[APPLAUSE]
Nicole is my pal.
Oh my God.
She's a good friend, and this is--
this-- the documentary, if you haven't seen it, is so cool,
and I'm so excited you're here.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to be-- this is so bizarre--
I know it's--
--in the best way.
Hi.
[LAUGHTER]
So weird.
Well, Nicole and her husband, Ted Sarandos,
who is basically Netflix, he runs Netflix, are pals.
And I saw you at the Golden Globes the other night,
didn't get to see you later on.
But did you go to parties?
I-- we-- I did.
I stayed out a little longer than I expected,
but it was the Golden Globes, and it was fun.
And you were fantastic, and your speech
was fantastic, wasn't it?
It was a fun night.
[APPLAUSE]
I stayed out too late, too.
I was--
Well, you deserved it.
I had to do a show the next day, and I was hurting.
I was like, I should've just gone right home.
[LAUGHTER]
All right, so I want to talk about, first of all,
it's getting a lot of great nominations,
and congratulations.
Yeah, thank you.
We were at National Board of Review last week in New York,
and they named it top five documentary.
So that was a big honor and--
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
And the African-American Film Critic Association
named it best documentary, and we're nominated
for an NAACP Image Award.
So it's moving.
And this is all from you wanting to do this for your dad?
Yeah.
I mean, what a cool guy.
Explain-- I mean, you can't really
know who this guy is until you watch the documentary.
We don't have time to, but tell everybody a little bit more
about it.
I mean, he is--
he grew up in North Carolina in Jim Crow South,
and under Jim Crow laws, and had a very tough life,
and only went to the ninth grade.
And but thank God, he had mentors along the way.
And he worked at a nightclub, met a manager who
had the musicians.
And he took a liking to my father.
And my dad I think decided I'm going to use the blessings that
were given to me.
And I need to pass these on and open doors
for people that otherwise wouldn't
have any opportunities.
It's almost like he got the golden ticket,
and he realized, I have to do something
because African-Americans, at this time,
we don't have any rights.
We didn't have-- they didn't have civil rights.
They didn't have the right to vote.
But he was still moving forward.
He made it his mission to move people forward.
And I wanted to make a movie that
celebrated the American dream, that celebrated Americans
working together and everybody working together,
all races, genders, everybody just working together.
How did he feel about it?
He loved the film.
I think he was very-- he was shocked.
I don't think he really thought it
was going to be a real movie.
I think he thought it was just going
to be a bunch of people talking about what they did for him,
but I wanted to show the best of America in the worst times,
that we can all--
even with all the drama that has happened in our country, which
happens all around the world, what I love about America
is that we're always seem to be the first to self-correct.
And I think that's important, and that we're
so much more together and so much more similar than not.
And none of the people in the film, by the way, none of them
should have been friends.
None of them should have known each other.
But they were in the right place at the right time,
and they decided to do the right thing.
And it kind of worked out, and he's going to be 89 next month
and--
[APPLAUSE]
In great shape.
So just before we go to break, just some of the things--
when you were growing up in that house, some of the people
that would just be at the house.
Just name some of the people.
Muhammad Ali used to come over and do magic tricks for us
all the time.
He loved doing magic tricks.
Some of the Jackson 5 was there.
Whitney Houston was there a lot.
Bobby Brown was there a lot.
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were there all the time.
Hank Aaron-- Hank Aaron is actually the reason I did
the film because I knew his story better than anyone
else's.
And what he taught-- he taught me how to be courageous
because I didn't know--
I just knew that he broke Babe Ruth's record.
I didn't know that he had to struggle so much while he--
and got all those death threats when
he was breaking the record.
Yeah, wow.
And it taught me to still--
he taught me what courage is, which is you still--
you're afraid, but you just do it afraid.
Right, right.
And he-- knowing that he knew my dad so well,
and I loved him so much, he's the one who kind of gave me
this idea like I should really put this story of all
these people who made it possible
for me to be sitting here.
So the film is for everybody who marched,
and everybody who did sit-ins, and everybody
who had a very uncomfortable life to make
sure that I have the rights that I
do to have a comfortable life.
It's such a good film, and it's--
I can't believe that was your dad and your life,
and your life continues to be amazing.
I love you, and--
Thank you.
It's called The Black Godfather.
It's on Netflix now.
Thank you.
And we'll be right back.