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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back. I'm Tonya Pinkins, and you're listening to You Can't SAY THAT. This is part two of my conversation with actress producer S. Epatha Merkerson.

[0:16] S Epatha Merkerson: How has working in Chicago, working and living in Chicago been? That's my hometown. Let me just say something about your hometown. If you're gonna be sitting somewhere, Chicago is a great place to sit. I love Chicago. Beautiful food, the art. It's everything. Like the one thing that I love the most about Chicago is that it isn't as dense as New York. So you really do get to see the agriculture. It is a beautiful city. Beautiful city. And I love it. And the food is great, and the music, that's where I really do like the art, the papers, Art Institute. Yes. And I'll go to hear music by myself. Like, you know, the jazz showcase. They know me at the jazz showcase because I'll go by myself because the music there is amazing. Kingston Mines, you know, there's some blues. Yeah. It's just it's a great city. And I'll tell you it what has made it even easier for me to be there is I really like the people I'm working with.

[1:32] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, that's nice.

[1:34] S Epatha Merkerson: They're really, really nice people. Young, uh, they got great sense of humor, they're smart, uh, they're committed. Um, and you know, out of the three shows there, I realized at one point I am the oldest cast member.

[1:53] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[1:54] S Epatha Merkerson: At first, I was gonna let that hurt my feelings, but then I said, no, because if I say something, god damn it, y'all better listen. Right. Right?

[2:05] Tonya Pinkins: So how are you on three different shows? Okay, how's how is that possible?

[2:08] S Epatha Merkerson: I love it. I love it. How are you doing three different shows? Well, you know, I don't we don't uh we don't cross over a lot, but it's kind of cool because they make it work in scheduling. And you know, you're playing your character, so the idea that you're gonna be talking something different, it you know, it's not gonna happen. So I'm always gonna be the head of the hospital, whether I'm on PD or fire, and it's kind of fun because each one of the companies, they all have a certain kind of personality.

[2:47] Tonya Pinkins: Okay, and when you go on the fire set, it's like those guys really they've been together the longest, and they know each other like the back of their hands.

[3:00] S Epatha Merkerson: They're really, really connected. Um, they're funny as shit. I love going on the fire set because those guys are really, really fun, the women and men. I'm, you know, I'm using guys as a term. And then PD is a different kind of personality because it's a little more serious. Um, and but again, you know, there are those moments because they again they've been together long at like seven, they might be going into their eighth season. So it's that familiarity that helps. Um, and they were all so gracious when med came on um and it you know I'll have to say I think that this was something that Dick Wolf was trying to do when we were doing Law and Order which is why there was a Law and Order special victims criminal intent but all of those were about homicide so pretty much so there's there you didn't have that difference but here you know you have three different communities that work together and the police the fire department and the hospital you know the three first responders that deal with each other sometimes every day so it makes sense and I think that's why the shows are are doing so well as well because they're different entities but they all work together.

[3:38] S Epatha Merkerson: And I'll tell you one of the most prideful moments for me was uh when we were wrapped this season our uh props master Chris Shader donated uh PPE uh sheets beds I mean they sent a bunch of things to uh the hospitals in in Chicago and I was very proud of that that we could participate in and what's going on with this pandemic and be helpful. It's uh I mean it's you know, I'm from Chicago, so it's hard to talk about it without talking about the fact that it is even with black mayors, we have a black mayor right now, it is in the number one two spot of um you know segregation in the country, uh Daily Machine, you know, a history of redlining and racism, and Laquan McDonald was shot 14 times by a police officer while he was lying on the ground. Um acquitted. Uh actually I think this didn't he get he didn't get charged?

[5:56] Tonya Pinkins: Oh no.

[5:57] S Epatha Merkerson: I think you know, before I lie, let me look it up. But um that was the one time that somebody actually got charged with a crime, and uh yeah, I don't want to lie. That's not an He was found guilty of aggravated battery with a firearm and guilty of second degree murder. We've been talking, um the mainstream media is not reporting this, but some very small local papers are reporting that they have taken Derek Chauvin into custody.

[6:30] Tonya Pinkins: No, they're talking about that on MSNBC.

[6:33] S Epatha Merkerson: Oh, they are so they have they taken the other three in?

[6:36] Tonya Pinkins: No, but the but Chauvin, he's he's been charged as well.

[6:40] S Epatha Merkerson: He's been charged. I think that that's the way they want to stop the violence, but I don't I I think they have to understand that uh just taking him into custody is not sufficient. And those three officers who stood by watching, um, you know, they participated. Yeah. You know, that the man who whose business called the police on uh George Floyd, he said he told his employee to call the police on the police.

