Gilbert Glenn Brown: An Actors Journey
Nicholas And Derek talked to Gilbert about how moving to New York from Jamacia inspired him to pursue a career in the Fine Arts.
Transcript
This is Film Center, your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff, all facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derrick Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:Welcome to
Speaker:Film Center, I'm Derrick Johnson II.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And what are we doing today, Nicholas?
Speaker:We are interviewing a very special guest today.
Speaker:Can you please introduce yourself?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Hi, my name is Gilbert Glenn Brown.
Speaker:Hey, Gilbert, how you doing?
Speaker:I'm doing great.
Speaker:I'm doing great.
Speaker:We're so happy to have you here, man.
Speaker:It's we appreciate you, coming in.
Speaker:My pleasure.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:My pleasure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So one thing I really just want to ask you, friend, when it comes
Speaker:to When it comes to, because you have this like gravitas to to
Speaker:your voice and stuff like that.
Speaker:Oh, thank you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So where are you from?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I'm good.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I'll give you the story.
Speaker:But even with that, it won't really.
Speaker:Totally explain my voice, but I'm appreciate, but I'm appreciate actually.
Speaker:No, it probably will.
Speaker:So I'm was born and raised in New York, born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens,
Speaker:spent a lot of time in the Bronx.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And nice.
Speaker:Everyone thought out so much.
Speaker:So everyone thought I was from the Bronx.
Speaker:I was like, no my parents are actually from Jamaica.
Speaker:And so I'm first generation.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm first generation here in the States.
Speaker:And so I went to, I also went to a school in New York, college in New
Speaker:York, and I went to NYU and in, in the class, you got people from different
Speaker:around the country, around the world.
Speaker:And I always would always get asked the question, Hey, where are you from?
Speaker:Where are you from?
Speaker:I'm like, I'm from here.
Speaker:I'm from New York.
Speaker:And I'm like, but you don't sound like you're from New York.
Speaker:I was like, what is that supposed to mean?
Speaker:I was like, and I never really thought about it.
Speaker:I was like, no, I was like, this is just how I've always spoken.
Speaker:I said.
Speaker:Alright, what makes me sound like I'm from New York?
Speaker:Okay, if I say New York and water and I switch and I go back and it's Oh,
Speaker:I was like, It's so stereotypical.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But yeah, that's yeah, but that's Scott that's my background it's it's it's good
Speaker:that you say the city cuz sometimes I'll have some we'll meet some people who
Speaker:are like Oh, I'm from New York, too.
Speaker:But I'm not from New York, but we have from New York.
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:I was trying to put it on a front for some reason and it's like where
Speaker:exactly Albany see It's I guess like the whole thing with New York, it
Speaker:has, it also has this mystique and a certain level of respect that you don't
Speaker:perceive respect that comes with it.
Speaker:Look, I love New York.
Speaker:New York will always be home.
Speaker:New York has its own rhythm, its own pace, its own, even with all
Speaker:the changes that are happening there that have been happening over the
Speaker:past few years, still has its, The heart and soul of New York is there.
Speaker:That being said, you'll know really quickly if somebody is saying, let me
Speaker:say, if they don't say what borough they were from, the chances are they're
Speaker:probably from upstate or somewhere else.
Speaker:And there's nothing wrong with, I've been a new Rochelle.
Speaker:I've been around, so it's nothing wrong.
Speaker:It's just.
Speaker:I think that there's just something when you say New York and also
Speaker:people subconsciously go, Oh, you're, Oh, you're from Manhattan.
Speaker:No, I'm not.
Speaker:No, not from Manhattan.
Speaker:Get specific.
Speaker:, I watched this TV show called impractical jokers growing up, right?
Speaker:It was really great, but They used to say that everybody disrespects
Speaker:people from Staten Island.
Speaker:What's the deal with that?
Speaker:Staten Island, there's nothing wrong with Staten Island.
Speaker:It's just that because it's like, it's all the Brooklyn, Queens, even Long Island.
Speaker:I love Long Island.
Speaker:I live right there.
Speaker:Long Island, like I said, Brooklyn, Manhattan.
Speaker:the Bronx.
Speaker:There is.
Speaker:They're either connected, literally connected to each other, or
Speaker:it's only separated by like a bridge, which is a train ride.
Speaker:So it's easily accessible.
Speaker:It's not an island.
Speaker:However, it's literally an island that you got to drive across a
Speaker:bridge or, and it's actually closer, technically closer to New Jersey.
Speaker:Can't you take the ferry over there?
Speaker:That's the other part.
Speaker:You got to take a boat over there.
Speaker:So it's a different, It's a different, it's different, but
Speaker:it's still a part of New York.
