0:15

Pushkin. This

0:24

is Talk Easy. I'm San Fragoso.

0:27

Welcome to the show. Hey

0:45

everyone, thank you for being here

0:47

today. On the podcast, I'm sitting with writer,

0:50

director, and actor Rod A. Blank.

0:53

Her debut film, the forty year Old

0:55

Version, just recently dropped on

0:57

Netflix. It's a deeply autobiographical

1:00

piece following a struggling

1:02

playwright and professor who suddenly

1:04

finds refuge in a different medium.

1:08

Rap. He's a snippet from

1:10

the trailer, any more thought on

1:12

what kind of play do we want to write? Remember?

1:14

If you put in nothing, it'll be nothing like

1:17

your career. Remember

1:20

this face. She was one of Spotlight Magazine's

1:23

thirty under thirty playwrights to watch.

1:25

We watch, But where'd you go? How

1:29

are you? Archie tells me

1:31

you're teaching how

1:34

somebody who ain't had no real hip gonna tell me

1:36

how to write a play? She ain't know. Tyler Perry, I

1:39

did win a thirty hunder thirty. Yes,

1:41

it was quite a couple of years ago. What do I gotta do?

1:43

Write a slave musical and all white

1:45

play? This some bullshit?

1:48

It rang a little inauthentic.

1:51

I asked myself, did a black person really write

1:54

this?

1:56

This? Some fucking bullshit, bullshit

1:59

think about me doing hip hop? Doing

2:02

what to it? I want to make a mixtape

2:05

about the forty year old woman's point of view.

2:08

The forty year old version is of

2:10

course a play on both The forty

2:12

year Old Virgin and This Is Forty,

2:15

both directed by Judd Apatau. It's

2:17

an intentional reclamation on Rata's

2:20

part, a way of creating space

2:22

for black women to be as flawed, stunted,

2:25

and vexed as the protagonist in those

2:27

films, played by Steve Carrall and

2:30

Paul Rudd, respectively. Here,

2:33

Rata, playing the lead character, minds

2:35

her own personal history to create

2:38

a kind of archival piece, a

2:40

document of both herself and her

2:43

family in New York. We get into

2:45

that during this conversation. We

2:47

also discuss how the themes of this film

2:49

are interconnected with her own experiences

2:52

of working as an artist and teacher

2:55

in New York. Success and failure,

2:58

false starts in creative disappointments,

3:00

boundless ambition met with debilitating

3:03

rejection. This feeling that by

3:06

age forty you have to have arrived

3:08

at some we're substantial, This

3:10

feeling that time is not on your side.

3:14

During our talk we speak of the artists that inspired

3:16

her and this film, and

3:19

in turn, we've posted images

3:21

and photos on our website in case

3:23

you want a visual reference when talking about

3:26

Carrie May Weems, Carrie James Marshall,

3:28

and Roy DeCarava. You can follow

3:31

along at www dot

3:33

com, ecpod dot com,

3:35

slash rata r

3:37

A d h A. And

3:40

now onto the show. Rota

3:58

Blank, Hey Sam,

4:00

how you doing. I'm okay,

4:03

I'm okay. I'm finally admitting to myself my

4:05

nerves are a little funky. We

4:07

are having a driving premiere

4:10

tonight in New York and the movie comes out

4:12

tomorrow. I'm just admitting

4:14

to myself that I do have some nerves. Before

4:17

I was active, really cool, you know, I was acting

4:19

really too cool for school. But now I'm like,

4:21

no, you're feeling something. Just

4:24

own it. What has it been like to release

4:26

a movie in this strange,

4:30

precarious moment. I

4:33

don't know the full answer to that. I'll

4:35

probably know by Sunday

4:37

morning when everyone as

4:40

a hold of it. But so

4:42

far it's been I gotta

4:44

say bittersweet. When the

4:46

pandemic hit struck

4:49

knocked us down, I was really

4:51

in the space of like, what am I doing. Why

4:54

am I calling myself a filmmaker? Like another

4:57

black person got killed by police officer,

4:59

you know, like I just didn't know if

5:01

what I was doing made sense in

5:03

the world. And then many other

5:05

people went into hiding because

5:08

we didn't have a choice, and I

5:10

found myself watching lots

5:12

and lots of content online. I

5:14

watched High Maintenance again, I watched

5:17

I watched a whole bunch of shit, and

5:20

I had a profound appreciation for

5:22

what it is to tell a story, especially in

5:24

times like this, because I know people

5:26

say all the time like, oh,

5:29

story and film art

5:32

content, it really can suthe

5:34

the soul or create some kind of escape. But

5:36

it did for me. A few months into the pandemic.

5:38

I was like, okay, Like if this is what the work does

5:41

for people, then maybe

5:43

now is the time to put something out that makes

5:46

people laugh or makes them introspective,

5:49

contemplative, whatever, like look at their own life.

