Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Mahershala Ali

Episode Date: January 23, 2022

Mahershala Ali has established himself as one of Hollywood’s best and most respected actors, winning two Academy Awards for his work in Moonlight and Green Book and just last month earning a Golden Globe nomination for the movie Swan Song. In this week’s Sunday Sitdown, Willie Geist gets together with the actor to talk about his moving performance in that new film and his journey from Oakland, California to the top of the A-list.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you today with two-time Academy Award winner, Mahershala Ali. He is one of the best and certainly most respected actors in all of Hollywood. He won his Academy Awards for Moonlight back in 2016, and then two years later was standing back on the stage at the Oscars, winning best supporting actor for his role in Green Book. You might have first noticed him in House of Cards,

where he played Remy Danton, the chief of staff, and then also a lobbyist. Then you probably saw him on season three of True Detective. Now he is carrying a film for the first time, as he puts it. I never thought of it that way because he's been such a star for so long, but he is the leading man now, something he's been planning on for years since he decided to become an actor,

and this is the moment where he's doing it in the film called Swan Song, playing not one but two characters. The quick synopsis, and you'll hear him describe it better than I will, for this film on Apple TV Plus, is he's a man with a young family. He's got a young son.

He's married to a woman who's pregnant with their second child, but he's been diagnosed with a terminal illness and decides not to tell them. Instead, this is in the near future. He has a clone. made of himself, an indistinguishable clone. He makes that decision that he doesn't want his family to grow up without him in their life. So he has this clone move in and it's this sort of moral and ethical decision.

And it's a really beautiful movie and at times he's playing opposite himself as the clone. You have to see it to believe it. And we get into the details of it in our conversation. Just to give you a little backdrop here, we are still in a little bit of Omicron mode. So we did this over Zoom, which we don't love to do. But I trust, I think this week we're going to be out of that mode and able to get back in person. So he's in Oakland, California. He grew up in the Bay Area.

By the way, played Division I basketball. He was a star basketball player in high school, played at St. Mary's College up in that league with Gonzaga. They go to the tournament all the time, really good baller. But then decided somewhere along the line in college that he actually wanted to be an actor. So he's in Oakland. I'm in my garage. You might remember that position from 2020 and 2021. but here we are again very briefly for this conversation, Sunday Sit Down,

which I really enjoyed such a thoughtful and charming and talented guy, Mahershala Ali, right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. It's so good to see you. I really appreciate you doing this. Thanks for having me, man. It's great to be here. Like I said, I wish we could be sitting across from each other, but we'll take what we can get at this point.

We're having a deep dive on West Coast Conference College Basketball, but we'll save that for a different. different conversation. All right. Because we can go real deep on that, given where you played at St. Mary's. But I want to talk to you about Swan Song. My gosh, I told you I just finished it a couple of hours ago. And I'm genuinely glad I had some time from that last scene to talk to you now because it

hits you so hard and it causes you to think. And it's such a fascinating premise for a film. I'm curious what you thought when you heard the idea, when it came across your desk. What did it sound like to you? I was immediately intrigued. And, you know, working with my manager for many years and getting something sent to me, when it comes with the, this is really good, I need you to read it type of thing. I went into it with certain expectations and then really settling into the read and connecting to the character. I was just blown away.

And then also, the story is one thing and seeing what the character is about and really connecting to him. But what I found that was just so beautiful was that Ben Cleary, the director and writer of it, who he was as a person was such a clear, parallel and match with how beautiful and conscious and gracious the story is. And so once all that kind of came together, and that was clear to me, I was 100% on board and really, really excited for the challenge. I would love to pick apart every scene of the movie, but I think a lot of people watching this may not have seen it yet, so I don't want to give away too much.

But without saying too much, there's a clone of your character, Cameron. Was that a daunting prospect for you, as you considered about whether to do this film to act literally across from yourself? You know, it's funny because I think I'm always, as an actor, looking for the thing that that excites me and challenges me, but I found pretty consistently that tied to that is a part of it that terrifies me or something that makes me really scared, you know?

