Tatyana Ali Meets World

00:00:19
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, I just got back from a plug of I have that We took the kids to Mexico for spring break and it was really fun and enjoyable. I feel comfortable now that I've had a good vacation with them, saying I have not up until this point enjoyed vacationing with my children. It is not a vacation. It is just a trip to a new it's a new location without any of the comforts of health, and you are trying to make the best of it. And you know, the things that like sight seeing that you want to share with them, maybe they're not into because they're too young to get it, and like you know, they're tired, and time changes, and you know, do you throw it all out the window and getting them things to eat. It's just difficult this trip. Well, for one thing, we went with four other families.

00:01:16
Speaker 2: I was going to say, that's the key.

00:01:17
Speaker 3: Wow, you cannot travel with just your families because then you have other kids, other parents, and like the responsibility gets like sort of offloaded and like separate. Yes, it's so much fun, Like I highly recommend, Like I mean, I'm sure you guys were at a hotel, but like you going on vacations where you all get a house together like with other families is so much fun because then it's like all the kids are like in the living room hanging out, and all the parents are able to like go hang out in the kitchen and talk and you're still doing stuff, but you're all like dispersing the responsibilities of childcare.

00:01:48
Speaker 1: It's so much kind of what we did even at the hotel, I can definitely see how at a home it's even easier. But like there were you know, there was one day where all the moms went and got massages and the dads had kid duty while they all say and then it was like okay, now you know. Then the moms all came back and let the dads off for a couple of hours. And one thing we did that we next time realized, oh this is what we should do. We we did plan in an adult's only dinner and put the kids at the kids club. And then one by one they just started picking us off, like this kid's crying, this kid fell, this kid, and then.

00:02:25
Speaker 2: Oh, you have to hold the line. You have to hold the line as parents. You all have to agree sounding you're making a battle plan.

00:02:30
Speaker 1: You do what we was what we need to do next time is uh take couples dinners. So tonight's mine and Jens's night, we're going to have a date night while the kids and the other adults are out. Then tomorrow night it's a new adults couples night. And like the rest of us, A weh the kids.

00:02:49
Speaker 2: The thing is such a it's so it happens all the time.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: You're like, you all agree, like, oh, we'll just put all the kids in and then they're like, well, but Jimmy doesn't want to go because Jimmy's dairy free and they're only serving you. You're like, you're the parent that's going to ruin this for all the rest. And sure enough, once that one kid gets pulled up and all the other kids are like why isn't and uh no, no, you have to hold the line. You have to all agree and we're not getting were And this is the problem with kids all having Apple watches, because they could just text their parents and be like I want out of the kids center.

00:03:21
Speaker 2: You're like, no, this is why Indy doesn't have any of that. There's not getting the phone till he's sixteen.

00:03:26
Speaker 4: Well, it takes a villain.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: It takes a village, takes a village. You gotta hold that line.

00:03:32
Speaker 1: I feel like six and four now now, granted it's nearly seven and nearly five, so the tail end of six and four, I feel like we finally hit the sweet spot. So I was I had a great We had a great vacation. Writer, you were in Hawaii. How was Hawaii?

00:03:48
Speaker 5: Oh?

00:03:48
Speaker 2: I was great?

00:03:48
Speaker 3: And this was our fear because this was of no other kid's trip, which is traditionally a disaster for Indy exactly.

00:03:57
Speaker 2: We learned that lesson.

00:03:58
Speaker 3: We just always have to try with other families, but it's just so hard to coordinate, you know, it's hard to find families that have the same schedule.

00:04:05
Speaker 2: Can you know, just make it work.

00:04:08
Speaker 3: So we ended up with just my parents and my brother and his girlfriend and Indy at eleven years old as the only kid.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: And we were terrified going into it. We were like, oh god, he's.

00:04:18
Speaker 3: Going to be but you know what, he's eleven is a different thing than nine or ten. Eleven is like, he's now a cool dude that hangs out with us, and he talks to my brother, he hangs up with my parents. Like it's like no longer like oh, it's like he's just more of a he's just grown ups.

00:04:34
Speaker 2: And he was fine. It was great. We got to we went surfing, we went bike riding. He didn't complain as much as he usually used to do, so we were.

00:04:41
Speaker 3: Like, wow, okay. So yeah, we came back and we were like, okay, maybe we can.

00:04:44
Speaker 2: Go on vacations with just Indy.

00:04:46
Speaker 3: And it's a little it's gotten better because like when we were in New Zealand last year, year and a half ago or whatever, and it was just a three of us, you know, in a campravan.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: For three weeks with Indy. It was hard. Yeah, because he's a kid.

00:04:59
Speaker 3: He wants to do kid there things and Alex and I want to like, you know, do more grown up things like hiking and hot springs and and he was just didn't care about any of that.

00:05:06
Speaker 2: So actually, this trip, like I feel like we.

00:05:09
Speaker 3: Turned the corner of like, oh, now you're just a cool, like eleven year old who's willing to keep up with us.

00:05:12
Speaker 1: And it was like a young man now exactly a child exactly.

00:05:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I still want to try and find like, you know, other kids to hang out with it if we can for other vacations. But if we can't, I feel I'm feeling like we're okay in a way that we weren't a year ago.

00:05:28
Speaker 1: Right, Well, how was your spring break?

00:05:30
Speaker 4: I didn't take one every day spring break when you don't have kids. Dude, I'm on spring break for the rest of my life.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Wow, it's the best.

00:05:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. That also sounds like, yeah, I bought a sports car. I saw your new baby sports car writer. Did you comment on it?

00:05:47
Speaker 2: I didn't even No, I didn't comment. No, neither of you did.

00:05:50
Speaker 4: Jensen is the only one who commented. And I was like, Oh, they're jealous of my car. That's what it is, this whole.

00:05:56
Speaker 2: Like I don't need a car attitude.

00:05:58
Speaker 4: But then, what's an h HL fifty one sixty the California law that since I'm about to be fifty, I have to buy a stupid sports car?

00:06:06
Speaker 2: So I am that's a law in California, California law.

00:06:11
Speaker 4: So I haven't owned a car in almost six years.

00:06:14
Speaker 6: And it was so pretty that I didn't have a choice.

00:06:18
Speaker 1: Was it on the It was the display car in the dealership, right, you walked in and.

00:06:24
Speaker 2: No, no, I walked in.

00:06:25
Speaker 4: I was I was bored and I was I had nothing to do, and I was walking around and then when I found the car that I liked. My son in law is a master at this, so he found me the perfect car that's now being shipped.

00:06:37
Speaker 6: To me from Clearwater, Florida.

00:06:38
Speaker 4: I haven't even seen it in person, so it's uh, it's real pretty and I get my first car in a while.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: So very similar to having children being bored to walking around and buying a very.

00:06:52
Speaker 4: Yep pretty much, and I think I feel, I just feel like a twenty twenty five sports car. It's the perfect age to really understart and understand ending the sports car, and really it becomes its own kind of thing, which is kind of fun. So I don't have to worry about leaving it places and I can keep it.

00:07:08
Speaker 6: With other sports cars and it's going to be really great. So I'm just, yeah, very exciting.

00:07:12
Speaker 1: You're a sweet spot. Sweet Yeah.

