The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Actor Jenifer Lewis: Mother, Activist, Hurricane

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Jenifer Lewis is known as the “Mother of Black Hollywood” for good reason; her screen progeny have included Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, and Tupac Shakur. In her latest turn, she’s playing the alpha boss of a home-shopping network on the Showtime series “I Love That For You.” It’s no surprise that Lewis keeps getting cast as formidable ladies—the roles come naturally to her, as you’ll hear in her conversation with the New Yorker contributor Michael Schulman. Lewis’s new memoir is called “Walking in My Joy: In These Streets.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Wherever she is, the actor Jennifer Lewis tends to steal the show. For the last four decades, she's made a name for herself on stage, in films, and on television. And she's known for playing some very strong women, not unlike herself. Right now, she's playing the CEO of a show of. a home shopping network on the new showtime series. I love that for you. Do I have suggestion box on my forehead? Great. Everybody excited? Good. Me too. Lewis's new memoir is called Walking in my joy.

And she recently spoke with New Yorker contributor Michael Shulman. So my colleague, Kalalia, and I jumped on Zoom to talk with Ms. Lewis. I was in my home office. She was in her living room in L.A. with flowers and she was beautifully made up for a photo shoot. Okay, we are recording. Recording. Michael, you're recording? And just over her shoulder was this beautiful white grand piano. All right. Have fun. Thank you, baby.

I'm here if you need anything. Okay, pumpkin. Okay. We had a great conversation. Heads up. As she tends to do, she used a lot of salty language. It's what she does best. It's great to meet you. First of all, you have a beautiful home in my looking.

that what I'm looking at? Darling, I have a beautiful home. Yes, you are. You're looking at my home. Oh, Collieus wants me to remind you to hold the phone. Oh, bitch, ain't nobody going to hold no phone for the whole fucking hour. All right. I'm here now.

She's get on my nerve. I can't stand her. That's why I gave her a lot of compliments. I knew she'd be trouble. Jennifer, I read your book Walking in My Joy. Really enjoyed it. And everyone always talks about how you're the, you're, You're known as the mother of Black Hollywood because of all these incredible mother roles you've played to people like Tupac Shakur and Whitney Houston and your Will Smith's aunt on Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

It made me more curious about your own mother. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what she was like. Oh, my God. My mother was one of the most dramatic women that ever lived. Jesus, full of rage, full of madness. But determination. My mother was an alpha female, darling. That's where I got it from.

You can imagine the woman that raised me. My mother damn near cut a man's arm off when I was 10 years old with a Coke bottle. Come on! What happened? What happened? His name was Jelly Bean. Do I have to say anything else? I mean, please do.

She was a boyfriend. She was an alpha, she was a gangster, she could have been Al Capone's sister. Dorothy May Lewis. She took no shit from no one. She had seven babies to raise. I was the baby. By the time I came along, she was exhausted, so I didn't get the kind of attention

I thought I should have gotten. So I spent my entire life going, see me, see me, see me. Well, you see me now, don't you? Go on, Jenny. Everybody see me now. I got my star on the Hollywood, Walk of Fame.

You want to hear a song? You want a song in your podcast? Absolutely. Hold on. Here's the song about my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Michael. I got a claim. Oh, boy. That's for you, Michael.

Yeah. Hey, yeah. There you go. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. This reminds me of all those amazing viral videos you made during the 2016 election season. So those were all songs that you wrote, right? Why did you write that song in 2016?

So I wrote the song in these streets about, it was basically about police brutality, them, you know, just randomly shooting out children, riding bicycles, jogging, down the street, come on, come on y'all. And I just, I get on this piano and I just start sort of screaming for justice. That's what I find myself doing. I'm screaming for justice. And when I write things like this, this was after Parkland. Our children shouldn't have. They should never, ever even see a gun from bullets. You know, I get on the piano.

And whatever's going on in the world, I just, I scream. I scream for justice. I can't say it any other way. You know, that first book tour I did, I went into places like Flint. If I was doing a concert in Detroit, I went into the tree. trenches of Flint. If I was doing a book signing in Fort Lauderdale, I went down to Parkland and spoke to the kids. We've got to just take care of what's right in front of you. What's in front of you?

These videos you made, the political sort of gospel songs, they're also incredibly funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the one. That's one got everybody. I don't care who you are or where you work. Get your ass out. Election to sit home and lurk. Get your ass out and vote. Get your out.

Okay, so it's just get your fucking ass out and vote. Just get out and vote, assholes. Jennifer, can I ask, were you always like this? I mean, did you just come out of the womb just scream and get out? Get your ass out and vote? I mean, what were you like? This is what I came out of the womb singing. You're swell!

Honey, I was Ethel Merman Jr., Jr. Okay. I, Michael, see, I'm bipolar. And I made a decision a long time ago at the height of AIDS. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, I had a nervous breakdown. A dear friend of mine, whom I respected. said, Jennifer, you need help. I said, are you insane?

