- [Interviewer] Do you do any vocal warmups?
- I love a vocal warmup.
- Oh, "I'd like a proper cup of coffee
in a proper copper coffee cup".
- "Give me the gift of the grip top sock".
- "Betty Botter bought some butter
but, said she "This butter's bitter
if I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter"".
[Martin vocalizing]
- You know, I keep doing that.
- You do that before scenes sometimes, too.
- Well that's just to get attention.
- Lily Tomlin would warm up, she'd go.
♪ Beautiful beautiful Copenhagen ♪
[Selena Steve and Martin laughing]
[uplifting music]
- My name is Quinta Brunson.
- Mackenzie Davis.
- HoYeon Jung.
- Denée Benton.
- Angus Cloud.
- My name today is for practical purposes, Michael Keaton.
- Minha Kim.
- Jayme Lawson.
- Lee Jung-jae.
- Brian Tyree Henry.
- [Martin And Steve] My...
- I'm Selena Gomez.
- I'm Martin Short.
- I'm Steve Martin.
Together we're the three amigos.
[all laughing]
- Well, maybe I shouldn't give you my full name.
'Cause then I'll get hacked.
- My name is Himesh Patel.
- Park Hae-soo.
- Melanie Lynskey.
- Okay, I know this, uumh,
[fingers snapping]
- My name is Tawny Cypress.
- Lily James.
- Oh, Hannah Einbinder.
- Joe Alwyn.
Got that one right.
[upbeat music]
- My function is really to tell the story.
- I'm an emotionalist.
- I like to manufacture environments to cry with strangers.
[speaking in foreign language]
- So lucky you get to, you know,
live in make believe and stories.
- Clownery, in short.
- I am primarily a seamstress.
[Selena and Steve laughing]
But when the clothing business gets slow,
I act and ultimately became a Canadian icon.
[upbeat music]
- Probably the hardest scenes, the trickiest scenes
are like the more mundane ones in a way.
It's often like the kind of bigger,
more obvious dramatic ones.
I find anyway you kind of know
where you belong in them,
where you kind of want to sit in them.
And it's the bits that kind of thread everything together,
that for me often need the most unpicking.
- The last episode of season two in Euphoria
when we were doing the whole shootout.
Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot.
There's a kid in here.
- [Man] Drop the knife, now. - There's a kid in here.
Please, don't shoot.
Just having to be so emotional and so vulnerable.
- The last two weeks of Natural Born Killers.
Shooting in a working prison
with rapists and killers.
I had walking pneumonia.
[Juliette laughing]
I mean, what?
- Almost everything, but I would say the bathroom scene
on the episode eight, when she stopped it, the glass.
It was hard to imagine what she feels like at the end.
- I would have to say also Atlanta.
We did episode woods
which is my standalone episode in season two.
I don't know if they meant
for it to be inspired by my personal life,
but I had lost my mother.
- Keep standing still.
You're gone, boy.
- And there's a moment where this homeless man
puts a box cutter to my throat.
And for some reason,
I think we had been filming it for 12 hours and I lost it.
Like, there's a moment
where you literally see this tear come out of my...
And that's real.
Like I truly was like in such a dark place at that time,
and I think that that episode really helped me heal.
- The scene in Birdman.
My character comes out on stage
and that scene with Ed and Naomi.
They're on the bed.
I just got really anxious.
[Michael laughing]
- Take it easy, I know this is hard.
- Shut up!
Shut, shut up!
- Don't do anything stupid.
[Michael punching]
- Eddie, please.
- I hadn't realized that that scene was up.
I thought it was scheduled
for later on in the shooting schedule.
And so, I was pretty panicked.
I kinda locked myself in this little space on the set
because we were ready to go.
And I wasn't...
I didn't think I was quite ready,
but it turns out I was ready.
I just cut everything else loose
and just trusted that it would happen.
[soft music]
- Oh my God, Abbott Elementary.
- I'd have to say Abbott Elementary.
- I just wanna be all of their friends really badly.
- I think The Righteous Gemstones.
- Euphoria.
[Lily laughing]
- The Bachelor of The Bachelorette
or Top Chef as a guest judge or Drag Race as a guest judge.
