Good. How are you, bro?
Yeah, really good, thanks.
I'm going to. I'm really enjoying the show.
I mean, so I guess after all these kind of seasons, I just.
You just feel like you know these characters so well.
And I think Davis is the kind of epitome of that.
How was it kind of stepping back into the shoes of this role?
What was it like you said when you watched the show?
You start to, you know, know the characters.
That's how we feel playing the characters.
We we got to feel for them.
We know who these people are now.
We know how they tick.
It was just like, you know, sliding on your favorite pair of loafers.
You're about to step out.
And you said, Well, do I want to look good or do I want to be comfortable?
But I want to be comfortable.
So you slide on those loafers and you step outside comfy as hell.
You know what I mean? Or pad trainers.
Yeah, it was it
was quite an exciting time and you get the new scripts for
but also kind of be quite nerve wracking because you don't really know
the fate of your characters until you turn that first page.
I'm pretty confident that I'm not going anywhere.
It's always excitement when you get into the script.
You want to see where the story's going because we're fans of the show as well,
you know, not just on it, but we watched the episodes as well.
Yeah, you definitely want to know what twists and turns
they're going to take in these writers, man.
I mean, they're in there.
It's like for lack of a better term, they're in there playing deity,
you know, gods.
And they say, who stays and who goes in where we want this?
It's a it's a great gig to have, man.
And they take good care of us.
And I just find Davis is very kind of ambitious and a very driven character.
Is that something you think you share of the role?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, in life and everybody wants to win and you want it.
I mean, if anything, when we go to these movies
and we watch these TV shows, characters that we like,
even if they're bad, we just want to see them win.
At the end of the day, everyone wants that win.
And in the same thing, I forgot the question what was it?
It just if you kind of share that kind of ambition and drive with it
with Davis Davis, you know, his his biggest ambition is his wins,
because with his wins,
he gets his objective, his overall objective, which is power.
Same thing with me.
I mean, in life, that's what I want.
I want a happy life.
Get a happy ending.
I mean, nobody wants that. Anything to end.
You know, I want that happy
presence
not ending what was in between beginning and end.
They had a present, I guess, right? Right.
That was.
I would think so, yeah. Yeah.
And a happy presence and yeah, that's what me and Davis share.
You know, we're we're very elite
in our positions and comfortable in our own skin.
Misunderstood at all when you speak to move
like fans at a show.
Yeah all the time they they especially the first season
it was more or less where people thought he betrayed Tariq
because Tariq was paying him.
But if you really think about it, he was he wasn't representing Tariq in court.
He was representing his mom.
He was trying to get his mom out of jail.
Tariq had nothing to do
with what Davis was doing in court, whether he was paying him or not.
So I think Davis is a brilliant lawyer in the fact that he was willing
to burn his client's child in order to get his client out of jail.
And people mistook that for a betrayal.
But no, that's someone doing their job.
Yeah. I mean, I can never know.
I wondered as well, when you know a character as well as,
you know, Davis, Like like a comfy like a comfy low pair loafers.
Are you encouraged to like, put your own input into the row?
Is there space for the actors on shows like this
to come up with ideas of where they fit in?
A character could be
what they could be doing and where they could go in the future?
Or is it not really like that on a set?
See, that's the beauty of Courtney A Kepp and the beauty of Brett Mahoney
Now they they always say at the end of the table reads, My line is open.
We have their phone number, my line is open.
If you guys have any comments, anything you want to add to it, let us know.
Me I'm pretty
much content with everything that I get every now and then.
I like to code switch, meaning, you know, I go from my business,
you know, my job application, talk
to my street talk if it fits, if it makes sense.
You know what I mean?
And that that's pretty much all the input
that I would even have wanted is like, I think Davis would say that right here.
I don't think he would necessarily say, motherfucker.
I don't think he would say, I don't think Davis is the type that would say, Me too.
He was the as well.
You know, little change is there, here and there.
And, you know, but other than that, I'm pretty solid with what they gave me.
Yeah.
I mean, look, I mean of course you've got like 50 cent involved.
Mary J. Blige.
You just obviously yourself
And if you look kind of over into kind of act in that in words, you got better.
So I mean it's some great musical artists a seamlessly made this move into acting
for you personally was it always a kind of a dream,
some in the back of your mind maybe when you were a kid to maybe one day
act as well?
Was it kind of born out of the music
and something you've sort of first contemplated later in your career?