Speaker:So I think that when people say Staten Island, it becomes like
Speaker:it's way it's feels far away, but it's really not, it's not that far.
Speaker:It's literally just because it's not connected.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So your parents are from, both of your parents from Jamaica.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What made them come over to the States?
Speaker:I think the the immigrant dream is always that.
Speaker:Coming to the States means more opportunity, a, the streets are
Speaker:paved with gold, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, until you get
Speaker:here, exactly, until you get here.
Speaker:George Carlin said, the only way you can believe the American
Speaker:dream is if you're asleep.
Speaker:They woke up real quick, if they were, they woke up really quickly
Speaker:when they got here because it's, and it's, and I think that it's the hopes
Speaker:and dreams of not just, What you want for yourself, but what you want for
Speaker:your Children and your descendants.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And so I think that's what primarily their desire to come here.
Speaker:And I would say that with any parent that the hope is that you just the
Speaker:word I want to use, I will not use because I want to keep this clean.
Speaker:You just hope your hope is that you mess up less.
Speaker:Then you were messed up so that eventually at some point that cycle is broken, but
Speaker:parents don't know what they're doing.
Speaker:Nobody knows what they're doing.
Speaker:So since they're coming over as immigrants, they obviously probably
Speaker:have a pretty strong work ethic because we moved to another country.
Speaker:You gotta be busting your hump.
Speaker:And yeah, and they did that.
Speaker:They definitely did that.
Speaker:And it afforded us definitely another.
Speaker:A life that they didn't necessarily have, which we, which is the whole idea.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So did you, so when you were young, did you get a lot of opportunities
Speaker:to express being creative?
Speaker:Huh?
Speaker:New York.
Speaker:I'll be for real with you.
Speaker:I have a cousin who lives in Queens and every time I visit her, some of the New
Speaker:York people are just some of the most creative people ever in my entire life.
Speaker:It's like the whole city is covered in art sometimes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's like you, you can find art just about everywhere.
Speaker:I've.
Speaker:I'm just imagining, I'm just, I'm thinking about like how I grew
Speaker:up and what I was able to, what I saw, I don't think it's changed.
Speaker:I'll say that it's changed.
Speaker:I won't say it doesn't exist in the same way.
Speaker:It just changed and everything evolves.
Speaker:But I'm sorry, your question was?
Speaker:So so when you were younger did the city like influence you being creative?
Speaker:Did they give you did you have any opportunities to really do that?
Speaker:Or were you focused on something else coming up?
Speaker:The city itself definitely there, there was music everywhere.
Speaker:There's whether it was graffiti or whatever, there was art everywhere.
Speaker:There was always something.
Speaker:The first thing that pops in my mind, Rose growing out of concrete, that was
Speaker:what this, that's what the city was.
Speaker:There was always something you could see that was beautiful.
Speaker:And my parents specifically, and their desire to expose us to other things
Speaker:would allow, would like expose us to, I saw my first, it was not Broadway,
Speaker:but when I saw my first musical.
Speaker:And I remember the name of it when I was like about seven or eight,
Speaker:and it really their desire to really expose us to different things was
Speaker:was just like really prominent.
Speaker:So I got a chance to do that, but they saw it as just exposing us to thing little
Speaker:did they know exactly little did they know that I would decide to become an artist.
Speaker:Now, I always, I'm one of, I'm the middle child of five.
Speaker:And, I wait, three, exactly?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm right in the middle.
Speaker:Wow, it'll get And they, I always had this, I was always creative,
Speaker:whether it was, I got into comic books and I would draw and I would
Speaker:say I created like a bunch of characters, a bunch of characters.
Speaker:What's some of your comic books where you're like, it
Speaker:was mainly just DC and Marvel?
Speaker:It was primarily DC and Marvel initially because they were the most popular.
Speaker:But then I got someone, a friend of mine gave me like this book.
Speaker:Excuse me, I think I still have it too.
Speaker:It was an old comic book.
Speaker:I'm even surprised that he even gave it to me.
Speaker:Because this was like back in elementary school.
Speaker:It was a print of, randomly, I don't remember this stuff.
Speaker:It was blue, the original Blue Beetle, and the question.
Speaker:Oh, the question.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Question comics.
Speaker:That's interesting.
Speaker:This will be interesting.
Speaker:I didn't like I've had never at that point with elementary school, I think
Speaker:he probably got it from his, either his parents probably got it from his parents,
Speaker:but I ended up with the comic book.
Speaker:I still have it to this day.
Speaker:And it was like, and it wasn't DC.
Speaker:It was something, I can't remember who it was before, who they were with
Speaker:before, but that's easy to find out.
Speaker:And then there were others.
