Angie Martinez IRL - Tisha Campbell: Living Life Freely Without Your Mask

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I'm still waiting for that to come. I have hope, yeah, that somebody will love me past Gina.

00:00:07
Speaker 2: So I'm open. You feel like that got in the way, Gina gotten away.

00:00:12
Speaker 1: I don't think Gina itself gotten away their perception of you, or I think my perception about self may have gotten in the way.

00:00:24
Speaker 3: Thanks for watching, guys. Today's episode is brought to you by boost Mobile. For over forty years, Today's Guest has been a true multi hyphen in film television, from early roles in Little Shapaharas and Spike Lee School Days to her iconic run as Gina and Martin, one of the highest rated sitcoms of the whole nineteen nineties. Her career and her characters are still quoted, clipped, and trending decades later.

00:00:49
Speaker 2: She now leads in this new movie Be Happy, a Mary J. Blige production on Lifetime. She's back to stand up comedy. Yes, she's a legend and the balls. Welcome to you.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: She campbell, the eye around, excited to be here. Boom. I just love you. I love you too.

00:01:06
Speaker 2: I said to see you when you walked in. I was like, if you can't have a good time with you, she can't for you are the problems with you. You are the problem because every time I have ever been in your presence, we have good time and the energy your energy is never it's always good.

00:01:21
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'll tell my mama you said so she did good?

00:01:23
Speaker 2: Is your energy always good? Or is just when I.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: Knows he No? No, I only show that part to the closest people to me. But like most part are like a dark side, you know, not really a dark side. But I wear a mask so much. I've been trained to wear a mask so much. And when I say mask, I'm talking about if you think of the drama and comedy mask, I'm always wearing the smile because you know, when I leave my house, if I leave my gate, I'm at work, like people are gonna take pictures, want to talk to me. So as soon as I leave out my house, I'm at work. So I'm always here. And it's just really interesting that nowadays it's a little harder for me to wear the mask. It was a good friend named aj Johnson who I did house party with a jant. She was one of the people who told me to unmask, take my mask off because I'm always I was always like this and I'm just learning.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: Is like a life coach.

00:02:25
Speaker 1: She is. She's an actress and a life coach. She actually went to school to spellman. She I think she made it. She willed to be a medical doctor, but you know made that turn. Anyway, He's the one that takes the mask. I was the first person who the first person who ever said that it was twenty sixteen Easter. No. No. I was begging her because she was life coaching a bunch of people that day and it was an Easter party that I was having at my house, and I was like, I'm next. Because she would play this game Salt Pepper Mom or Dad, you know, and in between she would read you for filth, right, But I was like, I'm next, I'm next, and she was like, ah, So then she told me that you She was like, take the mask off. And it was crazy because it literally figuratively felt like everything just shattered onto the ground. And I saw all of these people that was happened to be in my house that day, a lot of them I didn't even know. And I was like, you know, with the Wizard of Oz when they turned into color, when the black and white turs, That's what it was. Like, I opened my eyes and I was like, oh, everybody's not nice, because I'm a type of person that believes in a good man first, always had been. But what that does is it doesn't leave room for discernment. And so at that moment my eyes opened, I was awake and I couldn't put the mask back on. It was a little harder to do, even if I'm doing it for the betterment of everybody else.

00:04:00
Speaker 2: To make she said, was take off the mask. She said, well, what did that mean to you? Like, what did you hear when she said that, I wake up? You don't have to be on for everybody. You have to put yourself first. And that's something that I was not used to doing. I always put everybody else since I was a little kid. You had said earlier in the intro that I've been in this business for forty years. I've actually been in this business for fifty years.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: I started when I was three, wow, fifty something years fifty four years and I started when I was three, And since i was three years old, well, since I was five years old, I've been paying bills. I've been taking care of my family. I knew that I had this gift that God had given me. I also was very aware and conscious as a child of how incredibly poor we really were. I mean, we was eating mayonnaise sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner sometimes. Right. I grew up in North New Jersey.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: In the projects, not the Newark now like.

00:05:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, not because Noark is flying right now, but Nork back in the day. But I was really very conscious and I wanted to help my family, and so this became how I could help them best with along with you know, singing and acting and whatever I was doing to help get us out of our circumstances. So it meant that I couldn't do I couldn't wear this mask anymore. I had to be true to myself. If I'm sad, be sad, If I'm angry, be angry, I can still be kind. But I had to take it off.

00:05:47
Speaker 2: And this was at a big age, right, you said, this is like ten.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: Years in twenty sixteen is when it happened.

00:05:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, so ten years ago.

00:05:55
Speaker 1: Well, at first I got depressed because I didn't know how I was going to take the mask off. How am I going to do that with so many people are counting on me to see this girl, and it's interesting because that's kind of what this movie is about. And I was mad because I was like, who is this Cameron J. Ross writer all up in my business? Right?

00:06:17
Speaker 2: Who is this.

00:06:19
Speaker 1: Right right right? And it really is about you know, when you get to a certain age, a grown ass woman, you start to realize that what you may have missed because you sacrifice so much for others. And that's where I was, and that's where this character is too nice transition teacher's I didn't know I did that, y'all, but it really is true. And that's why I wanted to do this film because it was really touching something right here and here in my soul.

00:06:58
Speaker 2: I love the trailer. I do want to talk the film because I have a lot of questions about that and also marries my sister I love, and it looked so delicious and fun. You can't wait to see it. But I do want to stay in that moment for a second because she tells you take off the mask and you look around and you see the cracks and everybody because before what you was looking at everybody with rose colored glasses.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: I was.

00:07:23
Speaker 2: That must have been very tricky in relationships.

