[In Living Color clip]

Calhoun Tubbs: My name is Calhoun Tubbs. I once played the guitar for over 36 hours straight. I wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go. I played guitar for 36 hours.

[laughter]

[Martin clip]

Rev. Leon Lonnie Love: Now, Brother, just what seems to be your affliction?

Congregant: I have constant pain in my back. I've been to the doctors and they can't do anything.

Rev. Leon Lonnie Love: Y'all hear that? The man got constipation all up in his patella. [laughter] Go on, show the people [unintelligible 00:00:25]. How much is the hospital going to charge you to fix it?

Congregant: About $1,000.

Rev. Leon Lonnie Love: $1,000. I can heal you for $250.

[laughter]

[Boomerang clip]

Gerard: Okay, tell me this, man. Why Angela? What, she has nice feet?

Marcus: Oh, it has nothing to do with her feet or anything like that, man. I care about this girl.

Gerard: Man, you don't care about nobody but yourself, man.

[The American Society of Magical Negroes clip]

Roger: What's the most dangerous animal on the planet?

Aren: Sharks.

Roger: White people.

Aren: And they're teamed up with sharks.

Roger: When they feel uncomfortable.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. David Alan Grier made his acting debut in 1981 in a celebrated Broadway show called The First about Jackie Robinson. In the 45 years since then, he has been a constant presence on stage, on the big screen, on television, and he was an important player in an eruption of beloved shows and films in the early 1990s that were made by and largely for Black audiences. Most notably, he was a cast member of the groundbreaking and Emmy Award-winning sketch show In Living Color. He went on to a long list of projects, including Boomerang, Jumanji, The Carmichael Show, Chocolate News, The Color Purple, and many others. His most recent project is The American Society of Magical Negroes. It's a satirical film about a legion of Black people who make the world a safer place by keeping white people calm.

David Alan Grier, welcome to Notes from America.

David Alan Grier: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Kai Wright: You graduated from Yale drama school in 1981-

David Alan Grier: Yes.

Kai Wright: -and that very same year, made your Broadway debut. That was your first professional job, and you got a Tony nomination.

David Alan Grier: I did.

Kai Wright: What was it like starting your career with such ferocity?

David Alan Grier: Well, first of all, the part- I could not have asked for a better part. Yes, it was a musical, but it was a dramatic musical. It was great. I was able to show my range, and most importantly, my parents could come. Because I'm a heathen, but I prayed to God, I said, "Look, give me one good job so I can show my parents. Then I promise you, if I'm broke 10 years, I won't complain." Now that was the deal. This was my first job. After it closed, that was in the fall of '81. To be nominated for a Tony, I really felt at that time, I remember, so this wasn't a dream. This wasn't my imagination. Someone did see me.

Kai Wright: Wow.

David Alan Grier: It just became affirming that-- Because at that age, I thought, maybe this will be it. [chuckles] You always think that. That's the plight of an actor.

Kai Wright: Well, it's a quixotic career, to say the least.

David Alan Grier: Anyway, it was amazing. It was amazing.

Kai Wright: What was it like going to the Tony Awards?

David Alan Grier: My category was Best Featured Actor in a Musical. It was one of the first awards. It was like a scene out of Mary Tyler Moore. I thought I was having a stroke. Then I thought I was having a heart attack. Then I thought I'm going to pass out, I'm going to vomit, all that stuff, and I'm just gripping my chair, and I was saying, "Please don't make me get up there. I can't walk, I can't move."

Kai Wright: It's enough. I made it this far--

David Alan Grier: And just white-knuckling it. I went with Joel Siegel, may he rest in peace. I lost, and Joel, and there was a guy named Dennis Cunningham, he used to be a critic, a television critic; they lean in and go, "It's okay, David," but inside, I'm like, "Y'all don't even know." That's when I started having fun, and then I could relax and we moved on. That was my first experience.

Kai Wright: What, 45 years now later-

David Alan Grier: Yes, man.

Kai Wright: -you have made a lot of work.

David Alan Grier: I sure have.

Kai Wright: Stage and screen. You're kind of one of those people that- like those of us outside that used to be like, “He works. That is a man in Hollywood who likes to work." Is that how you think of yourself? [crosstalk]--

David Alan Grier: Well, not likes to work; has the opportunity to work. Because I'm 67 years old, and I really did not think when I was much younger that this would be my most prolific period. I just assumed that I'll probably be getting ready for retirement and et cetera, but first of all, I put in my 10,000 hours. I actually know what I'm doing after all these years. I know my craft. I'm in great health, great spirits.

I recently spoke to some students at University of Michigan, my alma mater, and one of the kids goes, "Well, what's your goal?" This is my goal. There is a senior Olympics in which old people race. I saw a race with a 100-year-old man, and basically no one is in his category except him, so every time he races, he gets a gold medal. That's my goal.