Speaker:Liefeld went off and formed his own comic book company, some of their books.
Speaker:There were also some books that, I don't even think they're, the more independent,
Speaker:some independent comic book companies.
Speaker:I don't even remember, I just remember a character's name.
Speaker:Armor was one and Megalith was a was another character and I just like the
Speaker:artwork You like looking at the visual.
Speaker:I like the visual but I also was very much Into story.
Speaker:I was probably like one of the few kids.
Speaker:I was okay playing by myself because I was like, okay We're not I can't just
Speaker:sit here and smash toys together for an hour because this is how we're fighting
Speaker:I need to understand Who is this?
Speaker:Who is this person?
Speaker:I would never keep the name, the actual name of the action figure.
Speaker:I would change the name of the action figure and create.
Speaker:Making your own little story.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So that's the story arc here.
Speaker:What's where do we go?
Speaker:What are we after?
Speaker:What are we trying to do?
Speaker:What's the conflict?
Speaker:What's it.
Speaker:And I'm pretty sure some of my friends were like, yeah, you do.
Speaker:You just playing.
Speaker:We're playing with he, man.
Speaker:We're playing with GI Joe.
Speaker:That's either the transformers.
Speaker:I don't understand why you're over there.
Speaker:Okay, so we're going to start this epic journey and we're
Speaker:going to go up the mountain.
Speaker:And so I would pick and choose when I would.
Speaker:Institute that kind of information, insert that kind of
Speaker:information into our playtime.
Speaker:And so I was very, story was always important to me.
Speaker:Character development was always important to me.
Speaker:Being creative across the board because I also, and I was also very active
Speaker:because I was very small for my age.
Speaker:I didn't start growing until I got into high school.
Speaker:So I was literally the same size through.
Speaker:through most of elementary school, middle school, and then I shot up.
Speaker:It's when I got hit 16 and high school.
Speaker:I was the same way.
Speaker:I was like 4'11 until like my sophomore year of high school.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He's always a son of a gun, except for me.
Speaker:I see.
Speaker:But for, it's quite interesting that you hear some people be like,
Speaker:Oh, I got interested in something else because I was smaller.
Speaker:And then when they, guilty pewter high school, something like that.
Speaker:They're like, Oh, okay, cool.
Speaker:I'm still interested in this.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And I think my parents initially, I'm jumping around just a little bit.
Speaker:And if it doesn't make sense, let me know the, I had all, I didn't
Speaker:think of being an artist or being creative, being an actor, being as a
Speaker:career, and neither did my parents.
Speaker:They just thought it was something that I was interested in.
Speaker:Cause I like a hobby.
Speaker:It was a crazy outlet.
Speaker:You say, Hey, here's something to do guitar, play the guitar
Speaker:for a little while and it's okay.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:And then I'm going to do this.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And I wrote a lot.
Speaker:I wrote a lot.
Speaker:I just, this is a random story.
Speaker:I remember my first girlfriend, we would have, we would do
Speaker:rap battles back and forth.
Speaker:Cause she wrote, she's, we're still connected now just as friends,
Speaker:but it's she's a writer also.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which is ironic, which is funny, but she, we would actually take a beat, play it,
Speaker:write a rap to it, record it, give it to the, give it to each other as a response
Speaker:and go back and forth and respond to it.
Speaker:Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker:But those, have you ever listened to them back?
Speaker:Man, I don't know where those things are.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It's funny that you say like things that when you're young.
Speaker:Somehow come back around to influence you later on.
Speaker:When I was when I was in middle school, Me and one of my friends, Ty Vaughn, his
Speaker:dad was Everyone knew he was the rich kid, cause his dad was a brain surgeon.
Speaker:No one else was getting dropped off in a a Lamborghini.
Speaker:By there.
Speaker:So when he got dropped off, he was like, All right.
Speaker:Bye mom.
Speaker:And it's Hey, this car is cool.
Speaker:It's an awesome car.
Speaker:He loved to draw.
Speaker:And I like to crack jokes.
Speaker:And so we made this like a little book called like a random world because
Speaker:it sounds like it's only a middle schooler come up with all full of.
Speaker:Inappropriate robot chicken style jokes.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:I remember we made this booklet.
Speaker:We didn't, we just took a whole bunch of paper out of the,
Speaker:of that teacher's printer.
Speaker:We used to pass it around.
Speaker:We thought it was funny.
Speaker:X, Y, Z.
Speaker:And I remember we got caught one day and our teacher took it up and she
Speaker:was like, Okay, I'm going to hold on this because this is inappropriate.
Speaker:Doesn't that?
Speaker:And we're like, Oh, because you also thought she wouldn't tell her parents.