5:51

Some people say that they are their

5:53

spirits are lifted from the film, and so I'm like,

5:55

okay, then, you know,

5:58

I'm not much of an activist, but maybe the film

6:00

can be my form of activism and just helping

6:02

people feel better. So I wouldn't say I've

6:04

had a full circle moment. We're still in

6:07

a pandemic, you know. Again, My

6:09

premiere is a drive in because we can't make

6:11

any physical contact with each other, which is

6:13

painful. I want to hug people. But I

6:15

think I've come around to see

6:18

like what a privileged position it is to be a

6:20

storyteller in this time. So

6:22

I want to go back to a different time. What

6:25

did your life look like in New

6:27

York City before you decided

6:30

to make this film? Before

6:32

that, I had gotten a screenwriting

6:35

job, one of my first, and

6:37

I was Oh, it was jubilance. It

6:39

was like, oh wow, I have you know. As a teaching

6:42

artist, I'm constantly telling kids like you can

6:44

make you can really make a

6:46

career out of writing. I promise you you can be

6:48

a living, professional artist. And

6:50

in that moment, I felt like, oh good, I'm not a liar

6:53

because I've been accepted

6:56

into the union. I'm getting a paycheck to

6:58

write a script. And then I

7:00

got fired off of that job. So

7:04

I mean, this would have made for that nice little PSA

7:07

where I go back to the school and say, hey, it's I

7:10

don't know about those dreams because

7:12

I just got fired for one of mine. Um

7:14

no, I got fired

7:16

off of that job, and I

7:19

was devastated. You know, it was my first real

7:21

professional screenwriting job

7:23

and I got fired. But the beauty

7:25

of the moment and my mom said this and

7:28

she meant it. She said, you know, one day, you're gonna thank those

7:30

people for firing you. And I'm

7:32

really grateful that they did because it

7:35

created the fuel behind the project. I

7:37

started writing it as a web series, mainly

7:40

because anyone can upload any

7:43

content, you know, as long as it's not considered

7:45

hazardous to one's eyes or health. And

7:48

I was like, I'm going to write it, directed, starring

7:50

it, produce it in this way, I can't get fired,

7:52

you know, Like I literally was just trying to take control

7:55

of how my voice

7:57

showed up in the world. So, yeah,

7:59

I was working on this web series

8:01

and it gave me this thing to do. Like

8:03

I'm enjoy teaching,

8:06

I love working with young people, but ultimately

8:08

I want to be a writer and just found

8:10

that between my plays not really

8:13

getting produced in a way that I thought that they would

8:15

and getting fired off of that job, I just

8:17

needed to do something that would kind of not

8:20

to sound like the character, but like to take my

8:22

life back, to take my voice back. And that

8:25

was the beginning of the forty year old version.

8:28

As you're pitching projects to

8:30

the predominantly white world of

8:33

theater in New York, what did

8:35

their criticism sound like? It

8:37

was an odd kind of rejection because they tell

8:39

me how much they loved the plays, like, oh my god,

8:42

this is so good. And

8:44

then they'd say, what else do you have, which

8:48

is a no. You know what I mean, at least for that particular

8:51

play. So and how did you handle that rejection?

8:54

How I handle it? I guess I am the

8:56

Taylor Swift of filmmaking. You

8:58

know. I put that shit in a movie because

9:00

I could not understand, like how

9:03

in one breath someone could tell me something was so

9:05

good. And this is after I had

9:08

success with my first and only major

9:10

production. It was a play called Seed about

9:12

this black social worker becomes

9:15

obsessed with the welfare of a

9:17

black genius from the projects and how

9:19

this forty year old, single, childless

9:21

professional woman and his young

9:24

mother. People have compared it to Little

9:26

Man Tate or something like that. But set in Harlem. I

9:29

had that play produced and people were like, oh

9:31

my god, this is going to Broadway. This is it. I'm

9:33

telling you, this is your moment, this is your breakthrough.

9:36

Didn't happen like that at all. Didn't

9:39

happen at all. But I would take these meetings

9:42

after having that kind of success with

9:44

these lit folks who

9:46

I realized are like,

9:48

very enthusiastic about new talent, but don't

9:51

have the power to green light

9:53

a lot of things. I think they do their job is to

9:55

kind of put stuff in front of the artistic directors,

9:57

like the people who are going to make that decision. And

9:59

they were always advocating for me, but I think

10:01

they knew the spaces they were in,

10:03

so they were kind of like, do you have something else?

10:06

What else do you have? Because I want you

10:08

to win. So it was weird.

10:10

Everyone says they loved this play, and yet it

10:12

wasn't much real estate for my

10:15

plays in New York theater. When

10:17

you did eventually decide to write

10:19

this, it was originally intended

10:21

to be a ten episode web series.

10:24

Yeah, I believe in the midst of shooting

10:26

the first two episodes, your

10:28

mother passes away, and

10:32

the passing of a

10:35

mother is at the heart of this movie,

10:38

and there are clear parallels

10:40

between that character Rata and

10:43

you Rata.

10:46

Where were you at in that moment doing

10:49

those two episodes as your

10:51

mother passed. I was I

10:56

was like in a very raw space

10:59

anyway, because I

11:01

was approaching forty and I

11:03

think I felt like this project was my

11:06

way to break out. I'm approaching

11:08

forty and this this is what I'm gonna do. You know. In my

11:10

movie, the characters like I'm gonna

11:12

lose forty pounds for

11:14

my fortieth and for me, it was

11:17

like, I'm going to make

11:19

this a web

11:21

series. I think I had just turned

11:23

forty, right because my mom and I have the

11:25

same birthday and we

11:27

got to celebrate our birthdays together. But

11:30

yeah, I was like, oh, this is it. This is

11:32

the thing. I'm gonna shoot this web series and

11:34

I'll exercise these demons out of me. People

11:37

will see me as an artist. And then she passes away,

11:39

and it really did devastate my life. We've

11:41

spent so much time together. We share

11:43

the same birthday. My mom was my

11:45

film buddy. You know, She's someone who I would go to

11:48

see everything from Tyler Perry to Dancer

11:50

in the Dark with, you know, like we

11:53

just film was our thing, and

11:56

so naturally I

11:59

had a small identity crisis.

12:01

I just couldn't. I wasn't sure who

12:03

I was without her, and so

12:05

I just started to retreat into

12:07

myself and just going to a

12:09

ball pretty much trying to figure out

12:11

how I would move forward. At

12:14

one point, someone asked me to perform. You

12:16

know, I've done a lot of solo performance stuff, and they

12:18

were like, oh, you know, this is like two months later.