[7:09] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[7:11] S Epatha Merkerson: Wow. And I mean, but had he not, you know what I mean? I think the only thing that I you know, it's hard for me to even fathom I can see in my mind's eye this young brother underneath his knee. And you know, the the video is so uh raw. Uh you know, when we have to make ourselves, no matter how traumatic it is, I feel like it's how we bear witness. Uh it's painful, it hurts like hell, but we have to watch it. You have to watch it. And and you have to watch it all the way through, and you have to see the different uh the different videos that come from other angles. Um you know, you have to see those. Uh and I again that was why it was uh so difficult for me to sleep because I I watched it over and over.

Watched it over and over, and uh you know it's it's uh yeah, I I can't say that I don't understand what happened last night. I do understand why it happened, and you know, a lot of the stuff on the news today is saying that you know the people that were protesting weren't the ones who were you know looting and and uh and and and burning the precinct, but it it really I don't know, and somehow that doesn't matter to me because the reason it happened is is why that people are just desperate uh and those kinds of things uh that leads to desperation uh and you just want to hurt something back and yeah you just laugh at it the closest thing that's there that that the instinctive thing you got to fight something because you can't you can't lie down the energy in you is just too powerful you got to do something yeah and he and d yeah so yeah anyway that that's what's happening uh that's what's happening on the news today it's it's a hard time.

[7:17] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah it is indeed and you know the interesting thing for me is you know being in the house like this um uh you know I'm oh I'm I'll be 68 this year uh I I'm diabetic uh you know I have high blood pressure and so you know every time they say these are the people that shouldn't leave the house I was in the first three categories you know so I've been very very careful I I I came I flew in from Chicago on the 15th of March and and I've been out of the house four times.

[10:21] S Epatha Merkerson: So how your phone trees and things like that. Stephen, Stephen, Stephen is here with me and my man, and so you know, Stephen will go out and then we have this routine at the front door. We wipe everything down, he takes off everything, and we put it in a bag and it goes to the laundry, you know, because I'm serious, I don't want to get sick. And I believe it's interesting, here's something that was so wild. I am listening, I'm looking, I just wanted to see that pandemic of 1918, so there are a couple of documentaries on it, and so I went to Prime Video and there's one called "A Pandemic 1918 Special Edition." It comes on, it's me narrating it. Oh my god, whoa! And I didn't remember, whoa, but my name is nowhere to be seen and they say it's Linda Hunt, but Linda Hunt has done one for American Experience.

This one is me, and it showed up on the internet. I found it on the internet, but what was so amazing to me is that everything that this documentary talked about is what's going on now. And you know, this has been predicted. That's why the Obama administration left a pandemic for them to follow and a committee for them to be able to go to. But you look at the television and you see people who are not taking it seriously, and I'm looking at this footage from like 1918, people walking around, the police with masks and people with masks, and there are, you know, things in the paper that are saying, you know, everything closes until further notice. No grocery shopping, no this, no that, you know, a whole list of things that you should not do. And you know, this science is not wrong, you know, science is not wrong.

[13:02] S Epatha Merkerson: And I wish, like the other day, a young woman that I work with, there's a video of her like partying with people, and they're like, no one's wearing masks. And I'm thinking, then you're gonna come and work with me. And I think about Typhoid Mary. Typhoid Mary never had a symptom, but 63 people who she cooked for died. And she didn't never have a symptom. To the day she died, she swore it was not her, she didn't have it. And I know some of those people. I was even talking about that to someone yesterday, and they're like, Typhoid Mary didn't kill those people. I disagree with you. And so you're like, what you gonna do? What should go protect Josie? Those people. Yeah, you can do. Exactly, exactly.

And you know, but that's the thing you can't control, and that is, you know, what I find, you know, so that's why I've been sitting up here making these masks, you know, because it's my way of saying to my family and to my friends, you know, listen, this is what we have to do, and I can do this. This is something I can do to be productive during this period, you know.

[14:24] S Epatha Merkerson: And the reason why I started it is because I'm on Facebook one day and I see my sister Linda, my oldest sister Linda, with this scarf tied around her face and her big old sunglasses, about she's going, she's going to the market. You know what I mean? And so I typed under her post, "Sis, I'll make you a mask." And that's how it started. And then a friend of mine, Elaine, saw my post, Elaine Graham, and she said, "Can you make me a couple?" And then I just started making them, you know, and I'm taking, it's costing me to send them. I sent everyone in my cast masks, and if they were with their families, I sent their family masks. Stevens' co-workers, I've sent them masks because it's my way of saying to, you know, the first responders, look, you need this equipment and I can do this.