00:07:25
Speaker 1: I was depressing when I first realized what I had been kind of doing to myself.

00:07:33
Speaker 2: But what does that mean, like in real life? Like what does that look like? So you have a friend or a partner, and.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: So I'm everything to everybody, including especially victims, so I would take them on, I would help them. But I was really everything that every I was the cook, I was the chauffeur, I was the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. I was everything to every one, and I wasn't. My well was dry, and I had nothing else to give even though I was running on empty, I was running on fumes and I and and you got to combine that with the fact that I have a child on the spectrum. So I'm running around here whether I'm you know, at work, trying to be there for my you know, my my coworkers. Then I come home trying to be the best wife. And then there's on top of that, I got to take my kid to his different therapies. I have to negotiate with these people. Sometimes you don't get therapists right away. You have to, you know, deal with the meltdowns of autism. You have to deal with all of these things. And I was running around being again being everything for everybody but me and the.

00:08:49
Speaker 2: Girl. I feel you.

00:08:50
Speaker 1: So it what it looked like after she told me to take the mask off and get back to that was depression because I didn't think that I could do it. I didn't think I could put myself first, and so I just started sleeping a lot. I didn't know that's what depressure was, but I just couldn't stay awake, like three o'clock, three o'clock in the afternoon. It didn't matter, I would ask.

00:09:12
Speaker 3: I hear that a lot when people talk about depression, that it shows up that way, just.

00:09:15
Speaker 1: That when I didn't in bed, yeah, like anywhere at a restaurant.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: And you couldn't even know and you didn't know why. I didn't know why.

00:09:23
Speaker 1: And then things changed and I started to accept it that I couldn't operate like this no more.

00:09:34
Speaker 4: So.

00:09:35
Speaker 2: That is a major ass live shift.

00:09:38
Speaker 1: It is.

00:09:38
Speaker 2: I hope somebody watching that feels that deeply, because it's not a small thing you're talking about, right, It's like a major thing. And I think a lot of.

00:09:45
Speaker 1: Women of women will understand that particular always give to everybody but ourselves. We're always and you know, there's something lovely about that and I and it's beautiful.

00:09:56
Speaker 2: It is beautiful as long. But I think the piece that women miss is that you can be a giver, You could be empathetic, you could see people through ros you could see the best in people even when they don't see it themselves. But if you don't have boundaries, girl, if you don't have boundaries, if you don't have boundaries, and you don't cherish yourself, Like, if you're that good of a human, you better cherish the fuck out of yourself.

00:10:22
Speaker 1: That part. It was my kids that taught me boundaries.

00:10:26
Speaker 2: Believe I bet my kids taught me boundaries.

00:10:31
Speaker 1: My kids because okay, I grew up a baby boomer raised me right, so you know when you're raised by baby boomers. Blood is thicker than water. Family first, all of those things. Not the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, that's the real quote. But we were brought up blood is thicker than water. And so my kids, both of them had a problem with a family member and I was like, oh, you guys, you gotta fix said they're family, you got to fix it. And they're like, yeah, you throw on us in the trauma. We don't want to do that. So here's what we're going to do. Like they were like, Mom, just kind of stay out of it. We'll fix it on our own time, if we decide to fix it at all. And I realized I really am pushing them in the drama. That's not cool. And so I've learned to just step back and adjust for myself even when my kids taught me that, because that's all I know.

00:11:34
Speaker 2: Man, that's so good tea shirt in the fact that your kids, how old were they.

00:11:38
Speaker 1: When they did? I believe one was twenty so and the other he's eight years were grown. They were grown, he's eight years alter. They were old enough to know that you got to stop, and they understood who I am as a person.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: So you've had a pretty signal can shift in your life in the past ten years.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: You really have good for you. It is the most amazing time. I really you have to really joy is a verb. That's what my therapist said, and you gotta work on joy. You gotta make a decision to work on joy. And that's where I am in my life right now. You know, I'm working. I'm working towards it every single day, and that's what makes me happy. Yeah.

00:12:24
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we think if we don't put ourselves first, if we don't put other people first, like we're not a good person. That part like, you could do both.

00:12:32
Speaker 1: Actually you actually could. You could be an amazing It doesn't your selfish. It means yourself full.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's okay. Yeah, it's actually smarter, it's smart. It's a better way to live.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

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00:13:12
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty six. For full off. For details, visit boostmobile dot com in the category of like showing up for people you have come up multiple times on this podcast. First of all, we just had Gabrielle Union on who told us that you paid for her therapy as a young woman in this business. I did. And I was like, well, why did she do that? And she said, I don't know. I think she just knew I needed it.

00:13:33
Speaker 1: Could Well, let me just say this, It was I saw the potential and gap. She was working her butt off, but I knew she was going to be even bigger than what we were witnessing at that moment, and so I wanted her to have support because this business can be so crazy, and so.

00:13:50
Speaker 2: You didn't even know the history of what she had been through.

00:13:52
Speaker 1: No, she looked fine to me. It wasn't like I saw something wrong. It's just that I wanted her to be able to navigate this business. You're not going to be unscathed, but at least you could at have some type of support. And so I paid for like ten sessions, ten of her first sessions. I really I said, I really want you to see this therapist and you mean a lot. You know you're going to be big, And what.

00:14:26
Speaker 2: Did you see in her? Why did you know that?

00:14:28
Speaker 1: I could tell? First of all, if I'm walking down the street, I could tell an artist from a mile away. Really, yeah, how it's a feeling. It's a feeling I can I can see an artist right away, and then I can also you can see an IT factor. Anybody can see an IT factor. And she had it. She had that IT factor, that X factor, and I knew she was going to be huge. I think it's God. God tells me who's going to be like that?

