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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, my name is Tonya Pinkins, and I'm the host of the podcast You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:07] Tonya Pinkins: This fall, I have a special treat for you.

[0:11] Tonya Pinkins: In honor of my debut feature film RED PILL, Marissa Lynn Daniels Studios has been hosting weekly conversations with my fellow Broadway colleagues and co-host Sierra Renee about the red pilling of America.

[0:27] Tonya Pinkins: These conversations create a safe space for us to talk about the things that are on our mind with an election and a global pandemic.

[0:37] Tonya Pinkins: So join us for The Red Pilling of America, a spotlight series every Saturday at 5 p.m. or on the Broadway Podcast Network, You Can't SAY THAT, BPN.fm forward slash YCST.

[0:54] Tonya Pinkins: Join the conversation.

[0:57] Tonya Pinkins: We gotta speak live.

[1:01] Tonya Pinkins: We gotta say one truth for you.

[1:15] Tonya Pinkins: You is kind.

[1:17] Tonya Pinkins: You was smart.

[1:18] Tonya Pinkins: You is important.

[1:20] Tonya Pinkins: You is dead.

[1:22] Tonya Pinkins: Tonya Pinkins' horror film RED PILL brings African American perspective to the progressive movement.

[1:30] Tonya Pinkins: We are a majority in this country.

[1:33] Tonya Pinkins: And we want to win the election.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: Do you know what the red pill is?

[1:41] Tonya Pinkins: A red pill is someone who infiltrates a group and then destroys them from the inside.

[1:50] Tonya Pinkins: This place is spooky.

[1:51] Tonya Pinkins: Some people like to live dangerously.

[1:54] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, why are you so jumpy tonight?

[1:57] Tonya Pinkins: You know what, guys? I'm gonna go back tomorrow.

[2:00] Tonya Pinkins: Did you hear about the creature woman that attacked a father and son hunting down here?

[2:04] Tonya Pinkins: I don't see the case.

[2:06] Tonya Pinkins: This place creeps me out.

[2:11] Tonya Pinkins: I think we should call the sheriff's office.

[2:28] Tonya Pinkins: The only people missing or dead are brown people.

[2:34] Tonya Pinkins: They're after all of us.

[2:38] Tonya Pinkins: What do we do, Amelia?

[2:40] Tonya Pinkins: We die.

[2:42] Tonya Pinkins: But we take some of them with us.

[2:47] Amir Talai: We don't know each other, but I was fascinated learning about you in order to talk to you today. So tell me what you studied at Berkeley.

[2:56] Amir Talai: Communications, sort of advertising and marketing, which I didn't think would come in handy.

[3:03] Amir Talai: And it didn't, until I got to the place in my career where I could sort of make choice career choices.

[3:13] Amir Talai: You know, for the first bit of your career, you'll do whatever, right? And then after a while, I started to understand my place and my sort of function in our industry, and I started to realize the work that I had done about like what media does to society, right?

[3:36] Amir Talai: Like at Cal, the communications degree is more theoretical than practical, which actually is serving me really well right now, right? Sort of understanding what we put out into the world as creators and the effect that has, you know.

[3:54] Amir Talai: One of my favorite stories was when we were in an advertising class, we had to go through a magazine and just count the number of white people, black people, and other. And then at the end of the class, we just gave our numbers and what impressions we had.

[4:14] Amir Talai: And one of the groups was like, we had a weird moment because there was a post-it ad and it was just a thumb. So all you could see was the thumb. Now it was clearly a white thumb, but we didn't really know how to count that.

[4:30] Amir Talai: And this black guy from the back of the room goes, no, that's the thumb of the oppressor. You better count that. But what's funny is like that's stuck in my head that like the littlest things are salient to people, you know what I mean? And so I think about that constantly these days, constantly.

[4:52] Amir Talai: That reminded me of a story that happened to me, you know, this is the red pilling of America, because I made this film called RED PILL, and I feel like the world has been red pilled. We've all been sold this bill of goods about how life in the world works.

[5:05] Amir Talai: And at one point we had an editor looking at the film, and this character played by Reuben Blades says, you know, they killed all my people, but kept their name. And someone else says, for the roads, you know, like the road signs. And he says, if I were born in this country, I'd run for president.

[5:17] Amir Talai: And someone else says, You're not from the right side of the wall. And this Caucasian editor said, I mean, is that really appropriate? What country is he from? And what wall are you talking about? And I was like, all of them. Y'all did it in every country. There's really no country where that didn't happen.