This is something I actually can do to help. You know what I mean? Right. And it's just convenience wearing a mask. It's an inconvenience. I wear masks and gloves because I'm here in Manhattan. I'm like, I don't want to touch it and bring it back in.

[15:48] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, when we walk out the house, we have gloves and masks. Yep. That's what I do. Because I might have it and be giving it to people. So it's not just self-protection, it's, you know, I started giving elbows on sets in January. I was like, oh, you know, I feel very, very healthy, but you know what? I could be healthy and giving something to somebody else. So I was like, I remember I walked on the set at "God Friended Me," and the director reached me out and was like, "Can't do that." You know, it was like, I don't even know this person. I'm like, no, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna do the elbow because it's not a real, it took me a while. You know, I didn't really start hearing about this until like early March, you know what I mean?

And yeah, and then, you know, on set, it became a major issue because someone on one of the other sets was diagnosed with the virus, and so now it, you know, because we're so insular, you know, over there at Center Space, they became very serious about it. And they closed us down. And you know, I really appreciated that they had to think about us. I mean, everything that we do on a set, we're so on top of each other, right? And it could have been air, everything in those enclosed studios all day, every day. It's gonna be very challenging figuring out how we get back to work. I know equity is set in this four protocols for what they say is going to be needed, you know, that we have to have a way of testing.

[17:16] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah. And we have to have a way of identifying people who have it. And you know, it's a lot that that's, but New York is opening, I hear on June 8th. Yeah, little by little, they'll start the first phase. He said he did say, you know, and thank goodness that we have like Mayor Cuomo, you know, I mean Governor Cuomo, because he like literally, I like the fact that he can sit in front of us every day and, you know, look at this thing realistically. And you know, it makes sense to me. And I love it when he says, you know, if I'm not gonna ask you to, if I'm not gonna do this for my family, I'm not gonna ask you to do it for yours. That, you know, he personalizes it and I appreciate him, I really do. Because watching those press conferences from DC were really making me angry.

[18:26] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do that time. I had to stop looking at them, you know.

[18:32] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Petha, can you tell me a failure or something that seemed like a bad thing that ultimately turned out to be a good thing?

[18:40] S Epatha Merkerson: Oh, yikes, that's a great story. A failure. Something that looked like it was gonna be a bad thing, but ultimately it set you up for something better. Yeah, when I left my husband. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I thought it was gonna be horrible. It was the best thing I could have done. Okay, but I know that's not what you mean.

[19:06] S Epatha Merkerson: No, exactly. That could be what it is. I know for me when my first marriage ended and I didn't leave my husband, I just never imagined because I was raised Catholic, you're supposed to be with one person forever. And so I just couldn't imagine anything. So definitely, and I've been married three times.

[19:21] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[19:21] S Epatha Merkerson: But being alone right now has been a very good thing for me. Yeah, and well, I've met this lovely, lovely person, but you know, it took me into my 60s to feel like I did it right. I've made some horrible choices in my life, and that was certainly the biggest one. But you know, and work, you know, I think I, you know, I don't want to use the word lucky, but you know, I, I've sort of been able to be an actor, and that, you know, all the things I could think of one instance where it was, I was understudying on Broadway, and it was the musical "Ten Types," and you know, I had to learn how to be tactful. That's the thing that was my issue, and I think that was the point that I realized I needed to learn how to be tactful, and what happened was I disagreed with the way the Black character was portrayed in the musical, and at the time, you know, I think you know that I used to collect a lot of Black memorabilia, and I had stuff on my walls that I felt like I could take down and be better used.

[20:57] S Epatha Merkerson: But who am I to talk about their play? That's their thing. I've had to learn that one too. Okay, if you want to make your own little musical then. But this you took that one. You know what I'm saying? So what happened was the play goes from off-Broadway to Broadway, and I'm not asked to go. And at the time, again, I was broke as a church mouse. And I remember I was supposed to, uh I was invited to dinner with the there were only three understudies. And I was invited to dinner by the female understudy, and I got to her house, and when the door opened, she said, "Aren't you excited?" And I said, "Excited? We're going to Broadway." Oh, and I had to sit through that whole day. Oh, with the other understudies that had been asked, and I remember leaving there and thinking you learned something today.

You learned that your opinion is not always accepted; you have to be careful how you speak to people about their baby. That's like walking to someone seeing a carriage and seeing a baby and going, "Wow, your baby's not really pretty." You know, I learned that, and so it was a hard lesson, but I actually ended up doing the project because I was understudying Lynn Thickpin, and Lynn got a movie, so they had to come to me because it was quick, and they needed someone that already knew the part.