And when I start to feel that, when I feel both things, when I feel excitement and fear, I really sort of know I'm in the right place. And so then it becomes about like saying yes and embracing the fear and and aligning yourself with people who can help you complete the task and really bring it to life. So between getting to work with, again, our director, Ben, and I had a wonderful scene double by the name of Shane Dean, we all got to get into the, into the, to the, to the, to the, the minutia of it all and really work to make it real and believable.

And it was really tough at first, but then it became something that I was really excited about because I felt like we were winning every day. We were figuring out, figuring it out every day. And it wasn't without like some huge challenges. But we would get those scenes in the can and kind of look at each other and feel like we were on track. Yeah, because I think it runs the risk for a lesser actor. It could be odd or corny in some way. But man, it's not. Those scenes are very intimate with the two of you.

sitting on a rock with a cup of coffee talking about life, and then they can be confrontational, yelling at each other, having physical confrontation. So just as a practical filmmaking question, how did you guys pull those scenes off? Well, what you usually experience as an actor and going in on a day working on a scene is it's myself and Naomi Harris or myself and the wonderful Glenn Close.

And, you know, you got the scene, you got your lines memorized. and you're working on it and the first take is okay, talk a little bit more and you build it out some more and things just happen in the moment and you're discovering it. When you're working essentially by yourself, like obviously, again, I had help in terms of having a double,

but they're not going to use any of this footage, right? So they're really just trying to get to covering both sides of me. And so what's challenging about that process is, you're not really allowed to discover things in the moment. You have to play it out in your head. And then so you have to run that course because you want what you shot on one side of the camera to go with what's going to work on the other side of the camera.

So I didn't feel liberated in the way that you usually do as an actor where you just kind of go, all right, the heck would I'm going to the scene and just find what's there. I kind of have to go into the scene with a very clear idea of what I wanted, what I wanted to accomplish and how I wanted to play it and communicate that with my director, with our director, Ben Cleary, and then communicate that to my double shame and try to knock it out each day. And the wonderful thing was, in our first day of twinning and doing some of the clone stuff, there's a, there's a little moment where we come down the stairs.

You see the dog come in and look at us. I'll leave it there. Yeah. It would seize both of us. That was our first day of doing the cloning. And what was great was we spent, you know, a couple of hours working on that one little scene and bit. It was a little bit difficult because we hadn't done it before.

But a few minutes after completing the scene, they said, hey, Marshall, come over here. And I went over to the monitor. And that quickly, a Joy Mani, our VFX supervisor, had somehow split the camera, put both of me, taped them together essentially and I was able to see some version of the scene that quickly and it and it was very clear to me that

oh this is going to work. It made us all very confident about the process and who we were working with even just on the VFX side. It's such a credit to you as an actor that those intimate scenes, they work. They feel intimate even though as you say it's not easy in the moment to pull that off to

sort of imagine an interaction that way. You mentioned the cast. I mean, incredible. Naomi, Glenn Close, Aquafina. It's such a small group, but a powerful group. I have to imagine seeing some of those names come on board got you even more excited about this movie than you already were. A hundred percent. I mean, at first we started out with Naomi, who I was, like, really sort of overjoyed to have an opportunity to work with again and more in depth and have an opportunity to play a family that was working to stay whole

compared to our other experience, which was sort of about fractured families, you know, if you think about Moonlight. So getting hearing her name and knowing that she wanted to do it, I was so excited and I immediately felt comfortable, you know. And then Glenn came on a little bit, later. And first of all, Ben approached me and he said, well, what do you think about Glenn Close?

I was like, oh, my God, come on, Ben. Yeah, she ain't doing this movie. And, you know, when she said, yes, she would do it, I was, was blown away because I did have a quick moment with her a year or so prior when I said, I would love to work with you one day. You know, it's just, you're talking to one of the legends, you know, and she said, I'd love to work with you, too. So, and then it happened. And Aquafina was, was fantastic and she brought some colors in life to a character that that was a real difference in the film, you know, and she just couldn't have been more humble and gracious and just a wonderful scene partner. So it was, it was great getting to work with everybody, even the kids, the Dax Ray and this other

little brother, Ace, who played, they played my son, you know, and a wonderful group of people, really, really talented. You know, as a viewer watching, I bet you felt this way, too. I thought about fatherhood, who I am as a dad. I thought about being a husband. I thought about how finite life is and how fleeting things are and how you got to make the most of it. And then obviously the moral questions at the center of this. So as you, at the end of the day, as you think about it, do you think you would have done what Cameron did?