12:20

We'd love for you to do this thing, and the

12:22

work involved being characters and so and I just was

12:24

like, I can't do that. I can't I can't

12:26

be a character, I can't pretend. But I

12:29

did feel the impulse to perform. It

12:31

was almost like I felt my mom telling me, like, just

12:33

go out and perform, you'll feel better. And so that's

12:35

when I started performing as Rodams Prime. Because

12:38

with the web series, you know, the idea was like you'd

12:40

watch ten episodes and then there'd be this mixtape

12:42

that you could download for free that connected

12:44

to the narrative. And so I kind

12:47

of just put the web series aside,

12:49

kind of threw it out, and then just started performing as Rodama's

12:51

Prime. And it really was a Catharsis for me. It really

12:53

did very much like the film.

12:56

It really did get me through. It's

12:58

not a character. This really is just another

13:01

part of myself, and that part of

13:03

myself was not afraid to talk about

13:05

the loss, was not afraid to contemplate

13:08

her aid or having a younger lover.

13:11

You know. I have a fact girl

13:13

sex anthem called poke chops.

13:15

That's p o K chops,

13:18

you know. Like it was. It was where I was my

13:20

most vulnerable and exposed, but

13:22

also my most confident and

13:25

fearless. And so I really did

13:28

lean on Rottama's Prime and I just

13:30

would go out and perform like Joe's pub

13:32

different spaces around New York. And then I ended

13:34

up at the speaker Box Festival in Norway

13:37

doing the Rottomus Prime forty year

13:39

old version mixtape show. So it

13:41

went from this web series to this live cabaret

13:44

kind of a comedy solo

13:46

piece, you know. But it really

13:48

did get me through. I know people say that all the time,

13:50

but like it gave me

13:52

something to do with my body and my pain

13:55

and my grief by taking on, by

13:57

relenting, I just say to my alter

14:00

ego went on

14:02

mind to day, guess what I've seen

14:04

another need to talk about to stay on your

14:06

dan giving advice on how to wash my

14:08

ass, how to ship right, stay on the new

14:10

being path or pofies or fabric

14:13

can taste and of life. Matruly have bad

14:15

things to say about how to be a queen, how

14:17

to be pristine? Said t tree birls keep

14:20

up a john to clean has many many thoughts

14:22

flooding or herbias. Down with the meat,

14:24

up with the foliage, said white man is the devil

14:27

black hand guard. But this nigga hotel ain't

14:29

had no damn job. Spa all day, balking

14:31

into his laptop, making playing vegan

14:33

food as he flipped his dreadlocks, or in boys

14:36

m and mad black ademics having Facebook

14:38

fights with other prophetics, flapping

14:40

his gumbs between flipping tabs us or

14:42

from pehub, then back to his task. But save

14:45

the black coats, one posting the time before

14:47

a black corse. He ain't spent a dime wire

14:50

his dough tied up, absorb five

14:52

jees behind in childhood or old

14:54

back taxes, but henaxi or

14:57

fue trying to kick black backs and

14:59

educate the youth. But fuck fact checking the

15:01

truth, because that's just how them oats have to do educating

15:04

the youth, the fuck fat checking the truth

15:06

because that's just how them hotel too, Because

15:09

Yeah,

15:16

when did you realize that you

15:18

were more comfortable being vulnerable

15:21

in your alter ego than

15:23

in yourself. I don't know. There's just something

15:25

about being on stage. Clearly,

15:27

it takes guts to be

15:29

on stage in front of people. It's

15:31

performance, and yet if this is possible,

15:34

it's stripped down like I do it myself. I don't

15:36

hire a director. I just kind of get on

15:38

stage and I'll have projections and I'll

15:40

have my DJ Jo

15:42

met Kinsey aka Jo Medicine,

15:44

and we'll just kind of vibe with the audience

15:47

and something about music and

15:49

songs you kind

15:51

of couched in something. It just felt

15:54

like a natural place to work through those

15:56

things. And I know that it

15:58

was a healing for me because talking

16:00

about those very things in a conversation with

16:02

friends meant crying, you know, but

16:04

being on stage, I mean I would let myself cry

16:06

there too, But being on stage I felt

16:09

just like a I

16:13

wouldn't say, a better version of myself, just

16:15

a more secure and confident you

16:17

know. Like when I took that on, it

16:19

was okay. Anything I said was okay.

16:22

Guy, Remember being on stage of the show.

16:24

And I have a song called If I Had a Dick, and

16:28

it kind of chronicles some of my I

16:31

don't know, my encounters with the patriarchy

16:33

and some of the writing rooms, and if

16:36

I can remember, it goes,

16:39

You'll stop interrupting me, bitch, and

16:41

stop talking over me, trick, You'll

16:43

stop acting like you to shit just because

16:46

your ass got a dick. And it was because

16:49

I'd be in a writing room with my

16:51

bros. We're all cool, and yet all of

16:53

a sudden, like when I go to talk, I'm constantly being interrupted

16:56

or I pitched something and the

16:58

room goes, but when a guy pitches it, it's like, oh

17:00

yeah, celebration. And so it's my way

17:02

of kind of encountering patriarchy.