Kai Wright: That's what you're working towards. [laughs]

David Alan Grier: That's my goal. I want to be the last dude standing. They say, "Well, get David. He can still do it." They pull me out of the old folks' home. I'm competing only with myself. There's nobody else. [chuckles]

Kai Wright: It is an industry that is into youth, to say the least--

David Alan Grier: It is, but you need old people. I never thought when I was young-- Yes, you got to have some old folks in everything, but not only that. I think my personality, I've always been perceived to be younger than I actually was. My voice, I don't sound old, whatever that means, so for me to transition into dads, uncles, that took a lot longer because--

Kai Wright: You had a baby face.

David Alan Grier: Exactly. My voice was younger, and the casting directors would be like, "Oh, David," and I'll be like, "No, I really am old." They would be like, "You're so funny." Anyway, this is where I'm at right now. I'm loving it.

Kai Wright: Wow. Well, certainly within all the things you have made, one of the most lasting and consequential is In Living Color. I have now, for this show, had the pleasure to sit down with a number of people from this moment in Black culture, the early '90s, that we're looking back now as a renaissance, certainly for those of us who were young and Black and finding ourselves in that time, it was hugely important. In Living Color was a big part of that moment. Can you just put that show's launch, 1990, in broader cultural, historical context?

David Alan Grier: Okay. When I did Soldier's Story, I met Robert Townsend. He introduced me to the Wayans family. That's when I met Keenen, I met Damon, and he and I shared a honeywagon. A honeywagon is like your dressing room, your trailer. They had it split in half, and he and I shared a honeywagon, so we talked [crosstalk]--

Kai Wright: Why do they call it a honeywagon?

David Alan Grier: That's where you bring the hunnies, I guess. Everybody but us. [laughter] Anyway. Robert told me he had this partner named Keenen, and they were going to form their own production company called B-Boy Productions. They were going to write and produce their own films. I was fascinated. I'm like, wow. I thought Robert was the funniest human being I ever met. He was doing Damon's material. I'm like, I'd be rolling. I said, "Oh my God, this dude." He say, "Yes, that's my boy, Damon Wayans. That's his act." Then he would do Keenen. I met Keenen, we were all friends. I started hanging out with those guys. That's when I started doing comedy as a way to work out, just to stay flexible, stay in shape artistically.

We did I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. After that, Keenen said I'm going to do The Black Saturday Night Live. Now back then, that was the great El Dorado because for all us Black performers and in the clique that I was in, there was always that thing, "Could you imagine if SNL was Black?" Keenen is the one who actually did it. The pilot for In Living Color was an hour long. When we did it, I never believed that we would get on the air because it was too wild. It was buck wild. It was like we had all of this pent-up energy, creative energy that we finally had a shot. Yo, man, we performed like we were all on life support when they say, "You got two weeks to live," and we put it all down there. When we finally got picked up-- It's a funny thing. It took a year to pick us up. Within that year, I remember doing an episode of ALF, and all the crew had seen In Living Color. Because they passed [crosstalk]--

Kai Wright: ALF [unintelligible 00:09:42]

David Alan Grier: Yes, because people started passing the bootleg tape. Back then it was VH. You got to tell these young folks. That's what we were doing. The crew would come up and they'd be like, "Man, what was this thing I watched? Yo, man, this is funny as hell. Where did this come--" That was the pilot for In Living Color.

Kai Wright: Wow.

David Alan Grier: We even got reviewed in Vanity Fair Magazine. They said, "There's this bootleg, this show. It is funny. It's been going all over Hollywood. What's going on, Fox? Why won't you" [crosstalk]--

Kai Wright: Mixed tapes of TV. Who knew?

David Alan Grier: Oh, yes. That is really how they picked us up. Once we got on the air, it was an immediate success.

Kai Wright: But you turned it down several times before you accepted. What was your reluctance?

David Alan Grier: I'd come out of the Yale drama school. Back then, I wanted to play a doctor, lawyer, like L.A. Law. [role-play] "I'll take that case." Like when Denzel [crosstalk]--

Kai Wright: Because you were a dramatist?

David Alan Grier: Exactly. When Denzel and I were in Soldier's Play Off-Broadway, that's where I met Denzel Washington, Adolph Caesar, all those guys, Douglas Turner Ward. He auditioned for St. Elsewhere. We all auditioned. I remember auditioning, and they were like, no. I didn't get it. Denzel got it. That was the role I wanted. [crosstalk] I wanted to get in one of those hour dramas. [role-play] "Scalpel, Nurse." "It's your mother. She's on the phone." "I'll take it. Tell her I'm operating." That's the kind of stuff I wanted. I just didn't think to be in a show-- They were all seasoned comedians, Jim Carrey, Tommy, all of them. How am I going to succeed in that? That's not--

Kai Wright: It's crazy the number of people-- like Jim Carrey, you mentioned, J.Lo, Jamie Foxx. So many titans began on In Living Color.

