And then, you know, you wouldn't, the jokes, some of the jokes that you would see didn't, they were great, but some of them felt a little culturally biased. And you're like, I don't know if I want to say that.

I don't think, I think you're trying to make a joke. That's really funny, but it's about a certain group of people where I come from, and it's not going to be funny. So you got to trust that I know what I'm talking about, and it's not malicious or racist. It's just not funny. I know who you want this joke to land with, and it ain't going to land. And if you don't have anybody in that room, that's going to hold you accountable. Well, and also that puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you as an actor, because, of course, we have to filter what we're given and we have to make judgments about it. But also, you should not have to be kind of the policeman for your own craft, you know.

Right, 100%, you know. And so being on set, I remember moments where we have like a guest director come in, meaning well, but would give me a note. Like, hey, try not to say it so, you know. Sorry, it's so hard. It's so cringy. I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, don't, you know, you can't say that out loud, right?

But like, let me help you out. This is going to be your last episode ever. Like, just so you know, I have a little power on this show. Don't ever say that to me again. You know, like, don't. You know? And then I would look over and my stand-in is going, ooh, not okay. And I'm like, you're right.

It is not okay. You know, let's nip this in the bud right now. You know, so when you have an environment like Call Me Cat, where you got multiple people that are having this dialogue in this conversation about, you know, what's cool, what's appropriate, like how we get along as folks, like, as people, you know, what lines not to cross, like, let's just, we're a big family, right? And so at some point, you then know in italy, you know, like, we just, we just, we just working, we just having fun. And because you've already set the tone and set the, set the tone in

the beginning, what kind of environment we have is easy. Right. You know what I mean? It's very easy. So when Kyla says something like, let me, she's like, oh, that's too a ghetto. Let me. She's probably just referring to like the audience. She's going like, oh, that's not my character. I'm way too. Lorne, it is so, so nice to talk to you, also to get to know you on a little bit of a deeper level. And I also really want to say that, you know,

I don't expect you to speak for all black people, but I really do appreciate you speaking from your experience about, you know, really what it's like to be, you know, to be an actor in this craft while navigating a tremendous amount and doing it not only so elegantly, but also in a way that's just so freaking entertaining. Like, we love watching you. Like, we love watching you.

Oh, my God. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is this interview. You didn't take a nap? You guys, you guys probe. You guys. You guys probe.

I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity. This has been great, and congrats on this show. And congrats on your baby. Thank you. Kevin Hart, baby. We will see you in the Kevin Hart professional finals. Oh, yeah.

So exciting. And Lamorne, tell people about your podcast. Plug. Tell people where to listen. Give us a shout. Oh, my gosh. Give a shout out. So unwanted, boom.

Unwanted. It's available everywhere. Stars myself and Billy Magnuson. We got a phenomenal cast. So please make sure you guys listen to it. It's eight episodes, easy listening. It's about two guys. trying to catch the most dangerous woman on the planet.

They think it's easy. That's me. That's me. Miami is the most dangerous. We're trying to catch Miami. And it's not easy. Let me tell you. It is not easy at all. So make sure you can watch, listen to it.

We'll also link to it on the episode page on the website for this pod. So anyone who's already on there will be able to access. Thank you, Lamorne. Really, really a pleasure to talk. I appreciate this as well. And you're going to be a guest on my podcast next, right? Absolutely. I mean, I'm the most dangerous woman in the world.

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The look on your face, you look like a kid in a candy store, most of that interview. Every time I looked over, you were like, hmm. He's very funny. I won't call me to cat to unleash that side of his acting jobs. I don't even know if we get to bring him back. We don't even have. By the time this airs, we will know.

No, I will boycott the show if he doesn't come back. I'm just telling you that right now, producers. As of this recording, we don't even know if we have a second season. And you're like already writing his plot. I don't agree to any of what you just said. And he's going to be like, Myam's the executive producer. so she could do whatever she wants. Not true. He's delightful.

He's a very delightful actor. He's a delightful presence on set. He's just, he's really fun. And it definitely feels like you're working with like a movie guy, like when he's at work. Like, because he's not from sitcom land. You know, Kyla and I were like made to find the lens in a snowstorm, you know?

Like, he really feels like we got like a fancy actor to come on and play Daniel. Now I'm thinking about how to write him into your screenplay. Just can't put it in my screen. He can't put him everywhere, but he's, I mean, he's a busy man. He could be Bernardo. He could be Bernardo and add some comic relief. Actually, he could. That would be amazing.

What I was saying to the people who are not in my head is Ma'am has written a screenplay, which she is off to direct, which is very exciting. And now I'm rewriting a part for Lamarne. Should I send him the offer or should we go through your agent? No, I am not giving you his cell phone number. You will abuse it and talk to him about. new girl. No, that was a very interesting conversation and also very grateful, you know, that he let us ask all those questions without being like, really people? Like, I, I know it's

awkward. Enough from you, too. Yeah. It was really, it was very, very nice to speak to him. Yeah, visit biolik breakdown.com. You can ask me anything. We'll answer that in another episode. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, please do so. Drop us a five-star review. Recommend it to a friend. Why not? It's a family experience. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my ambialics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two.

One fiction was a now. And now she's going to break.