00:07:15
Speaker 4: Five hundred horsepower areas a real sweet spot for my life.

00:07:20
Speaker 6: I'm pretty happy.

00:07:22
Speaker 1: Welcome to poud meets World.

00:07:23
Speaker 2: I'm Daniel Fischer, I'm rid or Strong, and I'm Wilfredell.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: Online these days, there is a lot of discussion about Mount Rushmore, not the literal US landmark that most likely has very expensive parking, but the pop culture exercise of picking any specific categories top four of all time entry into the Mount Rushmore of your field, who forever cement your legacy as one of the goats. Viral variation has participants ranking their Disney Channel greats, trading around names like Miley Cyrus, Raven Simone, Hillary Duff and the Dog with a Blog or who's on your wrap Mount Rushmore Biggie Tupac jay Z the Dog with a Blog. Well, if you're interested in constructing a Mount Rushmore for the coolest people to come out of the nineties, our guest this week might just get the whole side of a mountain. She began her career in the coolest neighborhood possible, Sesame Street, playing amongst Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. One of her more memorable appearances was alongside Herbie Hancock, who took a sample of her voice and ran it through his legendary synthesizer to show off a brand new technology in music. Then she made her way over to Star Search, covering Marvin Gay and scoring a four star rating at just seven years old. But her breakthrough came in nineteen ninety when she was cast by Quincy Jones in a television show he was producing for a rapper he thought could easily transition into family TV. And since that show was the legendary fresh Prince of bel Air that rapper was Will Smith, an entire generation would come to know and love her and the spoiled brat with a big heart Ashley Banks. Oh yeah. She also became a pop and R and B star with a certified gold album, Kiss the Sky, released on Michael Jackson's record label in nineteen ninety nine. And somehow she did all of this while also graduating from Harvard. Recently, you've seen her on Abbott Elementary on social media, advocating for maternal health, talking about her new children's book, Osssey and the Octopus, inspired by her own son, or promoting baby yams for philanthropic Baby Quilt Company, where ten percent of all proceeds go to support Black and Indigenous community birth workers. And so we are honored to welcome a guest we have wanted on Podmeats World for quite some time. It's Tatiana Ali.

00:09:58
Speaker 7: Hello, how are you? How are you guys?

00:10:04
Speaker 1: So good to see you thank you so much for being here with us. You have been a dream guest for us for some time. I know we have asked you now several times to come on, and I'm just so grateful that it finally worked out for your schedule. In your intro, we talked all about your activism and your philanthropic work, with a lot of focus on maternal health and rights. And I wanted to know, having been in Hollywood since you were six, where did your desire to help others come from? Since so many of us are self absorbed.

00:10:41
Speaker 5: Fatistics others, Huh, where did it? Where did it come from? I don't, I don't. I don't know if I can put an exact answer on that.

00:10:56
Speaker 7: I I know that.

00:10:59
Speaker 5: Throughout my childhood, even when I was, you know, doing fresh prints or doing other work or.

00:11:06
Speaker 2: I don't know, in my.

00:11:07
Speaker 5: Family, the people always said, you know, to who much is given, much is expected.

00:11:11
Speaker 7: And I grew up here in that and.

00:11:15
Speaker 5: With maternal health specifically, I just once I realized that what happened to me and to my kids, my family, once I realized that that was that our story, that trauma is very commonplace, I have to tell you it wasn't anything altruistic. It was just real anger that something could be so something so awful, could be so common. Right every place I went, I just heard the same story. So that's that's really what that was. I was kissed.

00:11:53
Speaker 1: Would you would you mind sharing with us a little bit of the story. I know you, like me, have two beautiful sons, and so much of the work that you do has been guided by that, by the fact that you are now a mother. Can you tell us a little bit about what your birth story was that that was so traumatic?

00:12:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a really healthy pregnancy, you know, luckily, it's this is my first son, my first baby, and all of that changed once we got into the hospital. You know, our birth plan wasn't followed. There's all that that is.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: But I was.

00:12:31
Speaker 5: Also held down. I mean, I'll give you the quick version. I was held down my arms and legs.

00:12:39
Speaker 7: I was.

00:12:41
Speaker 5: What the term that I use is obstetric violence. There are people who have since that I've heard stories of that have sued for very for almost the identical thing that happened to me, and one at the time. Once we were you know, once it was time for us to leave the hospital, and this is at my son had been in the nicky. He couldn't pee on his own for a long time, for about five or six days, and when they realized that, actually it was a pediatric urologist who is the only one who came to my side and said, I saw you. I saw what happened during your birth, the things that resulted in this emergency C section, And she said, I think the traumatic nature of his birth is what is causing this. And that was the only person in the whole hospital who mentioned what happened. There was a lot of gaslighting. I mean, I'll be real with you. I know you guys, but they pushed him back inside me, Danielle, that's what happened. My baby was all the way crowned.

00:13:46
Speaker 4: And why can I ask because I don't know. I'm the only one here who's not a parent, so I don't understand what That's not.

00:13:51
Speaker 7: A real procedure. That's not a real procedure.

00:13:54
Speaker 2: And is there a reason why they would do that?

00:13:56
Speaker 5: Or in my records it shows that he goes from the lowest I saw his hair, I touched his hair to the highest station and it doesn't say, well, how that happened. It's an incredibly dangerous thing that they did. They could have snapped his neck. But this is after hours of them holding me down, not allowing me to move.

00:14:15
Speaker 2: Oh my god.

00:14:17
Speaker 5: But these stories are I mean, you know, it's all They're all over Instagram. It's been happening for a very long time. The people who have spearheaded the reproductive justice movement have been ringing the alarm. You know, black women are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth. And I think a lot of times people go, oh, well, those are other health risks and other whatever. Yes, that's in the mix of things, but there are incredible traumas that are also being experienced in the hospital when you're a black woman, an indigenous, an indigenous person giving birth, that the treatment is just totally different, and how they feel they can manipulate and touch you and what they can do to your body is just very different. And yeah, and you know it's but like I said, it's this My story is so common. And when we left the hospital we were we left in the middle of the night. As soon as we got the go I think it was like past midnight we ran away.

00:15:20
Speaker 4: Wow.

00:15:22
Speaker 1: Wow, Well that definitely helps explain your answer, which is you know you got into this work partially because it has been a family value of yours since the time you can remember, and also righteous anger for things you have experienced. So thank you for using that to help others, because, like you said, it is very common.

00:15:48
Speaker 5: I'll share something else that I think you guys would understand that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily. I I when I started meeting other people, other families that experienced.

00:15:59
Speaker 7: This, many of whom their loved ones are.

00:16:01
Speaker 5: Not here anymore, okay because they died in the hospital, and multi generationally grandmothers who I shared my story in a room and they shared their story with me. I started to really consider, like, wow, I have been singing and dancing and acting for people since I was a little girl, and you kind of go, well, why, and now I have this experience to like.

00:16:26
Speaker 7: Make it makes sense. And it does make sense.

00:16:28
Speaker 1: It's like, well, I'm.

00:16:29
Speaker 5: Supposed to say something, yeah, because all the people I'm talking to, no one puts a mic in their face, like they don't.

00:16:36
Speaker 7: Necessarily you know, away platform what's happening.