Speaker:Apparently some of the jokes were, they were bad.
Speaker:They were pretty bad.
Speaker:It was pretty incriminating evidence.
Speaker:That's because we signed our names in the back of the book.
Speaker:So that part too.
Speaker:What I remember is we did that.
Speaker:And then the next day we're like, Oh gosh, we're gonna be so much stronger today.
Speaker:She gives it back to us.
Speaker:And I was like, Hey, I actually went through this.
Speaker:Some of this is funny, but you're not allowed to do this anymore.
Speaker:But it's interesting that things we do when you're young can influence
Speaker:what you do when you're older.
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Cause like my, my, like my parents, their hope was I being an
Speaker:attorney, a doctor of some sort.
Speaker:And to be honest, I had an interest in law.
Speaker:I had an interest in psychology.
Speaker:I had, I was like I'm not, I wasn't like, I was not interested
Speaker:in going to medical school.
Speaker:That was one thing.
Speaker:And I exhibited some of those traits early on.
Speaker:So I always did well in school and they encouraged that, but it got to a point
Speaker:where it wasn't interesting enough for me.
Speaker:So What was your canon event then?
Speaker:What was, Oh, like Spider Man?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The canon event was, in high school, when I shot up, I was, I also, it was actually
Speaker:two, it was actually two, two tiered.
Speaker:One was an English teacher that I had.
Speaker:Remember her name?
Speaker:Ms.
Speaker:Sean Mill.
Speaker:I'll never forget her.
Speaker:Barbershop Mel was her name.
Speaker:I was in advanced placement classes.
Speaker:And so I was, had her as my English teacher as a freshman, all the
Speaker:way through to my junior year.
Speaker:And then we took, and then I took college courses in my senior year.
Speaker:And so she had, she was able to track my work and my activity
Speaker:in class and things like that.
Speaker:And so what happened was.
Speaker:I got to high school.
Speaker:I got to excuse me.
Speaker:I got to my junior year and got the only way I could think of it
Speaker:at the time was that I got bored.
Speaker:I got bored.
Speaker:Bored with school.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I stopped doing homework.
Speaker:You just said, I have zero interest in this.
Speaker:It's not catching my attention.
Speaker:I could say this now, but I couldn't say this then.
Speaker:My parents would, they're not going to hear that.
Speaker:They don't, they won't understand.
Speaker:They ain't playing, oh, not doing homework.
Speaker:So they had no idea.
Speaker:So she pulled me aside one day.
Speaker:She said, so what's going on?
Speaker:And I couldn't, Pinpoint exactly what it was and she's I don't understand.
Speaker:It's like you're not doing Homework, so you started out doing homework saying
Speaker:you stop doing homework rain, but you're acing all the tests And you're
Speaker:answering all the questions in class.
Speaker:So clearly you're reading the material and comprehending.
Speaker:So you're translating Shakespeare into modern day English.
Speaker:You understand what's happening.
Speaker:So you're like, it's not like you're ignoring it completely.
Speaker:Why are you not doing the homework?
Speaker:I was like, I was just, I just got bored and I got, and I was getting
Speaker:into, I was getting into comic books.
Speaker:And there was, I'd never, I was never like, like Spawn?
Speaker:Oh, I love Spawn.
Speaker:I have the first, I have the first issue.
Speaker:Oh yeah?
Speaker:The first issue.
Speaker:That's dope.
Speaker:That's dope.
Speaker:I, the, I had, I was just getting bored and I could not, I, and
Speaker:I couldn't articulate that.
Speaker:I, and I, at the time it was like, as any high school kid
Speaker:would be like, I don't know.
Speaker:That was your response.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It's okay, it's okay, but we got to do something because you
Speaker:can't keep doing it because we, you're going to fail the class.
Speaker:So I started doing, I said, okay.
Speaker:So I started doing the homework.
Speaker:And she's okay, this is wonderful.
Speaker:We're about to hit the midterm.
Speaker:I don't know if you're going to catch up.
Speaker:So we got it.
Speaker:You got to continue to do the homeworks and we got to figure out something else.
Speaker:And I said, Oh, he's a special project.
Speaker:I said, okay, this is, I'm just going to, I'll say this
Speaker:and then I'm going to go back.
Speaker:While I was in elementary school, I wrote my first play.
Speaker:And my first, yeah.
Speaker:So in the.
Speaker:Fourth grade, fifth grade, I wrote a play.
Speaker:This is going to be freaking weird.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I wrote a play about the death of Socrates.
Speaker:We, I know you're about to continue.
Speaker:My only question to you then is for this is, was it in a response of
Speaker:something that happened in class?
Speaker:Like you read something and then you were like, okay, I'm going to continue it.