- Yellowjackets is so bizarre and crazy.
And just like, I don't know,
what these women are doing on this show is unbelievable.
And now, I know what happens to the men on this show
and I'm still willing to take that L.
- I love Atlanta.
I don't know what I would do in Atlanta,
but if there's ever anything.
- White Lotus.
Oh, the other one, Succession.
- Succession.
- Obviously I would do anything on Succession.
I would come into the room holding a file
and say "There's a phone call Mr. Roy".
[soft music]
- I was obsessed with the Simpsons.
- I mean, I was obsessed with Degrassi as a kid.
but then I remember Scandal came out
when I was in high school
and it was my first time like seeing a black woman
really leading a drama in that way and her power suits
and like all these people were in love with her.
I remember seeing Kerry Washington
and I was like "I will be Olivia Pope one day".
- Even Stevens was a really good sitcom.
It was just really well done from top to bottom.
Pushing the boundaries
of what a children's television show could be.
Even as I was watching it I was like
"This is so different from the other shows".
- Gilligan's Island and Three's Company.
- Grey's Anatomy because it was my favorite one
since I was like 15.
- If I'm completely honest, it's Rachel from Friends.
- Ben 10s.
I just thought it was sick
that he could like change into different shapes.
- When I was growing up, I was obsessed
with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And so much so that I once almost jumped out of a window
pretending to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
[soft music]
- Oh my God, do I have to pick this one?
- Diane Keaton.
Because she never did a false take.
And she was always very present in the scene, listening.
- Salma Hayek, if you ever have the luxury
of working with this woman
is the most magical human being I have ever met.
- I learned a lot from Zendaya.
I guess she just taught me to
have some confidence in what I was doing.
- Probably it's Tyler James Williams,
who is on the show I'm on, Abbott Elementary
and plays Gregory.
He's just a well of knowledge about the industry.
- What the hell am I supposed to say?
- We're sitting right here. - Well, yes.
Probably to date would have to be a tie
between Steve and Martin.
For sure.
I've learned so much. - Thank you, that's nice.
- I have to go back to sort of my creative birth
which was Cape Fear.
And I learned so much from Mr. De Niro about professionalism
because his reputation preceded him obviously
as a method guy or whatever,
but you wouldn't know anything about his process,
'cause he did that on his own time.
And then when he showed up on set, he just delivers.
[speaking in foreign language]
- Watching Olivia Colman is pretty amazing
just for her sense of like fun on set and relaxation
and someone who can just
suddenly turn it on is pretty amazing.
[soft music]
- I think I was talking and the phone ringing
and then, "HoYeon, do you have time to talk?"
So I was like "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah".
And then she was like "You got the role".
I'm like "What role?"
She was like "You know, Squid Game".
Oh my God.
I just didn't know what to say.
Still now I can't explain anything about that emotion.
- With this job, Conversations with Friends.
I think because it came about at such a strange time
it was at the tail end of the pandemic
and work that I was meant to do got kind of sidelined
and pushed, finally getting something really special
at the end of that was just like a big joy and relief.
- To be honest with you, it had to be Atlanta.
Like Alfred is my best friend,
like he is the people that I hung out with.
So it just felt natural that I would be Alfred.
And I remember
I'm not a person that dresses up in character,
like I always laugh at those actors
who are like "I'm going in a prison outfit"
or "I'm going dressed up as a lawyer"
or "I'm gonna be a mechanic".
And I'm like "[beeping] is wrong with you?
And why do you have all these costumes?"
But like I just knew that I had to dress like him.
So I ended up wearing like these camouflage shorts,
cargo shorts and like a black polo.
The very first episode, that's what Alfred's wearing.
So what you see Alfred wearing in the first episode
is literally exactly what I wore into my audition.
- Probably for Yellowjackets.
I knew I had to be on this show.
I'm a Jersey girl.
I'm a Stephen King fanatic.
It was right up my alley.
And I hadn't worked in about two years.
So it had come down to the wire for me.
After being in the business for 25 years
and to actually get a character to chew on
was a thrill of a lifetime.
[soft music]
- Oh my God, so many shitty things
that I was like "[beeping] you".
Oh my God.
- Some guy actually said to me, I was just starting out.