00:16:41
Speaker 5: Yeah. It kind of just was like, God, I'm going to take all the things you give me, the good and the bad, you know, do something with it.

00:16:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's such a there's such a double edged sword to the idea that, unfortunately in society, sometimes just being a celebrity gives you credibility and you can use it, yes, you know, and so in your situation, in this case, using that credibility for something credible and truthful and to share other people's stories and your own, you know, like I said, it's a double edged sword. There are certainly a lot of people who use that platform for not incredible things. But in this case, you know, what a blessing that you recognize that you have the platform and that you're able to do something about it. So thank you for making such a difference.

00:17:33
Speaker 4: It's also great that you're doing it because as child actors we've talked about this and entertainers, you're almost conditioned when you're young to not make waves.

00:17:43
Speaker 7: You know.

00:17:44
Speaker 4: It's like, just just do your job and listen to the directors and listen to the adults and let them know what's going on, and be the best person you can because you want to keep the job. And so you put on a smile and you let all the bad wash over you and you never open your mouth about anything. So it's really impressive that you're like, no, not doing that. M h.

00:18:02
Speaker 7: I actually think I kind of did do that. At first. We were just surviving. Yeah, became pregnant with my youngest.

00:18:10
Speaker 5: That's when my journey really started because I couldn't when it happen again.

00:18:14
Speaker 6: Yeah, man.

00:18:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. It also takes some time to recover from a true, you know, a traumatic birthing experience. And your son was in the NICKU. I did not have. Uh, I did not have a traumatic birth experience in it in the same way you did. But I also my you know, my son was born four weeks early, and he spent the first six months of his life in and out of the nick you and it was, you know, my birth plan was thrown out the window, and you know, so it I also did not really start to process everything that had happened until you get pregnant again, and now there's some space, a couple of years have passed, and you go, I think I'm finally ready and able to face the everything that has gone on since that time. Well, I would like to switch subjects to.

00:19:22
Speaker 8: See wait, until I started doing research, I had no idea that your career started on Sesame.

00:19:35
Speaker 4: That's awesome, by the way, the start of any actor ever, that's awesome.

00:19:40
Speaker 1: Love it was Sesame Street then still awesome for you as a kid, even after you saw how the sausage was made.

00:19:48
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, it was even more awesome. Sit on that.

00:19:52
Speaker 2: You know.

00:19:53
Speaker 5: There are a lot of different things they have the kids do at Sesame Street. They kind of have like a preschool backstage. And what the most fun is when you get to sit I remember this being like the.

00:20:04
Speaker 7: Thing like when you get to sit on the little ledge.

00:20:08
Speaker 5: All and if you and a puppet talking, and the puppeteers are when I was there, and I'm sure now just the most beautiful artist people. Yeah, so, and they would rehearse with you with their hands and whatever. And then when by the time, like you're a part of the magic making. That's how it felt when.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: I was a kid.

00:20:30
Speaker 7: It didn't ruin it. It didn't ruin it. It felt like I started it and like I was privy.

00:20:36
Speaker 5: To something that was really special that like you know, at home, I didn't know.

00:20:42
Speaker 7: But if you're in this place, you get to see who big Bird really is to walk around with his hands like this and kind of like.

00:20:55
Speaker 5: Hit suspenders with the bottom of the Big Bird costume.

00:20:59
Speaker 7: Oh such like beautiful people, it's so cool.

00:21:03
Speaker 2: Not to bring the room down.

00:21:04
Speaker 4: But you know, Big Bird was actually supposed to be instead of Krista mcauiffe. Was actually going to be the other passenger on the Challenger shuttle in nineteen eighty six. Really only the reason he didn't do it is they couldn't fit the suit inside the shuttle.

00:21:17
Speaker 6: But he was.

00:21:17
Speaker 4: It was gonna be Big Bird.

00:21:21
Speaker 2: So much more traumatic for all of you.

00:21:23
Speaker 4: Imagine that it was supposed to be Big Bird.

00:21:25
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that crazy WHOA.

00:21:31
Speaker 4: Sorry with wild there, Yeah, I'm suposed to be Big Bird.

00:21:36
Speaker 3: Yep.

00:21:39
Speaker 1: So how did you end up on Sesame Street making music with Herbie Hancock? How did that like, how did that journey evolve?

00:21:48
Speaker 7: You know what It's like what Ryder said. I was one of the really behaved.

00:21:51
Speaker 5: Kids, okay, a pre school of kids in the back, and then the kids that were really taking direction and like you know, hitting their marks or whatever. We were often the ones that were come out and do things with whoever.

00:22:10
Speaker 7: The celebrity guests were the artist guests.

00:22:13
Speaker 5: I haven't seen this one that much out there, but I did one with Carly Simon. I did one with Sid Caesar making faces, and then Hermie Hancock. So that was kind of just one of those moments. And when I look back on it, I'm like, that was sort of it was what he was introducing, what he was showing kind of became the future of music. Like yes, yeah, exactly, exactly. I don't know.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: Your name is Mike.

00:22:46
Speaker 1: So cool. Another very early experience for young actor Tatiana is with Eddie Murphy in Raw and You are So cute singing Why do Pools Fall in Love? With Samuel L. Jackson and directed by Robert Townsend, produced by Keenan Ivory Wan. I mean it gets absolutely no more legendary.

00:23:07
Speaker 2: Did that?

00:23:07
Speaker 1: Did you have any idea what this was at the time?

00:23:12
Speaker 7: No, I did not, And I don't even think the parents.

00:23:14
Speaker 5: I remember they gave us some They were really sweet, and they gave all of the kids.

00:23:19
Speaker 7: All of the kids in that early scene are all kids. We all worked together a lot in New York are we.

00:23:25
Speaker 5: And auditions and our parents knew each other and stuff like that, so it was like a little crew. Diane Richmond, who ended up being in the Cosby Show for years and years. He played Bud, he played Lady Murphy. Uh, and he tells, you know, he tells that monkey joke. Like, yeah, they gave us all little vhs, like not little, but vhs tapes of just the beginning.

00:23:54
Speaker 2: So we could.

00:23:54
Speaker 7: See what our work, you know what I mean. They were really sweet. They were really really sweet.

00:24:00
Speaker 1: So it's so cute.

00:24:02
Speaker 7: Yeah, but no, we didn't know.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: We did not.

00:24:06
Speaker 7: I think it's called like Eddie Murphy in concert or something, you know what I mean.

00:24:09
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well, I know your father is from Trinidad and your mom is from Panama. Did either of them have connections in the business. How did you convince them to let you act?

00:24:22
Speaker 7: I don't know. I think it was just precocious.

00:24:24
Speaker 5: I have a lot of memories of being like in the backyard and Long Island, and you know, we had chain link fences between the papers the backyards, and I just have like really early memories being like and then I saw and then and then and then the bicycle and.

00:24:41
Speaker 7: Then and like the neighbors being like okay, good, like okay, so sorry.

00:24:53
Speaker 4: My co host my co hosts know I'm a freak with this stuff. I have to know where in Long Island, you are more okay, all right, cool. My wife's from a Long Island. So my wife's from Long Island. She's from Huntington, and my dad's from Rockville Center, so Broxville Center.