David Alan Grier: I just didn't see how I would be successful. Now this was a season where I must have auditioned for over 30 pilots that year and everything. I just didn't get anything. My agents were advising me, "You don't want to do In Living Color. You're not going to get the money. It's going to be crabs in a barrel. We don't want you to do it," so I turned it down. I turned it down twice. Then I moved back to New York, and Kim Wayans was always in my ear. We were very tight, very good friends. Finally, she just jumped me into the gang. She said, "I really think you're making a mistake. You'll have the freedom to create these characters. You need to do this show."

Finally, I just followed my heart. Because all along, all my friends were going to be on In Living Color, so I knew I'd have fun. The rest was a crapshoot. Finally, at the end of the day, I said I'm going to do In Living Color, man, and never looked back.

[music]

Kai Wright: This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. More of my conversation with actor and comedian David Alan Grier just ahead.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. I'm talking with actor and comedian David Alan Grier about his decades-long career in Hollywood, which really got its start when he joined the cast of the Emmy Award-winning sketch comedy show In Living Color, which debuted in 1990.

David, you've said in previous interviews that In Living Color changed your life.

David Alan Grier: Of course it did. The first thing-- I had this old car, and I went to get a burglar alarm, I think, installed in the car. As you know, back then, had a burglar alarm. There was a white guy who was my technician. I pulled in, and this guy went bananas. He just was fawning. He was like, "Oh my God." [mimics starstruck] He was a young-- Everybody in LA is trying to make it. I had to take a cab back to my apartment. The driver, they were all over me like, "Oh my gosh, you're on that show? You're famous." That was the first time where I felt like, okay, well, maybe something's happening.

Kai Wright: We asked our listeners for questions for you on our Instagram account. One of them is relevant to what we're talking about now. Evelyn in Long Island asked, "What did you do with your first big check that came from working as an actor, and was that from In Living Color?"

David Alan Grier: When I was a freshman in college-- so I graduated in 1974, and I remember that my freshman year at University of Michigan, one day we were downtown and they had these machines, ATM machines. You put a card in, you could get cash out. My mom gave me a credit card with the stipulation, "Don't spend over $500," and you know I ran that bad boy to over $1,000. The first thing I did is I paid her back.

Kai Wright: Look at you.

[laughter]

David Alan Grier: My mother goes, "Are you rich?" [chuckles] "Not yet." That's the first thing I did.

Kai Wright: That's lovely. There are tons of famous sketches from In Living Color. There's all these iconic characters. Actually, I want to ask you about the skit with James Brown where you're cutting his hair. [chuckles]

David Alan Grier: That was wild. First of all, James Brown came in, and he was married at the time, and his wife at that time was also his personal makeup/hair person. We were instructed, "Do not call him James. You are to address him as Mr. Brown."

Kai Wright: Oh, wow.

David Alan Grier: James Brown grew up in abject poverty in the deep South during segregated times. No Black man was ever accorded the respect and dignity of, "Mr. So-and-so, may I help you?" So, I understand. He wanted to be addressed as Mr. Brown to get that respect. Another thing they said, "Do not touch Mr. Brown's hair." He had the full perm. Now--

Kai Wright: This seems like it ought to be self-evident, David. I mean, James Brown's hair--

David Alan Grier: It was a barbershop sketch, man. The whole sketch was about us cutting his hair and messing it up, me and Jamie as barbers. Then I'm like, "Oh, man, okay." Every time I would brush lightly his 'do, he would jump, and I'd be like, "I'm sorry, Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown, please." The wife was standing right there and she was like "Don't," because I had the scissors, and I was so nervous, man. The whole sketch is like we snip a little part of the hair and we go, "You're all done-"

[studio audience]

David Alan Grier: -and he gets up and dances and goes out. Inside my body, man; I watched James Brown since I was a little kid. I remember they showed The T.A.M.I. Show, and my brother ran across the street and he said, "Man, turn on the TV," and we all got around this little black-and-white TV. That was when James Brown came out in the checked jacket and did his thing. He danced all the way off stage. We were screaming. James Brown was always a party popper, and so to work with him, this is one of my major, major idols, it was amazing, man. That's one of many times you just got to pinch yourself, "Man, this is where I'm at. This is how I'm doing things right now."

Kai Wright: I have to ask you about the very popular recurring sketch, Men on Film. You've talked about this before. For folks who don't know, it's a recurring sketch where you and Damon Wayans are film critics and you're Black gay men-

[In Living Color: Men on Film clip]

Antoine Merriweather: I'm Antoine Merriweather. [in unison] And welcome to Men on Film.

Kai Wright: -and it's a pretty over-the-top caricature of Black gay men; what we in the community would call snap queens.