Speaker:You just did it on your own.
Speaker:I did it on my own, but it was something we were talking about the, some of
Speaker:the Greek philosophers in the class.
Speaker:And so in that, what came, I thought it was interesting that he would not
Speaker:renounce some of his beliefs and he was, he decided, I will take this to the grave.
Speaker:And I thought that someone believing so much in something that they are
Speaker:willing to die for it was something that was like, you gravitate towards,
Speaker:I gravitated towards, like Why you would choose that because you believe
Speaker:so strongly in what you believe in.
Speaker:And so that's what I wrote about the last, his last moments.
Speaker:And then in fourth grade, I'm bouncing around a little bit.
Speaker:I'm going to get back to high school in a second, fourth grade.
Speaker:They did a production.
Speaker:They did a production of a show that was revolving around the stars the
Speaker:first flag, the first American flag.
Speaker:And in that.
Speaker:And I went to a predominantly, I was bused to a predominantly white school.
Speaker:And so I played George Washington, which at the time was just like,
Speaker:Like now, when I look back at it, I'm like, wow, that was pretty okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, pretty interesting for you to George Washington.
Speaker:And then in fifth grade, I, they were doing musical production,
Speaker:created a musical production of a Cinderella and you play Cinderella no.
Speaker:That's one thing I won't do.
Speaker:I can't do, but I, they, I got offered the role of the Prince
Speaker:and I was like, you know what?
Speaker:I don't want to play the Prince.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I want to play.
Speaker:I say, what do you want to do?
Speaker:I say, I want to know, I want to understand how to build sets and sound.
Speaker:And I want to understand all of that, which ties back.
Speaker:This is, there's a lot of connecting dots here.
Speaker:So something that my mom told me about me growing up.
Speaker:And I remember just about everything, but I didn't remember this.
Speaker:He said, you started walking before you crawled.
Speaker:I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker:He said, you literally got up one day from the floor and started walking.
Speaker:And I was like, he said, you weren't one yet.
Speaker:You just started walking.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:She was like, I was like, really?
Speaker:It's just yeah.
Speaker:She say, and then one day you decided you started crawling and then you
Speaker:crawled until you call, he said, you crawled past the point that
Speaker:you were supposed to quote unquote.
Speaker:And then you got up one day and started walking again.
Speaker:And my godmother said to me, say, it was almost like, Oh, wait a minute.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I think I skipped a step.
Speaker:Let me go back and find out what this is about, discover what this is.
Speaker:And then when I get to that point, okay, now let me get back up and do this.
Speaker:I doubt it's been so flabbergasting.
Speaker:I imagine being a parent.
Speaker:And I'm having a kid and Oh, Hey, my little new boy, what's up?
Speaker:And he's yes, I'm just going to leave.
Speaker:And he's going to walk away.
Speaker:And I was like, what is this tiny man walking around?
Speaker:And that was the thing.
Speaker:I was like, Oh, my bad.
Speaker:I must've scared you.
Speaker:Let me go back to the car.
Speaker:Let me go back to the car.
Speaker:You all ain't ready for that.
Speaker:Everybody's freaked out except me.
Speaker:But so let me calm you guys down.
Speaker:But I guess, and it was like, literally, it was like, I was a little man.
Speaker:I was like, always seemed more mature than my actual age.
Speaker:Back to high school, fast forward back to high school, the project.
Speaker:What are we going to do?
Speaker:And I said, during the winter break, I had created a whole mythology of
Speaker:a pantheon of gods and goddesses and all of that stuff in comic book form.
Speaker:And then she was like, and then she saw it.
Speaker:She's okay, that's a good, great.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But now you still got to catch up.
Speaker:What are you going to do?
Speaker:I said, Okay, so we are studying mythology, Greek mythology here right now.
Speaker:That's what we discussed in class.
Speaker:I said, okay, I'm going to do a mock trial.
Speaker:It's mock trial?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:About, I said, we're going to put Daedalus on trial for the death of Icarus.
Speaker:Oh, is he culpable for Icarus's death since he created the wings,
Speaker:even though he warned him not to fly too close to the sun.
Speaker:He warned him not to do it.
Speaker:And even though Icarus did it, he's the only one who created the wings.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:Had he not created the wings, it would have never happened.
Speaker:And they would never have escaped.
Speaker:And not only that, he's not, it's okay.
Speaker:You didn't put any sort of limitations on it, right?
Speaker:That wouldn't prevent him from going high.
Speaker:You just told him, don't go so high.
Speaker:He's a kid.
Speaker:Did you know he was gonna do that anyway?
Speaker:Is he responsible enough to make those decisions?
Speaker:You set him up to fail.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And I told her, I said, Okay, that's what I want to do.