He kind of looked at me and said
"You're actually kind of good".
- One time a director said
"Did you rehearse for this scene?"
And I said "Yeah, a little bit".
He was like "Don't do that.
Be ready for anything, be open.
Don't get stuck in one way of doing things, you know?"
- People used to told me "Do like her.
Do like this season model or actors".
I would love to learn from them, but they kind of blame me
because I can't do the same thing like them.
I realized that that doesn't help at all.
It's just fine to be me.
You don't need to be the same with anyone else.
- I had great advice from my agent and heard,
when I was first starting out
and I was really struggling to sort of
really get the job, I was getting close but my nerves,
I'd get this big rash all over my chest and cheeks.
And she just took me for lunch and gave me a pile of books.
She just chose to sort of inspire me
and and tell me what films to watch
so that I wasn't overthinking and panicking.
I thought that was a great gift.
- And this is a little bit of a depressing story
but I lived in England for a couple of years
and then I came over here and I was sort of doing the rounds
and meeting people and a casting director was like
"You just don't have the right look.
Nobody really wants to work with girls who look like you.
Maybe you could try England
where they're okay with people who are more normal looking".
I was like "I just tried England" [laughs].
It was so depressing,
but it did give me like a little spark inside me
'cause I was like "Why does everybody
have to look completely perfect and beautiful?
Don't you wanna see different types of people?"
- Right after I graduated, I had an encounter
with a casting director.
They felt that they were giving advice to me
as a young black actor and said
that I needed to fit four boxes.
That's all I needed to be concerned with.
One of which was urban, which we know what that means.
And then the second was country
and I didn't understand that one.
And then they further clarified "Basically slave".
And in that moment I was like "Oh,
you're not the only one that thinks this way".
And so that gave me all the fire that I needed
so that the roles that I do, you can't fit into any box.
[soft music]
- To be honest, it's probably ones that I haven't got.
- Next, next question [laughs].
- All of them.
I hate auditioning.
I'm the worst auditioner.
- Squid Game.
Of course [laughs].
- I hate auditions.
I'm so bad at auditions,
so every audition is nerve-wracking.
I did one time audition to play Janice Joplin.
I did say like "I don't think this is for me".
And someone said "Oh, it's a great opportunity".
It was so embarrassing.
I was trying to force something that was never gonna happen.
- I don't know, I get nervous.
I get sick to my stomach.
- In the sort of late, early seventies
I was going to audition as a comedian
for The Dean Martin Summer Show.
And I had a comedy act and I went in to audition
and I did my act, but Dean wasn't there,
but his executive assistant was there.
And so I did the, my act for the executive assistant
and then she went in and did it for Dean.
[Selena and Martin laughing]
- There's never not a nerve-wracking audition.
And if it's not nerve-wracking,
then maybe you're doing it wrong.
My first big audition for the ladies at ABC,
this was back in the nineties.
I was meeting these casting directors for the first time.
And I went in looking as cute as I possibly could.
Unfortunately, I was auditioning to play
a crack addicted prostitute
whose baby was found dead in a dumpster.
- Most nerve-wracking audition that I've ever done was
for yesterday in front of Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis
and I had to sing Beatles songs.
Yeah, I was pretty terrified.
[soft music]
- My whole life I was kind of really timid girl and shy
and it was really hard for me to talk in front of others.
But while I'm doing the performance
or while I'm even watching films, I can make my own voice
and express myself, like it's so free.
- It feels like we're in the business of empathy
when it's at its best.
The stories I've gotten to tell
have been really a part of getting to shape
how black women are seen
and that's been really special for me.
[speaking in foreign language]
- 'Cause acting you never can do by yourself.
[speaking in foreign language]
- I would say what I love most about my work
is just the creative fun part.
- I just love being able to be a part of, you know,
creating cool art, you know?
- I really love discovering new comedic talent.
- Representing communities that are often misrepresented
or pushed to the side or left to be observers
and putting them more in the forefront and giving voice.
That to me makes it worth it.
- We're so, so, so lucky to be able to not only
do what you love, but to continually meet new people,
artists, I really still can't believe I get to do it.
- What I love most about my work is
how I can make someone's day.
Just that alone is the coolest feeling in my entire world.