00:14:58
Speaker 2: And you wanted to help her.

00:14:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I you know, I feel like I could see that. I just think that she needed to be supported and I like to support my sisters.

00:15:12
Speaker 2: I know. And then we had Tasha Smith on Really. Tasha Smith said you were the one of the first people that made her believe that she could do this because you were one of the first examples. And I guess she met you in Campa, New Jersey, Yeah, when she her and her sister were fifteen. Yeah, and so she really credits you for making her feel like this career would be possible.

00:15:36
Speaker 1: Well, you know a lot of times when I see people, I'll say things like, you know you're not supposed to be here, right, you know that you are going to be in a different place. You know, you're not supposed to stay where you are. You could feel it in your soul. I see it. So I need for you to see it, and I need for you to do something about it. I do that with a lot of people.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: You just see it and you all got to who did that for you?

00:16:06
Speaker 1: I think it was like a family member or something, maybe because I grew up. Okay, So my mom and her sisters were gospel singers called the Shockley Singers, and they used to sing background for Mehelia Jackson whoo yeah. And then my dad was in a group and that's how they met. So music and artistry has always been in around me, and so I could tell who's who. But it's more of a spiritual thing. It's not an artist thing like ooh, she could probably sing like she looked like she got the breast to like the big old breast that like really blow. No, it's not the chest. It's a spiritual thing. So I can kind of tell when I see him.

00:16:51
Speaker 2: So when did comedy come into it? When did you think?

00:16:54
Speaker 1: So I couldn't get arrested doing comedy. I started out as a dreamt. I couldn't. I started out as a drama actress, doing a lot of theater, and if you wanted somebody to cry on, cute teacher was your girl. So I would always get hired for that kind of stuff.

00:17:08
Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, you were made to do this lifetime movie that you're right the way I said.

00:17:13
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna get to that too. But when I was younger, I remember about eighteen years old, I auditioned for a sitcom and so the casside director goes, you need sitcom classes and I was like, oh, okay, where do you get those? She was like, there aren't any, right, So I was like, so I had to figure out what comedy was. So I would just go to the comedy store by myself, with the comedy act theater, the laugh Factory, and I would just sit in the back with the comedians to try to figure out what is comedy because they were giving all the men these deals in the nineties. Everybody had a deal. Robert Townsend, Sindbad Martin, everybody right. So I was like, I got to jump on somebody show, I got to work. So I sit in the back and the ones that were really good were the ones who told their real life story and I was like, oh, there's a thin line between drama and comedy. All I gotta do is support and ground it, and I can I can do it. So that's how I started out doing comedy.

00:18:17
Speaker 2: Wow. And then did you get up there?

00:18:20
Speaker 1: Like No, I was too afraid to go up because back then that the climate of the stand ups. And I'm saying this is from people that were you know, in the nineties. They weren't collaborative or it was very competitive.

00:18:42
Speaker 2: It was brutal.

00:18:43
Speaker 1: It was brutal.

00:18:44
Speaker 2: It was brutal.

00:18:45
Speaker 1: They were brutal to one another. So I never did it. But I worked with so many stand up comedians in scripted in the scripted world that they kept telling me you got it, you really are good at telling stories, like you gotta get up there, you gotta try it. You're really funny, You're really funny. But I would never And it just so happened our friend, our good our good friend d Nice, Derek d Nice had a residency at the Kennedy Center. That's what I call it.

00:19:15
Speaker 2: That was like a couple of years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, only two years ago, two years ago.

00:19:20
Speaker 1: Right, And he had a residency. I happened to be coming to support him. His host fell out and he was like, can you bring people up? And I'm telling you he had the best of the Creme de la creme. He had Sherry Shepherd, Michael Jay, Chris Spencer, Zeynap, he had great people, oh, Gino, yash great comedians, big comedians. And I was like, sure, I can, I can host, I can host bring them up. He was like, yeah, I do fifteen minutes before I was like, huh talking to so he just assumed they know you know what it was, Beck? You know Rebecca, Yes, yes, we love that. By the way, we love it back. I love you back.

00:20:02
Speaker 2: Wait, so did they just assume that you had done now?

00:20:05
Speaker 1: No, they didn't. And they were like. She was like, oh, Chris, Chris, Chris Spinster will help you. And I was like, Chris ain't going help shit. He got add right, So Chris ain't gonna do nothing right. So I called Chris and Chris I just tell a story. I was like, yeah, this wasn't so. But I also had taken classes with Chris a long time ago. We took writing classes meet him and Tashina, and so I know how he operates.

00:20:31
Speaker 5: Right.

00:20:31
Speaker 1: They were terrible in that class too. I was a class victim. I was a victim, but no, he was a class class. So anyway, I know how he operates. So I said, I got fifteen minutes before I go on to ask him questions. So I did that, and he gave me, you know, really great advice. And I went up there. But the time I got off, there was an agent in the in the audience, and she started representing me. And that was that I started going on the road with Vaness Mitchell. You've been doing things of comedy ever since. And the first time, mind you, I ever went up there at the Kennedy Center, it was four thousand people?

00:21:09
Speaker 2: How many?

00:21:10
Speaker 1: Four thousand?

00:21:10
Speaker 2: Oh? And did you tell jokes? So you're telling JOJ but you're also Tisha Campbell.

00:21:16
Speaker 1: Well that's different though, this is a completely different genre. It's the scariest thing I've ever done in my life because you're telling your real life stories. You are trying to get people to laugh at your pain. And but it's it's so's it's addictive. And I get to not have a screen between me and people anymore. They get to know me for me, not a character of me.

00:21:41
Speaker 2: Did you think for a second to not do it out of fear.