Could you do what he did? I don't know. I wrestle with that. You know, and I've been asked it a few times. And I always have trouble answering it because, It's hard to separate Cameron from the circumstances and the context that put pressure on him to make that choice or the things that really make that choice appealing, which has everything to do with the fact that his wife and family have had a difficult time leading up into that point. But I guess for myself to not duck and dodge you, I think I would. would just lean towards the

natural order of things. And I think for me, if anything, I've taken from the film, I've taken from the film that the reality is that we don't at this moment have an opportunity to clone ourselves. But what we can do is we can try to manifest the Jack in our own life. And I feel like Jack represents Cameron's potential self, like who he could be with all, cylinders working, like a very active and conscious that we all have the capacity.

We don't necessarily need a death sentence to wake up and choose to start living our life or make the changes that we need to make in order to be whole. And so when I walk away from that film, I'm just reminded to be really present with my family and friends and loved ones and try to make the most of this time now and try to live my life to the fullest. And I think we just got to teach that as a general rule. And so that's kind of what I'm what I'm taken from it because, you know, I can't just print another one of me yet. Not yet, not yet.

No, that's beautifully said. It is obviously, it's a hypothetical question for now. Yes. But I think I landed in the same place as you. But throughout the movie, I went back and forth a little bit, you know. I want to be there to raise my son, even if it's not really me. But then I agree. I think honesty and letting nature take its course is the way to go.

You also, I'm a rehearsal, our producer on this film, which I know. is a big deal to you as you've sort of learned and grown over the course of your career and not had that title on most of your other projects that you did have one other one. What does it mean to you to be a producer and to have such say on the final product of what people see? It means the world to me. And purely from the standpoint of a feeling credited and not mind for your ideas. And because what happens is you can often, just in collaborating and being generous and wanting to serve the story, you know, people share their ideas and impact scripts and the trajectory of a film or make choices or have input that could serve to allow the film to dodge some pitfalls or whatnot.

And so to get credited for it is something that I think kind of like it brings me a lot of peace because, you know, a lot of things kind of get truncated and dumbed down into that's what actors do. But that isn't purely what actors do. Like you definitely have a job. You're definitely in a position to impact the health of the overall story or the telling of the story. But really your job is to bring your character to life. So once you start having input and making impacts on other parts of the story, it just feels very gratifying to be welcomed and to be to be credited for your impact on something. And you get to see the big picture of things and have a say in what comes out on the other end.

And it also impacts how truly how you go into it where you're always wearing that hat where you're thinking about. about the larger and greater health of the film as a whole. And so I found in the post-production process, it was really interesting. It was the first time I ever felt that I've seen so many things that I've been in. And I said, oh, no, they cut that. Or I wish they had allowed that moment to breathe a little bit more. And not that a little bit of that didn't happen with this,

but I was present throughout the process and finding myself looking at myself going, cut that, cut it down, cut it down, cut it down. because when you start wearing the producer hat, you're really purely thinking about what is good for the film and really trying to be in service of that. So it was just, it was a wonderful experience. Yeah, obviously, I was saying the tender moments with Naomi and with your son in the film are so sweet.

Did you call on your own role as a husband and father to play that part? And also did you think about your own childhood and your own mother and your own father? I think I would imagine that I am deeply influenced by my relationship with my daughter and my wife, and in some ways that being my barometer for love, you know, and even in places where I fall short, sometimes I see in these characters an opportunity to go further and play somebody better than myself. And you almost kind of give yourself a template to learn from. And so I do believe, know and feel that my family and my own experience has definitely had an effect on how I approach all my roles and every character.

And in this one in particular, like, you know, because I've experienced some loss. I lost my father when I was 20 would love if he was still here. like as all of us who have lost loved ones. So that is something that definitely came to mind a few times. But what I love as an actor is that it's not about you, but you can use yourself as a door in to having a real understanding and being empathetic for someone else so that you could properly advocate for them. So it may start with you, but hopefully, or me,

but I hope to be able to leave myself behind as quickly as possible and really commit to the circumstances of that character's life and doing everything that I can to make that feel real. And so that hopefully it resonates with people and impacts them and leaves them with something. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Mahershala Ali right after the break. Welcome back. Now more of my conversation with Mahershula Ali. You mentioned your father. You had a fascinating childhood with your father in New York most of the time and you spending summers with him.