When I was a kid, I'm not going to even lie to you.
I was day to day.
I didn't have any ambitions to be anything.
I wanted to be a Jedi master.
Even at a buck. I could still happen.
I could
rap thing kind of fell
in my lap because I had a talent and it's brought me to here.
I'm very grateful for that.
The acting thing.
Yeah.
I mean, anyone that anyone that tells you
that they wouldn't like to have their their time in the spotlight,
even for 15 minutes, like Andy Warhol said, is a liar.
I'm sorry.
Everyone likes that little bit of attention
or else we wouldn't celebrate our own birthdays kind of thing.
So, I mean, yeah, I take it all in stride and then enjoy it as it comes.
Yeah, that's true about birthdays.
I never like being sung. Happy birthday to you.
I believe I don't go for that part, but I do like the gifts in the acknowledgment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I would go back to that kind of years of jokes.
Those beginnings, I suppose.
I mean, I saw that clip of you with you was talking on shows about a time
you went to the Statue of Liberty, of course.
And I mean, your career since then has been incredible.
You're one of the great influential rap artists of your generation.
But it's that same kid from the Statue of Liberty still still in there.
Do you still recognize him and see him in you now, today?
Nah, I don't know.
I know it was so naive and green
and I loved him for that, you know, just pure.
It just had hadn't seen the world yet.
Way different now from me, man.
I'm of course, I'm seasoned. I'm 52 years old.
I see
things a lot different.
I'm a lot more patient, a lot more mindful
and more healthy loyalty, a lot more mindful
of what I put in my body and how I take care of myself.
So and there's a difference, that big difference.
But I'll still say to this day, Statue of Liberty, best job I ever had.
No. Yes.
Yeah.
I love I've never been as as a punter bother enjoy.
But I was going to ask as well I mean because just because you sort of
go back to the show, I mean I wanted to ask about working with that man.
I mean, you need to
you need to trust your kind of costars that it's just built in with you, too.
Does it feel like you have
that same energy and connection that you share in a booth?
Does that translate over to the set?
Yeah, absolutely.
Because we're friends in real life, you know?
So, I mean,
we do whole sets when we're in the van together on the way to a show, you
know, it just happens
when you've
been around someone for more than 15, 20 years.
You guys are basically brothers.
It's is kind of like you can finish each other's sentences.
You know, how each other's things.
You can look at his face and tell if something's wrong with him kind of thing.
So we have a lot of chemistry.
If you put us on the set, same thing happens.
I mean, we did a movie with Kevin Smith, Jay and Silent Bob's last movie.
I kid you not, and Kevin can attest to this one. Take
one. Take it.
It's a pretty long scene.
Yeah, I remember it.
Yes, we killed it.
And we only did extras for safety, brother.
Yeah.
So that speak volumes to me and Redman's chemistry and me and Mary J as well.
Because like I said, if you're friends with somebody,
it makes you way more comfortable on them, you know?
And not just that we have a crew that's been around since the first tower
was aired and a lot of these people are still here.
A lot of them went from pays to to you know what I mean?
And just having those guys around and seeing that camaraderie
and them welcoming you into the tribe is there's no feeling like it at all, man.
Pretty cool, comfortable environment.
How is it collaborating with Mary J.
Blige on this and shooting scenes there?
Because, I mean, I've never I've seen her live
and I've actually walked past her
once in a red carpet at the Toronto Film Festival.
She has this presence that you.
Yeah, she has this thing presence on set.
Trust me.
For me, it's it's just, you know, professionalism
outside of the music world.
Seeing her do her thing with the acting.
Sometimes I'll sit down and try and wait for her to mess up a line.
She never does, by the way.
You know what I mean?
I'll be waiting for the moment, too, because I mess up all the time.
But she she's pretty on it.
I love her character on this show.
I think this show was written for her, honestly,
not taking anything away from Michael Rainey Jr.
because he's our number one on the call sheet and he's he's killing it right now.
But I think this show was written exclusively for her.
She's doing an excellent job. And I love it.
I love it. Yeah.
I mean,
you look at these kind of stars, original shows and now obviously
finding a home, a kind of Lionsgate+ and stuff.
And I really
interesting, accessible programs to tell good stories to wide audiences.
Is it good to have that support out there?
Do you feel the Street has changed the game for the better in that regard?
Yeah, I think so.