00:25:09
Speaker 5: You know what I'm supposed to and I forgot And I have to ask my parents this because we moved from Long Island to California for Fresh Prince, and I have to remember what the exit is because that's what people.

00:25:21
Speaker 2: They want to exit.

00:25:23
Speaker 5: I can do the Long Island Railroad like Massapequa Park, Wanta Amityville.

00:25:30
Speaker 4: They want to know what exit on the l ie. You are exactly okay, makes sense.

00:25:35
Speaker 7: I'm going to get that number one day.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: Oh my god.

00:25:40
Speaker 1: So how old were you when the audition for a Fresh Prince came around? I was ten, okay, And so you were in Long Island. How did you audition in New York?

00:25:52
Speaker 7: I auditioned in New York.

00:25:54
Speaker 5: I had just done another pilot for NBC that brought us out to California for like a month, because that's how I remember probably was used to take and this one was even more. It was like I think it was like six weeks. We went back and forth a bit because it was a singing and dancing family. Okay, it was like the Partridge Family, but like the black Partridge family. And we're all from Indianapolis. Tevin Campbell was my brother in that, Sayda Garrett, she wrote Man in the Mirror, Michael Jackson's manor Indy Herron, who ended up being in Vogue, one of the original founders then, and we all, yeah, so that was the first, and it was for NBC, and I think they kind of Brandon Tartakoff was still at NBC at the time, and so when Fresh Prince came up, I auditioned from New York for it.

00:26:46
Speaker 7: That was a long answer to it.

00:26:50
Speaker 9: No, but do you do you remember then the moment when you found out you got the part?

00:26:55
Speaker 1: How many auditions did it take? Leading us today and what was that moment?

00:26:58
Speaker 7: Like, you know, it was only two auditions because I did a lot of theater in New York. I was doing an off Broadway play and I couldn't come to LA to do the test. And I remember being.

00:27:09
Speaker 5: Really bummed out about it, and you know, my mom being like, well that's okay.

00:27:13
Speaker 7: You know, we keep our commitments, and you.

00:27:16
Speaker 3: Know, like whatever it's it probably worked. In your favor because Hollywood loves what I can't get right.

00:27:22
Speaker 7: I don't know, and also, of.

00:27:25
Speaker 2: Course everybody does awful. It's the worst nerve breaking process.

00:27:30
Speaker 5: But at that time I never really tested before that I remember, and it was it was right after one of the off Broadway shows, and I guess they did test everybody, and they paired everybody up, and but they they decided to go with me.

00:27:46
Speaker 7: And I was right there backstage on that. I can see the steps and I remember my mom going, come, I guess what she told me and I re sitting in the steps and like being like, you don't know, but you know you want to.

00:28:03
Speaker 4: Did you did you have to audition alone or did you read with Will Smith? Did they have did they pair you up with anybody? Or was it just you by yourself?

00:28:11
Speaker 5: It was me by myself. I had auditioned in New York. The second audition was for Quincy Jones, okay, and I remember my mom and my aunt's being really excited, but I don't really know. And then I and I had to do a rap. They've made all the kids like make up a rap interesting and do it in the room, and I was like, well, this is didn't work out because I can sing, but I cannot wrap.

00:28:35
Speaker 7: I was so corny, but that's what they wanted.

00:28:38
Speaker 2: I think that's what.

00:28:39
Speaker 5: Worked because actually ends up wrapping in the pilot and she's corny.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: Well, the show pretty quickly becomes a cultural phenomenon. You will and Alfonso breaking out as these young standouts. Did you enjoy the process of making was this? You had done a pilot for NBC, but was this your first sitcom or your first multi camp?

00:29:04
Speaker 7: Yes?

00:29:05
Speaker 1: And did you enjoy the process?

00:29:07
Speaker 5: I loved the process because it was I mean, I had done what other one had?

00:29:12
Speaker 7: I done the Cosby Show because they used to film that in New York. I did one episode of Cosby. Okay, it's like a play, yep, everyone to put on a play.

00:29:22
Speaker 2: So that I.

00:29:23
Speaker 5: Understood really well, you know, because that's what I did in New York growing up.

00:29:28
Speaker 7: The only thing that was very new to me was comedy.

00:29:31
Speaker 5: All the stuff that I had done in New York was more like dramatic, like the play, like Broadway, like I was in Fences. I played ray Now when I was little on Rada. It was all very dramatic, very like serious stuff. So I had to learn comedy with fresh prints. I had to learn like the rhythm of it and that right.

00:29:50
Speaker 7: Yes, and I loved it. I still love it. The science of it is so dope.

00:29:57
Speaker 1: I know we all feel the same way about multi cam, just that feeling you're like.

00:30:03
Speaker 4: We want them back.

00:30:04
Speaker 3: Was somebody teaching you the rhythm because we had like our executive producer Michael Jacobs was very clear with all of us like, here's how it goes. This is where joke is funnier, this is when it's not don't walk on a laugh, like like literally rules that he was teaching us as kids, and we was somebody doing that or were you just figuring it out as you went?

00:30:21
Speaker 5: I think someone who was doing it. I remember our directors were guiding us with that. I remember Alfonso giving me a lot of the rules of the road because he had been in Silver Space, he.

00:30:35
Speaker 4: Was on Silver Spoons sitcom actor.

00:30:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just like the rule of threes and like all this stuff would go over he would I don't even know if he remembers this, but he would talk about it really freely.

00:30:46
Speaker 7: And I was like, oh.

00:30:49
Speaker 5: And then also because Will was new to acting, I think there was even though I was the only kid on the set.

00:30:55
Speaker 7: Really, I think there was.

00:30:57
Speaker 5: A lot of learning happening, like right, and and so I just got to like kind of be a sponge and absorb absorb all of that.

00:31:06
Speaker 7: But like as you go, right, yeah, and then there's almost there's so much time to rehearse in multi kids.

00:31:12
Speaker 4: Like yeah, right, it's a great schedule. It's a beautiful schedule, isn't it.

00:31:18
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:31:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were also, i mean really surrounded by very seasoned actors James Avery, Joseph Marcel, Charlene Woodward, Jasmine Guy. I mean don round treat. Yeah, they all show up pretty quickly on the show. So I would imagine you're learning in like real time from some of these incredible pros.

00:31:39
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely. At the table reads.

00:31:41
Speaker 3: Table reads guys, I mean there's some actors, there's some actors table reads just scare the crap out of them and they can't do it. And it's like for me, it's like it's kind of like a superpower when you grew up with it. Like I love it too. Like I get through a table read, I'm so relaxed. I'm like it's like the perfect level of like pressure for performance, but also it's just a table read.

00:32:03
Speaker 2: So it's cool. So like I love it. I thrive.

00:32:05
Speaker 3: But like even my wife who's done it a bunch, like, but she didn't grow up in it, and she's like, nah, she'd rather do the thing, Like the table read is like an afterthought. I'm like, table is the best part, the best part. You had to throw it out and see if it works exactly.

00:32:19
Speaker 7: It's like the table read.

00:32:20
Speaker 5: What's so magical about it is like it is the page and it's either there it's not, and there's nothing that we did or didn't do.

00:32:29
Speaker 7: I to hear it, and it's like if it didn't work, it didn't work.

00:32:32
Speaker 2: Yep, Yeah, I love it too.

