Freda! How are you?
How are you doing?
I'm doing well, thank you for having me.
How's it going? Absolute pleasure.
Congratulations on season two of your show.
Indeed, your performance.
You know,
it feels like we've sort of watched you grow up in front of the camera, really.
I think your first big acting role was in what was it,
an episode of The Twilight Zone when you were about ten?
We oh yeah, that was that was my first.
That was my actual first professional.
I was doing like little stuff and performing arts.
But you're right.
Back in 1985, they did a reboot of the Twilight Zone series.
And I was a little kid and had like one line and it was a Christmas show,
and it was all kind of Twilight Zone and strange and, yeah, spooky.
And so I was there and but at that time, I didn't,
you know, I was just happy to be on set and be kind of experiencing what it
would be like to be on a on a movie set
had no idea that, you know, years later,
it would
become a part of my my life's journey as an actor.
Because then you were in things like 21 Jump Street and you said,
Yes, this is all a bit different
I mean, playing Councilman Tate is certainly 1,000,000
miles away from The Wonder Years put it that way.
How would you describe him?
Oh, wow, yeah.
So Councilman Tate is a
a person who's looking to move up
the political ladder and will do anything
that is necessary to accomplish his goals.
And that means he would go as far as creating any kind of agenda
to either remove people himself
or in some kind of creative way.
He's certainly determined and and motivated.
He's someone who really believes that he should be
in a place of power
in a position to have some sort of
influence over, over, over people.
Now, the role actually started off in a fairly small way
because it was firstly in the original series of Power.
And then in Ghost, it started off with, you know, just a few episodes.
And now in this season, it's grown hugely.
But I wonder what made you want to play the role right from the start?
Well, an interesting story.
I had been cast it to play another role on
the original Power series.
I was supposed to play Terry Silver, who was a lawyer
who was trying to get the Ghost character out of jail
and eventually falls in love with Ghost, his wife Tasha.
That was originally my role, but I was off working on another show.
And I couldn't do it.
And so I called up the creator of the show, Courtney Kemp, and said,
Listen, I feel really bad that it didn't work out.
I'd love to come on as a guest star on in one episode.
Whatever you want me to do, I'm there.
And she called back and said, Listen, I have
something really interesting and it's goingnow... like are you available?
yeah, she says, but it's not one episode, it's four, this season
four of Power and we have four episodes and I say, Yes, I'm you.
Of course, my agents and managers reps at the time went crazy.
How are you going to just agree
to do something without good consulting with us? I said - cause?
Listen, I know what I'm doing.
I know.
Yeah. And now, now, now
thank goodness I did make the call, right?
Yeah.
And so and so again, it was a
this was something that I didn't foresee, and they allowed me to sort of interpret
Rashad take the kind of way that I thought he would,
you know, be engaging in some kind of way.
He's the type of guy who walks into a room.
He's smiling, he's high fiving, he's hugging everyone
and he's got something to say,
and he's going to change your life and he's going to make it right.
But he can switch
and he can really go deep and he can get into a whole other place
that makes what the show is all about, about power and control.
And, you know, the fact that you know, they're willing to do anything
to move, move ahead.
And in politics, I guess you get you kind of have to be that way
may not go about it the way Rashad gone about it in the past.
But you know, no, no, no, but you either you're going to, either
you're going to eat or you're going to be eaten.
I always say that it's like, you know, you gotta
you have to
make sure that no one stops what you what you're doing.
And if you can have a connection with the people, you know, go for it.
So in this season, you're a regular.
And of course, the role has grown hugely.
I mean, how has he developed since the start?
And also what were the challenges there for you as an actor?
Well,
he finds himself engaged
with more of the main characters
like Tariq,
who's played by Michael Rainey Jr, so they cross it quite a bit.
And even though in the original series, my character dealt
a lot with James St Patrick, Tariq's father, it's almost like,
Is this going to be the same relationship?
Because they were competitors, they were rivals.
And so now we're in a position to see if this is going to be the same kind
of rivalry between both Rashad and Tariq.
And I can't give any spoilers away, but it's it's fireworks
and it's a lot of great storytelling between these two.
And for me, it's just a joy to to work when the writing is on the page
and you have the support of the creator of the show
and the support of the directors and producers to really just
interpret the character the way I think he should be.
And they write to some of my choices and and,
you know, I get a chance to to talk and speak with the writers.
And they say when they're writing the words, they can actually hear my voice.
They can like I can hear.
He would say this, and to me, it's an indication that we're on the same page.
We're locked in, right?
And so it's just seamless at that point.
And, you know, in the past, you have to do, you know, roles where you have to work
a little harder, you trying to, you know, figure it all out?
Well, I played the character for some time now,
and that's the beauty about being on a series that you
can really find nuances that
you probably didn't do in the past or you didn't have the
the the ability
or the access to do it or the safe space to do that.
Because as artists, we, you know, we we want you have to try things
and you want to make sure that people can trust you
so you don't second guess yourself.
And sometimes that happens, and this is not the case here on on the go.
So we they encourage what we bring
to the table and it's liberating.
So it's really nice to have that, which is great to have that input.
But of course, as well as season and so on goes there's a bit more to come for you.
Isn't the bigger... Ghost is just one
This does one of a series of spinoffs from Power and there's
another one coming up, which I think is quite a big one for you.
I think it's number five.
Yeah, yeah, I'm an influence,
which is essentially going to be about Councilman Tate
you know there.
Yes. How far down the road are you on that one?
You know,
all I all I can say is that we decided
to really just focus on season two and take one thing at a time.
And that works for me because
as opposed to sort of getting ahead of ourselves.
There's so much more that I think they wanted to explore
coming from the original Power 'cause they wanted to continue to explore
some of that and incorporate that into, you know, season two.
And I'm happy... I'm your guy.
If you need me to come and be a part of the original cast members to come in
and sort of find some interesting storytelling in this world
and sort of build out whatever it is to potentially come, I'm happy to do so.
So again, we are not getting ahead of ourselves.
We're staying focused here and there's a lot of great things
that you know you'd want to see in a
another installment that you're going to be able to see
some of that materialize in season two.
So that's still very much in the pipeline.
one question I've got to ask you, though,
assuming you were voting in an election,
would you actually vote for councilman Tate?
And you know what Freda...
Yeah, that's a good question.
And you put me on a spot, you know, to say,
you know, I thought I'd get into some sort of insider
knowledge on this guy, and
let's just say that I would like to vote for him.
I certainly would like to vote for him because I believe that, you
know, he did not...hold up now.
Now the guy that I don't know about, I would vote for the guy
that's on the surface that I don't know.
But there were shot that the viewers know.
I don't know if I'm a police. I don't. I don't know.
I'm like this. Do I do I want to?
Oh, Mayor Rashad...,
will I regret this?
And so it's great.
But that's an awesome question, by the way.
But personally, the guy that.
His present himself, I would vote for just because
representation, and I think, you know, this young guy, he seemed relatable.
I would I would vote for him. Absolutely.
But knowing some of the things that I know and we know about that he's doing that
the world doesn't know.
Like, here's a deal.
I probably have voted for people that are in office, you know what?
And over the last ten, 15, 20 years I've voted for, you know that
if I really knew
who they were or go near them, I probably wouldn't even yeah, I wouldn't.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
So the same thing.
I'm not in the slightest bit
sorry about putting you on the spot because that was a great answer.
Lovely to talk to you.
Really appreciate your time
and good luck with the series and of course, number five as well.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you.