[MUSIC PLAYING]
Yo, come to the table.
We got the homie, a friend of the brand.
You know what I'm saying?
And is she Dominican?
And she's Dominican, dog!
What?
What, (SINGING) Dominicana.
You know what I'm saying?
She is one of the stars of the breakout hit
"Orange is the New Black," which last season is
airing sadly this year.
You know what I'm saying?
Aw.
Give a motherfucking warm welcome to Dascha Polanco.
Yeah, give it up for Dasha Polanco!
Woo!
Straight from the bodega!
Hey!
Girl, what's going on?
Ah!
I was like, thank god, somebody cursed.
Like, I need to do an interview where I can curse.
- Yes! - You can curse.
It's Showtime.
You can do whatever the fuck you want.
Mm. - [LAUGHS] Yes, shit!
Is that your first time--
is that your first time walking out of a bodega--
- Hell, no. - --today?
Today.
Today?
DESUS: Yeah.
Actually, yes!
DESUS: See?
See, there you go. New experiences.
- OK, OK. - You know what I'm saying?
You got your-- you filled your quota for the day.
- All right. - OK.
We recently went to the most beautiful place
on earth, Orchard Beach.
Mwah.
MERO: That's right.
French Riviera--
The French Riviera of the Bronx.
DASCHA POLANCO: That's the Bronx--
OK.
I'm from Brooklyn, so that's the best place.
Now, I've noticed something.
Your people-- - Uh huh?
--which I love your people. You're colorful.
You're loud.
You're boisterous.
You like to bring spaghetti to the beach.
Oh, my god. [SPANISH]
[SPANISH]
Oh!
MERO: (YELLING) [SPANISH]
And [SPANISH].
I would like to take this time to say spaghetti
does not belong on the beach!
Listen.
Have you ever had two slices of Wonder Bread with spaghetti
after you come out of the beach? DESUS: No.
That's how you catch a cramp and die.
DASCHA POLANCO: No, you don't.
It's mad good.
It is mad good.
And then y'all bring the actual pot from home--
MERO: This is like [INAUDIBLE]. DESUS: --straight off the pot.
You drink a little bit of this.
DESUS: And y'all bring your hard porcelain plates.
- Yes. - And dominoes.
And your real utensils.
- Of course. - Yeah.
And this is--
We've always saved-- we've always been green.
Yes.
This is new here now, honey.
This is not a new occurrence.
We've always been green.
You know how many times we reuse, like, that bottle of--
The Country Crock shit.
You know what I'm saying?
The little tin with the sugar cookies,
they get nice and full with thread and needles.
Or the Tropicana kind of juice?
Come on. - Come on!
[SPANISH]
You know what I'm saying?
We don't even care about the BPA and all that shit.
- Come on. - No.
We recycle.
We're green.
MERO: We reuse.
Bueno, it's good.
It's the final season of "Orange is the New Black."
What feelings come with that?
Oh, a lot.
It's very bittersweet because time passes by so quickly.
I never thought I was going to be part of this show let alone,
think, for seven years.
Yeah.
You know, my character started off as a recurring.
And then it became a series.
And then, you know, it's just been--
it has an amazing arc.
When you're in control of what you want to watch
when you want to watch it--
Mhm.
--whether you're in the kitchen [SPANISH],,
doing whatever, [SPANISH] with the kids--
You know what I'm saying?
--or you're on the toilet, which
is what y'all do all the time.
Slow down, though.
- All the time-- - Slow down, though.
--on the damn toilet.
I'm still on cociena?
[SPANISH].
But you don't notice how I put in the English
at the same time?
Y'all got to work with me.
I'mma figure this all out when I watch this tonight
and I see the subtitles.
I'm gonna be like, oh!
I want subtitles!
Yay!
That's what they're talking about.
They're gonna put emojis like cooking
with a little pan and shit.
You know what's funny?
I use emojis to help me remember lines sometimes.
Really?
Yeah, because it takes so much work to actually
interpret it with emojis.
And I'm like, if I don't remember this by the end
of today by the pictures--
Yeah.
--I'm like, oh, sad face--
wants to kill the guy with the gun.
And then kiss, peach, eggplant.
You know, like, I then remember--
MERO: Yeah! - --oh, he want some.
They want some.
They want to get it down.
- Ah! - Yeah!