[In Living Color: Men on Film clip]

Blaine Edwards: Our first film up is City Slickers.

Antoine Merriweather: Oh, this is a film about Lil Billy Crystal. I love this film. All that dust and perspiration. I got saddle sore just watching it."

David Alan Grier: Yes. Well, a lot of the terminology-- I'd done Dreamgirls. That was backstage. As you said, from the gay community, [role-play] "Clutch the pearls, what a wicked thing to do," that kind of stuff. I took a lot of that vernacular. Also, initially, they were brothers, and it was Keenen and Damon. They were initially reviewing made-up movies. At a certain point, I asked Keenen, "Let me take a shot at that." He gave it to me and Damon, and we switched it to real movies.

Kai Wright: To real movies.

David Alan Grier: The real subversion of those characters were, we purposely picked movies that had no gay inference, none. When I was in New York, there was a show on public access called something like In the Closet. You hear this dude's voice, and he would take straight movies. He goes, [role-play] "Guys, here's a great scene from Top Gun," and it was with Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in their drawers in the shower. He's like, [role-play] "For all you guys in the closet, here's a great scene." We took that and we got these straight movies, and to me that really propelled that sketch because it became more and more over-the-top. We would try and find the straightest movies and just infer this gayness on the movies.

Kai Wright: I have to say, though, I can look at it now and it ironically be hilarious to me, but as a young, Black, queer man at the time, who I was nowhere near out, I was still trying to figure myself out, but this was such a massive thing in the culture around me. The one thing I knew is that my peers were not laughing with those characters. They were laughing at them.

David Alan Grier: It's really interesting because I always felt, though we were making fun of the culture, we never put hatred into those characters, you know what I mean? What I saw at the time was the younger gay culture was with the characters; older gay culture, they were offended. That is what we got from the community, though we were not of the community. That's why when people say, "Oh, you could do it now," I'm like, "No, we can't." Maybe if they rebooted it and they were gay cast members and they wanted to take a shot, that's for them.

Kai Wright: And tell their own jokes about themselves.

David Alan Grier: Yes, that's for them, but at the time, that's not what was happening.

Kai Wright: For me, as someone growing up in Indiana, those are literally the only two depictions in real life or fantasy life of Black gay men I had ever seen and would ever see until I was in college. That's not on you. You didn't create that culture, but what is--

David Alan Grier: I didn't write it. I performed it. I take ownership because I participated in it, but some of the things that happened-- I remember going to this popular restaurant in Hollywood for lunch while we were doing the show, it had already been on the air, and this group of old white women were in one table. They didn't know who I was. A bunch of Black queer men came in and they fawned all over me like [screams]. They was like, "He's famous." They went to these women like, "You don't know who this is?" These women were like-- It was one of these things where it was a cultural crossroad--

Kai Wright: It remains.

David Alan Grier: They didn't know who the hell I was, but the gay community did. I don't know who this person is, but a writer posted on social media that as a young, Black, queer man, he loved the characters. He took pride in their creation. He didn't take offense. Now that's one person, but it's interesting. There were a bunch of different perspectives, but it was 40 years ago.

Kai Wright: All this leads to questions about representation that vex comedy. I imagine, given the kind of comedy you do, you think a lot about the boundaries of representation, what role comedy plays in it--

David Alan Grier: We are living in strange times. I'm not a comic who says I can't be funny because of woke whatever. That's bullshit. But it is a different time. Things change. When the show came on in '90-- so let's say in the '60s comedy when I was a kid was Dick Gregory, a young Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Scoey Mitchell. That comedy changed from '60 to '90.

Kai Wright: It's hard to imagine Richard Pryor on stage today.

David Alan Grier: Oh, yes, but it's to another generation, a young generation to define themselves right now, today, and speak for themselves. When you think back-- when I was a kid, I wasn't aware that these comedians I saw were the first Black comedians who'd come out of Blackface and were owning and representing their culture themselves. That's how much progress had come in the '60s. When I look back, to me that's crazy that before all that generation of Dick Gregory and those guys, a Black standup comedian, that was like Pigmeat Markham or somebody. It was a different generation. It's constantly evolving, as it should.

Kai Wright: As it should. Another listener question. Alex from California asks, "David, I love your work and have been a fan for decades. My question for you is, how do you deal with being the comic relief? I imagine that people always look to you for laughs on and off the screen. Does that ever get tiring?"

David Alan Grier: If you knew me, if we were friends, that would not be a problem. Because you wouldn't know me if you were like, "Tell me a joke," [chuckles] something like that. No, man, people that know me-- Also, I feel like part of my current state, I'm doing a lot more drama: Joe Pickett, The Patient. I just won a Tony a couple years ago for Soldier's Play, more serious roles. It's not like that. That's not really my existence. I still do comedy because I love comedy, but it's not all I do. It's not all I want to do.

