Angela, Angela!
-[chuckles] -Yes, Egypt.
What... I guess it's safe to say maybe we all have a little Veronica in us.
Yes, we do.
-And you say that often. -[Angela] Yes.
You care to elaborate?
Yes, I think everyone has a little Veronica in them,
and the only thing that separates them
from one type of Veronica and another
is good home training and Jesus.
So, if you missed out on good home training and Jesus,
you might be the one with the lighter yourself one day.
[laughing]
[Egypt] Well, I'll say, you were hands down,
like, the best villainess ever. Ever.
Um, you said the things
that some of us may have wanted to say,
you did some of the things we would have never thought to do
but got great ideas from watching you.
Um... [laughing]
But I mean, just the spice that you added to the screen.
Now that Veronica is gone,
-which I thought inevitably they would bring her-- -Veronica's gone?
-I didn't think! -No, I'm just... [laughs]
Wait, no, but when we saw, when we saw them shoot your character,
I was like, "No, she's coming back again."
But now that she is gone,
what do you have to say about--
[Peter] Was that her that got shot?
-Well, I don't... [chuckles] -I don't know.
-I don't know that she's gone. -Oh, we don't know?
But first of all, I wanna say thank you.
I wanna say thank you to you guys.
And, you know, I don't get to get
very emotional on the show,
but I'm pretty much a cry baby in life.
So, um, I just really appreciate,
um, your love and running into you.
And those of you who couldn't tell the difference
between Veronica and Angela, I love you.
[all laughing]
And I love those of you who could.
And so, you know, I wanna say thank you.
[voice breaks] I wanna say thank you to everybody on this stage.
-Aww. -[audience applauds]
[Peter] I have to say,
your craft and what you bring, it is amazing
working with her and just what...
Something so separate from her,
from who she is as a person.
And I remember, when your character was first changing,
you would look at some of these lines and go,
"I don't even understand this."
-[laughing] -But you played it like you knew
exactly what was going on. [laughs]
So, just, I have so much respect for you
and have so loved working with you.
-[Egypt] Yeah. Aww. -[Peter] You're awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.
-[audience applauding] -Thank you.
And now, Angela, I understand you had the ultimate pleasure
of working with Oprah
when she produced The Color Purple on Broadway.
-Yes. -[Egypt] Wow.
[Angela] Oprah was one of the main producers on the show,
and we didn't find out until we had started rehearsing and everything.
And, um, they had us all gather in rehearsal,
and they said, "We wanna introduce you to our latest producer."
And we all got together like,
"We're ready to go home, y'all."
And here, in walks Oprah.
And it was a huge moment for us.
It truly changed my life
because I had done three Broadway shows prior,
and they don't run sometimes.
So when Oprah walked in the door, I was like, "Ooh, this thing might run."
[all laughing]
Well, here's what Oprah says about the Ice Queen.
There's a hurricane coming, and her name is Veronica.
And when this bitch hits
it destroys everything you've ever known.
Now, Veronica Harrington, whoa!
Phew! So evil, so cold,
she got her very own nick name, the Ice Queen.
And no one could have played her as well
with as much as of the devil in her
as you have done, Angela.
-You're wicked. -Yeah, I am.
Did you think I was gonna get the maid to clean it up?
Enjoy cleaning.
We cannot count how many outrageous things
Veronica did and said over the years.
-Who is this? -I don't know who the hell that is.
From the looks of things, it looks like somebody
who needs a facial, a bath and some anti-biotics.
God, Veronica, why does everything have to be such a damn effort with you?
Because I'm a queen and I require maintenance.
[Oprah] I certainly hope you've had fun playing her
'cause, wow, have you taken us on a ride.
Like the time when she told Jeffrey,
"Who gave you the right to be a homosexual?"
Who, who gave you that right? Who?
Veronica, this is ridiculous.
No, it isn't.
Jeffrey, you're being selfish.
Selfish?
Yeah, this is all about you.
Mom. I'm just trying to tell you that--
Shut up!
[Oprah] It was so hardened, it was so mean, it was...
I don't know where you pull that up from, but ugh!
God, I still get chills thinking about that scene.
[indistinct yelling]
Because of Angela, Veronica will now go down
as one of the most iconic villains on TV.
-Veronica. -That's my name.