Speaker:She said, Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker:I said, We're gonna cast everyone from the AP class.
Speaker:I said, okay, great.
Speaker:She said, great.
Speaker:I said, okay.
Speaker:And then also I was like, we're going to do it in costumes.
Speaker:Everyone's going to have togas and everything.
Speaker:Okay, good.
Speaker:What else?
Speaker:I say, I will create the evidence.
Speaker:I will create the, I will, and I want to film it.
Speaker:He said, okay.
Speaker:I said, do you, she said, do you have a camera?
Speaker:I said, my dad does.
Speaker:He's not going to let me bring it to school.
Speaker:It's okay.
Speaker:She said, I'll bring mine.
Speaker:You can use mine.
Speaker:And we recorded it and we had other classes coming to watch it.
Speaker:And it was great.
Speaker:And it was great.
Speaker:it?
Speaker:No, I don't know.
Speaker:I'm hopefully she hears this and she has it and she can get it to me.
Speaker:But fast forward, we're done with that.
Speaker:I think I said, Okay, but you still have to do one more project.
Speaker:I was like, Okay, I said, All right, got it.
Speaker:I'm going to interact with you as I'm an archaeologist that's researching
Speaker:the pantheon of gods that I created that's researching them and I'm
Speaker:going to correspond with you.
Speaker:As an archaeologist, and you as a professor at a university.
Speaker:This is a whole bunch of articulate writing for someone who's in high school.
Speaker:Yeah, it was a lot, it was a lot.
Speaker:And then she's okay, she's okay, I can't wait to see how this works out.
Speaker:I bet the teacher was just like, this dude is just a If I was your teacher, I
Speaker:would've been like, Either he's a genius or I'm really good at what I'm doing.
Speaker:All of it, maybe all the above, I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe she just kept giving you projects to be like, I want to
Speaker:see what else this guy has got.
Speaker:To be fair, that's what a good teacher does.
Speaker:A good teacher encourages someone's, engages them.
Speaker:And it's just a way that they learn, not only learning the material, but
Speaker:they're producing material themselves.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So I created this whole, Gosh, I wish I had kept this, but I
Speaker:created a slongs, a scroll aged it.
Speaker:My parents didn't know this.
Speaker:I've burned it and did all this other stuff, but I probably should have
Speaker:been doing that, but they didn't know.
Speaker:I didn't burn down the house, which was right.
Speaker:Aged it, created a ancient language and gave her my translations and
Speaker:everything created like a tube that I would give it to her and a whole,
Speaker:then some artifacts and things.
Speaker:And she said, she brought it back and she was like, a plus.
Speaker:I said, I had to give this to my kids to read and they're wondering when
Speaker:you're going to make another one.
Speaker:I was like, this is we're at the end of the year.
Speaker:I can't do another one.
Speaker:This is a lot.
Speaker:So anyway, did great in class.
Speaker:That was one of the moments.
Speaker:High school.
Speaker:We realize there's definitely.
Speaker:Yeah, I got here.
Speaker:And especially I have a desire to do this, right?
Speaker:This is something that's really good.
Speaker:Yeah, and Fast forward a little bit more.
Speaker:I think it was actually, it was in 11th grade when this happened.
Speaker:There was a musical theater company that came to my school
Speaker:called the Positive Youth Troop.
Speaker:Not the great, even today, I'm like, it's not the greatest name, but it grew on me.
Speaker:And they're out of the Bronx and they were MindBuilders Creative Art Center.
Speaker:So they, all their productions were based, basically the music, the, everything.
Speaker:It looked like.
Speaker:We just kid regular kids.
Speaker:Like I was like, Oh, I was like, wow, I saw it.
Speaker:And I was like, I saw it.
Speaker:And I was like, Oh, this is this.
Speaker:I see what this is.
Speaker:This is cool.
Speaker:The music, everything.
Speaker:I say they dress like me.
Speaker:They sound like me.
Speaker:They look like me.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:They're dealing my issues.
Speaker:There that we're dealing with right now, I'd like to do that.
Speaker:And I was like, ah, whatever.
Speaker:And I was heading and I headed out the auditorium.
Speaker:And then my sister, we're like my younger sister, who's right after me.
Speaker:She's two years, two years under me.
Speaker:We ran into each other on the way out.
Speaker:And I was, and then my, one of my best friends came over and he was
Speaker:just a he'd always been a comedian.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it was just like, you should, he's I should sign up.
Speaker:I was like he's I dare you to sign up.
Speaker:I said, yeah.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And I dare you guys to sign up and say, okay, so we signed up.
Speaker:We had the auditions, we had to sing, which I forgot about and I don't think, I
Speaker:don't think I was good, but we all got in.