For me to be alive, for any artist to be alive, you have to keep growing or else you're just going to repeat what you've always done. The first thing I do when I look at a role is I strip away everything and build from scratch. I try not to use my little tricks or whatever. I only bring what I can that is germane to this new character. That's how I approach it. That goes from the Cowardly Lion to the most serious, which I would say probably The Patient, or Joe Pickett, or Color Purple.

Kai Wright: You just have to meet it where it's at.

David Alan Grier: Yes, that's my process.

Kai Wright: David Alan Grier's latest work is the film, The American Society of Magical Negroes. It opened in theaters on March 15th, and it's part fantasy, part romantic comedy, and primarily a satire and commentary on a Hollywood trope; the wise Black person whose only role is to emotionally guide a white leading character.

[The American Society of Magical Negroes clip]

Roger: What's the most dangerous animal on the planet?

Aren: Sharks.

Roger: White people. When they feel uncomfortable.

Kai Wright: David plays an older Black man who is an actual magical negro, and is recruiting/mentoring a young Black man to join this league of these racism superheroes. This is a film about a legion of fantastic Black beings [chuckles] who make the world a safer place by appeasing white people by quelling their [crosstalk]--

David Alan Grier: Well--

Kai Wright: Yes, come on, help me--

David Alan Grier: De-escalating.

Kai Wright: De-escalating.

David Alan Grier: De-escalating situations in which Black people could be harmed, okay? Now I play a guy named Roger, and I'm recruiting Aren, who's Justice Smith. I'm trying to get him to join my society. I often think about, if you saw the movie, this story I tell about being a young kid and watching my father in this racist incident. My grandmother was born in 1900, so I heard those stories as a young child. I often thought about it because I realized when I got older, my mother would get really distraught. Because my grandmother would tell me about finding a body that had been lynched and disfigured, just atrocities. As a little boy, I would say, "But grandma, why didn't they fight back?" She said, "Well, they couldn't, baby," because that's just the way it was.

When she would tell me these stories, it was not done with histrionics, wailing and crying. It usually started, we'd be lying in bed together and I'd say, "Grandma, tell me about when you were a little girl," so she would tell me all these stories, and when I got older, those stories changed. Because when I was younger, it was like Little House on the Prairie. It was adventure, like, "Wow, that was the first time you saw an airplane?" She knew that. She remembered that. As I got older, they're painful. Now I realize that she told me those stories because they were still here. "You going to give up? No, we got to keep moving." I realized that she was preparing me for this world and-- [tremulous] Excuse me, but-- [exhales]

Kai Wright: It's all right.

David Alan Grier: This character, if you ask Roger-- because Justice does. He says, "Magical Negroes, man." He says, "Well, what are you all doing?" Roger would say, "Imagine if we weren't here."

Kai Wright: You're referring to a scene Roger says to Justice- Justice asks him about smiling in the face of white people, and he says, "I never regretted one smile because I'm still here, but a lot of us ain't."

David Alan Grier: Oh, I heard that. I remember when my mother explained to me what apartheid was. Because when we were kids, I loved lobster, but in Detroit, the only lobster we could get was South African, and my mother would not buy any products from South Africa back then because there was apartheid. I asked her what apartheid was and she told me. She also told me the ratio of Black Africans to white people living in South Africa. I think it was 1,000 to 1. Again, as a child, I said, "Well, why don't all the Black people just rise up and take over?" She said, "It's not that simple."

I'll tell you a story. When they train elephants, when they're very little babies, they tie them to a post. As the elephant gets bigger, this tether, it starts with a string, then it's leather, then it's a chain to hold them. By the time the elephant is grown, they don't need a chain anymore. They can just take a shoelace, tie it around the elephant's ankle and tie it to a post, and the elephant believes he can't get away, he can't get free, because he's been trained and conditioned by that subjugation that I cannot get free, I cannot break this rope, this chain. That's what institutional racism and subjugation successfully is; you train a population of people to believe, "We can't get free. We have to endure this institution." Yes.

Kai Wright: This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. I'm talking with actor David Alan Grier about his latest film, The American Society of Magical Negroes, and about his long career on both stage and screen. Just ahead, more of your questions for David Alan Grier. Stay with us.

[music]

Kai Wright: Welcome back. It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright, and I'm joined this week by actor and comedian David Alan Grier. David, as a kid, you and your family went with Martin Luther King Jr.-

David Alan Grier: We marched.

Kai Wright: -at the march on poverty in Detroit.

David Alan Grier: Yes.

Kai Wright: Do you remember that moment and how--

David Alan Grier: Yes.

Kai Wright: Tell me about that moment and its imprint on you.