00:21:44
Speaker 1: Yes, I think about that every single time I go up.

00:21:49
Speaker 2: Fear could stop you if you let it, if you let.

00:21:51
Speaker 1: It, But I willn't Again. I'm at a certain age where I'm like, I'm gonna try and do everything I've ever wanted to do.

00:21:59
Speaker 2: That's why I love this story. It's number one. It's like this just happened two years ago. Yeah, it was just you are you already have all your credits, your resume, and you have you have done what you have done this, You're gonna start something new that's terrifying and say, yes, I'm gonna go do that.

00:22:16
Speaker 1: Who now told me? Why are you getting into this misogynistic business? I was like, there's something so beautiful about this genre, this art form, and I've always respected it and I wanted the people that I worked with to know that I took it seriously. And then I'm really doing the work. Yeah.

00:22:33
Speaker 2: So love that. So how does it feel when you're up there? Like when they laugh, engaging?

00:22:39
Speaker 1: When it feels when it hits, it feels like I'm taking their pain away for just a half hour.

00:22:47
Speaker 2: Like what about when a joke doesn't hit?

00:22:49
Speaker 1: When a joke doesn't hit you just keep it moving. It actually motivates me to get up there even more.

00:22:56
Speaker 2: To figure it out.

00:22:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it hurts, but it's but it's like, oh, I got to get back up.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: That's how I feel about golf. Tah.

00:23:05
Speaker 1: Really like that.

00:23:06
Speaker 2: I golf started golfing maybe three four years ago, and I love it so much. I'm terrible. It's really hard, yeah, because you get better and you get worse. I do it in front of people. I go to these celebrity tournaments and I play in front of people, and I'm like, oh God, but I don't care. I like it anyway, and I just do it. It's not the feeling, it's not the same thing, but the idea of finding new things at whatever age you're at, whatever success level, whatever marital state, stop like you always should be trying to find things that I don't know, just new fresh, keep you alive, keep exploring, finding the joy. Yeah. I want to see you do stand.

00:23:45
Speaker 1: Up so bad now. Oh I want you to come.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: I totally want to come.

00:23:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, when I'm in your area, I'll hit you up.

00:23:51
Speaker 2: So the movie I saw the trailer today. It looks so good. I mean number one, because you just when we see you on camera, it automatically is it elevates the feeling like it's just like we know.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: You're gonna get something out of it.

00:24:06
Speaker 2: I know it's gonna feel good, it's gonna be funny, Like I don't know, you just your presence just lends something elevated to anything. I think this was an.

00:24:15
Speaker 1: Interesting project to take on, and I'm really not sure. I think it was a combination of a couple of things. But it was Mary, of course. And then there was Gabby Sidabe who directed the film, and I worked with her before doing a pilot of hers, and she saw my work where it was not just comedy. She knew that I could ground a scene and that I was still a drama that I that I can do drama rather and so I knew that she was directing, and I wanted to do well for her because.

00:25:00
Speaker 2: You're such a girl's girl.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: I think I am. Yeah, But she's a really good person. But even on top of her being a great actress and a good person, she's a fucking excellent director. I will work with her again and again her She's very clear about what she wants. Her storytelling is good. She communicates very well, and I wanted to make her proud. I put and she sent me a message I literally required because she was like, you put your whole heart into this. You put your whole heart into this, everything that you may have been through, and I see it on screen and I just appreciate it, she said. Even Lifetime appreciates it. They really like the film. So I'm happy about that.

00:25:44
Speaker 2: I'm so excited. I can't wait. So I need to see you in the film. Yeah, and I need to see some standing. Yes, I need almost all the things.

00:25:51
Speaker 3: What about like, so you must have learned so much in the past couple of years of having this kind of transition. So people we hear people say that, even on this pod. For some reason, it comes up a lot like I'm in my I don't care season, I'm in my. We all say that, Yeah, but what is the actual like execution of that look like like one of the things that you have to do to remind you, Like for me, I will tell you, I have to literally actually remind myself that what feels good for me is is Okay, I don't have to.

00:26:24
Speaker 2: Explain any bad about it. I don't have to, and I have you. It's almost like a you have to massage your muscle memory to get you thinking, to remember who you are, to get you thinking a certain way. It has to become a habit.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So like it's okay for me, it's therapy. I have been super committed to unpacking baggage and understanding myself a little bit more where I am today, aligning that nervous system. Man Like, I've been working so hard in therapy and I can see the difference in myself surrounding myself. The other thing is I surround myself with a limited amount of people with whom I can trust. And then I'm a writer. I write.

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00:28:10
Speaker 2: What about being a mother? Yes, and you mentioned, you know, having a child on the spectrum, on the spectrum, I know you always want to be very careful.

00:28:21
Speaker 1: Language the changes it changes.

00:28:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well enlighten us, like what are the wrong words?

00:28:28
Speaker 1: What are the rights? What did you have to learn about that they no longer use words like aspergers? Okay, because that was a or when when you look at the spectrum, there's no more low on the spectrum or higher up on the spectrum.

00:28:45
Speaker 2: The spectrum.

00:28:46
Speaker 1: You're on the spectrum and then there are levels now, so there's level one, level two, and level three. Level one is where it doesn't affect them living independently. Level two is where they might need a little bit more so port right. Level three is where they need a whole bunch of support to function.

00:29:06
Speaker 2: And your child was on what level?

00:29:10
Speaker 1: I think he started out around He was nonverbal until he was like eight, so I would say level two and.

00:29:19
Speaker 2: A half and now level two.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: He's actually one and a half. I think he's one and a half because he can. One of my goals was to get him as independent of me as possible. So this boy is in college. He keeps two jobs in his pocket because he don't ever want to ask me for cash or anything. He is prides himself on being the man of the house, prides itself on protecting me, and he's just an amazing human being. So I would say one and a half.

