(audience applauds) - [Kelly] (speaks faintly)
- How are you?
- I'm so good.
I'm a little tired, how are you?
- I'm doing well, I'm doing well.
- You good?
- I really love that dress.
- That's like the softest sweater, as well.
- You know, I had to wear it 'cause it feels so soft
and it's still wintertime and all that.
- I know, how do you not just keep touching your arms?
- I know.
Keep touching myself?
How do I not keeping touching myself?
(Kelly and audience laugh)
- Mine is soft today as well.
This is our theme today.
But you had a birthday, January 1st so...
- Yes, yes. (audience cheers)
- That's exciting. - Yes, yes, yes.
- So do you feel trumped by New Year's or are you excited
'cause everyone's yelling and cheering on your birthday.
- Oh no, no.
So everyone...
It's not good having a birthday on January 1st
'cause people owe me a lot of presents
for Christmas, you know?
(Kelly and audience laugh)
'Cause they'll save the Christmas presents
and just give 'em to me on my birthday or vice versa.
So I do a lot of presents, especially from my parents.
- And everyone's probably tired on your birthday. (laughs)
- Which is cool, I'm cool with that.
I'm cool with that.
But people party, they look forward to my birthday.
'Cause people wanna go out and have a good time.
- Oh, you're a half glass full kinda guy, I like it.
- Of course, always, always. - Okay, I like it, I like it.
Well, speaking of birthdays, so "Boyz N the Hood",
is it the 30th anniversary?
(audience applauds) - Yes, yes.
- Last summer? - Something like that, yeah.
(audience cheers) Yeah.
- [Kelly] I mean the film it just, such a pop culture.
- I was only 10 (Kelly laughs) so if you do the math...
(audience laughs)
If you do the math it's...
- Yeah!
Oh my God, no but it's...
Why do you think people resonated so much then
and honestly, unfortunately still resonate with it now?
- You know, it's interesting because first of all
you know, shout out to the late great John Singleton.
He was incredible, he was just a great visionary.
(audience applauds)
But I think a lot of the themes still
are very prevalent to this day.
- Which kinda sucks. - It does.
Yeah, it really does.
And then you know, he put together,
it was a great script that he wrote.
He directed a great movie and he assembled you know,
a great cast of people who were just really good people.
You know?
And it was just an incredible project to be a part of.
- Yeah, I mean I can imagine, especially as an actor,
like it's cool to be a part of something
that just hits pop culture in such a way,
but also has such an important message.
- Without a doubt.
I mean, to think now that people are still talking about it.
When I did that movie so many years ago I mean,
I just wanted to be a part of something,
I just wanted to get a job, I just wanted to be in a movie
and there's no way I thought that it would be,
people would still be talking about it to this very day.
So it's a blessing, it's a blessing.
(audience applauds) - It's a total blessing.
Well your character was always eating in the movie,
which I like dream role, but like did you add that
or did they want you to be eating
throughout the whole thing?
- John came to me, he was like, "Listen, now I want you
to always be eating something", you know?
And he says, "What do you like?
(Kelly laughs) Yeah!
He was like, "'Cause I want the character...",
'Cause he was a football player, he was an athlete.
So he's always just consuming food.
And so they were like, "Well, what do you like?"
And at the time I said,
"Well, I like Chocodiles", and all that.
So he said, "Okay, we'll get you some Chocodiles
and some milk."
So- - Wait what's a Chocodile?
- A Chocodile is like a chocolate Twinkie
back in the day.
- What? - Yes, yes it was like a-
- I've never even heard of that!
- Oh, you haven't heard of Chocodiles?
- [Kelly] No!
- Oh wow, wow!
Wow, yes. - Like I was like,
"What kind of foreign food are you talking about?"
(Morris laughs) Like like a Chocodile?
No, I never heard of it.
I was a Ding Dong person, I like Ding Dongs.
- It's kinda like a Ding Dong.
- Like kinda like a Ding Dong?
- It's kinda like a Ding Dong.
It's kinda like a Ding Dong.
And it was, and I ate a lot of 'em.
- I think you just said Ding Dong three times. (laughs)
(Morris and audience laugh)
Kinda like Ding Dong, kinda like a Ding Dong. (laughs)
- Kinda like a Ding Dong, it's kinda like a-
Well you know the thing about it,
I really loved Chocodiles before the movie.
I didn't like 'em so much after.
- [Kelly] Oh you were over it.
- 'Cause I had to eat 'em so much.
- (chuckles) Was it fun or intimidating
to be such a heartthrob like right out of the gate?
(Morris chuckles)
I know you probably hate that question (audience cheers)
but it's a serious question 'cause you go everywhere
and people are always yellin' you know, at you
and that's gotta be kind of, does it make you uncomfortable?
- You know, listen.
So I've had certain things like that happen.
But here's the thing, so when I first did "Boyz N the Hood"
right, before I had the movie, I was just like,
"I wanna do something that people will recognize me for.
'Cause that'll help me get other jobs."
- [Kelly] Absolutely.
- So I did "Boyz N the Hood" and now like almost every day
yeah, multiple times a day, people yell, "Ricky!"
(Kelly and audience laugh) Right?
The funny thing about that is
it's like it's the first time I've ever heard it.
They said, "Hey, Ricky!
Have you heard that before?"
I was like, "Yeah."
- You're so original. - Yeah exactly, right?
But even with that and you know, the "label of a heartthrob"
you know, I'm just gracious and grateful for everything
because I never forget when I never had a job
and I started out in this industry
and it's just so tough and it's so competitive.
I just wanted to be recognized,
known for anything so I can keep working.
And so now doing that-
- Pay your bills doing what you love.
(audience applauds)
- Pay the bills doing what I love, right?
And so now that I have that and when I've had that,
hey, they can call me Ricky till the day I die.