David Alan Grier: Well, I remember our neighborhood kids that we played with, me and my brother, they teased us because we had to put on church clothes and go downtown and march on a hot summer day. I must have been seven years old. I remember my mom bribing me with ice cream. "Well, what are we going to do after this?" "I'm going to get you some ice cream." I didn't know at that moment and I didn't consider until many years later that I was a part of history. That participating in that march as a family was a part of history. No, it just seemed like a weird day.

I went online and I found one of the posters announcing the Walk to Freedom. I laughed because I'm thinking of the politics behind-- Reverend C.L. Franklin was one of the local leaders who organized the march. They purposely didn't say march, freedom march. No, they said Walk to Freedom. I could only imagine with the city fathers, "No, we're not marching. We're walking."

Kai Wright: We're walking.

David Alan Grier: Oh, okay.

Kai Wright: We don't need a permit for this. [chuckles]

David Alan Grier: Okay, so we'll give you the permit. The magnitude of that moment and realizing, "Oh, I was a part of history."

Kai Wright: It seems like your Blackness has been quite relevant, obviously, to your work thus far.

David Alan Grier: Yes.

Kai Wright: Is it relevant in the same way? How has your relationship to the Blackness part of your work changed or--

David Alan Grier: Always, because I'm going to bring it with me regardless of whether you write it in. It's part of me, and I bring that with me. I don't think I've ever not done that. It's funny when I look back because there was a musical years ago called Big River, and it was about Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer. There was a part of Jim the Slave that at the time, I rehearsed and I auditioned, and they never cast me and I was so hurt. I was like, "Man, why didn't they cast me?" But when I look back, I'm David.

Kai Wright: Right.

David Alan Grier: I never got those parts. The director would be like, "Thank you, David." No, because I always came in like me. I auditioned for Magical Negroes, those, [role-play] "I'll drive you, Missy. Oh, by the way, I know how to set your leg." They would always look at me like, "Thanks for coming in, David."

Kai Wright: [chuckles] You couldn't get them.

David Alan Grier: My energy was not conducive to these roles, and in a way that protected me.

Kai Wright: Well, as I said, we asked our listeners on social media to submit questions, so I want to get to some more of those. Here is a voicemail we got from Bobby in Durham, North Carolina.

Bobby: I am curious to know what inclined David Alan Grier to pursue a career in acting. I know his father contributed quite a bit to psychiatry as a Black scholar, and his mother was also a school teacher. When did the acting bug actually give him a little bite?

David Alan Grier: My parents always exposed me to opera, ballet, theater. I just saw that as a way to get out, see the world, be an artist. That was a romantic dream. They lived differently. I just fell in love with that fantasy of what I thought an artist was. I just latched on to it and this is what I'm going to do. The problem was I didn't know if I had talent until I actually started acting, and it was the first thing that I fell in love with and felt, oh, I can spend a lifetime doing this, and it was over. It was just, this is what I'm going to do.

Kai Wright: Love at first performance.

David Alan Grier: Absolutely.

Kai Wright: Michael in Los Angeles wants to know who was the inspiration for the Reverend Leon Lonnie Love. That's the character you played on the classic sitcom, Martin.

[Martin clip]

Kai Wright: This is Reverend Leon Lonnie Love is a crooked preacher who is one of the main character's cousins. How did--

David Alan Grier: [role-play] "It's wrong." When I was a kid, there was a barbershop on Linwood, which is a couple blocks from my house, and these are old Black men at this barbershop. Every week when I would get my hair cut, there was a preacher who would come by and preach in the doorway. He had, at the time, a flamboyant suit, sharkskin suit, alligator shoes, and his refrain was, "Don't do as I do; do as I say." He would preach and then he would go on. That was really the impetus.

When I was a kid, on the AM station, these storefront preachers, they would take whatever song was popular. Marvin Gaye's song, How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You). There was a sermon that I heard every week for months, "How sweet it is to be loved by you, Jesus." Those kinds of things. All of that was like a gumbo for coming up with that character.

Kai Wright: How do you in general build your characters? I mean, is it just à la carte--

David Alan Grier: Well, that's different. Martin and I were really good friends. Martin said, "I really want you to come on. What kind of character do you want to play?" I said, "I want to play a crooked preacher." That's all I said, and this is what they came up with, and it was on and popping from there.

Kai Wright: Yes, it was.

David Alan Grier: It's funny. Martin was always Martin before his time. Because Martin has told a story. When he was being Martin, a really young comic, and he said this comedy club owner took him in the back and said, "Man, you have to stop. You're not going to make it doing all this." His persona was too wild. "You have to conform like the rest of the Black comics."

Eddie Murphy told a story. When he performed at Rodney Dangerfield's club the first time as a teenager, he said Rodney Dangerfield pulled him to the side, he said, "Hey, kid, you're funny, but the blue stuff, come on." Eddie said, three years later, he was a big, huge superstar, he's standing next to Rodney Dangerfield on an award show at the urinal, and he said Rodney Dangerfield said, "Who knew?" [laughter] There is a through line there. Every artist who is a changemaker has always been told, they said this to Jimi Hendrix, to Charlie Parker, Josephine Baker, "No, you're too much. The world is not ready for you."