00:29:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, wowah yeah.

00:29:59
Speaker 1: When I think about my kids, it just makes me smile so hard. They're incredible people, Like even my youngest. My youngest, the teachers at the school always call me about him and they're like, he's the kindest child I've ever taught. I get emails like that all the time, like I wish I had a dozen Ezekiels in my class.

00:30:20
Speaker 2: So you did good as a mom.

00:30:21
Speaker 1: I think we're doing good.

00:30:23
Speaker 2: You did good, but I'm sure there were challenges in that. Yes, of course you love your kid, and of course you did great, but like.

00:30:30
Speaker 1: In the beginning, it was very challenging. Yeah, it was very challenging.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: A lot of people not know about that, about being a mom and the challenges.

00:30:38
Speaker 1: I think what most people don't know is that when I got the diagnosis, I was on the set of My Wife and Kids.

00:30:44
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:30:45
Speaker 1: And I pride myself on being the type of person who doesn't bring their problems to work. And plus demon created such a family oriented, loving atmosphere on that and I felt like I owed it to him to make sure that it stayed that way. So far be it from me to bring my ish you make it heavy to work?

00:31:12
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:31:13
Speaker 1: So yeah, does he know that you did that that? I think this is my first time talking about it as but I adore him and his family so so much. He even he even put a nursery in my dress room so that I could bring my baby to work. Like. He was always so supportive. When I first got the job on Wife and Kids, he was like, Hey, I think we're going to be here for a good five years. It's time for you can get pregnant if you want to, because we're gonna be here, and so hee't have to tell me. Twice I got pregnant with Zen right away, so and had him the second season.

00:31:54
Speaker 2: Wow, And so you would never bring anything to say.

00:31:58
Speaker 1: No, I still don't do that. It's how we were trained in this business. I grew up in the theater.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: No wonder you learn to wear a mask, baby.

00:32:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, because in the in the business, all you would hear was one, you're only as good as your last job, and you will be replaced by your understudy. Like who cares? You know? So you come to work and you do your best, and you consider the people around you. But I always tried to make sure I had a smile on my face because I really wanted to support the atmosphere that.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: So you're going to work your set and it's fun and jolly. You just your child just gets diagnosed and you're youngs right, you're thirty three, thirty yeah, thirty three, you're on set, young mother, and so then how do you manage that when you go home?

00:32:54
Speaker 1: I mean, oh, I was constantly running, running, running, So Zen was on set. Sometimes therapists would come to my dressing room or I was running around trying to find therapy because one of the major problems that most caretakers or parents run into is the fact that time is not on your side. You need to get that early intervention in. But especially in two thousand and one two thousand and two when he got the diagnosis, there wasn't a lot of resources. There weren't a lot of people that I could go to, and even if you did call, like a behavioral therapist or a speech therapist or an occupational therapist, you were gonna get be on a waiting list just to get a call back to make an appointment. All of that said, like, I was literally running around, and I'm very aggressive when it comes to my kids. I'm very, very, very very very aggressive. That people were like, how you get an appointment so fast? Because even though I'm on this waiting list, I'm still gonna call you every single day and you and they got tired of my ass and they gave me an appointment. That's how I had to operate, That's how I had to work advocating. That's my child.

00:34:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, did I answer your question? I think so? Okay. I mean, I was just trying to understand the every day of that, like as a woman, young woman, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, Cherry was great. Cherry shared. We had Cherry on the show. I don't know how many months ago, but I understood a lot about you know, some of her fears of raising a child, and a black child, a black child also what that how challenge. You know, she was afraid to let him out in the street. She struggled with his independence. You know, it's not a small thing.

00:34:45
Speaker 3: We're like, oh, yes, my child was on the and I showed up and I worked and I was but like that's a heavy burden for a mother to carry.

00:34:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you know, I remember growing up in work right in the seventies eighties, and one of the things my mother was really really fearful of when my brothers, because I have three brothers by my mom and dad, when they would go out of.

00:35:10
Speaker 2: The house and leave the house.

00:35:12
Speaker 1: She was deathly afraid of whatever the gang members that lived in that area, of them getting you know, attacked by that or police, you know, and just as black men. But I have a black child on a spectrum, and when you have a black child that's on a spectrum, sometimes they might have ticks and quirks, or they can't keep their body still. And that was one of my biggest fears that you know, law enforcement wouldn't they're not back then, they weren't educated or trained in this type of diversity or what autism looks like. So his movements or the way that he might you know, move his body, put his hands behind his back when he's nervous, he puts his hands behind his back. I was afraid that they would mistake it for non compliance or there was a gun in his back, you know, and behind him or something. And so I have to think about that all the time until we would practice with Sin to keep his body straight just in case he was approached by an officer.

00:36:27
Speaker 2: I know, right that breaks hard for him. Yeah, any kid who you know, the fact that kids have to do that, absolutely it's heartbreaking.

00:36:34
Speaker 1: The fact that a mother has to train their kid to, you know, make sure you get a receipt in a bag when you leave. I don't care if it's a piece of gum, Get a bag and a receipt before you so when you walk out, nobody assumes you're stealing. Those are things that you have to teach your I but See, that's the thing you gotta teach. Latino and Black kids have to know these kind of things because people automatically assume, yeah, the.

00:37:00
Speaker 2: Worst of them get a receipt in that bag. Do you have a good support system or did you then? Because now I feel like there are so many women.