I was a little skeptic when I found out
our show was being dropped on a Friday.
I was like, Wow, that's that's where shows go to die.
Honestly, that was the stigma.
For years,
all the black shows go on Fridays because nobody's home and nobody's watching.
But we had our best numbers ever, and Starz
is best numbers for streaming ever.
And that's pretty cool right there.
So, you know, that's why I keep my mouth shut
and let the people who know the job do the job
is brilliant.
The numbers are up.
That means we've we've added some people.
Some people have come on to our show and they're
discovering that it's a pretty damn good show.
Even the naysayers are coming back on board.
So it's it's always great to be on a show that people are actually watching.
And it's funny, in the UK, Friday night is where we put like our
biggest and best shows.
Maybe we haven't got as good a social life as Americans at home on Fridays.
The Bachelor Yeah, I'm but I mean the the power universe
it's just so like you just mentioned, so many people are watching it.
I mean, it's so popular.
I know this is kind of
a hard question to answer, but
what do you think it is about this world in these cases?
It just resonates so much of audiences.
I think it's the diverse
diversity, first off,
because you see a little bit of everybody in these casts.
And it's the fact that
I mean, these are kids doing grown up stuff.
If you if you really look at these these are kids doing grown up things.
I mean, the original power series Shout out to Omari Hardwick, who carried that?
I mean, he made it what it is.
And then the fact that we are even working now
and they even have these spinoffs, I think it has a lot.
Well, I already said the diversity part,
but I think a lot of it has to do with the storytelling and the fact
that our audience came from the original power.
They set the standard with that original series
and that gravitated over to our series.
So it's like, okay, let's see what the young and can do.
Now. It's kind of like watching an origin story
of the original character from the original Ghost,
but pretty interesting people to see what Tariq is going to turn into.
A lot of people already see it, but there is like a fork in the
road where he could still be
better than his father, or he can go down the same path.
His father went No, I've not thought it was.
That was a simple question. I mean, yes,
well, it's the hard to know what it is that makes something popular.
It's one of the hardest because if we all knew
the kind of what it was, we'd be, it'll be Internet.
So it's quite a hard thing to articulate.
But what do you think?
I mean, have conversations kind of started already about future, but AJ Future
series and stuff that kind of got underway now those the next season?
Well, we were already underway on the fourth season.
Yeah.
With more five episodes in, so we're halfway there.
It's looking great.
We added a character, Michael Ealy is joining the cast.
We added a few more characters, but he sticks out mainly to me
because I got to work with him on an episode and he's very poised.
I like the guy, the guy.
He's going to bring a lot
to that fourth season, and I think that's going
to bring even more viewership, which is great for the brand
and would you But do you sign up to a project?
You have to see things on those kind of long terms.
Do you when you sign up to the first season of a show,
do you think to yourself, this could be something
I'm doing for the next six, seven years of my life?
Or do you always just have to treat it as a one off and just hope for the best?
Well, you always want to hope for the best.
You never want to
think, this is it.
This is this is the one right here.
Because if it does fail, it's a little bit harder.
You know, you just do your job.
You hope for the best. You show up to work every day and
hope you have
competent enough people around you that you guys put together something
that strikes lightning like lightning in a bottle and people take to it.
And if you do lessons, if not, move on to the next
and hopefully it'll come to you one day and
yeah, I saw it myself.
Final question, really, because it's funny because I obviously whenever I interview
so that you kind of ask people about what attracted him to projects
and you always kind of know like
I kind of know the process of how it comes to agents and scripts
and stuff like that.
But I'm interested
now from a musical perspective, because I know you worked
with Lloyd Banks recently, which I loved, Lloyd Banks.
I think he's so underrated, at least in the UK.
Anyway, I just wondered
how did you choose your collaborators and projects musically?
Is it does that come from because there's not a script to go on necessarily?
So I wondered about the kind of genesis of of a collaboration
of Lloyd, for example, and one I want raises.
You are usually as quite stripped of music.
You know what I'm I answer that
these things kind of choose me and if I admire the emcee, I'll work with him.
No, no, no questions asked.
And as far as monetary things,
it's always free. 99.
Make it.
Yeah, probably not as alone.
Is payment enough, you know, to work with somebody that you admire. So.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's a great track and a great series as well.
Thanks so much for speaking to me today, Method Man.
It's been a real pleasure and I'm so blessed to be released the next season.