(audience laughs)
I appreciate it you know, I love it.
- Hey I'll never live down Kelly Clarkson
from "40-Year-Old Virgin", so...
People do that to me all the time and I'm always like,
"I've never heard that before, you're so unique."
(Morris laughs)
But I actually laugh at it every time.
(audience cheers)
We're back with Morris Chestnut
and that was a look at his show "Our Kind of People".
So what's the meaning behind the title?
- So the title is based on a book.
It was a book called "Our Kind of People."
And it basically, it covers the lives
of some wealthy elite people in Martha's Vineyard.
And so that was the title of the show.
And that's pretty much what the show is about.
It's about a wealthy family in Martha's Vineyard.
And it's about power and control and sex and salaciousness
and all of that other good stuff in between.
- Well, today is MLK Day
so what does his legacy mean to you specifically?
- Wow, I mean, there's so much I couldn't even
begin to cover it.
But just all his activism and everything that he did
for the Civil Rights Movement.
- [Kelly] Selflessness, yeah.
- Selflessness and just the human being that he was.
And I'll always respect everything that he's done,
but in particular, how he did it.
He just uses articulations and his knowledge
and this charisma as power.
And I love that.
- Which is true power. - He was very effective.
It's true power and he was very effective.
And I just truly, I mean I can't say enough.
I mean, we can go on for this for about five minutes.
- I know that hard to wrap it up in a synopsis.
Yeah, now that I've asked the question.
- But no, but it's you know,
it's everything that he stands for.
And even unfortunately, I mean you know,
even if we listened to his speech today,
we you know, back then-
- [Kelly] Still relevant.
- Still relevant.
Still relevant and we still have a ways to go.
- Amen.
Well, you visited the motel where Dr. King was assassinated.
What was that like for you?
- I was there and I said, "Oh yeah, I wanna go by there."
Just to be there and just to look at the layout
of everything from afar and-
- It had to feel intense.
- It was definitely intense.
It was definitely intense to know that he was there
and everything that's happened there.
And it was just something I just had to see
and I was glad that I was there
and I was glad that I saw it.
And I took a picture of it, of course.
And I have it up on my wall.
And it's just one of those things to where
it's just a moment in time to know that I was there
where such a powerful, effective person was.
And it was very powerful, very powerful.
- Yeah, I love that.
Well, what's something that you've been able
to share with your kids about Dr. King's impact.
- Oh, oh, everything about you know, we've had definitely
many discussions about that.
But one of the things that you know,
I tried to teach my son when he was younger,
it was just to you know, to use his voice,
to use his articulation as power.
But that he has an opportunity to affect change as well.
So around that time he was very young,
but it was the first time Barack Obama was you know,
he was running for president.
So I brought my son in the ballot booth with me.
- [Kelly] Oh, that's special!
- Yes, I brought him in the ballot booth with me
and you know, he saw me and I put his hand and we you know,
we selected Barack Obama that year.
And I know that may be private to people but I did.
- [Kelly] That's so important!
- Yeah, no no so it-
- No, it's so important to show your kids like physically,
'cause it's one thing to tell them what they should do,
but to actually physically do it with them
and show how important it is.
- Oh, without a doubt.
And I felt it was gonna be a moment in history.
I mean, it was the first black president.
- [Kelly] You were right.
Yeah. - Yeah exactly, right?
It's the first black president ever and my son was there
with me to feel that, to feel the power of his voice,
the power of him as an American citizen.
Being able to affect change the way that he did.
- And how different for your kid, like representation.
Like speaking of that, like he will know that
like his whole life, like that's a norm for him now.
(audience applauds) - Exactly, exactly.
- You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, exactly.
- Like for him it's so cool because
like for us, it wasn't a norm growing up.
And now it's like he's growing up in a different world
and what a beautiful thing.
- Yeah oh, without a doubt, without a doubt.
And then about five minutes later,
he wanted to go play PlayStation.
(Kelly and audience laugh) But other than that...
- And then he was like, "That was great dad,
we checked the box." (chuckles)
- Exactly, "We checked the box, let's go play PlayStation."
So, but I think it means much more to him now of course
than it did then.
But for him to know that he was there.
- No, that's special. (audience cheers)
That's really cool that you did that.
Well, your mom was a teacher, my mom was a teacher as well.
But she was a teacher in South Central LA, right?
- Yes, yes.
- So how did that impact you growing up?
- Wow.
I mean, I've learned so much from my mother.
(audience croons) And especially...
Oh wow, yeah, that's her.
I love my mother.
Just from an early age I mean, there were so many things
that she used to tell me that's still stuck with me today.
And she used to always tell me,
"The early bird catches the worm!"
And she would wake me up early on a Saturday.
"Oh, I don't wanna get up."
"The early bird catches the worm!"
What was interesting was, even though my mother
was a teacher it took me a while because of course,
when I was in elementary school and junior high school,
I would never think of my teachers having a family.
We kind of would just think that,
"Okay, after I leave school, they just go in the closet
and wait until we get back the next day."
You know what I'm saying? (Kelly and audience laugh)
- They just hang out here. - They just hang out there!
And then I never thought about that until really,
even though my mother was a teacher,
I never thought about it till I was older.
Just reflecting back on all of her sacrifices for me.
- Boy, all teachers! - And when she had to-
All teachers, right?
All teachers sacrifice...
Yeah because they really have
to deal with us bad students or good students.
- And the mean, puberty and then they
don't get paid enough for that.
- And then they definitely don't get paid enough.
(audience applauds) - [Kelly] No.
- They definitely do not get paid enough.
And so yeah, so I truly appreciate you know, my mother,
everything she's done for me.
And all teachers, all teachers across the world.
- They're angels. - Yes, without a doubt.