Your mother in Oakland, where you are now, where you were a basketball star and a BMX star, which, God, they're just layers to your cool. I don't know how you keep doing it, but it's incredible. So when does this performance element come in? When did that start for you? I started, I started writing poetry. just to sort of, we all have our stuff that we're trying to work out and deal with. And I just started writing some thoughts down. And then eventually that turned into me.

It was sort of when the poetry slam movement was beginning to percolate and out here in the Bay Area. It was very rich. And it was just so free to get to get up there and almost essentially do monologues. And that sort of in an awkward way transitioned into me while I was playing basketball at St. Mary's. doing theater there. And I just found that I just felt free in a way. And it was on a fluke. I kind of just did it on a fluke, did a play.

And I'd never felt more alive. And having seen my father on Broadway or traveling and being backstage, I never, that was always a gap for me. Like I was an athlete and he was an artist, so to speak, you know. And that was the first time where I felt like, oh, I might have a little of that in me too, you know and by that time he had passed and so to have to find acting and and and feel like that there was something in me that in part naturally understood something about it I was I was very encouraged to keep going and I had some wonderful teachers and friends and allies around me that

that gave me some some feedback that that was enough for me. me to feel confident moving forward. So you had obviously like anybody endeavoring or something new, you had some doubts about whether or not you could do this, but you had people who tugged you along a little bit? I think I had, I had doubts about the process. I had, because it's one thing, you could be a 12 year old kid who could draw anything in the world, but you don't necessarily know how to make a comic book, right, or how to get it to where you're working on that level, you know? And so I felt like I could do that. it and was, again, growing up backstage and seeing like people go on to have amazing careers

that are still around today. So I had seen enough of it, but I just didn't quite understand how I was going to go on that journey and that end up being something that was fruitful. And I think getting to go to NYU, just getting into that, just getting into the school and getting to go there to train as an actor, it began to really remove some of the mystery behind all that. And it was just a safe and extraordinary place to learn and get better and prepare you for the world, but really the world as an actor.

So if I had asked your mom or your dad way back then about whether they thought you might grow up to be an actor someday, they would have said what? my mom probably would have said yes. Yeah, I can see it. Well, really, honestly, she would always, she wouldn't let me argue with her because she would always call me a lawyer.

And I would always find a way to like spin something or argue my point in a way where then it would be difficult for her to bring the discipline if I could talk my way out of it. So my mom might have said maybe I'd be a lawyer. But I have no doubt you'd be good at that too. So when did it start to feel like to you, Meherchal, okay, I can make a career out of this. You go to NYU, you learn, you have a little success there.

You have some great mentors to help you along the way. What were the first jobs where you were like, okay, I'm pretty good at this. People are telling me I'm pretty good. And also I can make a living doing it. Well, my acting program, Tish, is a three-year program. And in the second year, I was, I was very serious about leaving. I didn't feel I had it.

I was going to quit. And I had this whole plan to go work on these boats in San Francisco and make some money as a deckhand and go off on some pilgrimage to Italy of all places and just find myself. I wasn't coming back to school. That's the point. That was my. And I got into this program. this wonderful gentleman by the name of Ken Washington who passed away. And I mentioned him years back in my Oscar speech.

He came to me my second year and said, hey, you should come to the Guthrie this summer. It's in Minnesota. And you should come to the Guthrie and with other grad students from around the country and work. And again, I wasn't feeling very confident. And I ended up going. And that summer changed.

change my life. It was so hard. It was grueling. I almost fell apart there, but there was a point where I started to kind of put it together. And I went back to school with some new tools. And I felt so confident going into my third year, probably more confident than I've ever been. And that right there set me up to go out there and sort of like face the real world weather after I had graduated. And so I was, from early on, I was very determined and clear. And I'm glad I was because I had a few things that hit me along the way that shook my confidence a bit. And, you know, you find that you got to get up off the mat and get back to it.

And so that's been a little bit of my journey that I think has in many ways help. to give me whatever strength that I feel that I have now. So Ken Washington saved you from that boat trip to Italy. He did. He did. He did. He absolutely did. And just a wonderful, wonderful man and teacher.