[5:49] Amir Talai: So for brown people, we understand. It's just clear.

[5:56] Amir Talai: Absolutely. You don't need to, there's no explanatory comma needed there.

[6:01] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[6:05] Tonya Pinkins: So what is your place in this business? Because I read that you are Iranian American. What generation? How many generations?

[6:12] Amir Talai: So my parents came here in the early 70s from Iran. So I was the first generation to be born here.

[6:20] Amir Talai: Yeah. I know you play a lot of South Asians.

[6:23] Amir Talai: Yep, I've played some South Asians over the years. I've played Arabs, I've played Middle Eastern people. And then I've played a bunch of characters whose ethnicity isn't.

[6:36] Amir Talai: Isn't Iran is Iran Middle East or South Asian?

[6:40] Amir Talai: Iran is considered a part of the Middle East.

[6:43] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[6:44] Amir Talai: Pakistan and all those places are South Asian, right?

[6:51] Amir Talai: I don't know how far north South Asian is considered. Certainly India and Pakistan, but I don't know past that. But yeah, you know, I've played a bunch of different characters, some having to do with my ethnicity and some not.

[7:12] Amir Talai: And we participated in a study a year or so ago. This group that I'm a member of called the MENA Arts Advocacy Council, MENA standing for Middle Eastern and North African. And we participated in a study with an academic named Nancy Wang Yoon, who wrote Real Inequality, R-E-E-L.

[7:40] Amir Talai: And she basically counted all of the Middle Eastern people in series regular roles on TV. And what we found was that if the role was Middle Eastern, right? Forget about the actor, right? First of all, let's just talk about the Middle Eastern actors.

[8:01] Amir Talai: Now that we're talking about Middle Eastern actors, if the role was Middle Eastern, it was deeply engaged in terrorism, either doing it or fighting it. If the role was not Middle Eastern, then all bets were off, right?

[8:20] Amir Talai: So you could have a Middle Eastern woman playing a lawyer, right, on a legal drama, right? But her character was not Middle Eastern in that, right? So that's what I talk about when I talk about like my place, right? Sort of understanding like what function am I serving to primarily white storytellers, right?

[8:48] Amir Talai: What are they doing with me, right?

[8:50] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[8:50] Amir Talai: And a lot of times, a lot of times I'm useful to play what I call a brown white character, right? So like just yesterday, I booked my first job since lockdown happened, playing the role of Avery.

[9:11] Amir Talai: And Avery is a guy with a dog who drops his dog off at daycare, and it's a cute little part, right? Now, first of all, put aside the fact that like people like me born in 1977 aren't named Avery. That just doesn't happen, right?

[9:28] Amir Talai: The production benefits from my brown skin, right? Because what they do is they get to create a more multicultural looking cast, right? But I'm still playing the role of Avery.

[9:48] Amir Talai: So in some respect, that character is white, right? And the character was written by a white guy. I don't blame him for going like, yeah, it's just a guy with a dog. I'll name him Avery. It's a name that popped into his head. I don't think he was planning to hire a Persian guy, right? But he just wrote the part of Avery, right?

[10:11] Amir Talai: So for me, part of what I do when I book a role like Avery is I send an email that my team then forwards to casting, which then forwards to the writing people to ask to change that character name to something Middle Eastern, right? So now there is a mirror. Thank you.

[10:38] Amir Talai: So now there's a Middle Eastern character who has a dog who's dropping his dog off at daycare, right? Real straightforward. Because I love this. I think you might know this, but most white people in this country don't know any brown people, right? 75% of white people don't have any brown friends.

[10:59] Amir Talai: That's a high fucking number, right? Which means that their entire concept of brown people is what they see on TV. And I don't think it's any wonder why most white people in this country think Muslims equal terrorists, right? And brown people are criminal welfare queens. Yeah. Because you know, Color of Change did a whole thing with black people in Hollywood, and they said there are way more judges in television than there are in real life. And they're judging black people terribly and administering this horrible justice, you know, they're putting the words of white people's point of view about black people, putting it in black people's mouths.

[11:50] Amir Talai: So I actually wrote an essay on a medium called, you know, all of American Entertainment Cultures Get Out. They just put their brown skin on their bodies. There's a guy I know named Steven Thrasher, who you definitely should follow on Twitter. He has tweeted a lot about his obsession with black cops in pop culture. And what he talks about is he believes, and I hope I'm paraphrasing him correctly, is that black cops in pop culture help white America feel better about policing in America because they see it as, oh, right? See, there's these good black people, and they're holding bad black people accountable. So when you see black people being abused by the system, you know, that's not a white-black thing.