That's what it is. OK.
My shit is just tongue, peach, tongue, peach, tongue, peach.
Wow, wow, wow, wow.
Ah!
Mine is tongue, eggplant, tongue, eggplant,
cucumber, platano, banana, all of them,
tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue.
Sorry.
So for the families watching this--
Damn!
--recently Disney, they, you know, they had "The
Little Mermaid" controversy. - I know.
That was so cool.
If there was any Disney character you could play?
So I tweeted about that.
I love Twitter, because I be trolling you on Twitter.
I try to. I don't know how to troll.
But this is the thing.
I thought I should play Ursula.
And then because--
Sell yourself.
Go ahead.
--I felt like I should play Ursula
because I could do the-- you know that
I'm an octopus in real life.
[EXHALES]
Oh, shit!
Or--
I'm at BBQs, mad tight about to ask for the manager.
I'd be like, yo, this couple next to me.
Or--
DESUS: Sir, I was trying to enjoy sticky wings.
It's my mother's birthday.
Or-- or, I feel like I should be Sebastian--
(SINGING) under the sea-- because--
She's like, hold on.
I know you're Jamaican.
Let me-- let me break it down.
Let me break it down.
Oh, come on. Hold on!
I'm listening, I'm listening!
Hold on.
We should try something new.
I could play Sebastian because when I was in junior high,
they used to make fun of me and call me
Sebastian because of my lips.
Oh.
So I was like, yo, it's like 360.
It's supposed to happen.
You know?
You know the actresses, and they're like,
I got to get into everything.
MERO: Yeah, and you go on Facebook
in the junior high group and be like, yo.
Yo.
BOTH: I'm Sebastian!
And I got the Sebastian check.
Emoji-- bag of money.
Yeah, stupid!
Ah!
How you feel?
But I don't know if it's going to work out.
I saw something better on Twitter.
I saw some fans did some "Emperors" thing.
And they started putting the Rock and all these other--
and they included me.
So I was like, OK. Well, go ahead.
Ask for what you want.
You already know I retweeted it, retweeted it, favorite.
"I'm down," quote, unquote.
But that being said, let's go into "In the Heights"--
DESUS: Mhm. MERO: Mhm.
--because I am working on "In the Heights."
Yeah.
DESUS: With our friend Lin-Manuel.
Hello.
Genius.
He told me-- are you working with him on that Broadway
play he's working on with us about--
are you familiar with this?
No, no.
MERO: Oh, shit. - No.
DESUS: OK.
Well, basically, in the past, one of the greatest errors
in history is the overlooking of the true ethnicity
of Babe Ruth.
MERO: AKA Baby Rodriguez.
[SPANISH]?
- Babe Ruth was Dominican. - He was Dominican.
You know what I'm saying? - He was forced--
Of course he was.
He was forced to hide his ethnicity.
- I knew that all along. - Yeah.
He was like, [SPANISH].
So he'd pass-- like, he was like, yo.
He's like, nah, I'm just--
He's from Santiago.
--I'm Sicilian.
You know what I'm saying? - He was from Santiago.
DESUS: You could play his mother because you--
I could be his mother.
OK.
This is Babe Ruth.
You catch him playing white.
Talk-- go ahead. Scene right now.
OK.
We're going to play baseball today, Mom.
I'm going to go down to the Yankee Stadium
and hit a home-run dinger.
You're the dad.
Right?
No, it--
Son, what your mother said.
OK. [SPANISH], Mami.
I'm sorry.
DESUS: That can't be the whole scene!
That's the scene.
When your mother speaks in the house
and sends you to the store-- - That's it!
--to the bodega, that's it.
Yo, that's the end of the conversation.
- Oh, my god. - Yeah, no, no, no.
There's no choice like now.
That's a two-minute movie.
Do you want to do--
do you want to see "The Little Mermaid" when it comes out?
Would you like to?
Would you like--
Yeah, that was never a phrase used in my house.
No, please.
It was like, nigga, this is your food.
Eat it. - Exactly.
DESUS: Tell us about "In the Heights."
It's amazing.
What's it like working with Lin-Manuel?
What's it like doing a musical?
[INHALES DEEPLY] It's my first thing.
MERO: Yeah. - Right?
So that was like-- MERO: Were you nervous?
I was super nervous for the audition.
