Antonia.
What's up?
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
I'm so excited.
Yeah.
My mom and I, we're such huge fans of you.
We've loved you since So You Think You Can Dance.
We were voting for you.
I told her that I was meeting you, and she freaked out.
And this is what's happening here.
I appreciate that.
Please tell mom I said what's up.
And before we go on, I understand
you sometimes go by Toni.
So should I call you Antonia or Toni?
Please Toni.
Toni.
All right.
Understood.
Yeah.
Now, so moving right along, Allison and I, we
watched every episode of this.
And it's been in the top 10 on Netflix for a few weeks.
So for people that don't know what the show is about,
please tell us about it.
Yeah.
It's a coming-of-age story for Georgia, who is 30 years old,
and her daughter, Jenny, who is 15, as they move to a new town
to start a new life.
And things don't go as planned because Georgia
has a mysterious past that threatens to uproot everything
that they are working so hard to keep together.
It's very mysterious.
It's very juicy.
There's a roller coaster ride of events,
and I hope people really enjoy it.
Absolutely.
Lots of twists and turns.
So my oldest daughter actually put us on to this show.
And we watched the first episode,
and as we kind of watched it, we started
to realize there was a lot within the story that
parallels in our life, with us raising biracial children.
Also, we have a teenager coming up in the house.
So a lot of the dialogue that was going on
and a lot of issues and topics that you touched on in the show
really hit close to home.
And I thought it was really important.
And I found out that some of the dialogue
was actually based on some of your real life experiences.
Right?
Yeah.
It's so great to hear that you can
find some sort of relatability in that.
There are moments where Ginny's friends,
they have microaggressions that they put on her, and yeah.
Some of it comes from my own experiences.
There's a character named Samantha, for example,
in the show.
And she asks Ginny questions that are pretty insensitive
like, what are you?
You look so exotic.
Which one of your parents is white?
I want to have mixed babies, but I don't want
to deal with all that hair.
And I think another character, Brody,
when Ginny has straight hair, he tells her
she looks a lot better with her hair straight.
If only she had it butt, then she would be perfect.
But of course, that's the stereotype.
And yeah.
Those are things that were said to me by some
of my peers growing up, and they didn't really
realize how hurtful those comments were.
And so, to include them in the show, I think,
is really important to bring up discussions about that.
Absolutely.
And then I got to ask too, especially
as an actor getting into this role,
it must also been very therapeutic now
during those times.
Because playing a character like this
and tackling issues like those, I'm
sure you walked away after taping this a lot stronger
than you were before.
But when you were faced with these issues before,
were you Ginny in speaking up?
Because Ginny is not one to be played with.
I know.
So how true to life is that?
That's something that I actually admire in Ginny,
is the fact that she speaks her mind.
When I was that age, I was confused.
I didn't address things in the moment.
I didn't really understand why I felt so much like an outcast
sometimes.
And I feel like a lot of people, they experience things
where something is said to them that is hurtful,
or something is done to them that is hurtful.
But in the moment, you're kind of just surprised.
You don't really know how to process it.
You don't know how to address it.
And it's not until later on that you realize, oh.
This is what happened.
Oh.
I wish I had said this.
And so, definitely, playing Ginny and playing those moments
was very cathartic for me.
I forgave myself, essentially, for not sticking up for myself.
I forgave my friends for not being
aware of what they were doing.
And it definitely brought me closure as an adult.
And that is super powerful.
And I know your parents must be so proud of you.
They are.
They are freaking out.
I moved back home recently, and they are just over the moon
talking about the show every single day.
My mom has seen it thirty times.
That's not an exaggeration.
We got a screener back in December,
so I had access to the show.
And she has since then watched it nearly every single day.
So she's the number one fan for sure.
I appreciate it.
Well, I think everybody else should follow suit.
It's a really good story, y'all.
Ginny and Georgia is now streaming on Netflix.
I'm looking forward to everything
that you have going on in the future.
Seriously.
The best of luck.
Much love to you.
And we'll be back, y'all.