It's also a black-black thing. It's not racial, right? And I don't think it's any accident that suddenly we're seeing a lot more black cops in pop culture. It speaks to this sort of discomfort that I think white people feel with policing that they can't quite wrap their minds around, right? And so I think I'm not saying that Hollywood is purposely casting black people as cops to make white Americans feel better about cops, but I think that it's just interesting, right? And that's what I talk about when I talk about our function. Like what are we doing on purpose by accident? What are writers doing on purpose by accident? But what is that accomplishing? How is that art affecting society and making people think about things, you know?

[13:48] Amir Talai: Well, you know, I say that I have graduated as an actor to the point of being one of the props that eats. Well, did you say props speaks in one of the props that eats. Oh, eats. One of the props that eats. And I got I was elevated to the role of Madam Secretary on the show, Madam Secretary. Oh, I was a recur. I was not a recur. I was not a regular. I was a day player. And I had very few lines. But they could say the black woman is a title character on Madam Secretary. I had nothing to do. I was definitely a prop that eats. Yeah. But as a set piece, it's a great narrative for them to tell.

[14:46] Amir Talai: Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. And yeah, so they're benefiting. Again, they're benefiting from the color of your skin. Changerai Kumanika, who co-created Uncivil. We have to put that in a chat. Changerai Kumanika. What? All right. Well, just look up the podcast Uncivil, which if you have, okay, so the fact that you're writing it lets me know you don't know what I'm talking about. You need to listen to the podcast because my friend said, oh, you should listen to Uncivil. It's a history podcast. And I was like, no thanks. And then he said, no, it's a history podcast about the Civil War. And I was like, definitely no thanks. It's like, no, no, no, it's a history podcast about the Civil War from the perspective of black people.

And I was like, I'm in. So it's brilliant. So Changerai talks about blackness as technology, which when he said that phrase, it blew my mind, and I was like, you need to write something about this. And he's like, man, I'm always working, but he's incredibly brilliant, and I have mad respect for him. But I think that's what we're talking about, right? So your blackness was used as a technology by the producers of Madam Secretary to an end, to some end. Right? Now you know, there's many ends there, right? And we could get into that all day. But it's interesting that they're basically commodifying the color of your skin, the color of my skin, you know, whenever I get cast.

[16:31] Amir Talai: No, no, no. I mean, I'm loving this conversation, loving it, loving it. You got this white woman over there in the corner that you're married to. What is the conversation between the two of you? She's one of the good ones. No, I know about the poster. I will see you nice white ladies at the next Black Lives Matter march. Yeah, that was before the women's march right after Trump was elected, right? A couple of black women who I respect and follow on Twitter, Joe Maoluo who wrote So You Want to Talk About Race, which is brilliant. And I think the other one who talked about it, if I'm not mistaken, was Jamila Lemieux. Okay, so they were both talking about how they had a whole bunch of feelings about the women's march leading up to it because all these white women were ready for that women's march, right?

They were like, we're gonna hit the streets, and they were like, write your emergency contact info on your arm because you never know what's gonna happen. The cop, you know, I, you know, there was this real sense, right? There was this, there was like we're gonna take it to the streets. And, you know, forgetting that the majority of white women voted for Trump, right? Forgetting that cops don't generally beat up white women, right? And so I had been paying a lot of attention to Black Lives Matter in the years leading up to Trump's election and had been to a few marches. You know, I had seen white people at those, not a huge number, but I related to what Jamila and Joma were saying about how it feels like these white women should have hit the streets a little sooner, right?

So I made that sign, right? I'll see you nice, nice white ladies at the next Black Lives Matter march, right? And it was funny because a lot of black women on that day were like, thank you, thank you. And what was interesting was I had a white woman go, yeah, yeah, invite me. And I was like, I was like, well, hold on, you've been invited. I don't know if you heard it. I don't know if you caught that. I don't know if you were paying attention, but the invites are there, it's on the Facebook, right? So it, yeah, it was cool that it went viral and people responded to it. But yeah, you know, being married to a white woman is fucking American, right? You know what I mean? Like and yeah, I'm married to a couple of white guys, so yeah, yeah, it's American.