I wear it well, don't I? [evil chuckle]
[audience applauding]
So, Angela, I heard you used to take issue
with people calling Veronica crazy, but not anymore?
Well, I still do a little bit,
but I think for the first...
-Peter's looking at me I bet. -[both laughing]
I think for the first, I would say six seasons,
I would go to interviews and people would say,
"Oh, she's crazy, Veronica's crazy."
And I would defend it, I would defend it
because I really feel that, um,
men get to play villains all the time
and they get called ruthless and they get called powerful
and they get called evil,
but rarely do they get called crazy.
And so I thought when a woman steps up
and she's just as evil and just as ruthless
and just as powerful, you wanna call her crazy?
No, she knows everything she's doing.
[all laughing]
So, I didn't...
I didn't... I took issue with it.
But then Tyler went some places
after about season seven,
I was doing an interview, and they said she's crazy, I was like, "Yeah."
[all laughing]
-You know. -[Angela] I was like, "Yeah, she...
She might be a little, you know..."
Well, you kinda got me when I said,
"She died," and you were like, "But did she?"
Maybe she had a body double come out in that black outfit.
And did Peter die in the explosion?
I mean, there are so many questions.
-Tyler's in the back right now writing a new show. -Writing. [laughs]
[Tika] Call Veronica or V.
Let's take another audience question. Now, where's Karyn?
-Oh, my Karyn. Karyn Greer. -Hello. Yes!
-Karyn Greer! -[Karyn] Hello!
[audience cheering]
Huge fan, huge fan, my gosh.
You have turned that role into something fabulous.
-And I agree, I don't think you're dead. -[Egypt] Yeah.
I think that's that maid that likes to dress like you...
-[Egypt] Ah! -...that got killed.
But anyway, my question is I've heard you do interviews,
and you said you had to actually audition
a couple of times for this role.
Uh, you didn't get it the first time.
And you thought perhaps you needed to push it up a notch.
Talk about that.
Aww, thank you, Karyn.
Uh, so I was in Atlanta
doing a musical called Into The Woods
playing the witch. Huh.
And, um... [laughs]
And the casting director and one of the producers
from the studio had come to see it.
And they invited me to come and audition for Meet the Browns
and to have one scene on Meet The Browns.
And I thought I had hit the lottery.
I was like, "Oh, I'mma go do this scene!
And I did not get that part.
But a year-and-a-half later
was when I got the call to audition for Veronica.
And so the moral for anybody in here who had a dream
or who's trying to do something
and who's been rejected a lot, um, just understand
that that no is just maybe "not now."
-And so... -Maybe it's next opportunity.
-I love that. -So, The Haves and The Have Nots turned out to be
so much better.
And Veronica turned out to be a dream come true for me. So...
Yeah, God had something bigger planned for you. Look at that.
Did you get backlash at all
from people who just could not understand
that was my character, this is me.
When someone... people come up to me and say, "I just love you,"
I get a little... like, what about her do you love?
-[all laughing] -[Angela] Like, you know.
Because I, you know, I want to always be sure it's not her homophobia.
Because the gay community has been one of my most supportive.
In the very beginning, it was hard for me to consider being so hated.
But what I tried to do was represent the stories of my friends.
And I knew so many people who had come out
and who had so much resistance and so much rejection.
And so, I felt like if I represented...
those people well and truthfully,
that they would see themselves and say, "That's not me."
Like, "I don't wanna be that."
And maybe, they will approach it differently
if their children came out to them.
So, it was... It was difficult being so hard.
But at the same time, I found it necessary,
and every season, I came back wanting her to be nice.
And one of our hairstylists said to me, "I don't know if this helps...
but... it took my mom 25 years to accept me.
And so, I know you wanna be... You want you guys to hug it out today,
but what you guys were doing is what happened in my life.
And so, you're representing real life.
And that's why we're so connected."
-And it was important. -[audience applauding]
It was important to play that out in this show.
I think it's one of the storylines...
that changed lives in the biggest way, really.
I think it gave people courage, it gave others compassion.
Sometimes also, for people who may have felt the way Veronica felt,
to see it play out on TV made them realize,
"Wow, I'm really not being a good person here."
You know. So, thank you.
-Thank you. Thank you for all that ugliness. -[Egypt and Angela laugh]