00:37:09
Speaker 1: I had a very I had a very limited There was a j to Sena, my friend from high school, Sahira, not a lot the ones that I could really rely on rely on. And a girl named don Donnielle that I met in Los Angeles. Wow, that's small, very small. They were all moms. They kind of understood and but they gave me the support I needed to get me through this diagnosis. Yeah, it might have been one more, but oh Holly Robinson P Hall Robinson P. Really helped me do all of this.

00:37:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, because she's navigated those waters.

00:37:50
Speaker 1: She did asked me and she was a advocate. She was She was the earliest advocate that I know. She was the first person I called. And then there was also Lorna Kyle, who is the entertainer's wife, so she during that time. They were all very very supportive and kind of helped me. Holly the most because she understood it in a different way. But you mentioned Cherry and Shary and I have become sisters in this, in this in the autism community, and we've been sisters in you know, just helping one another and supporting one another and pushing one another. And we always call each other the queens of pivot.

00:38:36
Speaker 2: I love a good pot Yes, I love a good pivot. Where are you with love in your life?

00:38:41
Speaker 1: Now?

00:38:41
Speaker 2: What you said, Ta, that was a very direct question. Where are you with love? Where do you stand with it? What does it mean to you? I'm not saying who's loving on you?

00:38:56
Speaker 1: No? No, no, What does it mean to me? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out the love for myself. I'm still unpack and all of that. I don't I know that I love people. I just don't know if I'm loved back by people. That's a really hard statement to say.

00:39:24
Speaker 2: Let me tell you this story.

00:39:25
Speaker 1: So I was doing this thing with Shery Ralph. It was called Divisibly Singing right, and on the show was Brenda Russell Piano in the Dark. Piano in the Dark. She's a fantastic writer and she was a well known singer in the in the eighties nineties. In the dark was one of one of my favorite writers and singers. Right but she was doing the show with me, and she also wrote you can reach Me but trell right, get there if again. And I asked her, I said that song. I said, God, it's so beautiful.

00:40:07
Speaker 2: I don't care how you get there, just get get.

00:40:08
Speaker 1: There if you can. I said, oh, are you talking about when you wrote that song? And she says, oh, yeah, that's where people get it, you know, misconstrued because I wasn't talking about a person. I was talking about love itself. I've never been loved in my life.

00:40:23
Speaker 2: Oh, And I.

00:40:25
Speaker 1: Did like this, And then the meaning the words started going in my head. The meaning of the words took on a different a whole different, veneca whole different meaning.

00:40:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow.

00:40:38
Speaker 1: And she was maybe thirty something forty years old at the most, and I was like, you've never been loved in your life? And then now I am here, in this moment kind of more understanding her words. I have loved and I put my whole heart into it. I not only believing the good of man, I also believed in marriage, commitment, all of the things. And I'm still waiting to be loved properly the way that I define all. Maybe that's not fair to somebody, look that it should be fair to you. But again, I'm such a giver. I've given, given, given, given, giving, given, given. Yeah, and I'm still waiting for that to come. I have hope that somebody will love me past Gina m So I'm open.

00:41:51
Speaker 2: You feel like that got in the way. Gina got in the way.

00:41:53
Speaker 1: I don't think Gina itself got in the way of you. I think my perception about self man gotten in the way. Maybe back then I was okay with crumbs. I was okay with.

00:42:13
Speaker 2: I don't know you were. You were okay with you doing all the things.

00:42:18
Speaker 1: I was okay with loving on people because I thought that was my job, that was what my job was. From him, how.

00:42:28
Speaker 2: I feel that so deeply.

00:42:29
Speaker 1: I know I've never had an interview like this.

00:42:31
Speaker 2: By the way, really, thank you for trusting me, and thank you for that. I do I appreciate that. Thank you, honey. I know we got real. It's real. It is people, you know, people trying to figure it out. Everybody's work around life, fronting like they got it all together.

00:42:46
Speaker 1: Nobody got together together. Nobody got it, and and it's interesting because I'm so much more than the characters that people have seen me play, much more than the smile that I wear on my face all times. I'm so yes, yes, and I'm learning. I'm I'm peeling away the onion in therapy and in my friendships and in my now relationships. You know that. Yeah, Well, I don't mean I don't have no situationships. I'm just.

00:43:19
Speaker 2: Until you find that love.

00:43:21
Speaker 1: I ain't by myself now.

00:43:25
Speaker 2: You're not opposed to a good time.

00:43:27
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm too grown for this. What we deal with, what were dealing with?

00:43:33
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I still want to love for you, if that's what you want for yourself. Do you want that?

00:43:41
Speaker 1: I just want to know who I am completely. I want to be the best need that I could be. First, I want to be able to have and work on all the baggage and unpack that before I'm super committed to someone so they get the best part of me and I get the best part of me out of the relationship.

00:44:09
Speaker 2: Heard you? Yeah so good? How many times when people say damn Gina to you.

00:44:15
Speaker 1: Every damn day of my life, because like three times when you were talking today, I want to say, Damn, Gina, I really wanted to. I don't mind it, but it was so real I didn't want, you know what I mean, calls me that every day. I told you he does.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: Every day.

00:44:32
Speaker 1: He doesn't call me, he doesn't call me mommy, mommy. He only calls me Gena. You know why, because that dag On nollawayans Keenan's daughter was babysitting him when he was like three years old, right, And I never let my kids watch my work because I just wanted them to know me for mommy. I didn't. I didn't let them watch my work. I didn't put them on red carpets. I wanted them to be as far away from Hollywood as possibly. I did do a red carpet once because it was a Disney thing, so I could take them to a Disney But other than that, no, they weren't on the red carpet when they were little, on everything. And she was babysitting him one day and I came home and they're streaming The Martin Show, and so ZIKEI turns he's straight. He goes, hey, Gina, and he's been calling me Tina ever since. And I'd be answering because I'm tired. I had a time.