17:05

And you know, those guys came to the

17:07

show, and I'm gonna

17:09

be like, yo, my favorite song is If I Had a Dick. I

17:11

was like, really, it's about you. Now. I didn't

17:13

say that, but I had a writer friend one

17:15

time, or a director friend. I was so frustrated

17:18

with like not getting ahead in

17:20

theater and wanting to like approach

17:23

the gatekeepers and complain and let

17:25

them know about themselves, and they would say put it into

17:27

work, and I was like, no, that's not But really,

17:30

like I kind of couldn't believe

17:32

that moment, Like I here, I am challenging

17:35

the sexism and

17:37

misogyny in the room in a song

17:39

and they don't even know it's

17:42

about them. I love these

17:44

guys, like I love them to death, but like

17:47

it was challenging for me. And it was in that moment

17:49

where, you know, when I went to Hollywood as a TV writer,

17:51

I really thought I'd be encountering a lot

17:53

of issues around race. And it wasn't that it

17:56

was about being a woman. It really was being

17:59

a woman in the room that's dominated

18:01

by men and wanting to just be

18:03

a writer, but sometimes being assigned the

18:05

tax to police the women characters

18:08

or police the queer acts, you know, like any

18:10

of the others and people into margins

18:12

my shop, it's a kind of

18:15

police and make sure that they were PC or whatever,

18:17

and I don't know it. It was

18:19

a very challenging experience for me being

18:22

one of few women in a predominantly male

18:24

room. And so that's what that song is about. It is

18:26

like I'm thinking of going to Hollywood and I'm going to be

18:29

challenged around racism,

18:31

but really it was just about sexism.

18:34

This shit is real. Something

18:37

that's at the heart of this film is a

18:39

line you said earlier, which is I

18:41

was approaching forty in the

18:43

midst of making this ten episode

18:45

web series, and

18:48

throughout this movie there is a constant

18:50

conversation around the act

18:52

of approaching forty. Yeah,

18:55

forty is really just an emblem for an

18:57

age, a time where you were meant

18:59

to feel secure, yeah,

19:01

or have arrived at the place that you had

19:03

hoped to arrive at. And in

19:06

the midst of you going to Hollywood

19:08

writing on shows like Empire and Spike

19:11

Ly She's gonna have It on Netflix, There's

19:13

a couple others in there. You're finding yourself

19:16

and trying to figure out where you would

19:18

like to land. Where

19:21

did you want to arrive and

19:25

is this movie that arrival?

19:28

I think so, I really do

19:31

you know? Writing for TV it's lucrative. It

19:33

got me through. I mean, I spent years. I

19:35

was the child of struggling artists, and I

19:38

lived that life for so long, and

19:40

so it was nice to have

19:42

benefits and to have a check.

19:45

You know, that direct deposit would go through

19:47

every week and it was like, whoa so

19:49

I had some security as a result of working

19:51

on the shows. But I was saying to someone

19:54

who was a former development executive of

19:56

mine. I was telling her like, it really was hard

19:58

for me to be in those rooms because I was sitting

20:00

on this thing that felt like a singular vision.

20:03

And the camaraderie, the fellowship

20:05

that I got from all of those writers from those different

20:07

rooms. I'm friends with the and I'll be friends with them

20:10

forever. And it was fun to be a part of a super

20:12

brain. But there was always

20:14

this kind of song in my head, so to

20:16

speak. You know, even though

20:18

I was playing with these other great artists

20:20

and storytellers, this thing was

20:22

almost haunting me. So making the film

20:25

was also like an exorcism. It was something I was

20:27

sitting on trying to say for

20:29

such a long time, and now

20:31

that it's out, I feel one thing

20:33

I can't say is I

20:35

can't say I'm not a director. I directed

20:38

a feature film. It marks

20:40

like this pivot or this I

20:42

guess coming out of

20:44

me as an artist to the world, Like

20:47

here's this thing that I

20:49

did. I completed it, It's finished.

20:51

You know, there's no turning back now. But like

20:54

it makes all the last year of

20:56

struggle and diversity so worth it because

20:59

I guess it just would take this long to get

21:01

here to say something like this.

21:04

I don't know what the thirty year old version would

21:06

have looked like, but I don't think it would have felt like this film.

21:09

There's this humor there, but there's

21:11

an intense emotion, you know, the loss, the grief,

21:14

the projection, all of that stuff. And I needed to

21:16

go through that to know how to

21:18

convey that in a film. And I say that

21:20

because I don't have training

21:22

in the space of academia. I did

21:25

have my one great film class

21:27

at City College with Professor Colson. Hi Professor

21:29

Colson, he's still there, But I really

21:31

didn't take a deep dive into the study of film

21:34

outside of my own curriculum, watching films

21:36

and reading screenplays and stuff like that. And

21:38

so the adversity gave me a story to tell.

21:40

The experience gave me the confidence

21:42

to tell that story. Well, for

21:45

many people, they're going to watch a film

21:47

over the past weekend and in the weeks ahead.

21:50

I think what people who are going to be curious about

21:52

is what this vision of New

21:54

York is to you and

21:56

where it comes from. Because your

21:58

mother was a cinephile, your dad was a

22:00

jazz drummer. There's a mix of

22:03

Quincy Jones music and tribe

22:05

called Quest and yeah, clearly

22:07

the influence of Royal the Cavra's photography,

22:10

and you have an amalgamation of

22:12

influences. So what is your

22:15

movie and what is its worldview to you?

22:17

Now? I feel like the movie

22:20

is like an archive of a black creative's

22:23

life, you know. Like again, I was raised

22:25

by two black artists who struggled

22:28

for years And I don't mean that in a

22:30

romantic way now, I mean like government

22:33

cheese and powdered milk, sometimes

22:35

squatting. It really was a struggle.

22:37

But my parents were just so creative in how

22:39

they raised us. So I'm hoping the

22:41

film is pays and homage to them. You

22:44

know. There's a scene at the end of the film,

22:47

and I don't think I'm spoiling anything, but

22:49

I finally get to my mom's apartment

22:52

and when I walk in, it's my dad's music playing

22:55

and my mom's artwork on the wall, and

22:57

my brother is there. So you're

23:00

in a fictitious version of

23:02

your mother's apartment. Your mom's

23:04

very real artwork is on the Wall. Yes,

23:06

your real brother is standing before.