Kai Wright: Dial it back, yes.

David Alan Grier: Yes. "Calm down. Do what we want you to do, not what you want to do," and they didn't listen. That's why they became legends. That's what you need. You need a disruptor.

Kai Wright: All right.

David Alan Grier: I'm going my own way.

Kai Wright: All right.

David Alan Grier: Yes, indeed.

Kai Wright: Tom in Georgia asks, "What was it like being the announcer at the 2024 Academy Awards?" You were the voice of God at the Oscars [crosstalk]--

David Alan Grier: Right. Well, first of all, I defy you to tell me who was the guy before me.

Kai Wright: But everybody knows it was you this year.

David Alan Grier: I know, but I can't tell you. Jimmy Kimmel is an old friend. He sent me a text. He said, "Hey, man, would you like to be the voice of God?" I'm like, "What?" "At the Oscars. Would you like to announce stuff?" I'm like, "Yes, I'll do it." My next question was, "How many tickets do I get?" Because my daughter is 16 and she asked me, when she was a little girl, she said, "Daddy, will you take me to the Oscars?" I'm like, "Yes, all you got to do is give me a movie part and get me nominated and we're good." That was a big motivation. I knew the producers, this producing team, because I worked with them on Beauty and the Beast. As we got closer to the Oscars, they started adding me in more and more things on camera, but I knew the rules. You can't mess up the names of the movie or the actors.

Kai Wright: That's it.

David Alan Grier: Now what goes on backstage, I was in a trailer and there was a woman next to me. They were all seasoned. They'd done it 10, 12 years. You have the names of the nominees, and then you had another sheet that was phonetic because a lot of those names were Vashili, Ishka Bankalaco for the movie [extemporizes]. Every time the nominations come and they say, "Stand by, David," and I'd be like, "Please let John Smith win. Please, Lord," and they say, "And the winner is," they announce the winner. She poked me, and I got to say that name and do not mess it up, but I had a ball, man.

I had so much fun, and I got to do like a monologue before they went to air. I bring that up because it wasn't on air, so I could stretch out. I could say whatever I wanted and really get the crowd together, and it was really fun. Because my whole thing was like, "Relax, you have been here now. You're in the VIP, so let's have fun."

Kai Wright: Chandra in Colorado wants to know [crosstalk]--

David Alan Grier: Chandra?

Kai Wright: Chandra.

David Alan Grier: Chandra?

Kai Wright: [chuckles] Do you know Chandra?

David Alan Grier: Chandra?

Kai Wright: Yes, that's right. It seems like you know Chandra. "What is your dream dramatic role?"

David Alan Grier: It used to be-- There is a Shakespearean play, Titus Andronicus, and Aaron the Moor. This is a evil, evil man. He kills everybody, feeds the bodies to key people. He is a devil. He's worse than Iago. My dream project would be to have Werner Herzog direct me in Titus Andronicus. Now I just want to continue to explore drama, all kinds of unconventional roles. Like Joe Pickett is a series I did during the pandemic. I played a retired game warden in a small town in the middle of Wyoming. It was based on a book. No one talks about my race, my ethnicity, which I thought was crazy. He's corrupt. I asked the author, I said, "How did this Black dude get here?" He goes, "I don't know," [laughter] so I loved it.

Kai Wright: That's the point. I don't know.

David Alan Grier: I loved it. I think--

Kai Wright: Is it the quirkiness of that you mean that you loved or the fact that like race was there but unnamed?

David Alan Grier: That was part of it, but mostly it was the character. He was evil, he was mean, he was duplicitous. I like those characters. It's funny that-- and I asked the creators, the Dowdles, the brothers, I said, "Why were you interested in me?" Because they said, "We wanted this guy to be evil, but we needed a comedy voice." Because a lot of times when people play evil, they play Snidely Whiplash. That's not evil.

Real evil is you let someone into your home, you befriend someone into your inner circle, and all of a sudden you wake up to a devil. You've given him information that he can destroy your life with, he or she, and when you wake up, it's too late. That. They needed that for me because those kinds of people, they're attractive, they're charismatic, they're funny, but they have evil intentions.

Kai Wright: We had a bit of a debate on our team about, okay, David Alan Grier, is he Black-famous or famous-famous? Do you know what I mean when I say Black-famous? That there are people who are intensely owned in some way by us in the Black community.

David Alan Grier: Well, I used to reject that notion. I remember years ago, Tupac made the statement, and I'm paraphrasing, I can go into any hood in America and I'm famous. Well, to me, I don't want that. I want more than that, but I realize now that I'm older-- I'll tell you a story. The night I won the Tony Award, I posted on my Instagram, "Can you believe I won a Tony?"