00:32:35
Speaker 4: Were you were you a sitcom fan growing up? I mean, was this something that you just love TV?

00:32:40
Speaker 6: Oh yeah yeah, me too.

00:32:42
Speaker 7: And movies and everything else? No, I did. I loved it? God? What did I grow up with watching? Like? I watched all the tgi F. I watched you guys, I watched I watched Blossom after Yeah, sure you know. I watched uh perfect perfect Cousins.

00:33:04
Speaker 2: You know what is perfect stranger? Perfect strangers?

00:33:10
Speaker 4: Yeah that's old school t G if you're going just the ten of us and stuff like that.

00:33:14
Speaker 6: That's great. It's a Growing Pains kind of era.

00:33:20
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time you heard the theme song.

00:33:24
Speaker 7: For Fresh Prince? Yes? I do? Do I remember, Yes, I do. They had a we had a party for the first episode.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you have a part and that theme song.

00:33:37
Speaker 7: It was a lot longer in the first couple episodes.

00:33:40
Speaker 5: Okay, a few stanzas that they cut out moving forward, But yes, I remember thinking it was amazing.

00:33:48
Speaker 7: There's a music video in the beginning of.

00:33:50
Speaker 2: The yell the whole story.

00:33:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, h just so great. Was your relationship with Will a mirror to the Brothers sister style the way you guys were written on the show?

00:34:03
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally totally. And it's so funny. He's so funny.

00:34:10
Speaker 7: He lights up a space, you know. But yeah, absolutely, very much. Him and Alfonso very much the big brothers that like, do you want them? I don't know.

00:34:23
Speaker 4: Exactly. Well, I think you would have to. If you're going back through especially sitcom history, Will and Alfonso have to be up there as one of the best comedy duos you're ever going to find. So, I mean, it was just one of those things where you saw the two of them on screen together and then this little girl comes in and is holding her own. It was pretty impressive Tatia and watching you on that show because you but I mean again, you think about it, you think about the power of those two guys together comedically, and it's easy for every other actor around to be really swallowed up and you weren't. The cast was so we've rewatched a couple episodes odes of different shows on this podcast, and Fresh Prince is when we were all like.

00:35:04
Speaker 6: Wow, they're all really good.

00:35:08
Speaker 2: It was an ensemble.

00:35:09
Speaker 3: You know, we could see like the way because I mean, obviously Will is like why the show existed, but once you get into that kitchen set, everybody's got their beats, everybody's got their own and it was like it was really cool to see.

00:35:20
Speaker 2: It was like, wow, yeah.

00:35:22
Speaker 5: James really, James Avery really was a huge part of of You know, sometimes the strength of the comedy of one or a couple of characters can you know, it's not necessarily that everybody else is dim in comparison to that, but it can kind of set you know, in the process of making it.

00:35:44
Speaker 7: Writers, everybody's like, oh, let's do more of that, Let's do more of that. Because that's the funniest, funniest thing.

00:35:49
Speaker 5: And but there was something. We always had notes after every runthrough. We had notes, and our notes were different from notes that I experienced in other places. And it started, I don't know if it started my experience in what I remember it was Andy and Susan Barwitz. I remember them asking us, what do you guys think because I and I always felt I got the feeling I might be wrong about this, but I got the feeling, you know, this is a white couple they're writing about this black family. And I really felt like they were asking, like, did we get this right? Be honest like tell us?

00:36:28
Speaker 7: And we did.

00:36:29
Speaker 5: And that became something that no matter who the executive producers were, we maintained that. And boy would James say, my daughter would not talk to me like that, and I'd be like, yeah, she might not, but she might say it in like a different way, but I feel like she would fight for that, and we would talk about so maybe that's what she feels like.

00:36:51
Speaker 7: All of our characters had very fleshed out perspectives, you know, and.

00:36:56
Speaker 1: You had ownership.

00:36:58
Speaker 2: That's cool.

00:37:00
Speaker 4: Your opinion mattered to your character, which is, yeah.

00:37:08
Speaker 5: We have no problem, and I know that that's not how it is. Notes is take the notes.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had literal line readings, so like you know, yeah.

00:37:24
Speaker 4: Do you do you remember when you first kind of realized what you had as a show when it when you really were like, wow, we were in the zeitgeist. I mean, this is we're hugely popular here. Do you remember when you really first felt that.

00:37:39
Speaker 7: I felt that way after the show?

00:37:42
Speaker 2: Okay, Like I remember being in.

00:37:46
Speaker 5: College and one of my roommates, we were in like the common area and you know where everybody goes and got our late night snacks or whatever, and we're sitting down watching and.

00:37:58
Speaker 7: She's like, fresh Prince is on. Would it be weird if I watched it if I watched it next to you? And I was like I don't so, and she's like, come on, let's watch.

00:38:12
Speaker 5: And I watched her joy, Like, I.

00:38:18
Speaker 7: Watched her laugh and like know the lines, and like I saw how much it meant.

00:38:25
Speaker 5: To her, even despite the awkwardness that should have been or what I kind of felt right, and.

00:38:32
Speaker 7: And that was so that even after we had done it. It's the it's the lasting power of what the show is meant to people that makes it that has that that's what brings that bell for me, Like oh my god, like.

00:38:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah touched you know, it really touched people.

00:38:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we feel that too, that like we don't. I don't really think we knew that the show was big or meant some thing until after it was off the air, you know. And it's like it took.

00:39:05
Speaker 4: A lot like The Fresh Prince though was more like way more popular when it was on and magazine covers and TV guide and stuff than we ever were.

00:39:16
Speaker 3: So but still I feel like, I mean, it is strange that we all tuned it out, Like we're talking about the same period in the nineties where we're living this life, we're working every day on the show, and yet it becomes a lot of noise, like you don't want to I don't know, like I remember avoiding anything that was too celebratory of what we were doing. I just remember being like tape night was fun, but like I didn't want to hear I didn't want to talk boy Beats World outside or like hang around you know fans, like it would just be like get me out of here.

00:39:46
Speaker 7: I don't know, right, we're all so little. Look Karen, who played Hillary Will I mean they.

00:39:53
Speaker 5: Were out of the c I don't know what they were doing, but I feel like they got to yeah, enjoy it way right right, Yeah, yeah.

00:40:17
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about the fashion of fresh prints, because you wore these amazing sort of like private school looks. Will was wearing all the new cool streetwear releases and Nikes. Alfonso looked like a banker was props. Picking out the wardrobe a big deal because it was so iconic.

00:40:39
Speaker 7: It was a big deal. It was a big There was a lot of attention paid to it, a lot of Oh my gosh. I used to love how Karen's dressed, like.

00:40:50
Speaker 4: I know, a little house.

00:40:54
Speaker 5: H and viv Everything was Saint John, like they were really expensive, beautiful clothes that kind of you know, we're a part of the scenery of like bel air, you know.

00:41:06
Speaker 7: Lots of lots of shoulders, shoulders.

00:41:10
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, solder pads weren't even in the clothes. They came as a separate accessory sweatersical whatever.

00:41:21
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that is so funny. Where's our or where's our shipment of shoulder pads.

00:41:26
Speaker 7: From your pantyhose because those are in the panty hose days did you like in color hose?

00:41:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember, I mean I wore them in my personal life, so I know, you know.