23:09

Are you a non actor acting

23:11

with you? Yeah, your dad's music

23:14

is playing. You're making a movie for Netflix.

23:17

There are strangers and a

23:19

new family around you making this movie.

23:22

What is that moment like on those

23:24

days of shooting there, I

23:27

think if I thought too much about it, I

23:29

would have been completely overwhelmed

23:31

with emotion. It was a big deal that my

23:34

brother would be in the film with

23:36

me and could carry a scene like some people like, no,

23:38

really, no, who's the guy who's playing your brother? That's

23:40

my brother? Wait? Yeah, Okay,

23:42

he's good. All right, so he's great. Fine. I don't

23:44

want to get a big head. But it

23:47

was a big deal that we got to kind

23:49

of archive our family together.

23:52

You know, this is before Netflix came along,

23:54

you know, I was. It was completely

23:57

independent financing through New Slate

23:59

Ventures, and these queer

24:01

black people came surrounded me

24:03

in the film and we're like, Okay, we're going to support

24:05

you. We're gonna find whatever it is that you need to make

24:07

this film. And then into Sundance and

24:09

Netflix saw that more

24:12

of a director's cut of the film than

24:15

when we came down the mountain. It was like, Okay,

24:17

I definitely from my six screenings, I learned

24:19

I needed to tighten certain things or whatever cut

24:21

a little bit off. But Netflix was very

24:23

supportive in it being

24:25

my film and it's still being my voice.

24:28

And I find like, you know, I

24:30

think what's going to happen in the next couple of years. It's like it's

24:32

going to be a real hub for independent cinema.

24:35

But yeah, like to get that kind of support

24:37

and not have Netflix say, well,

24:40

you know, we think you should cut it down in ninety minutes, or

24:42

maybe we don't need this, Like it still

24:44

is my raw film. You know,

24:46

it's still very much my voice. It's not perfect,

24:48

but it is perfectly me and

24:51

I hope black artists or any struggling artists

24:53

are inspired by it. But I also hope that it makes

24:55

people feel nostalgic. I'm being very

24:57

deliberate about black and white. Like one, I'm

24:59

retrofitting the film until like a time

25:01

when this story probably should have been told

25:04

thirty forty years ago. But also just

25:06

this idea of revisiting the idea of the

25:08

classic New Yor film at this time putting people of

25:10

color in it, you know what I mean. Not

25:12

to take away from Spike but like a black woman

25:14

being centered in the story where she is her,

25:17

you know, she's the storyteller of her life.

25:19

And then being deliberate about hip

25:21

hop culture, like wanting to

25:24

present it in a very vulnerable, sometimes

25:27

sophisticated, but cool tone.

25:30

You know, of black and white. There's not

25:32

that oversaturated color, it's not oversexualized,

25:34

it's not hype pipe hype. It really is just

25:36

more about a quieter version

25:39

of the culture. But being very deliberate

25:41

about those choices, and working very

25:43

closely with my DP Eric Bronco,

25:46

and getting a look and then in post,

25:48

you know, sitting with Nat Jenks and revisiting

25:51

Roy DeCarava's work and just looking

25:53

at how he captured this beautiful shades

25:56

of brown in shades of gray. I

25:58

just wanted it to look beautiful, and I

26:00

wanted it to feel like authentic.

26:03

And that has been one of the biggest compliments

26:05

I've gotten from people from New York. Is there like,

26:07

yep, that's my New York. And

26:09

you know, you don't sit down and say I want to write a film

26:12

that's going to heal people. But number

26:14

of people who are over forty, over fifty, over

26:16

sixty, they say that they see the film, and

26:18

it's the shot in the arm that they needed to

26:20

maybe dust off that graphic novel

26:23

they've been working on, or you

26:25

know, that gazebo they've been trying to build in

26:27

the backyard. I don't know, like I hope

26:29

it does that for people, in case anyone was

26:31

wondering, Rata's in New York right

26:33

now. So that's what the Sirens has doubt.

26:35

This is fitting. You made a film about in New

26:38

York. You're in New York. This podcast should have

26:40

some New York in it. Yeah. I think one

26:42

of the reasons why you have strangers

26:44

telling you, I'm going to finish my project.

26:47

I'm going to finish the gazebo, I'm going to do the

26:49

graphic novel is

26:51

because the film is a radical

26:53

act of self reflection and

26:57

you very literally do that in

26:59

the composition with the recurring

27:02

motif of shots in the mirror. Yeah, very

27:04

intentional. And there were two

27:06

in particular influences around

27:09

the mirror, and that was the work of

27:11

Carry Mayweams and

27:13

Carry James Marshall. What I love

27:15

about their work is, well, Carry Mayweams,

27:18

I feel like as a photographer, you know, she's often

27:20

using herself as a subject, and

27:22

the portraiture is like unapologetically

27:26

raw, vulnerable human naked,

27:28

and there are moments where she is looking at

27:30

her reflection in the mirror. But

27:33

also she, to me, is a reflection of

27:35

black womanhood that we just

27:37

don't see a whole lot unless it's

27:39

captured by black photographers. And it's just like

27:41

again, a very human, very vulnerable,

27:44

very soft, very subtle, very intense.

27:46

And then Carrie James Marshall. I

27:49

always call him the mirror because his

27:51

figures are like this opaque

27:54

blackness and it

27:56

kind of invites black people

27:58

to look at themselves. I know people will maybe

28:00

not think of that, but I consider him

28:03

the mirror because he creates that opportunity

28:05

to self reflect. But he also kind of just it's

28:07

like this archival of black life and

28:10

not black pain. Some of that

28:12

is in there, some of that reality

28:14

is in there, just historically, like what

28:16

black people have gone through in this country. But

28:19

there also is just this for someone

28:21

who's painting these charcoal black

28:23

figures, there's so much light. There's an

28:25

image that he has a picture of Harriet

28:27

Tubman and her husband, but

28:30

we've never seen Harriet Tubman in

28:32

that You know kind of visage

28:34

she's being held with love

28:37

and sweetness by her husband, and so Carrie,

28:39

James Marshall, him and Karamy Weims were

28:42

huge influences. And I just again, I wanted

28:44

the movie to be a mirror in some way reflecting

28:48

Black womanhood in a way that we hadn't seen.