00:45:30
Speaker 5: Okay, God, So they watched they were all five seasons and then goes, you're welcome and I'll kill you.

00:45:42
Speaker 1: Why you got this boy? So from then on he's been calling me Gina.

00:45:46
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love that.

00:45:48
Speaker 1: So I'm used to it.

00:45:49
Speaker 2: We have a couple. It's so good. I could talk to you all day. Okay.

00:45:52
Speaker 3: So our first Our first segment is a voice noted segment comes from one of our IRL listeners and usually a question our comment.

00:46:00
Speaker 2: This one is for you.

00:46:01
Speaker 4: So my question would be, how do I begin to start over when I've already gone through so much turmoils, so much trauma, and life as I know it is no longer the same. How do I maneuver through turning fifty? Like I feel like fifty is where I should have been at my peak, and I was headed there before everything else, So just looking where do I go from here?

00:46:24
Speaker 2: How do I start over at fifty? Wow, that's a great question. So I just feel like she was listening to our interview today, So what was her name? Lady Lady T?

00:46:36
Speaker 1: Hey, lady T. So when I had to start over, I really had to.

00:46:46
Speaker 2: Start over from what.

00:46:49
Speaker 1: From like divorce, So I'm a back up. So I've been, Like I said, I was in this business since I was three years old. So I went straight from a mamager and them being my manager into a marriage. And when I had to start over, and when I left, I had to go from ground zero, complete zero, complete nothing. And it was scary, but I kept visualizing.

00:47:25
Speaker 2: You know what, I kept visualizing what.

00:47:28
Speaker 1: You know, how a baby when they're first learning how to walk, they get up on their feet and they kind of teeter and they do this little wobble or wobble. If you look at their faces, there's this excitement, this thrill. They know they're going to fall on their little pamper butts. They know they about the fall, but they embrace the fall and then they get right back up. I think sometimes when we're adults we forget to enjoy and embrace the fall. That everything could look like it feels devastating, but it's more like a beautiful devastation. And I just kept saying, things are going to get better. A friend of mine named Danny, who was one of the one of the people who really helped me through. She told me she's my Actually she's my writing partner and and co producer at my production company. But she kept saying, change the narrative, Sys, don't be the victim, don't tell this story over and over again. Make new stories. It's okay to start again. It's scary, it hurts, it's complicated, but it's okay to start again. You got this. And so I had to stop singing the same song over and over just you know, I'm this happened to me. That happened to me. I don't think I'm gonna be able to do this because now I got It's just so it's the same thing that goes on in your head, you know. And I had to stop, embrace the fall and change the narrative.

00:49:08
Speaker 2: What is the narrative?

00:49:09
Speaker 1: Now, do everything you want to do that you've ever wanted to do in your life. Put yourself first, Tisha, put yourself first, and every Angie and everybody else will fall into place. If you're okay, then they'll be okay. But if you're not okay, how the hell you're gonna get it in? So that's where I am right now.

00:49:35
Speaker 2: Damn.

00:49:40
Speaker 1: That was so apple.

00:49:44
Speaker 2: That's great. I felt that so deep.

00:49:47
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, support for this podcast is brought to you by Walden University. Have you ever thought to yourself, what if I could go after what I actually want and I could really make a difference. Well, you are not alone, and this is exactly why I want to tell you about Walden University.

00:50:02
Speaker 6: For over fifty years, Walden has helped working adults like you get the w with the knowledge, the skills and everything you need to build the future that you want. And you can make a difference where it matters most. If you've been waiting for the right moment, this is it. Head to waldeneu dot edu and take that first step.

00:50:20
Speaker 3: Walden University set a course for change, Certified to operate by SHIV. Now, welcome to our irl bowl of real questions about real life.

00:50:29
Speaker 2: Okay, see what you get? You can pick. You can pick, so you get one that speaks to you. You don't have to pick your first one because we have the magic vanity.

00:50:36
Speaker 1: I'm a glasses on, so let's see.

00:50:37
Speaker 2: Okay, I can help you if you need, because I had Lasik.

00:50:40
Speaker 1: How important is money to you? It's a good question. Money ain't important to me. Money ain't my God. And I think that's where a lot of people get hung up in this business. They make money their god. They make prestige something that they need, fame, prestige, control, money. Money was never my god. So when money was gone, I've been poor before. I can make it again. So it's never been something that was the end all be off of me. It never will be. My relationships are more important to me. The way I affect people is more important to me. Utilizing the gift that God gave me is more important to me. Making people forget their problems, making them cry, making them laugh, making them think, making them change their mindset is more important to me. That is what a true artist is. I'm a true artist. And this shit right here don't mean shit to me. Heard you, sis, But it's not bad when you get it. Well, that benefits to the shit like. But if you are still you have integrity and you're a good person and you still can do what you do, it's going to come. You go and get blessed by it, and you're going to be able to take care of your family. But it doesn't have to be your God. Yeah, it never has to be your God.

00:52:12
Speaker 2: You answer the ship out of that. Damn, we want to get another one. Let's do listen like baseball, let's than three listen three questions?

00:52:23
Speaker 1: This one? All right, what's one thing you hope never changes about you? How loud I am?

00:52:37
Speaker 2: I know, I like it too.

00:52:39
Speaker 1: I'm really loud, but it's actually part of the mask. I do enjoy it. But it has been a survival technique. Actually, so, I'm actually a very shy person. Believe it or not. Nobody would believe that I would be. Nobody would, but I also would believe it. Yeah, I'm actually quite shy, and I hide it with Joe and loudness, and it has always been a strategic move.

00:53:07
Speaker 2: And it's the problem is that it's affected.