But I'm so glad he came and asked me to go. It's funny. When people see you standing on the stage, now you've got two Oscars and all the things you've done from House of Cards to True Detective and all that, they see this fully formed actor. And they don't always appreciate the grind that got you. there, you know, that it took years and years and years of taking jobs here and losing jobs

and auditioning and all that. What was the biggest, what was the biggest job you got that maybe catapulted you for it? Was it Benjamin Button just to be in a movie of that level? Or what was the job where you're like, okay, now I'm taking it, I'm taking the right steps in the right direction? I would say, I would, I want to say, I want to say, um, curious case of Benjamin Button, because It was such a big deal as my first feature and getting to work with David. But I would say close. It was actually House of Cards, which was also David Fincher, right?

And Lurray Mayfield, who cast it. That was my shot because it was enough space where if I could put my own stamp on that character, it was such a high profile show at that time with so many wonderfully talented people on it that that character was so unique. He was so well written and drafted that it set me up to be able to take off and leave that show and go on and do other things finally.

And so I would definitely credit House of Cards with how this last 10 years have gone because I started shooting that in 2012. So yeah, House of Cards would be the one. Yeah, you know what's so interesting to you is I look at your career. you have this theme where you say you didn't want to get stuck in a certain place. And you don't mean that as an insult to the project you were working on. You just mean that as, okay, people are going to see me as this character and it might impede my ability to go forward.

But isn't that a hard thing to do as an actor? I'm on this hit show. My character is only growing. My star is only rising. And I'm going to go in and say, I need you to write me off this show. Tell me about that mentality. Well, it's easy when you focus on who you admire, you know, and the things that. that you want. And so when I look and when I really look at and I'm going to speak about some men

because I was always kind of comparing myself to them, but when I looked at or using them as like a goal, but when I looked at Denzel and Daniel Day Lewis or Philip Seymour Hoffman, you know, Mark Ruffalo, like some of these people in the work and the breadth of their work, they just weren't doing it in year six of a TV show. Like, it just wasn't happening. And they were leading movies, you know, and then maybe they would go off and go do a play or something on Broadway for six months. And then they would go back to another movie. And so TV in my mind, and when I came into it in 2000, it was where some opportunities were and where I could kind of train. But I always knew where my goal was. And that's no insult to anyone else. There's people who worked on the same

show for 15, 20 years. And if that is your desire and what you want, then that's amazing. But I knew what I wanted and that wasn't it. And so I kept, I was sort of obsessed, honestly, with what I saw for myself and where I wanted to be because it's also what I sort of interpreted it as being liberated as an artist and as an actor's getting to a point where,

hey, you get to carry films. And again, the people that I, like, deeply admire were all doing that. And so I'm a bit, I'm a little stubborn. I will admit. So then let's call it persistence. And so I've just been along the way really focusing on trying to get to this place. And then getting here and working to maintenance and grow it. and grow, grow my relationship and deepen my relationship with,

with whatever audience is, is impacted and that I'm resonating with, you know. Yeah. And you didn't have to wait too long as you looked ahead to get what you wanted. I had my three or four years after you left the house of cards, you're standing on the stage holding an Academy Award for Moonlight. What was that moment like for you? I really don't have the words. I don't.

It was just an amazing experience. It was to be around the people that I was around, the talent, I just felt so supported and uplifted by the material, just me personally as an actor. And getting to, again, be in service of something that was that special and that dynamic was the award in and of itself. you know and so to get nominated and then to to win for really just doing something you love and just working from the heart space like to get a trophy for that was was was unreal you know

and life changing is definitely is definitely shifted in the trajectory of of my career you know And so I'm still living in gratitude of that project and that moment. And also just embracing all the opportunity that has come as a result of it. That allows me to keep moving forward and having new experiences and getting to collaborate with a lot of other wonderful people. Was that about the time, or Herschelah, that people started to pronounce your name correctly? Just around it. Just around it. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you've heard it all over the course of your life. Yes. Yes. But it's nice to hear it pronounced right so often now. You know, that's new to me, you know. But, yeah, they're getting it.