00:41:39
Speaker 5: People I think also people this was before ath leisure, like just clothes in generally have to get dressed.

00:41:46
Speaker 2: Are panty hose not a thing anymore?

00:41:49
Speaker 1: Not killing? Are? But most people don't wear them?

00:41:52
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah maybe if it's cold like tight.

00:41:54
Speaker 1: Yes it's colder, they put on tights. But yeah, I mean you used to if you didn't have pantyhose on. It was almost like do you even care about where you're going? And like she mentioned you you were you were supposed to wear pantyhose, but unless they were a different color than your skin, you would even wear them to blend in is she wearing panty? Whose? Or is she not? It was like it was and what was the purpose.

00:42:20
Speaker 2: Of said hose? What? What?

00:42:22
Speaker 1: What are you supposed to show you care? This? Was you cared about? I'm uncomfortable for you?

00:42:30
Speaker 6: Interesting?

00:42:31
Speaker 7: The purpose was it to keep you warm?

00:42:35
Speaker 2: Was it to keep you from having to shave your legs?

00:42:40
Speaker 5: Like it might be a throwback from like wartime, like we know the movies were like you know when they're rations like oh I got my girl some pantyhose, right, but you can't look like you wearing pantyhose.

00:42:51
Speaker 7: So they used to like draw the line.

00:42:53
Speaker 2: The line up the back exactly.

00:42:54
Speaker 6: Okay, it was.

00:42:55
Speaker 7: It was a piece. The costume department would have a library stuck a penny in every single color.

00:43:07
Speaker 2: So funny or whatever. I can't believe we're talking about that.

00:43:10
Speaker 1: This is.

00:43:11
Speaker 2: This is the hard hitting journalism upon world.

00:43:14
Speaker 4: This is we make.

00:43:16
Speaker 1: It a little hard hitting. Ready. It's also a way to blur skin imperfection. Right, So it's like make up for your legs and you're gonna wear something short. Well, we can't see that cellulite. We shouldn't see that hair. You shouldn't see that a scar or a or a you know, a skin tag or you know anything.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: We still want to see leg but you gotta show.

00:43:47
Speaker 1: They gotta be set. But it was, it was truthfully, it's a filter. It's a filter, you know. So anyway we can we could talk about it. For I know so much about Fanny House.

00:44:01
Speaker 7: I still have a box school.

00:44:03
Speaker 1: I don't know, honestly, I just started buying tights again. Now they make so many cute pattern ones, little roses on them. You know heart, They're they're back. They're back in a big way. We all grew up on a sitcom. We all had set teachers, and I am always blown away by people like you and Writer and Jonathan Taylor Thomas and our other co star Ben who you know? Writer went to Columbia, You went to Harvard, Ben went to Stanford. What do you think we learn in this insane situation we were put in? Like, is there an educational plus or minus to being a kid actor and writer? I would love to hear from you as well, since you are also a fellow child genius with Tatiana will and Ile sick Way. But you two can talk amongst yourselves.

00:44:51
Speaker 4: I like ice cream donuts whatever.

00:44:58
Speaker 3: I don't know, Tatiana, don't you think it was just I mean for me, I thrived an individual education, like having one on one relationship with a teacher and the fact that like I.

00:45:06
Speaker 2: Just wanted that.

00:45:06
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have done well in a group situation. So I really just took advantage of that one on one factor.

00:45:14
Speaker 7: Yes, I loved I loved both. I think also, I you know what you don't have, you want more of?

00:45:21
Speaker 5: So being pulled out of school in New York, New York at the time, I think it's kind.

00:45:26
Speaker 7: Of the same. No, I think it's changed a little bit. They didn't have the labor laws that they do in California, so you.

00:45:33
Speaker 5: Know, you get pulled out of school, you're not necessarily going someplace where there is a studio teacher.

00:45:36
Speaker 7: So I missed.

00:45:37
Speaker 4: Wow, you know, like and do you remember some of the studios teachers in New York had no business calling themselves teachers.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: Because I came up in New York too, and it was like, yes.

00:45:52
Speaker 7: It was absolutely aboutely was studio teacher to be?

00:45:57
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: Thing to California totally different, totally.

00:46:03
Speaker 5: Ye, Pathery, Kathy Cyrus, Lauren, Oh my gosh. They were like, I like what you're saying.

00:46:12
Speaker 7: Writer.

00:46:12
Speaker 5: I felt like I was like, Oh, when I look back, I'm like, was I the princess of something? I had these incredible teachers. Yeah, if I needed to spend weeks learning to write this particular thing that I wanted to work with, or jostle the schedule around to really hone in on something, you know in calculus that I wasn't quite getting, I had you know, you have the ability to do that and I had the most.

00:46:44
Speaker 7: I had an incredible education because of it.

00:46:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, but like but likewise, because it's one on one, you could also have like a terrible.

00:46:52
Speaker 7: Experience because you know, it depends. It really depends on who who was doing the teacher.

00:47:00
Speaker 4: You know, I had one teacher I used to just smoke with.

00:47:03
Speaker 6: I was twelve, So yeah, I mean.

00:47:09
Speaker 2: Yep, so I could go. Yeah, so how did you end up?

00:47:16
Speaker 3: So how did it work out, like applying to college and going in terms of the show itself, because like I ended up having to go because I graduated high school in ninety seven, was still on the show for two and a half more years, and so I went to Occidental out here in LA like part time in the mornings because I could still do that. Did you just take did you finish the show and leap right to Harvard or would you? Were you taking classes?

00:47:38
Speaker 2: No?

00:47:39
Speaker 7: I so the show ended right before my senior year.

00:47:44
Speaker 6: Oh oh wow.

00:47:46
Speaker 7: And then during that.

00:47:47
Speaker 5: Year I started to record music. I applied to school, and then that would be Kate. That was the huge I could think. I could see all the meetings that I was in with the record label about.

00:48:00
Speaker 10: Applying yes, yes, and uh, I applied I anyway, and I got in to the places I wanted to get into, and so what I just so then I deferred a year.

00:48:17
Speaker 7: From college to do music and tour. Wow, I was really given a choice. I was given a false choice.

00:48:24
Speaker 5: I think that was really given, Like it if you do this, like this is not that we're not doing this, Like it wasn't an.

00:48:33
Speaker 7: I don't know, like record over the summer, like it doesn't make any sense.

00:48:37
Speaker 5: It was like that because my music did well, but I had to choose, so I did. I deferred a year. Then I went to school for that semester. One semester went back and forth, like I remember being in the airport all the time, UK to Boston.

00:48:52
Speaker 7: That did not work. So then I took that semester off.

00:48:56
Speaker 5: And then to complete touring, and then I just went to school.

00:49:01
Speaker 7: I just wanted to.

00:49:01
Speaker 4: So what, you were touring in Europe at the time, then, Oh, it wasn't even in the US. My god.

00:49:08
Speaker 5: Yeah. And this is before like you know, virtual classes and things like that. I think that could have made it a little bit easier. But and on the other hand, I'm glad that like once I went to school, you know, once that the touring was over and I was there. I was really there. I really got to, you know, experience the dead of winter.

00:49:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my neck of the woods. I love it.

00:49:28
Speaker 7: Yeah.