00:53:10
Speaker 1: It's so effective and we're and you're so good at it. Yes, I'm so loud.

00:53:14
Speaker 3: You demand attention and then when you get the people's attention, you deliver. You're funny, you have some you have meaningful things to offer and say. It's it's it's it's the reason why I'm here. Like being able to do interviews like this, which is, like I said, I don't think that I've.

00:53:33
Speaker 1: Ever had an interview like this, this in depth, this just what's the word, I'm trying to find the word.

00:53:44
Speaker 2: Thank you? I feel you know what I'm saying. I think it's just honest, honest.

00:53:49
Speaker 1: And inviting, and I don't feel like I have to put up a guard with you.

00:53:56
Speaker 2: Thank you.

00:53:57
Speaker 1: You're very good at what you do, so I'm able to say things that most people have never heard me say before. What was the fucking question? Oh the loudness. I love being that I was able to be strategic with how loud I truly am.

00:54:16
Speaker 2: Not because I'm actually quite shy. Yes, I could see that though, but it has worked for you. But you are so self aware now that you know that it's it's a tool in your toolbox.

00:54:27
Speaker 1: And plus, when I was eleven and twelve when I met to Shina, well I say eleven and twelve. Tashina was eleven. I was twelve. She likes your people to tell She likes for me to tell people that because she wants everybody to know she's younger than me. So when I first met her on an audition and she was like, look, you're so shy. Why are you so shy? Speak up for yourself. I hate shy people. Left. So she forced me out of my shyness.

00:54:53
Speaker 2: What a blessing it was.

00:54:54
Speaker 1: And then she would take me all around all the gays in the seventies, and honey, they would crack on you. They would let your ass have it, so you had to get thick skins. So she was actually the blessing that helped me navigate the life.

00:55:07
Speaker 2: How amazing it is to have a friend that long you were? How old eleven and twelve? Yea, my best friend. We've been friends since we're eight years old. So I know the benefit of that. Somebody that has seen you through all the season.

00:55:18
Speaker 1: Knows you like like we finish each other's sentences.

00:55:22
Speaker 2: Yes, I remember things that you don't even remember.

00:55:25
Speaker 1: I do not play about to Sina Arnold. That's one thing I do not play about. I don't play about her. I do not play about to Shina Arnold. That's my girl, that's my friend, that's my sister. And as protective as I am of her, she's just as protective of me.

00:55:41
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what a blessing that each other.

00:55:44
Speaker 1: M h yeah, especial. It's bus it's because and we were able to survive this business and not get caught up. We'll wait, We're.

00:55:51
Speaker 2: Gonna wait for this bullshit, right, I mean, they went crazy on you. They want you to get loud, but you want to be loud.

00:55:59
Speaker 1: You like, Okay, they're gone. But I was saying that I do not play about.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: Could you imagine like.

00:56:10
Speaker 3: Being famous, having that level of success, the success that Martin had that show in the nineties and were fame does the young people and Hollywood. The fact that you were able to navigate those waters with my friends, with your friends.

00:56:27
Speaker 1: It was like a bubble around us. Our friendship was a bubble, and we helped each other survive through it. We helped each other navigate around it. We kept each other in check, kept each The thing about the two of us is we tell each other the truth. We don't have the yes men around us. We don't want it. That doesn't keep you honest. And we hold each other accountable and keep each other honest, and we do it with so much laughter. She is how I get through life. She helps me.

00:57:06
Speaker 2: Laugh at everything.

00:57:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, she'll be like, put an H on your on your shirt, bitch and handle it. Like put the H on your shirt, bitch and handle it. Okay, that's that's because she and Arnold. I love that. I love her.

00:57:22
Speaker 2: My final I r O question I like to ask everybody on the show. Do you have anything else before I do it? Final question? I like to ask everybody this question. Okay, my final question, My final question. Yes, you are so wonderful today. By the way, if this this a question in the ball, if God were to text you today right now, what would it say.

00:57:51
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what God would say to me, and y'all know what God would say. That's what he said, stop being so loud. I know your tricks. That's what he would say.

00:58:09
Speaker 2: You know, if God texted you stop being so loud, you wouldn't know exactly what he means.

00:58:16
Speaker 1: He really means, I know what you're doing this. I know what you're doing daughter, you're hiding, so stop being so loud. I'm never gonna stop being so loud. Lord, I'm sorry, I think it's Lord, I'm sorry. I don't I don't know if I could do it. It's very hard for me. It's survivalvival technique.

00:58:38
Speaker 2: Lord, he made, he made you, He knows you. One by the one to shea Arnold by the way, we need her next because I need the flip side of this. I need the flip side of this h story of this duo, my my goal one day would be to have the two of you in the chair together to very soon.

00:59:01
Speaker 1: I can't say one project happening, you will get both.

00:59:04
Speaker 2: That would be amazing. I just want to make sure there was nothing else here. I think. So that was amazing. You are brilliant.

00:59:10
Speaker 1: No, you got to understand Angie issue. Oh you create a safe space for people to speak. Thank you, because we're always so guarded. But the way that you handle your guests, thank you, it's so it's so comforting, So we don't mind saying things that nobody has ever heard.

00:59:33
Speaker 2: Thank you for having take your camble real life.

00:59:38
Speaker 1: I don't like so in real life.

00:59:42
Speaker 2: You know that was beautiful.

00:59:45
Speaker 1: This is Tisha Campbell in real life.

00:59:48
Speaker 2: Hey guys, thanks for watching.

00:59:49
Speaker 3: Make sure you subscribe, like comments, and check out all of the other episodes we have on Edge.

00:59:54
Speaker 2: Martinez I RL Podcast