Speaker:So we, and so what would happen is we would, after getting out of school
Speaker:and this is my, I don't know how to explain this to give you a frame of
Speaker:reference in terms of the distance.
Speaker:So I would, after school, a couple of times a week, I would travel from
Speaker:Queens to the Bronx, which is, I guess would be the equivalent of going from
Speaker:here to, I don't know, maybe for the audience, we're in Westlake village.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:To like downtown LA.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah that's a bit of distance.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So literally we would have to go through there were bus, there's a bus, there's
Speaker:one bus Q44 that will go from Queens to the Bronx, but then we would have
Speaker:to either take another bus or train.
Speaker:So we would have to Or we would take the bus to the train.
Speaker:I live near the two fare zone, take a bus to the train, get on the E
Speaker:train, take the E train to the 42nd street to the two train, and then
Speaker:take that all the way to the Bronx.
Speaker:That's like a, that's like a journey.
Speaker:That's like a literal journey.
Speaker:Like every two minutes.
Speaker:And then you go there, you act in productions, you help make productions.
Speaker:And you had to go back.
Speaker:And then in the beginning, my parents would, they made the sacrifice and
Speaker:they would come and pick us up.
Speaker:But there's a point where it was like.
Speaker:We got a Were the characters just as colorful as the ones out here
Speaker:when you go on like the red line?
Speaker:Oh, this is New York, man.
Speaker:It was like you, anything that you think you could possibly see or not see.
Speaker:So do you mean that was good character development?
Speaker:Oh absolutely.
Speaker:Because what the, what traveling on the train.
Speaker:Or character study I should say.
Speaker:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Because what the traveling on the train.
Speaker:And I thought about this, like a buddy of mine that we both grew up
Speaker:and we grew up together pretty much and we were in the same, even the
Speaker:same program, same organization.
Speaker:We were, we would get a chance to observe people and not only observe
Speaker:people, we get a chance, we actually have time to read our scripts.
Speaker:We'd actually had time to do all the things.
Speaker:And we were thinking about that and we like, ah, it's like, What?
Speaker:Why don't we?
Speaker:I was like, because we had a lot, we spent a lot of time on the train.
Speaker:We spent a lot of time being interesting characters.
Speaker:What were your parents?
Speaker:So when you told your parents like, oh, this is something I'm going to
Speaker:take seriously, were they supportive and they as much as they could be.
Speaker:Because they, it's not, they don't see it as a career because it's not a doctor.
Speaker:It's not, I said, I can play a doctor or a lawyer or whatever.
Speaker:I can be all these things.
Speaker:I can be all these things.
Speaker:Compromise.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And so the compromise was this, okay, but we want you to study some other things.
Speaker:I said, okay, fine.
Speaker:So when I got into school, got into college.
Speaker:Where did you go?
Speaker:I went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts and which I had to remember it was
Speaker:actually my, it was my first choice.
Speaker:And then there were a couple of the schools underneath that.
Speaker:I won't go into that.
Speaker:But when I got there, I took a sociology class.
Speaker:I took a pre law class.
Speaker:And it was fine.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:And I was just like, this is not, Be, I'm trying to, but I
Speaker:also have a technical side of me.
Speaker:So I got into a computer programming class at seven in the morning.
Speaker:That's pretty early for peer program.
Speaker:That's very early . That's very early.
Speaker:And it was fine.
Speaker:I was doing well and it didn't, it helped, but didn't help that the
Speaker:professor that was teaching the class.
Speaker:wrote the book that the class that we were, it was Pascal.
Speaker:I believe it was Pascal.
Speaker:He wrote the book about the programming, about the programming.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And so I was doing fine in the class, but then I saw down the line, I
Speaker:was like, this is not sustainable.
Speaker:I'm I, this means me traveling on the train and trying to, and on
Speaker:top of that, I'm taking 20 credits, at least 20 credits each semester.
Speaker:And then on top of that, I've got a part, couple of part time jobs.
Speaker:And then also I'm also performing and I'm also in the company sleep.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:That was the problem.
Speaker:That was the exact problem.
Speaker:And I was like, I can't, this is, and went to the professor.
Speaker:I was like, Hey, I'm seeing this down.
Speaker:He was like, you're not failing.
Speaker:You're not close to fail.
Speaker:I said now right now, but I'm seeing what's going to happen.
Speaker:And he was like, okay.
Speaker:And so it's just a weird, and I get, and I guess I understand the logic of
Speaker:it, but it was just a weird at the time.
Speaker:It was a weird concept for me, which was you can only drop the class if you're
Speaker:passing, which makes it, when you think about it logically, it makes sense
Speaker:because if I'm failing the class, you don't really get it and you need it.
