Special Guest
speaker
516 appearances
11 recordings
7 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Jun 2025
Special Guest’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Family is about those that show up for you and those that accept you. And so I'm really grateful that Thanksgiving, that episode could just mean something to people because... I never would have thought it would become what it did. But I was just grateful to be working with Melina Mitsoukas, who directed that episode and did a beautiful job.
You know, Kim Whitley, who pulled up and played, you know, my aunt. And obviously Angela Bassett, who is someone I just, you know, I'm forever grateful for before I got to work with her. But now, and she is like a mother. We feel like mother-daughter because after that, come on, it's forever bonded.
My homie was writing on the show. She thought of me for it. Because she was writing on it. I did not know that. Yeah, and I definitely knew about the show. Because I'm such a TV... head. I did the documentary about Mary Tyler Moore because I studied Dick Van Dyke Show. When I went to college, I studied writing, producing, and television. So we had to watch Dick Van Dyke Show.
We had to watch All in the Family and really study these shows, but also coming up on ER and the practice. And I came up during a really cool time, obviously getting a chance to watch West Wing in real time and all that kind of stuff and Mad Men in real time. And Sopranos, I'm very blessed.
And so when This Is Us came about, I remember just being in the industry and sort of hearing about it and hearing about the concept and hearing about the cast and just sort of thinking, if that works... what a miracle and what a joy it would be in terms of what we need to see on television.
And it could have been hokey, but because of you all, and I think the chemistry and the lack of fear to go into really complicated places, people really, especially your father's story, I mean, people I think really,
kind of were like moved in a way that they were with Grey's Anatomy, like network television that was giving us something that wasn't, you know, you just fold your laundry and let it play in the background. It's always exciting when something comes along that just grabs everybody. And so when I got the opportunity, I was like, yeah,
Yeah, I want to be a part of that because shows like Community and The Searchers would kind of come along. This Is Us was one of those shows where in the industry people were kind of whispering and sniffing around going, what's that about to be? And so, yeah, I was just honored to come on and do something in an episode. People will hit me. People are like, oh, I'm watching This Is Us.
I was watching it. The fact that people still hit me about it, it's like, yeah, people are just re-watching the show, which is such a rarity. I always say a true success of art is something that people want to go back and revisit. So when you watch them shows, they're like, oh, I was watching the reruns of that.
Oh, then that's a special show for you to go back and watch something you've already seen. We watch Law & Order SVU all the time. It's like, yeah, it don't matter. I've seen this episode 18 times, but I'm going to sit and watch it to the end. That's a special type of energy, you know? And so y'all have that.
And so just truly congratulations for being a part of something that's timeless, but was also timely. Thank you. Yeah, man. So truly, I was honored to be a part of it.
Columbia College in Chicago.
You know what? It was never part of the plan. It was part of God's plan. It wasn't part of mine. I always wanted to be behind the scenes. I wanted to write television. Obviously, A Different World had a huge impact on me, Home and Grab Productions. I remember watching that show and just knowing I really wanted to be a television writer.
That's what a different world and Cosby show. That's what those shows really meant for me. I was like, I want to write TV. Never really had the performance bug, but I've always been a ham. I mean, my mom would call me a ham when I was a young kid. But I think that's because I watched so much television.
You do the thing that you do is like you sort of watching TV and you repeat it back and you can, you kind of say lines, you know, obviously with some shows like Martin, you know, I always tell Martin Lawrence, I was like, man, I get my personality from you, you know, like get the step in and like, you know, like, you know, like get Like, was I?
You know, like, watching him on Def Comedy Jam, like, just how he would, like, vibe and stuff like that. Definitely picked up on things like that. And so when I went into... Okay, so the acting thing, first of all, I got to give credit to Allison Jones, a phenomenal cast and director. Okay. who saw something I had written and asked to meet with me. And so I went in and sat with her.
And she's iconic. She cast Veep. She cast Freaks and Geeks, Bridesmaids. She's responsible for so many careers. And so I went to her, I was like, why am I meeting with a casting director? I'm like, I'm not casting anything. But she was like, she just wanted to meet you. And so I went in there and saw these like, you know, posters of like these iconic shows that she cast.
And I sat down with her and we just had a conversation. We just talked. And I was talking about many different TV shows that I liked. And maybe I mentioned Maud or something and Rhoda and all this stuff. And she was sort of, I think, a little like, OK. And then she was like, have you ever thought about acting? And I was like, no, I have not.
And she was like, well, would you mind if I brought you in for some stuff? And I was like, sure. And she did. She brought me in for some things. I booked one couple lines on one of my favorite shows of all time called The Comeback.
Lisa Kudrow, Michael Patrick King. I watched that first season and became obsessed. I was like, what is this? Who is this? Who is Valerie Cherish? What is this? And so I was one of those people that had the DVD and listened to the commentary. And then because people were so obsessed, 10 years later, they did a season two.
Showing 341–360 of 516 · page 18 of 26
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