00:49:30
Speaker 4: What did you What did you study? What did you study while you were there?

00:49:34
Speaker 5: I studied government is what they call it, which is political science, and I did I spent a lot of time at the Barker Center.

00:49:42
Speaker 7: I should have done a double in major, but I didn't.

00:49:45
Speaker 5: And the Barker centers all African American studies, and at that time that I was there, they had like it was called the Dream Team. Any they were all at Harvard in the Barker Center. So I worked a lot there.

00:50:00
Speaker 7: And then towards the kind of towards the end, then I started to go get back into theater, the American Repertory Theater and the black Box, you know.

00:50:09
Speaker 5: And I remember my senior year was a group of my friends we put on for Colored Girls Who've considered suicide.

00:50:15
Speaker 7: When the Rainbow is enough, Hunky.

00:50:20
Speaker 5: And I'm up on the rafters putting the lights together, and and I just realized that there I was like.

00:50:31
Speaker 7: Number one, I have a fear of heights. I'll never do this again.

00:50:34
Speaker 2: Number.

00:50:37
Speaker 7: I love making stories, I love a rehearsal, I love what it smells like in here. I love the creepy floors. Oh my gosh.

00:50:52
Speaker 5: And I was like, wow, what a little journey. I just took myself on to me to say, this is.

00:50:58
Speaker 7: What I really like.

00:50:59
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:51:00
Speaker 5: I love it, and I think it's I don't know, I think it has You guys know this like storytelling, it is a potential to just do so much.

00:51:06
Speaker 7: It can do so much.

00:51:10
Speaker 5: So all the things that I did study in school that might seem different from from you know, performance art or whatever, they inform it all the time.

00:51:20
Speaker 3: And your husband is an academic, right, He's in the English department at Stanford.

00:51:23
Speaker 2: Is that right?

00:51:31
Speaker 3: So I imagine you guys are still having some academic discussions around the dinner table.

00:51:34
Speaker 1: Some fun.

00:51:35
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked about stuff.

00:51:41
Speaker 1: We recently had Ashley Johnson on the podcast and we talked about her performance on Star Search and yours is so great And there's a real fun kind of circle of life thing going on where our Sineo is the host and you would then later perform your music on his Tialk show. What was your true first love was? It acting or singing.

00:52:06
Speaker 7: I'm from New York. You do all of all.

00:52:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right, you have to try, like, yeah, the one the thing that i'm it's probably my you know, I dancing. I'm not a I don't keep core choreography the way the way those do, the way people do, I don't. It takes me a little extra I need I need homework time, which doesn't work in theater at all. But like six seven A do it. Yeah, But I love I love singing and I and I love acting.

00:52:45
Speaker 7: I don't particularly like the music business, right of the businesses I, you know, acting and and that that part.

00:52:54
Speaker 5: I think maybe it's because there's more ensemble that's necessary.

00:52:58
Speaker 7: There's just more people often involved. That makes it feel a little bit safer.

00:53:05
Speaker 5: Or But as a teenage girl in music, it was it was it was tough.

00:53:11
Speaker 7: You know.

00:53:11
Speaker 5: I was signed to Wolves Production Company and so that offered some protection, but they were place there were things that didn't make any sense, like why was I in a studio at one o'clock in the morning. It right to do what like a signed artist. It's not like there's a discount. There used to be discounts. That's why people used to be in the studio that late at night.

00:53:29
Speaker 7: But why is that happening?

00:53:30
Speaker 1: Just thinking like, did you enjoy the process of making the album?

00:53:37
Speaker 7: Yes, yes I did. I did.

00:53:40
Speaker 1: I did, even if it meant some one am. It did.

00:53:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I was working some of it. I was working with Rodney Jerkins. He was sixteen too.

00:53:49
Speaker 7: Was at one am.

00:53:51
Speaker 1: Why were we there?

00:53:52
Speaker 7: I don't know. We could have easily. And then I'll tell you something else.

00:53:56
Speaker 5: I did a soundtrack for Elmo in Grouchland in Grouchland, Nashville. First time I was ever in the studio at eleven thirty in the morning.

00:54:08
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, so we did open It is open in the morning hours.

00:54:19
Speaker 2: Interesting, normal human hours. That's funny. Now yeah, okay, wow.

00:54:28
Speaker 1: That is so funny. Have you seen any early evidence that either of your boys are performers.

00:54:35
Speaker 7: It's caught my youngest in the bathroom making faces. Do you know what I'm saying?

00:54:41
Speaker 4: It starts, it's where it starts, then come the voices.

00:54:47
Speaker 7: I also have caught him.

00:54:48
Speaker 5: I saw him practicing pratfalls. I didn't teach him how to do that. Yeah, I'll do it in the hallway. And then after he was doing it, for a while. He came to me and was like, look.

00:55:00
Speaker 3: Whoa, Oh my god, I have a video of my son doing the exact same thing. He piled up his books, and this is when he was like four, piled up his books to show.

00:55:11
Speaker 2: Me how he could do a whole big platform and keep it going. I was like, oh my god, that's how I felt.

00:55:16
Speaker 7: I was just like.

00:55:20
Speaker 2: Raising entertainers.

00:55:22
Speaker 4: Nice.

00:55:23
Speaker 6: Oh man, Yeah, I've seen it.

00:55:26
Speaker 7: I've seen it. And my oldest he's a storyteller.

00:55:28
Speaker 5: He's just always got We're just trying to get him to write him down, writ down, write him down.

00:55:33
Speaker 7: I see it.

00:55:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you are How do you feel about it? Are you? Are you encouraging of a life in the arts or are you hoping they'll get distracted by something else.

00:55:46
Speaker 7: I think the life in the arts can be amazing. Yeah, I think it can be incredible. I mean the places you know, you get to go, and the people you get to meet, and the stories you get to be a part of.

00:56:00
Speaker 5: That, it can be amazing for them to be kids and do it. I don't think I mean, if I'm honest, I don't think I'm going to do that. I it's so all encompassing. You know, there's so in an and the protection has to be iron clad. You know, we're not doing anything else if we're doing that.

00:56:22
Speaker 7: Like, I don't know.

00:56:23
Speaker 5: My parents kept their own jobs for you for really, like, I literally don't know.

00:56:28
Speaker 7: How they did it.

00:56:29
Speaker 5: My mom kind of went in and out so that she could she's a nurse, she was a nurse.

00:56:33
Speaker 7: She's retired now.

00:56:34
Speaker 5: So that she could be there, you know, But I don't know how they did it. And I have two sisters, I have no idea. So when I think about that, yeah, they can have a life and the hearts be in the school play.

00:56:49
Speaker 3: Right exactly, exactly, and we'll talk when you're eighteen, yeah, or at least when you can drive yourself to auditions.

00:56:58
Speaker 2: Maybe. Actually, no, I know it's crazy.

00:57:02
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about your kid's book please. Ozzie and the Octopus have it here.

00:57:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, that.

00:57:11
Speaker 1: Is so cool.

00:57:13
Speaker 6: Oh the cover looks great.

