Episode 146 - Justin Simien

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2019

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This one has been long over-due... Justin Simien, friends! The sensible mind behind Dear White People talks about his high school days, pointing out how this chapter in his life formed a deep love for the arts (07:13), then delves into theater as an entryway into the realm of storytelling (11:32), the past and putting things in perspective (14:37), an introduction to Fosse, Kubrick, and other cinematic influences (17:38), in some cases... separating the art from the artist (22:05), the evolution of who we are vs. who we present ourselves to be (28:18), working in publicity but wanting to make movies (31:44), juggling life and career in his 20's (35:02), who's who in the gay community (36:37), HBO and self-discovery (41:14), being "shady" (44:19), people's approval and the birth of Dear White People (46:26), his father's passing (53:30), references, statements and getting a call from Spike Lee (57:33), the democracy that is storytelling (1:03:12), and where he finds his peace (1:06:18).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. My father passing began a obsession with death, but I had a lot of people pass. My mom was the youngest of nine. And so there were lots of uncles
0:25.4	who are just passing all the way through my upbringing. But it was sort of like, it's honestly
0:32.1	like it's like being told that you have a third arm or something.
0:36.0	Like you almost don't feel the wound because it was cut so long ago.
0:41.0	But now as I'm an adult and I started to explore it, yeah there's a lot of stuff I've had to kind of process about that, about not feeling like I had a full father figure to show me how to walk through the world as a man period as a black man
0:54.7	period not even the gay part just like how do you navigate this world as a black man I
0:59.8	didn't have somebody doing that in front of me. I was really improvising, you know.
1:06.5	That was Justin Simmian. I'm San Francisco, and this is Talk Easy.
1:12.3	Welcome to the show. Oh, Hello everyone welcome to the podcast this is talk easy I'm Sam Fregoso and today on
1:41.6	the show is Justin See Man. My voice is a little bit shot.
1:46.8	I'm gonna blame doing karaoke twice last week.
1:51.6	I really gotta stop singing what you won't do for love by Bobby Caldwell.
1:55.0	It's it's it's getting out of hand and honestly I need a new song so if you have any
1:59.0	suggestions for me I'm open to. You can send him to our email at talk easypot at gmail.com.
2:07.0	I gotta stop doing Bobby Caldwell. I also cannot do because I've done them too many times.
2:13.0	Hello, it's me by Todd Rundgren.
2:15.0	Oh, Darling by The Beatles.
2:18.0	Baby Come Back by Player.
2:21.0	Dirty Work by Steely Dan. Do not recommend these songs. I've done them too many times for my friends.
2:28.0	It's embarrassing at this point. But you know what's not embarrassing? That's what we call Segway. Justin Simmian.
2:36.0	Justin is the showrunner, the producer, creator of dear white people.
2:42.0	The show which is now available to stream on Netflix recently dropped its third season or third volume as they like to call it.
	...

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