28:50

You know, this isn't the hands on hip all

28:52

knowing Sassy. This is

28:55

a flawed person and sometimes

28:57

her reflection is obscured. You know, sometimes

29:00

it is, sometimes it isn't. But yeah,

29:02

those are my influences in terms of

29:04

where the mirrors show up in the film. Carrie

29:07

May Weims Kitchen Table series is

29:10

very much in alignment with what's

29:12

happening in this movie in

29:14

terms of the vulnerability, the

29:17

change that happens over time

29:19

within those photographs. For people who

29:21

haven't seen those before, you could google

29:23

that right now while you're listening to this

29:26

podcast. I'm so jealous of people who

29:28

haven't seen it before, because it's that thing when

29:30

you encounter something for the first time, you're

29:32

just like knocked down by it, So

29:35

you're in for a treat. At the heart of those photographs

29:38

and this film is

29:40

that woman that you're talking about full

29:43

of idiosyncrasies and complexities,

29:45

and there's an undercurrent of

29:47

a conversation in this movie about the

29:49

gatekeepers of whiteness and

29:52

theater that's explicit

29:54

on the surface of this movie, but also

29:57

works as a sort of meta conversation

29:59

about the film industry. Where

30:01

are you at? I've said this

30:04

before. I'm probably a very

30:06

very lazy activists, and

30:09

I'm a little nervous about I

30:11

have some autoimmunities, and so I

30:14

want to go out in protest, but I

30:16

sometimes can't make it out into the street. And

30:18

so I do feel though that the film

30:21

becomes my version of responding

30:23

to those things. You know, there

30:25

is this reckoning that's happened where

30:28

well meaning folks posted

30:30

their black Squares on ig talking

30:33

about BLM and Black Lives Matter and

30:35

George Floyd didn't deserve to die all this other

30:37

stuff. And then not long after

30:39

that, people who worked at that institution

30:41

were like, well, we'll hold on now, wait a minute, now, miss

30:44

black Square poster. You overlook

30:46

me three times for that promotion, and

30:49

you hired get another white man to do a job

30:51

that I'm more than qualified to do. And so

30:53

there was this reckoning that was happening that's

30:55

been happening now for the last couple of weeks. I

30:58

don't know if it's just a rash response.

31:00

I know that in theater a number

31:02

of black women have been put in positions of power,

31:04

you know, at the gates, so to speak, and

31:07

I know it is in response to the

31:09

racial recording that's happening now. How

31:11

deep it goes, I'm not so sure. There

31:13

is a movement of black,

31:15

brown, queer, Asian, Indigenous

31:18

theater artists who are calling

31:20

out the lack of inclusion, especially

31:23

in those power positions in theater. It's

31:25

the we See You movement where they're calling

31:27

out white American theater. I did

31:29

not get to sign that petition, but

31:31

I feel like the film is my signature, and so

31:33

I'm hoping that there's just more

31:35

conversations about why has it

31:38

been that way in theater, people

31:40

who are programming these main stages

31:42

at these theater Why is it

31:44

the same kind of person determines

31:46

what kind of black life, Asian life, queer

31:49

life shows up on that stage. I

31:51

hope that the film is a part of the conversation

31:54

on getting that shit right and just

31:56

creating more equity. The forty

31:59

year old version also plays on

32:01

the forty year old version and missus

32:03

forty is this your jud

32:06

Appatil disc track? I don't know if

32:08

it's a track, but I think I got a couple

32:10

of bars off in a battle, like you know,

32:12

we stepped in and I was like, yo, jut, what

32:15

the fuck saying what's up? You know what

32:17

I mean? Like, I don't know if it's a distract, but I'm

32:19

definitely saying, yo, jet I'm here it

32:22

is. It's like it's a moment where

32:25

I'm just saying, like, well, where's our version

32:27

of this story? Because we are self

32:29

deprecating comedic figures

32:31

in our own lives and stories. But

32:34

I always say I appropriated his movie title

32:36

and his running time, you know why not people

32:38

appropriate black culture all the damn

32:40

time, and his soul. It's just

32:42

a little reversal, but I respect

32:44

him, and he's kind of created, like or

32:46

he's led this uh cultural

32:49

shift in storytelling where there's like

32:51

a very flawed, contemplative,

32:56

goofy, self deprecating white

32:58

guy who's like I'm turning

33:00

forty, but I don't have my shit together, and

33:02

I'm like, yeah, well, Black Women

33:04

too. One of the films that also

33:07

inspired me was Losing Ground by

33:09

Kathleen Collins, and the reason

33:11

I love that film so much is on

33:14

surface this particular character. She's a philosophy

33:16

professor, she's married to a really interesting, eccentric

33:19

painter, you know, but she's having an

33:21

identity crisis. She doesn't know who the fuck

33:24

she is. She doesn't think she's interesting enough, she

33:26

doesn't know if she's happy. And I just feel

33:28

like you don't see us in

33:30

that position. We're usually all knowing.