I was sweating.
I was like, damn, going natural, this thing is, oh!
No deodorant!
But I smell good anyways.
DESUS: You smell good, like the hashtag.
You know, always. MERO: You smell good.
You know what I'm saying? Self-lovery.
We out here.
I love how you guys support hashtag, ah, #LoveYourself.
Anyways, that was a risk.
It was-- anyways, that was a risk.
Let's stay on task, guys.
Come on.
DESUS: Mhm, mhm.
For me, another challenge, another risk, another--
another way to face my fear and say, you know what?
I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to do this.
Get me an audition.
Try to get me an audition because I still audition.
That's the process.
And I went in there.
I bombed the first audition.
I was so nervous.
I was like [CHOKING] singing like crazy.
You could hear them, like, oh, my god, cracking, everything.
Mhm.
I haven't sang since I was in church, like the chorus.
MERO: Yeah.
So for--
MERO: And they'd have a cleaner on a Sunday and shit?
No.
[SPANISH]
That's, you know, that's different.
That's Spanish. You know?
Damn!
When we go out there and sing something else,
you're like, oh, damn.
What she said.
You know?
[SPANISH]
It's different with the--
for some reason when you have that Clorox
and the ammonia and [SPANISH]--
MERO: The [SPANISH] going and shit!
--like, the vibe is totally different.
MERO: Yeah. - The fumes.
MERO: You're inhaling all the fumes and shit.
And you're like, yo.
Ay!
The broom, the mop, everything becomes more like swag--
God damn.
You're learning new steps and shit like--
You know?
I think my brain is lacking oxygen.
[SPANISH] you know that he's never
lifted a broom or a mop because that's not how you do it.
[SPANISH]!
It's like-- no, it's like.
That's the Swiffer.
You see how much of this shit I drank?
But all right.
Let's stay on task, guys. - We're staying on task.
OK.
So for me, very special.
I didn't get to go see it on Broadway.
I got to see my Broadway show--
my first show-- after I became an actress
in "Orange" because it's too damn expensive.
DESUS: Right. - OK.
My parents were not going to send
me to see no Broadway show.
You're going to the movies, and that's 12 bucks.
And that's if. DESUS: That's it.
No popcorn.
So OK.
[SPANISH] onion rings.
You bring $0.25 onion rings. OK, anyways--
DESUS: And some chicken nuggets in your pocket.
There you go.
So for me, that was something that I'm
going to be around my people.
It's a story that must be told that is so powerful when it did
and still relevant now.
And that goes to show you that art can stay
timeless when it's quality.
So when I got the call that I was going to be part of it,
first of all I cried because I was like, what the hell?
This is new. I'm going to dance.
I'm going to sing. I was super nervous.
But when I got to set-- and I just recently
filmed one of the scenes, which is
a huge scene of the Carnaval--
I got to dance the whole set with the dancers.
I got to sing.
Lin, everybody was so emotional.
And we were all crying.
We have all different diverse backgrounds.
And I'm like, yo, when this comes out
in 2020, which is the year of election,
it's so important that we support this
as much as we've shown that we could support
certain projects out there.
And that just meant, damn, I'm part of something--
DESUS: Huge.
--that's going to cause another revolution.
MERO: Yeah. DESUS: Love it.
And I'm supposed to be part of it.
DESUS: Yo, check out "In the Heights!"
You know what I'm saying? DESUS: Yo!
And it's in the Heights.
Listen-- MERO: Uptown!
DESUS: You know what it is.
Uptown, go to the bodega.
You always see neon signs.
It's like, yo, you get this for special.
Don't give this person credit because they
give you bad credit cards.
If you go on Halloween, it's [SPANISH]..
[SPANISH].
What would you like--
No candy for you.
What would you like your neon sign to say?
[SPANISH].
[LAUGHING] [SPANISH].
Let's do, "I smell good."
"I smell good."
There we go.
Hey!
Right here, above.
MERO: Thank you, Dascha!
Yo, thank you Dascha!
Yay!
Watch the final season of "Orange is the New Black,"
streaming on Netflix July 26.
You know what I'm saying?
Yo, support the homie!
Check out "In the Heights!"
Yes! Dascha Polanco!
-
MERO: You know what I'm saying?
DESUS: Woo!
[MUSIC PLAYING]