It isn’t often that you get a chance to have a conversation with one of your idols growing up. For our founder Jason G., this was a dream come true. In this Zumble exclusive, Jason has a candid conversation with Tommy Davidson about his book, the impact of his film Strictly Business, and how his character Varnel Hill became a cult classic. Here are a few highlights from that conversation.
On Strictly Business
“I chose Strictly Business because it was like Star Wars or some kind of science fiction fantasy. It’s about a brother from the projects, that gets with a corporate brother, and gets with a black bank, and gets successful. I wanted to be a part of introducing the concept that we can work together. On every single plane economic, personally, socially, the whole thing. And have kind of our own financial destiny. As far as my outlook on the world, that was planting a seed for what’s next for black people and I knew it.”
On how Varnel Hill came about
“Me and Martin are really good friends. We both started in the same scene here. Now we’re both doing shows. We both end up doing the same show. At the same time, I was on In Living Color and he was on that. The writer from In Living Color is the one that said, hey we got something for you over here. So I came and I did it and it ended up being two of the best episodes in TV. I’m going to say this, you haven’t seen the last of him.”
His experience writing his book
“I can take this piece of literature that I wrote, and I can hand it to somebody and they can hand it to somebody else. They can believe that they can make it through an impossible situation. You couldn’t have told me that I could have written a book growing up. At this particular stage in my career I wanted to be doing stuff like this. I didn’t know it would go down at the cost of being ashamed and judged. The message in it for me is I got to become the kind of person that doesn’t judge. That experience had to happen for me to have that in me.”
Words of widsom
“You don’t need nothing but to do what you’ve been given the ability to do. There’s a saying in Hollywood it’s all about who you know. Well, I’ve changed that for me. The way I word it is, it’s all about what you do and who you meet in the process of doing what you’re doing.”
Check out the full interview on In Living Culture Podcast. LISTEN HERE