We have lots of conversations about it and it's interesting she has taught me so much about misogyny, right? Like I was not a feminist before I met her. I think if I had to, if someone had asked me if I was a feminist, I probably would have said sure, but do we really need it? I mean, aren't we equal at this point? And so I learned a lot about her from her, I should say. And yeah, we have a lot of conversations about race as well. I think that she works very hard.

[19:29] Amir Talai: She doesn't consider me brand, consider you brand. She goes, I don't even see you as Persian. You're just a nice guy. No, she doesn't say that. No color. No, I didn't even realize you were brown when I started dating you. No, no, she never said anything like that. And it's funny, you know, it's so interesting when I talk about days when I'm having feelings about my place and about what's hard for me, and it's so interesting to seek solace with a white person, right? With the person who I love most in the world, but who is inherently a part of white supremacy, right? And you know, but it's great. Like she's the kind of person who's like, yeah, we're all racist. All white people are racist, and it's our job to fight against that.

And you know, I think, fuck it. I mean, I'm anti-black also, right? Because I grew up in America, right? So it's my job to fight against my anti-blackness every fucking day, right? Any thought that might pop into my head, I have to take a step back and go, ha, I know where that came from. That came from my parents or that came from some TV show I saw when I was a kid, right? And I think my wife does that too. You know, we trip up like always, but I think we support each other in that. We hold each other accountable in that.

[22:00] Amir Talai: Um, it's great. I'm lucky, I'm really lucky to have in a way that a lot of brown people wouldn't be. I saw you taking down somebody who went for, uh, for um, you know, Gabrielle Carter's like you like line by line, dissected them, took it back, took them down. Where do you get the, uh, you know, the moxie for that? That's not, that's cool, you know. Tell me, you know, where does that come from? I guess you weren't raised to be a, uh, a shy ground person.

[22:32] Amir Talai: I wasn't, no, and you know what's interesting is a lot of Persian people are. Um, I think that a lot of, uh, Iranian immigrants are like this and they pass it on to their kids. And I think this comes from Iran, where keep your head down, don't say anything too political, just do your job, just take care of your family, and it'll be all right, right? I think that a lot of Iranians brought that over from Iran and I think a lot of them passed it on to their kids. I also think there's a value to a lot of Iranians in their proximity to whiteness which is why they, you know, just want to hang back and not step out of line. But for me, I just always, I don't know, I've always been mouthy and I've always been really, um, I'm a little bit of a scorekeeper.

Okay, thanks Boo. I'm a little bit of a scorekeeper and I have a real like sense of like that's right, that's wrong, that's a lie, that's the truth, right? And when I see someone, um, tell some lies, you know, there's some people out there right now, uh, who are telling lies about, um, about what's going on, uh, at the highest levels of SAG-AFTRA and I don't like that and so I, um, I try to call it out when I can. It's tough because, um, because, uh, you know, a lot like conspiracy theories that come from the right, sometimes when people are angry enough, they just latch on to these conspiracy theories and the truth doesn't really get into them. So, um, so yeah, you know, I'll post stuff, uh, I try to, um, I try to do that in moderation, uh, because you know that old cartoon where there's a guy saying, "Hold on, honey, I'll be right there. There's someone said something wrong on the internet." It's like that, you know, that's a rabbit hole that was never fucking end.

[24:45] Amir Talai: Um, have you ever had pushback from a show where you asked them to change the name? So I've never had a name that matched your culture. Um, I've never had, um, pushback necessarily. Uh, there have been times where, um, they said no. Uh, uh, so I mean I guess that is pushback, but I've, I've never, uh, I've never had any negative experiences with it. Um, where people go, we disagree with your point there, right? Um, I've had people go, well, that sort of changes it. I had one person say that changes it to a story that I don't really want to tell. And I was like, oh, okay. Um, you know, I have, I did have one time where I did a, I did a sitcom, and instead of having my agent go to casting, go to the writers, I went to the writers because I forgot to do it until I got to the set.

And they said later that they didn't like that I did that. They didn't like that I went up to the writers and asked. Um, but, uh, but I would say, I would say probably two thirds, three quarters of the time they're happy to do it. The one that, uh, I just got cast on Avery, the showrunner was, uh, emailed back. I love that idea. Thank you. Yes, how's this name? Right? Um, so, uh, I think that it's such a small thing, but I think it's really powerful. But I think it's small enough that most writers, most showrunners are happy to do it if it sort of works, you know. There's been times where I asked for it too late. Well, that's nice. Someone already said my name or something like that. But, um, but yeah, I think for the most part, people are really active to it.