Speaker:But if you're passing, because I think my GPA at the time was like 3.
Speaker:94 or something like that, heading towards a four.
Speaker:And so I was just like, That's gonna, that's going to hurt if
Speaker:I get a C or an F in this class.
Speaker:And I'm seeing this down the line and my brain is not going to have, it
Speaker:can't handle this, all this right now.
Speaker:And so he was like, I understand.
Speaker:And then he's okay.
Speaker:No problem.
Speaker:And he dropped me from the class and.
Speaker:Gra I graduated in three years, and then from there I And even that,
Speaker:my parents were What are you doing?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:And I was just like, I said, no, I said, I need I said, I can do this.
Speaker:I can do this.
Speaker:And, it I think even up to a few years ago, my dad was like, so
Speaker:are you going back to school?
Speaker:And I was like Even a few years ago?
Speaker:Yeah, a few years ago, my dad said, so are you going back to school?
Speaker:So you're on CW.
Speaker:And he's Oh, are you going back?
Speaker:No, it was right before that.
Speaker:It was right before that.
Speaker:You played Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker:And your dad is still It was before that.
Speaker:It was before that.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:What I would say about that also, like my dad has been, he's seen me do
Speaker:just about everything and it's funny because, and this is also an immigrant.
Speaker:Or maybe it's just a dad thing.
Speaker:I would never hear about what he thought about my work.
Speaker:I would always hear it from other family members that he spoke to.
Speaker:Or.
Speaker:But he ain't gonna tell you.
Speaker:He's not gonna tell me.
Speaker:He's not gonna tell me.
Speaker:The only, the first time he told me, I was doing a, I was doing it.
Speaker:I was doing a tour of a piece called the the Mountaintop, which
Speaker:Katori Hall wrote, it's a play.
Speaker:It's a two hander with, it revolves the whole premises, Martin Luther King, last
Speaker:day after he does the Mountaintop speech.
Speaker:What happened that night at that night of him returning to the Lorraine Hotel.
Speaker:And what happens is he's visited by the woman who works downstairs as a waitress,
Speaker:pretty much, who brings him some coffee.
Speaker:And we find out later that she's more than what she seems.
Speaker:She, we find out that she's actually an angel and she's basically preparing
Speaker:him for his transition because the next morning he's assassinated on the balcony.
Speaker:And so I went And I think it was in Nashville.
Speaker:We did this, we did on parts where we were in Nashville and
Speaker:my father is living in Georgia.
Speaker:So he drove from Georgia because we weren't doing a performance there
Speaker:to Nashville and saw the show.
Speaker:And you didn't know he was there.
Speaker:No, I knew he was coming.
Speaker:I knew he was coming, but then he was, then I didn't, after the show, I saw him.
Speaker:But then after the show, I was like, where'd he go?
Speaker:Where'd he go?
Speaker:So I called him up and I was like where are you?
Speaker:So we're.
Speaker:Oh, we're heading back.
Speaker:I was like, you're heading back.
Speaker:I was like, I just did it.
Speaker:How?
Speaker:He said, we just didn't show why I haven't seen you.
Speaker:And he was like, no, we are heading back.
Speaker:I was like, no, I need you to, I really need you to come back.
Speaker:I need to see you.
Speaker:And so he comes back and he says to me, he was from my, I've heard this from
Speaker:other people, but hearing from him, it took it to another level for me.
Speaker:He said, so I'm a junior also.
Speaker:So you named after him?
Speaker:Yeah, I named after him.
Speaker:And I don't hear, and it's funny 'cause I don't hear Junior unless I'm home.
Speaker:So he said to me, it's like, when you walk, that's like, when
Speaker:you came out on stage for the first five seconds, I saw you.
Speaker:But then after that, I saw Martin Luther King because he said, I
Speaker:don't think you look like him.
Speaker:I don't really think you look like him.
Speaker:He said, but something happened when you, after I, after that moment, that
Speaker:initial moment that, and I was just like, And I completely didn't see you.
Speaker:I just saw Martin Luther King.
Speaker:I heard Martin Luther King.
Speaker:And it must be an incredible compliment from your father, my father.
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:That's fantastic.
Speaker:And I was just going to get, I hate to cut you off.
Speaker:So we will be, we'll have to continue this in part two.
Speaker:So guys, if you're listening, filmstar news.
Speaker:I'm Derek Johnson.
Speaker:Second.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And we're here with a great, Gilbert Glenn Brown, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker:See you.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:This has been Film Center on Comic-Con Radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes at Comic-Con radio.com.
Speaker:You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next Wednesday for a fresh update.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been film Center.