Girl, I'm Jennifer Lewis. I ain't nothing wrong with me, but of course there was. There was just too much death surrounding me. You know, they fell, they dropped like flies in the early 90s and late 80s. And I just didn't have the strength, Michael. I didn't know who I was. I was just cloying at the void of the unknown. What do I do with this talent?

who am I? Why was I made? All of those questions. And I had lost so many friends. I said, you know, Jenny, maybe you ought to change this up. I went into therapy, Michael. I stayed in for 20 years. But I did the work. I'll tell anybody anywhere. You got to do the work. You got to do your homework. Did you worry at all that your sort of outrageous, outspoken persona would be compromised once you were treated? Oh, absolutely. Oh, dear God. Oh, I fought my therapist for at least. I think it was three or four years.

I would not take the medication. I was like, I'm not getting it. Am I you insane? This edge that you call mania is what makes me. And she tried to assure me that it would not stifle or mute my edge of my edge of my. humor and my comedic timing and my, the force of nature that I became in my youth. And did you find that was true? I mean, how did you adjust to this new life of being, of being treated instead of kind of coasting on the highs and then, you know, crashing into the lows?

Well, it's work. It's all about finding the balance. You know, when I first started taking medication, my sexual desire went away. Well, I knew I had to get kept for that shit. And my guy, dry mouth. And I didn't know what it was. I went to the dentist, and of course he asked me, did you just start a new medication? And I was like, right, he said, this is dry mouth.

I was like, well, we're going to have to lower that milligram. So you have to have patience to treat mental disorder. You have to have patience. They know what they're doing now. And you have to trust. You have to, you know, work with your psychologist or your psychiatrist on what are your levels. You have to be honest. You have to bring everything to the table.

And now I am in my skin, far from perfect, but I am aligned in what makes me happy. And when you have more years behind you than in front, you don't waste time. I want to leave something here. before I go. And they only need to say one thing about me when I pass this plane, Jennifer Lewis at power. And she gave it back. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. Jennifer, you do have such a powerful presence. It sounds like you always have. What effect has that had on your co-stars? People didn't know what to do with me. They didn't.

I know it sounds funny, sounds arrogant, but it's true. I am a force of nature. My first review in New York City and the New York Post was Hurricane Lewis hits New York. I was 22 years old. What was that for? Just one of my club acts. That's where Bet Midler found me.

Right. And explain what you did with Bet Midler. Well, I was one of her backup singers and we were called the Harlets. And I did the 1983 tour with Bet Mittler called Detour and learned so much from her. We're still good friends today. She's been a big supporter of mine, my entire career and believes in me. We did have a big fight when she cheated in Scrabble.

She put down... Yeah, she put down Zion and put the Z on a triple letter score. I said, I bet. Zion is capitalized. She said, Jennifer, Jennifer. And so we just... She put me in a headlock. Yeah.

And then so I just smashed the scrambling. Scrabble game. No, Zion is a proper noun. You can't use that in Scrabble. She knew it, but it was so good. Wouldn't you had put it down, too? I love her. And she, you know, I learned a lot from her.

I did. I studied her in the wings, honey. I went backstage holding court. When Bad Midler was on stage, I was in the wings. Jennifer, there's a part in your book that I really loved. I want to ask you about, you write about rage. And, of course, a lot of your characters, you're great at playing rage, just like you're great at dropping F-bombs, first of all, but certainly angry characters is one of your

specialties. But you wrote it by your own rage and you say, I built a house made of steel around my body so no one could ever tear me down. I had a deep fear that to lose my anger meant to invite weakness in to replace it. I got into the horrible habit of walking through the world thinking I was protected by armor so thick that nothing could get in. Unfortunately, nothing could get out either. That's so compelling. I'm just curious about how you think about, you know, even political rage, performing rage, as something that you've sort of experienced but are tempering it in your own life so that you're not hiding behind it. Well, if you walk in your joy on purpose as best you can, when all that other horror comes,

you'll have something to balance it. That's how I get through it. You see, in my business, we rehearse and then we're fabulous. So, Jenny, how about you practice a new behavior? Do it with all you have. Instead of waking up depressed like you did for the first 30 years of your life. How about you learn how to get up another way? How about you not do one leg at a time?

How about today you just jump out of there? Go on, Jenny. Do it. You got to talk. to yourself. You got to make sure you're doing something you love to do every second of your life because it could be the last. Well, Jennifer, this has been an absolute delight.

I feel like I've just experienced the best of Hurricane Jennifer. And you've just cracked me up. Oh, good. I'm glad. You got me on a really good day, too. I got New York Times coming in here. I got to pull it up. Well, that's why you look so stylish, isn't it?

Not for our radio show? Yeah. That was Jennifer Lewis talking with the New Yorkers Michael Shulman. Her memoir, Walking in My Joy, is out next week. And you can watch her in the TV series. I love that for you. It's on Showtime right now. That's our episode for today.

But before we go, I'm going to say three really bad words. Not obscene words, just three lousy words I never wanted to say on the radio. Goodbye, Ave Carillo. Ave has been our senior producer since the day, we launched in 2015. There's not one thing you've ever heard on this program that wasn't touched by Avey's intelligence and sensitivity and made a lot better by her in ways small and large. She's worked magic often enough that we thought it was just the way things worked. And we're really going to miss her. So goodbye, Avey. We can't wait to hear your new show. I'm David Remnick.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks so much for joining us and have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tunei, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato and Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Breda Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin and Puttubewele. Along with Jeffrey Masters, Willi, Jenny Lawton, and Michael May.

And we had assistance from Harrison Keithline and James Lerner. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trurina Endowment Fund.