[26:44] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, say that again, Tonya. I think I lost you.

[26:48] Amir Talai: No, no, no. I just was you've already been established in someone's mind that you know and mouth that they've said you, then they can't undo it.

[26:56] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. So tell me about the Story of Stuff and Healing Justice.

[27:04] Amir Talai: So Story of Stuff is a nonprofit that, uh, grew out of a simple YouTube video that came out about 10 years ago, made by a woman named Annie Leonard. And, um, it's a really powerful video that has gotten millions and millions of views all around the world and has inspired, um, uh, environmentalists, um, uh, around the world to create their own sort of initiatives. But it basically talks about how when you have stuff, um, that stuff that you have in your hand has a life before it gets to you, and it has a life after it leaves you. And it affects when you throw something away, away is a place. And it's usually a place near poor brown people, right? Um, and when that product is getting on its way to you, right?

At the beginning of its life cycle, it's affecting people, right? And so it's really a video to encourage people to just consider that in the decisions that they make, whether that's what they buy, where they live, where they go, who they vote for, right? Um, and so I was just a huge fan of the, um, of the video and of Annie's, and, uh, and through a series of sort of random-ish events, I became a board member, uh, on the Story of Stuff. And since then we've put out a bunch of, uh, uh, more videos, um, you know, Story of Electronics, Story of Bottled Water. Um, we're engaging in various water fights, like Nestle is trying to steal groundwater all over the world, and we're trying to fight them on that. And, um, and then we've just made our first, say again.

[28:54] Tonya Pinkins: I said Nestle is the devil.

[28:56] Amir Talai: Oh, they went into Africa and told women their breast milk was not good and had them using water mixed with Nestle products to feed children who were then malnourished and dying, and then they bought all the water rights in Michigan.

[29:13] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[29:14] Amir Talai: Yeah, where, well, uh, so I live in LA and outside of LA is the San Bernardino National Forest, and they bought water rights, uh, from under San Bernardino at a cost of a few hundred dollars a year, and they've had that for decades, and they pull millions of gallons of water that they then bottle and sell to people. So they're stealing our water and selling it to people at a huge profit. Um, and, uh, and it's gross. I actually put my ear to the pipe that Nestle is using. Uh, and it, it's, I mean, it was unsettling, it was chilling, right? Um, and, uh, so we just, we just put out our first feature-length documentary, which is called, um, The Story of Plastics. And, uh, and it's all about how, um, you know, there's this, there's this, uh, movement towards using less fossil fuel, right?

Which is great. But all of the fossil fuel producers need a place to put that oil that they're pulling out of the water since they can't put it in our gas tanks as much as they used to. What they're doing now is they're turning that gas into plastic and pushing it on people, right? So, uh, all of that is connected, right? And I think that what that's what I love about the Story of Stuff is it's so, it takes a holistic view of stuff. Um, so yeah, so I'm a board member. I'm, I'm so sort of thrilled and honored to be, uh, a board member on that. Annie has since, uh, left the Story of Stuff and is now the executive director of Greenpeace USA, uh, although she's still on the board at Story of Stuff.

[31:02] Amir Talai: Um, and then Healing Justice is actually, uh, an organization that I haven't had really any, um, interaction with, uh, hardly at all. Uh, I'm on the board, I was asked to be on the board, uh, a while back, and, and, uh, and then nothing has happened since then. Um, I think it's a very small, uh, nonprofit that basically helps, uh, connect people who've been wrongly accused of crimes and people whose, um, loved ones, uh, were victims of crimes and who had, um, someone wrongly accused of that crime, right? So it's like, so it's like my wife gets killed. So I'm, I'm a victim of someone's crime. And then someone gets wrongly accused of killing her, right? So it connects me with that person who's wrongly accused.

And there's healing there. It's incredibly complex. It's incredibly difficult. But it's, it's, it's a small nonprofit. Um, and, uh, and they do great work. And I, I am, uh, happy to be associated with them, but I don't do a whole lot of interacting with them at all.

[32:22] Tonya Pinkins: Don't say no. How come you don't say no and you mean no?

[32:29] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, I'm Tonya Pinkins, and I would love to hear from you. You can text me at 917 724 8998. Tell me what you're up to, and I'll let you know what I'm up to. Text me 917 724 8998. Let's keep in touch. It's not enough to just say it.