They're getting it. And then you come back and win another one with Green Book, which was another beautiful film. What does the second one feel like? I mean, now you've had that moment you never thought you'd have where you've got an Academy Award. Now you're a two-time Academy Award winner, and people are going, this guy is like moving into the pantheon of actors.

That one was also special. It came with some real challenges, no doubt. I think I was, I felt like I felt a little free with the first one in that. Like, all of it was so new. I didn't know about all these Q&As and award shows and things that happened that you're suddenly invited to and it's all new. You're just trying to just take it all in. Second one, it was a little bit more complicated, you know?

But I'm grateful for it because the reality of the businesses that it is, it is very complicated. And Moonlight is such a rarity. I just didn't realize how rare it was and the rarity behind something being sort of universally embraced like that. That's uncommon. And so the second one came with a little bit more texture. Let's just put it that way.

Let's put it that way. But again, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the work that we got to do and getting to dance with Vigo like that because what a genius, you know? Texture is a great euphemism for what was going on around that movie about that time. But doesn't that get back, Mahershla, to the point you were making earlier about producing?

Was that the moment where you realized I need to have some say in what this looks like in the end? Yes, it helped. It really brought alive that goal for me to just to be in a position where I could definitely impact something to the point where you may even say, hey, what about this producer as well? so that there is more diversity to the voices behind the camera and not just on. Because they're sincere, like going throughout my career, there's been so many moments when as sort of the lone black person on the production, where there may be a moment written in the script or something is a little bit complicated and you can see it already. You're going like, people are not going to like this moment. And there just isn't, it's not, it's not ill intent. It's just a lack of awareness most of the time.

And that's a lot of work to constantly, again, uncredited, constantly go in and be like, hey, what about this moment? Hey, what, and that is what comes with it as, as an actor of color. And so when you, when you, so it becomes, it's very important to me to behind the camera for that room. and those voices to there to be a diversity of experience there and culture so that for the good of the film, you know, because it's one thing to make them, but it's another thing when you have, when you put it out and you're hoping for it to be able to touch people. But once you find that people are being offended or thrown off by something, then you start looking at how that impacts you signing up to do anything from the beginning. And so you want the process to be as smooth and inspiring and touching the people as possible. And so it's important that you have the right people and minds and voices be a part of the think tank to protect the film.

Does it feel good to have the, and boy, you've earned it over a long career, a long hustle, to have that clout to be that person in the room who, can say, no, it should be this way and to represent the black experience in America in a way that you probably didn't see it being represented well over the course of your career. Yeah, I feel fortunate to, because I know that that is not necessarily common, but I do, I do feel that the business is changing. I've seen, I'm seeing friend after friend or a person that I admire or this talented person over here getting these production deals or having opportunity to produce and have a real voice on something. So I'm really inspired by how I believe our business in film and art and content is going

to look in the coming years because it's already begun to change in my mind. No, it's not perfect. There's a lot of changes that still need to happen in front of the camera and truly behind the camera, you know, department heads and all these things. But I do believe it's happening just because you have the Issa Rays and Jordan Pills that are running production companies. And they're hiring, working on Rami was one of the best experiences I've had and to see what the producers and the crew look like and how diverse it was and the DPs and all that. These are jobs that are usually, usually there's not a lot of women DPs that are getting hired like that. And so to see that on a show like that and again, how diverse the background is, that comes out in the product.

Like, you can see it and fill it. And it matters. And so, but I believe it's improving. It's just going to take a little bit more time to see it. But it's starting to happen. Stick around for more of my conversation with Mahershala Ali right after a quick break. Welcome back. Now the rest of my conversation with Mahershala Ali.

I'm curious, Mehertala, how you've handled the fame side of this. Let's call it from Moonlight Forward, because again, from the outside, man, you seem grounded and centered

and like it hasn't changed you that much, but you've talked about, you know, I think the one way you put it was like walking into an apartment store and being followed around one minute and then they're catering to your every need and putting a rack of clothes

and a dressing room for you. How have you man? manage this. I mean, obviously you have a tight family that you keep close. How have you managed this sort of explosion in your life because of the success in your career? Fortunately, I have a wonderful partner. My wife is, Armatouce's, is really great at really supporting and helping to give me perspective about certain things. Like, I have a wonderful friend in her. And, And also, I have a handful of just good friends in general that I try to, I try to really kind of stay in contact with.

