-Pal, welcome back to the show.
There's so much to talk about.
One is you just got your doctorate,
an honorary doctorate.
So, yeah, congratulations. [ Cheers and applause ]
Wow. Whoa, wow.
-You see that? -Yeah, yeah. Wow.
You're so different.
-I've never used that one before.
-Yeah. You got a new doctor face.
Yeah, well, interesting. Wow. [ Laughter ]
Here's you at Rutgers University.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Hey. Hey, hey.
-Looking great.
-I just kind of go, hometown.
-You -- You gave the commencement speech, as well.
-I did. I gave the commencement speech.
It was -- -Is that tough?
'Cause it's your home. I mean, you're from New Jersey.
-It is.
I mean, you grow up around this school all your life
and have some dreams of going there,
and life takes you wherever it takes you,
and then, next thing you know,
they want you to do a commencement --
they want to honor you, give you a honorary doctorate.
And... -What did you say to the kids?
-There was like two I had done this year.
I'd done one with Strayer University, as well.
So it was like, okay, it's --
it's time for me to get my doc on.
[ Laughter ]
-Get your doc on. -You know what I mean?
-Yeah, of course. -So...
-But what advice did you give to the kids?
-I'll tell you the one thing is I love school.
I love knowledge. I love learning.
-Yeah. -Like, I went to BMCC
in Lower Manhattan,
and I never got to finish, but I've always studied.
I've always tried to learn.
Like, I have so many books in my house, it's just ridiculous.
So, I just -- I'm always curious about learning, so...
-I love school too. -I support anybody,
especially whether you're just graduating high school,
or whether you're 40 years old
or 60 years old or 80 years old
and you want to go back, go back to school.
-Yeah. Why not? Right? -Get it. Why not?
[ Cheers and applause ]
You, too, could be a doctor. -A doctor.
You, too, could be a doctor.
-Or even make a lot of rap records, some good movies,
and be cool and philanthropize, and you, too, can be a doctor.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, exactly.
I'm sorry about the loss of your -- your mom.
-My mama. -Yeah, I'm so sorry.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -It's a tough thing.
-It was so rough. -It's rough.
-Man, but, you know, I've got to thank you, Jimmy.
You know, Jimmy, you know I love you like cooked food.
[ Laughter ]
And I literally have to love Jimmy like cooked food now
because the night that it all happened, we were home,
and then, all of a sudden, we get this delivery to the door.
And it's like -- it's like pans of food.
You know? And we're like --
I don't know what this -- this has never happened to me.
I don't know what goes on.
But it's these huge pans of food, and there's drink,
and then all this stuff starts coming.
And it -- And it's a gift from -- from Jimmy.
And he sent us some food, some shepherd's pie.
-Yeah. [ Applause ]
-You know? -I love you, you know.
-You don't know. It's just like...
-You don't know you need it. -You don't know you need it.
It's like you got all this food, and then you realize,
"Oh, okay, people start coming, and they're there,
and they want to be there for you,
and they're going to grub down,
and so you're going to need some food."
-Yeah. -So you fed a lot of people,
and I really appreciate you for that.
-Well, I thought about you, because I watched your speech.
-I know you've been through it, and you understand.
-It's tough. It's tough. -Yeah. It's rough.
-But you talked about your mom in the speech about when you --
the first time you performed,
and it made me think about my mom, too.
-Yeah. -When you were playing --
you were in "Wizard of Oz"? -[ Laughs ] Yeah.
-What -- like in grammar school? -Yeah.
You were playing -- You were playing Dorothy?
-There was like three of us, too.
[ Laughter ]
-Three -- There was three Dorothys?
-This is what happened when you go to Catholic school.
You know, everything's got to be fair.
[ Laughter ] -There's three Dorothys.
Yeah, exactly. Why not? -Yeah, so...
So, yeah, there was like three Dorothys.
And there was one who did the first act,
and then another Dorothy for the second act,
and then there was me,
you know, the one who did not quite look so Dorothyish,
but she could sing the hell out of "Home," and so...
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-So I was the one who got to sing "Home."
-Wow. -Yeah, and from that moment on,
I kind of knew that, like, this was something I wanted to do.
-But you -- Did you just get up there,
and you were you like "I don't know what I'm going to do.
I'm just -- I'm Dana.
Or I'm just going to go up, and I'm not Dorothy and..."
-Let me tell you something -- all I know is
I would be terrified to go onstage,
and it still happens to me to this day,
and I've done thousands of shows.
You know, it doesn't matter what I do,
whether it's a speech or anything, you know?
I just look out -- that first like 30 seconds of performing,
I just lock into one person's face,
any person who has, like, that look like...
[ Light laughter ] You know what I mean?
-Yeah. -Like, they're open.
They're, like, smiling.
Everybody else could be sitting like this.
But if I see one person, and they're like...
-Into it. -...I stay with them.
I focus on them,
and then I just basically sing to that person
until I start to relax.
And then I can start working the whole room.
You know what I mean? -'Cause I've seen you do --
I mean, I've known you forever. -Yeah.
-I've seen you just at a restaurant --
they beg you to get onstage.
And you're like, "I don't want to -- okay."
And then you get up, and you crush it.
-You know what I'm saying? -You know what I mean?
Dude, you crush it.
I was like, "Oh, my gosh!" -Tequila.
-That's what I'm talking about! -That's right.
-[ Laughs ] Tequila. -Non-stop.
Shots, shots, shots, shots. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Shots, shots, shots.
But you also -- you also love giving back
and -- and helping people out. -Yeah.
-And the Queen Collective... -Oh, man.
This Queen Collective thing is so cool
that we're working on.
-I love it. Tell everyone what it is.
-So I was at this woman's --
this woman's empowerment sort of thing
a couple of years ago,
and huge people from the industry were there --
Mark Pritchard, who's in charge of P&G,
the top advertisers in the world,
one of the heads from AT&T --
obviously, top advertisers in the world.
-Yeah. -And spent a lot of money.
And they were looking at the, you know,
the disparity between male and female directors
and how many opportunities are given to women
when it comes to advertising,
and who's creating this -- the advertisements that we see?
And I say out of, you know, everything you saw,
every commercial you saw last year,
less than 10% were created by women.
Yet, we buy over 50% of... -Wow.
-The commercials are actually even for women, yes.
-Exactly. So we, like, we got to do something about that.
And it's been the same problem with movies.
So we decided to come up with this idea
where we would find two female directors.
We would take their scripts.
We would select them from this group.
Tribeca, you know, curated it for us.
And we've chosen two people.
We will make their films.
We will support them. We will get them to market.
We'll market, promote them,
and we'll get them in theaters, top to bottom,
and at least add two more people
to that list of people who can direct.
-An opportunity they would never have.
-Yeah, so... [ Cheers and applause ]
-That's all you can do. Doesn't that feel good?
-Yeah, it feels great. -That's got to feel great.
For more information and to find out the progress of that,
you can go on Twitter.
You're @IAMQUEENLATIFAH --
is that right? -Yes.
-Instagram is just @QueenLatifah.
-@QueenLatifah on "Instagrizam"...
[ Laughter ]
...minus the "grizam" part. -And @IAMQUEENLATIFAH, yeah.
Yeah, of course. -[ Laughs ]