33:32

With Sassy, we're pained,

33:34

you know, we're going through something. Whenever, in

33:37

a lot of times black story, our

33:40

pain is the conflict. The conflicts are not

33:42

about like, oh God, do I want to move to Paris or

33:44

do I want to you know, like I see more and

33:47

more of that, but we could have more

33:49

introspective stories. But her film to

33:52

me was her version of This Is forty. It

33:54

wasn't as much of a comedy it

33:56

it was more avant guard, but very interesting

33:59

film about this person looking

34:01

in her interiors and not having to

34:03

have this terrible, horrific

34:06

thing happening plot for her to be an interesting

34:09

moving character. In Losing Ground,

34:11

the lead character, which is a woman, a

34:13

teacher, like you mentioned, is a little bit rudderless.

34:17

She's married to a painter played

34:19

by Bill Gunn, who's eccentric

34:21

and vibrant and loud and completely

34:23

dominates every room he's in. Often

34:26

to the dutchment to their relationship, that

34:28

film is an act of investigation

34:30

into self. It's an act of trying

34:33

to find out who the hell I am

34:35

in this moment and who I want to be. Yeah,

34:38

your film is very much in conversation

34:40

with that. But for the rat outside

34:43

of the movie, like the lead character

34:45

of Losing ground, what did you find

34:47

at the end of this film. I've

34:49

found at the end of this film, you

34:53

know, a way to still

34:55

confront the grief of losing

34:57

my mom. And I

35:00

feel like I found

35:02

a second family in the

35:05

people who helped me to make the film. You

35:08

know, it is a very tense experience

35:10

being on set, you know, sometimes

35:13

twelve hour days and sometimes

35:15

we either losing light or time

35:18

or resources. And to see

35:20

everyone pulled together. There were a lot

35:23

of native New Yorkers working on the film, and

35:25

so there was this investment to pull

35:28

together to show our version of New York. And I

35:31

walk away from the film really fortified. We

35:33

all really made it happen, and

35:35

this identity as a struggling artist,

35:38

it has to change. It has changed.

35:41

This has been such a big part of my family,

35:44

you know, as artists in New York, that's just who

35:46

we've been. And now I

35:49

feel like there may be some more opportunities

35:51

to tell story again. And it's a very privileged

35:53

position to be in. Whereas before

35:56

when people would ask me questions about story,

35:58

the curiosity was about how I could meet

36:01

their vision. Now I feel like

36:03

there's a curiosity about mine. At

36:06

the end of the day, I really did We

36:08

really did get to create a love

36:10

letter to my city. And I

36:12

think I didn't say this before, but I meant

36:14

to say that that's also part of the black and

36:17

white of it, is like really trying to preserve and

36:19

hold you the city in a place

36:22

that was such a special time for me. Some

36:25

people watch the film and they're like, oh, it took place in the nineties,

36:27

right, And no, it takes place

36:29

kind of now, But there

36:31

was something about that time in New York

36:34

where like it wasn't so clean and it

36:36

wasn't so this is a weird thing to

36:38

say, ravaged by gentrification,

36:41

and it makes me feel nostalgic

36:44

about New York. Some days it's

36:46

a love letter and sometimes it's a Dear John

36:48

letter because I don't know that I

36:50

personally will get to experience that

36:53

New York ever again. In the New

36:55

York of a bygone era, you

36:57

grew up within an artist community,

36:59

jazz musicians, activist thinkers. They

37:02

would stay up with your mom and dad

37:05

until three in the morning, smoking

37:07

a little bit of weed, a little that rote,

37:09

a little joint here and there, just enough to keep

37:12

going. Yes, And they would keep

37:14

going and going and talking and

37:16

figuring out who they were in their

37:18

twenties. And your younger

37:20

self was around that community.

37:23

Yes. As we leave this

37:26

conversation, when you look back

37:28

at that younger self adjacent to

37:30

those artists and now you are,

37:33

can you believe that you're here? No?

37:36

I can't. You know what I'll

37:38

say about myself in comparison to those

37:40

artists, because I do feel like the movie

37:43

asked the question, like what is success? I

37:46

don't know that I'm necessarily more successful

37:49

than them. I definitely may be more visible

37:51

than some of them, But I think the film

37:54

is about this woman who has to rejigger

37:56

her idea of what success is she's

37:58

been focusing on this thing and focusing on this

38:01

picture of success, and if she would just turn her head

38:03

to the left, she'd see that these kids love her, This

38:05

guy loves her. Her best friend will go to the ends

38:07

of the earth for her. So I have a higher

38:09

profile than maybe some of those artists. But

38:11

the thing that I

38:14

realize is sometimes

38:17

all of those artists needed was just some resources.

38:19

I mean, they created a community out of dilapidated

38:22

loss and storefronts, you know, and there

38:24

was a richness there. There was a wealth there,

38:27

you know that. I'm like the idea

38:29

of having to pick up a phone to

38:31

call someone, like not texting or maybe

38:34

the phone was off, you had to go by there and yell up, hey,

38:36

Rashid, you know. But that little

38:38

girl who was privy to all of

38:40

those conversations and rap

38:43

sessions as my dad would call them, and jam

38:46

sessions and laughing and pontificating

38:49

and arguing like that

38:51

has become my life's blood. That has become

38:54

these important kernels in my storytelling,

38:56

because a lot of times my story

38:59

is about just relationships and people kind

39:01

of confronting each other and also questioning like what

39:03

we share the same skin color, do we have an

39:05

obligation to each other, you know, And

39:08

also conversation of selling out now

39:11

that my work has kind of permeated a certain

39:13

space. It's like I was

39:15

talking about it with my therapists this week, about

39:18

my shifting identity from

39:20

the struggling artists to the more successful artists.

39:22

But that little girl, she

39:25

can't believe it, because I think,

39:27

like most kids, you might take things for granted.