But I also think there's a part of me that as much as I appreciate being on stage or storytelling, you know, and being an actor and the act of telling stories, there's a part of me that is also very quiet and doesn't have much of a desire to be in the spotlight, to some degree. I'm in the Bay Area right now. I'm from the Bay. My favorite Marshawn Lynch quote is, about that action boss. And what I love about that is that it's so true that folks here, it's about the work. It's really just about the work. And if I could almost do the work, it out and it sell itself and people see it, that would be my nature. Really, that's really truly my nature. And so I think with all the change and the recognition that I'm so

grateful for, there's a part of me deep down inside that also is like, all right, let me just let me go like, relax, sit down and pace myself because I don't have a I don't have a great desire to just to be out there in that way. I really love doing the work. I really, really truly love acting and digging in and collaborating and having all the conversation. So I really just, I try to focus on where's that at? Where's the job at?

And if I could do that, focus on the work. And when I'm not working on what my family and friends are doing something else creative, that's, I just keep it really simple. I have to. I'm so glad we've got to march on. Lynch quote in this interview. Yes. That's incredible.

I'm just glad you said, I'm only here so I don't get fined. That would have been a bit of an insult. Yes. No, no, no, no. No. He is the best. He's the best. I don't want to keep you too long.

Just to close on Swan Song again, you've said this is the first time I've carried a movie or that I've had to carry a movie. And I never thought of it that way because you're so familiar and it feels to a lot of us like you've carried some of those other movies, too. but this felt different to you, didn't it? Yeah, it did. It did. And it was the, I always dreamed about, I always dreamed about being exhausted.

I always dreamed about being tired from working. And that started to happen, you know, with true detective, you know, whereas at the first time I tasted that where I was working 80 hours a week anytime I was old, like easily. And when I wasn't old, it was 70 hours. And that job really brought me to the brink. It brought me to my ends, you know. But once I got to, once I got out of that job and I got to step away from it, I said, ah, that's what I wanted to experience, at least even just for that moment,

to know what that feels like and what that challenge and task is like. And so now I'm getting to do that in film, which is truncated in comparison to television or series work, that again, it was it was amazing to get to feel that. And also just almost as an experiment, seeing all the things that you go through just to finish the job. And I know what that feels like now. And I'm excited about doing it again, but I've learned that, okay, you really need downtime in order to prep yourself for what that is like. And it helps me understand. understand boxers a little bit more, you know, when you fight twice a year kind of tops because it takes something out of you and you also want to prepare properly for it. And so I have that,

I have that experience and knowing now and I'm looking forward to doing more. Well, you took a big swing on your first time carrying a movie having to be two characters the first time out and you really pulled it off. Do you feel, Marhershla, when you're back in, in Oakland like you are right now, Do you feel that sense of, wow, look where I came from. What would my father think? What does my mother think? What do my buddies think about where I've been and where I am now? No, I don't.

I don't. It's funny, I don't. I think here I feel ease, though. I feel peace. And I feel like it's the space for me to reflect on what I want to do moving forward. But I make sense to myself here. That's all. That's what home is that I just,

I make sense to myself here. And anytime I've been here, I've always, from as a kid, and going to New York and visiting my father and coming back here, being here was the place and where, you know, I'd ruminate and think and plan on how I was getting out, so to speak, not because I just want to leave the bay, just to leave the bay,

but how I was going to get out to go and do and accomplish some of the things that I wanted to accomplish. And part of that was being able to go out, do those things, and be able to also come back. You know, and so now I'm just kind of here getting myself prepared and thinking about the future and wanting to bring those aspirations into life, you know, to life. you know, to life. Well, I'm so glad you didn't get on the boat to Italy. I'm even glad you didn't get Steve Nash's scholarship. Yes, yes. He would have to go play in the NBA. God forbid. He's a two-time MVP.

But it's a blessing that we get to have you as an actor and you're so talented and a joy to talk to. Thanks so much for the time, Mearshala. Appreciate it. Thank you, Willie. Appreciate you. Thank you. My big thanks again to Meherchula for a great conversation. You can watch his new movie Swan Song, streaming now on Apple TV Plus.

my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.