[22:59] S Epatha Merkerson: But yeah, it was interesting. And even in that moment, like the day that I had to go on, they wanted me to use Lynn's dressing room. And I said, "No, my dressing room is on the fifth floor. That's where I'm going. I'm gonna go where my energy is." And you know, they didn't think that I wasn't watching the show, but I was always listening. I would be in the green room playing Scrabble, but I was always listening, and if there was something that I didn't remember, I would go watch it the next night. And so when it was time for me to go on, they think I'm gonna be a disaster because they don't know that I have been listening and paying attention.

[23:49] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, you're hitting on something that's really, you know, one of the best compliments I've ever gotten, but it came from someone after I left the show. They're like, "Like Tommy Finger, she don't be doing nothing." And then looks like when she left the show, you realize she was the show. They don't understand that we don't have to work as hard as they have to work to do this. We don't have to be all on the people and looking and writing 26 notes. It's coming in for us. We got some neurotransmitters and we get it. I was sitting there kicking ass in Scrabble and listening to everything. And in my mind's eye, while they were taking their turns playing Scrabble, I would move my body across that stage in my mind's eye.

We know we do that. When it was time for me to do the show, they were all like so complimentary because they had such low expectations. They did. And you know, a part of it was my own fault. You know, I had set myself up for that. And my need to correct them. You know, that was a big lesson on both parts in both aspects and the aspect of learning how to be tactful.

[25:13] S Epatha Merkerson: There's a tactile way to say what you need to say, and I don't I still don't always do that. You can ask anybody, you know, when at this point I say what I want to because I'm in my 60s, but even back then, you know, I would say what I need to say, but I had to learn how to be tactful, how to say things. And you know, my mother used to say to us all the time that if you don't have something good to say, then don't say anything. But I think that, you know, to add to that, if you have something to say, you know, say it in a way that will allow people to understand what it is you're trying to say. And you can say that if you think it through. And so, you know, I had to do that, and I've done that my entire career, you know, sitting and I'll tell you one of the greatest opportunities in doing Law and Order was that we had script meetings.

They weren't read script readings; we had meetings where we actually sat because we had the opportunity, the show was in two parts. We had the opportunity to sit with the writers and the director of that episode and the producers and read the episode and comment.

[26:42] S Epatha Merkerson: And you know, a lot of writers won't let you do that. A lot of producers. But I have to say, I have to give that to Dick Wolf. He and Ed Sharon, because Ed Sharon was the one that actually instituted the read-throughs. But what it meant was that my voice in every episode that I shot for Law and Order, and it was upwards of 390 something episodes, my voice is a part of it, and that I appreciate. You know what I'm saying? You can't say anything, but every episode that S. Epatha Merkerson is in in Law and Order, and Van Buren was on the screen, she had something to say about what was a wonderful thing.

[27:54] Tonya Pinkins: My last question before we wrap up. What is the most tactful thing you can say to our fellow white Americans today?

[28:05] S Epatha Merkerson: Be woke.

[28:07] Tonya Pinkins: And what is that? What does that mean?

[28:09] S Epatha Merkerson: That means you need to start paying attention. You need to know not just paying lip service, but the Black people that are around you. Know it, try to find out some of the history. You know, we know so much about being white in this country, and white folks just don't know anything about us. So at some point, you need to be curious; you need to understand why these things are happening, and there is a reason. And if you know the history, if you can take a moment while you're sheltering at home, just take a moment and read some history and listen to the people that you coexist with at work. It might be helpful. Other than that, I don't know what to say to them.

[29:24] Tonya Pinkins: Well, I thank you for taking the time to have this conversation with me. You are near and dear to me, and I look forward to hugging you and breaking bread with you again in the future.

[29:34] S Epatha Merkerson: Absolutely, absolutely, and I will send those masks out tomorrow.

[29:41] Tonya Pinkins: I appreciate that. You send it Stephen out to the post office.

[29:44] S Epatha Merkerson: I'll just send it to the post office, the USPS because we have to say that. Because the president might shut it down any minute now. So we have to—my mother retired from the post office, so I understand that good government job that used to be.

[30:02] Tonya Pinkins: Good government job. Hallelujah.

[30:04] S Epatha Merkerson: And I use the post office, so I will be sending it USPS, baby.

[30:11] Tonya Pinkins: Thank you.

[30:14] Tonya Pinkins: Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, the show where you can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales. Edited by Derek Gunther, music by Anthony Norman. Available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit bpn.fm forward slash YCST.