00:57:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, so this is actually this is this is my oldest and ever always had an octopus. Stuffy house is a but I think it's because we you know, we were in San Francisco very when he was very very young, and we're just I was just always in the aquariums in the museums with him, and it's just always been marine life. I've been working with Scholastic for a few years now as a mentor for one of their Library Connection collections, Girls in Steam. They're called Voices, and they really work towards creating these libraries that are representative for children, you know, whether it's Girls in Steam or Black and Brown Boys, or this book is a part of the richness of Black Stories collection, so kids can see themselves, so kids can also see others in the community to learn about each other as protagonists. And while I was working with them, I told them, you know, they learn about my kids, and I told them about the story idea that I had to kind of go into his imaginary world.

00:58:36
Speaker 7: And because I think that's where a lot of the magic lives.

00:58:39
Speaker 5: Like being a kid who achieved at a very young age, and like that was kind of.

00:58:44
Speaker 7: Like achievement, achievement, achievement.

00:58:46
Speaker 5: I think it's nice to just it kind of touches on the question that you ask, like, it's kind of nice to see our kids play.

00:58:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, for there's no other reason other than just to play.

00:58:57
Speaker 7: There's a lot of good stuff there too. That's what I hope.

00:59:02
Speaker 5: The the book celebrates so great.

00:59:08
Speaker 1: Do you think it could be a series? Are you planning any new books?

00:59:13
Speaker 7: I am. I am in the midst of writing like a couple others. Okay, but I could definitely see it as a series.

00:59:22
Speaker 1: A whole new generation discovered you on TV recently with Abbott Elementary easily the best comedy on TV. Were you as excited to be on that show as I would be?

00:59:34
Speaker 7: Oh, my gosh, are you kidding me?

00:59:36
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:59:37
Speaker 7: I put myself on a tape just like we do. And when my agents were like guess what, I was like, yeah.

00:59:44
Speaker 1: Freak out, full break out. I had the joy and honor of meeting Quinta at an ABC Hulu party last year, and she's everything you want her to be in more he is.

00:59:57
Speaker 5: When I said like she brought there was a episode or something I did when we're all in a park, and I also think because we've been sliding and running and physically doing all this stuff, very kid like stuff, she brought tears to my eyes. I just never seen anybody she is a boss, like she is the boss, like it is her show, Like it's like nothing goes down without her. Say, so, uh, I don't know how she keeps her eyes on and she does. It's just yeah, she's amazing. She's amazing.

01:00:30
Speaker 1: So is there a chance we're going to get to see more of you on TV? Like I want to? I just I want to know where we can get all things more Tatiana.

01:00:40
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I I mean I'm so I feel so lucky to be having this recurring like moment on an abbot.

01:00:48
Speaker 7: I didn't know it all on for All Mankind.

01:00:51
Speaker 5: Which is an Apple TV show that just started streaming, and which is my first sci fi which.

01:01:01
Speaker 1: Okay, so does will Well.

01:01:03
Speaker 4: Mostly I'm mostly fantasy.

01:01:06
Speaker 1: Are you serious?

01:01:07
Speaker 4: This is all my fantasy collection right behind me. So I'm a fantasy nerd. Yeah, that's all.

01:01:12
Speaker 2: These are all fantasies.

01:01:13
Speaker 4: Are most of them are my signed fantasy novels by like Oh I love it. Yeah.

01:01:18
Speaker 6: I'm a comic cons. We're not comic coons all the time.

01:01:21
Speaker 1: Well, I know you guys.

01:01:22
Speaker 4: Yes, that's true.

01:01:22
Speaker 1: That's true.

01:01:23
Speaker 7: That's true.

01:01:24
Speaker 5: So I guess it's a different question like when I'm there and I see people like cosplaying and.

01:01:28
Speaker 2: Stuff, Yeah.

01:01:30
Speaker 4: That's me. Yeah, I'm a I'm a huge nerd. I played Dungeon Dragons. I'm a huge nerd.

01:01:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm down.

01:01:37
Speaker 4: I'm a huge nerd. So yeah, we'll come up. We'll all cosplay at something.

01:01:40
Speaker 6: It'll be great.

01:01:41
Speaker 4: Danielle. Danielle loves that stuff.

01:01:47
Speaker 1: I'll support you.

01:01:49
Speaker 4: You'll support us while dressing like an elf.

01:01:54
Speaker 2: She won't do it.

01:01:55
Speaker 6: Yes, we'll get her.

01:01:58
Speaker 9: Patiana, if you could go back in time and tell young tatianas just starting out, anything about the entertainment industry or about your future, what would you if you could deliver one message to young Tatiana, what would you say to her?

01:02:16
Speaker 7: It'll all work out.

01:02:20
Speaker 5: That's the lyric, but it should be if it's not. Yeah, no, that's not the lyric at all, but I just changed it to.

01:02:27
Speaker 7: It'll all work out. It'll all out if you have a good heart, if you are.

01:02:34
Speaker 5: You know, kind, if you're a good person, do your best and throw that throw it away because it's very interesting. It's like you think these crosses in the road, or these major moments in the road are like if I don't make and if I don't get this thing, and if I don't.

01:02:53
Speaker 7: Do your best, it'll all work out. It'll all it's supposed to do. It's okay.

01:03:00
Speaker 5: You don't even know where you're going until you've gotten a little bit down the road and you can look back and go, oh, yeah.

01:03:09
Speaker 2: I was always good here.

01:03:12
Speaker 1: I was going to end up here no matter which road I took. Yeah, kind of so crazy. Well, thank you so much for spending your time with us, joining us today talking about all things you You've always been such an inspiration to me and somebody I look up to so much, even though I'm pretty sure you're younger.

01:03:30
Speaker 2: Than I am. But I.

01:03:33
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here with us. All right, it was great to see you. By ye. Man, She's so cool.

01:03:50
Speaker 2: She's so cool. She was so cool back in the day too.

01:03:53
Speaker 3: I didn't really spend much time with her in the nineties, but I always just thought she was so cool.

01:03:58
Speaker 1: She's always been cool, and she's always been just so smart and like, no, I mean, I don't know any other way to say it other than like nobs about her. She is just you just she is real and she is authentic and she I just yeah, I absolutely adore her.

01:04:23
Speaker 4: So I can't imagine sitting in a note session and having the first thing they say to you is what do you think?

01:04:28
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's it makes sense of why that that that cast felt empowered and felt like they owned their characters.

01:04:36
Speaker 1: And yes, and it comes across, it comes across. Yes, yeah, you see it and you feel it. Well. Thank you all for joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod meets World Show. You can send us your emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com. And we've got merch.

01:04:55
Speaker 4: Woke up in my house, just sitting on a perch, and that's when it hit me.

01:04:59
Speaker 2: I'm the prince of the mar Merch Merch.

01:05:02
Speaker 1: Well, pretty good, Podbetworldshow dot com will When did you write that? Uh?

01:05:07
Speaker 4: Kind of I've been tinkering the last six eight months. No big deal, no big no no problem.

01:05:14
Speaker 6: Wait do you hear it back? By bye bye an orchestra. It's pretty amazing.

01:05:17
Speaker 1: My gosh, Podmeatsworldshow dot com will send us out.

01:05:22
Speaker 2: We love you all, pod dismissed.

01:05:25
Speaker 4: Podmeats World is nheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfordell and Ryder Strong Executive producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara Sudbacks producer, Maddie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram at Podmeats World Show or email us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com