39:30

And it was my mom who put those

39:32

first seeds of storytelling in me. When I was eight

39:34

years old. I had read this story to her

39:36

that I'd written, and we were always encouraged to

39:38

write stories, to perform, to act, but that

39:40

was how we played. That was like our religious practice,

39:43

you know. So I wasn't thinking of it as a career,

39:45

but I read the story to her about this black

39:48

family that is tied of all the isms

39:50

on the planet, and they

39:52

erect this spaceship and they fly

39:54

to this distant planet where they're the only inhabitants,

39:57

and for a while they love the peace,

39:59

they love the solitude, but then they cannot

40:02

take the peace and solitude and

40:04

they need as flawed as humans

40:06

are, they need humanity. So they put

40:08

that ship back together ship ship.

40:12

They put the spaceship back together and fly back to Earth.

40:15

And I remember reading it to my mom and she had tears

40:17

in her eyes, and I was like, what is The First

40:19

thing she said was, oh, my god, you see black people in the

40:21

future. That was the first thing she said. And then the second

40:23

thing she said was you going to be a great writer one day.

40:25

And so I think at the time I was just like,

40:27

Oh, she's just saying that. That's just what people say.

40:30

Now, looking back, I realized, like, she

40:33

is the engine to this journey.

40:36

She's the person who sat me down

40:38

and showed me great films and encouraged

40:40

me to write my own stories. And so

40:43

I've been thinking about that little girl a lot, because

40:45

she honestly would not be here if it weren't

40:47

for that my parents. You

40:50

know, that struggle and that community of artist

40:52

that I was raised in. Yesterday

40:55

was the anniversary of your mother's

40:57

passing. This is

40:59

a woman that you describe as a centophile.

41:01

She was the engine to your own creativity.

41:04

You grew up watching movies with her. Yep,

41:07

what do you think she would say about

41:09

this film coming out now? I

41:11

think she would love it. I think she would laugh. She

41:14

was one of the funniest people. She turned

41:16

me on to George Carlin

41:19

and Lenny Bruce and mom's

41:22

madly Richard Pryor. I think

41:24

she would have a good time, and I think that she you

41:27

know, my mom was a teaching artist for thirty

41:29

years, and so even though I was one

41:31

of those teenagers who was a little embarrassed by

41:34

squatting living with artists,

41:37

needing government assistance or whatever, I

41:39

ended up becoming a teaching artist just

41:41

like her. So I think she would look at and be like, mmmm,

41:43

see, see, I told you it's

41:46

a good way to supplement your career as an artist,

41:48

and sure enough it did. And not only did teaching

41:51

create a way for me to eat, but you see

41:53

the kids in the film, you

41:55

know, they're at amalgam of all of the amazing

41:57

young people I met over the years. It

41:59

gave me a story to tell. So I think

42:02

that she would laugh at that, like, mmm,

42:05

you're trying not to be me, and yet you're

42:07

taking on so much of my tendencies.

42:10

And I think she'd be really proud, you know, because

42:12

she was a cinophile and

42:14

film was a huge pastime for her, so

42:17

for her daughter to grow into

42:19

a filmmaker, a director. I know she'd

42:21

be really proud, and that's why I post things because

42:23

honestly, I'm a little embarrassed by the attention.

42:26

But I know that she was here, she'd

42:28

be on Facebook posting stuff,

42:30

calling me though, asking me how to post

42:32

shit? You know, that's how do you? Okay?

42:34

But if I wanted to send it to just ten people,

42:37

how do I you know? So I know

42:39

that she's with me in this moment, and I

42:41

think she's really proud of me and my brother

42:43

and my kind of archiving our family

42:45

history. Well, I'm so glad you did that

42:48

act of archiving because it resulted

42:50

in a really special movie, and

42:52

you should be proud. I'm sure you are. Thank

42:54

you, Sam Rod a Blank. It was an absolute

42:56

pleasure to have you here. Same here, I

42:58

mean a real full circle moment because

43:01

I've been listening over the last

43:03

few years and I think that your podcast

43:05

is really special, really is more than talk.

43:08

It's like soul investigation, and

43:10

I feel really honored to be here to be

43:12

a guest on your show. We'll do a part two with

43:14

the next movie. We should thank

43:18

you so much, Sam be well, and

43:41

that's our show. Special thanks this

43:43

week to Eric Lure's Ashton

43:46

Peanut and Jill Jurich. Rota's

43:48

debut film, The forty year old

43:50

version is now available to stream

43:53

on Netflix. To learn more

43:55

about Miss Blank, visit our site

43:57

at www dot com easypod

44:00

dot com. And if you're new to the show,

44:02

I'd recommend some past conversations

44:05

with folks like Representative il Han, Omar

44:08

Rock, sand Gay, Ted Danson,

44:11

and Janelle Money. You can find those

44:13

and more wherever you do your podcasting

44:16

Spotify, Apple, Google, Stitcher, Amazon,

44:19

wherever you listen, we will be there.

44:22

If you'd like to join our mailing list, drop

44:24

me a line at Sam at talk easypod

44:27

dot com. You can also follow us on

44:29

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at talk

44:31

easy pod and as

44:34

always, this show is made by a

44:36

Village. Our executive producer Jannick

44:38

Sobravo, illustrations by Christia

44:40

Chenoi, Associate producer Nikki Spina.

44:43

Our lead editor is Andre Lynn.

44:45

Our assistant editors are David Harding, Najng

44:48

and Kevin Core. Music by

44:51

Dylan Peck, Marketing by Patrice

44:53

Lee. Our interns are Julianna,

44:56

Erector Grace Perkins and Ian

44:58

Simmons. Graphics by Derek

45:00

Gaberzak and Ethan Seneca,

45:02

and the show is produced by Caroline

45:04

Reebok. I'm Sam Fragoso.

45:07

Thank you for listening to talk you see. We'll

45:10

be back this coming Sunday with Doctor

45:12

Corn Now West. Until

45:15

then, stay safe and

45:18

so on. M