This person, one of my followers, total stranger, he said the following, he said, [tremulous] "David, we've already given you every award. We've already given you, the Black community, your Oscar, your Tony, your Emmy. I grew up watching you. You are beloved. We love you." You have to be ready to hear and receive love. In that moment, I'm at an age now where I cherish my fans in a different way. Those words hit me and they really resonated. I don't know what kind of famous I am, but Black folks know me.

Kai Wright: That's for sure.

David Alan Grier: You know what I mean?

Kai Wright: That is for sure.

David Alan Grier: Some white people know me, but I'm Gucci, man. I'm good.

Kai Wright: 2021, A Soldier's Play, you win the Tony for. You get the Tony nomination, what, 40 years before that? What was it like?

David Alan Grier: It's crazy, man. I was so thankful that I won when I won. Because the first thing I said in accepting is I've been acting over 40 years. I said it because I needed to hear it and to let other people know part of my journey. It just meant so much because the one thing I didn't think is I'm a fraud or the imposter syndrome. No, because I worked. I worked, I worked, I worked, I worked-

Kai Wright: That's right.

David Alan Grier: -I worked and built this. It's something. I saw Colman Domingo on the red carpet, and I was saying to his interviewer, "I saw him." He didn't just appear as Rustin. No, Colman has been building brick by brick, character by character to this moment. It's very rare that you see an overnight sensation; someone who's just plucked out of nowhere and possesses. 9 times out of 10, they've been working in silence for many years. Love it or hate it, I felt I deserved it and I owned it. It is great to win. [chuckles] That's the first thing I told my friends. I said, "Don't believe the hype. It's fun to win."

I'm glad I won now because I'm grown. I'm mature. I can handle it. I think the worst thing that could have happened to me as a person and an artist is if I would've won the Tony the first time out. Because I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready as an artist. I mean, I was glad if I didn't win. I was already happy. It was already the best night, the best week. I walk in a room now-- That's why the Oscars were so much fun. I've been acting for over 40 years. I knew so many people in that audience. I knew so many people backstage because-

Kai Wright: You were legit at a party.

David Alan Grier: -they're my community. I just want to tell you and everybody that I feel so thankful, I feel so grateful, and it means everything to me. I remember one time I was driving, just frustrated, having a bad day. It was 90 degrees in LA. I had this Cadillac that my dad gave me. It was a '81 Coupe DeVille. The air conditioning was broke. I had all the windows down. This guy kept racing from stop sign to stop sign. Finally, out of frustration, I pulled up and screeched the brakes, and he was right there next to me, and I said, [yells] "What?" He said, "I just want to tell you I love you, man." Well, that broke me down. That broke me down.

I get messages like that almost every day; strangers who stop and give me gratitude. I remember this guy. He was delivering dog food. He was drenched in sweat, carrying these 50-pound bags, and he looked at me and he said, "Man, you make my life easier." Now that's humbling, man. That's humbling-

Kai Wright: Yes, I can only imagine.

David Alan Grier: -if you are a human being and you're open. Man, come on, I live a blessed life. My mom was a school teacher, them crazy kids; she didn't get that. She didn't. Man, it hits me. It hit me on a deep level. I don't take it for granted and I don't' play with it, and I try to keep those people in mind. When you're being watched and the community is watching, it means something. It gives me a responsibility and a purpose, like I can't just do anything.

Kai Wright: David Alan Grier, thank you for your work and your time and this conversation.

David Alan Grier: Thank you. Hey, man, this has been great. I'm not done yet because I'm going until the wheels fall off.

Kai Wright: Yes, indeed, to 100.

David Alan Grier: Exactly right.

Kai Wright: You're going to be the last one [crosstalk]--

David Alan Grier: I want to be the last Black actor who can remember his lines and walk across that stage. I will be there.

Kai Wright: All right. I hope to be there with you.

David Alan Grier: Yes, indeed. We got work to do, man. Come on.

[music]

Kai Wright: David Alan Grier's latest role is as the mentor, Roger, in the satirical film, The American Society of Magical Negroes. Notes from America is a production of WNYC Studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. A quick note about an upcoming show. One of the buzziest political questions of the moment is whether we should believe polling data that suggest more Black people are planning to vote for Donald Trump. That's what we're going to ask in our next voter vibe check, and I want to hear from you. Are you one of these Black people who are newly considering Trump, or is this just a meaningful conversation that's happening in your family or your group chat? Call me and tell me why. Leave us a message at 844-745, talk or email a voice memo to notes@wnyc.org. Thanks.

This episode was produced by Felice León. Mixing and theme music by Jared Paul. Our team also includes Katerina Barton, Regina de Heer, Suzanne Gaber, Matthew Marando, Siona Petros, and Lindsay Foster Thomas. I'm Kai Wright. Thanks for spending time.

 

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.