Transcript
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In this episode, I speak with Amri Hardwick all about
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his brand new film Star Trek Section thirty one.
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Let's go.
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Welcome to pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon from my
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Heart Radio your pop culture news, views, reviews and celebrity
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interviews on all the movies, TV, music and pop culture
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u CRABE Weekly. Here's Kyle McMahon.
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Nick Nick added Nick, Hello, and welcome the pop Culture
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Weekly with Kyle McMahon. I. Of course, am Kyle McMahon.
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I thank you so much for hanging out with me
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for another episode of pop Culture Weekly. There. This is
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a short episode. It's just an interview only episode. We
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have another episode coming you know, next week, which will
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be back to the traditional length. We'll have Amanda come
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back on and we'll be talking about you know, well,
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I can't tell you yet, so you don't know, but
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we'll be talking about something cool and have.
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Some interviews for you as well.
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This week it is all about Mari Hardwick and his
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brand new Paramount Plus film, Star Trek Section thirty one.
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So Star Trek Section thirty one is the first Star
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Trek film since what twenty sixteen's Star Trek Beyond, which
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that was those three films are considered the reboot, but
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they're kind of subtitled the Kelvin Timeline, which is a
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whole thing in the Star Trek universe. But this is
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the first This is not only the first Star Trek
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film in nine years since Star Trek Beyond in twenty sixteen,
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it is the first Star Trek film that was not
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made exclusively for theaters. So Star Trek Section thirty one
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is made exclusively for Paramount Plus, which is the home
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of all things Star Trek. Paramount Plus had announced back
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in April twenty twenty three that Section thirty one had
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been in a development as a series as a spin
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off from Star Trek Discovery, which is one of their
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Paramount Plus exclusive Star Trek series. Instead, they were going
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to move forward with a streaming event film with Michelle
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Yoh attached to reprise her role as Philippa from Discovery
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in Star Trek Section thirty one. Of course, Michelle Yeoh
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is amazing, so you know, I've got to ask Amari
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about her. But she plays the leader of the Taran
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Empire in the Mirror universe who has traveled to the
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Prime Universe and joined Starfleet, and O'mari stars as a
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Locke who is a Section thirty one agent who is
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a strategic mastermind with some mental problems, and he wants
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her to pay for her pass by joining his team
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for a covert mission. So basically Section thirty one, which
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is the fourteenth film, by the way, in the Star
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Trek franchise. So Section thirty one is basically a secret
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division of Starfleet and they are tasked with protecting the
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United Federation of Planets, almost in kind of a whatever means,
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you know, no questions asked, will look the other way
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kind of way. So it's a great film. If you're
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a Star Trek fan, you'll love it. Even if you're
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not a Star Trek fan and you just like, you know,
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action and sci fi. It really is a great movie
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to check out. So Amari kind of blew up as
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James Saint Patrick aka Ghost in Power from Stars Who,
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of course I interviewed much of the cast of that franchise,
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including fifty cent, and he was an Army of the
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Dead from Zack Snyder, who has been on the show
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and I love that movie, and he's been in a
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number of other things including Kick Ass, Love That One,
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Spike Lee's Miracle at Saint Anna and Tyler Perry's for
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Colored Girls. He was also just nominated for a twenty
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five Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album for
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the album Concrete and Whiskey, Act to Part one a
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Bourbon thirty series. So that's really cool. So let's just
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jump right into it, my interview with Amari Hardway. So,
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first of all, congratulations on the film.
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What's it like for you? You know, in kind of
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this pre release right now, it's in the can, it's
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almost our How are you feeling.
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I'm feeling good. I'm feeling more refreshed and more light
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than I perhaps was when first being granted the opportunity
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for us as a cast to watch it, when we
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were giving the link. You know that explodes of course
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after a couple of days. Yeah, I'm feeling lighter about
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it and more at that place where the seat that
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I want to sit in and I feel like I'm
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soon able to sit in as that of a fan
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and being able to sit back and enjoy my castmates
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work tonight and the premiere being tonight and in the
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midst of press week. Yeah, there becomes a moment where
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you're perhaps forgetting enough that you were such a part
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of it, and now you get to outside looking in
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really enjoy all the parts of it and all the
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work that the crew did, all the different departments from
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costume to hear and makeup and lighting, director of photography,
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and what his team is brought to the table. Obviously
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what the directors and the writer and the producers have
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equally brought.
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I love that. And what got you?
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I mean you, you know obviously been around a while
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in a number of great projects, but you know, essentially
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you started out as an athlete. Yes, how did you
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get from an athlete to you know, starring in at
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Star Trek film.
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Man, that's a great one, Kal. I was a dude
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who in the midst of IF sport one was soccer, Kyle,
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you know, baseball came pretty quickly after, and then basketball
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was right after that. The family rule was thirteen years
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old before football because I was more stocky and build
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than the elder brother. He did me a solid and
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said I'm okay with me at thirteen, allowing Omari at
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eleven to play football, and so that was really cool.
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But in the same year cow at about eleven years
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of age, man I found poetry that was about the
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year that I wrote my first poem, and it was
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interesting because I didn't know that it was a poem.
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You know, you think you're just writing an idea, and
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by first girlfriend preps that's a moment where I was like, oh,
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this is poetry. And I just really enjoyed those moments
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of watching everything from James Amos, James Evans and Florida
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Evans played bi Asterole and all that, and James Amos
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recently passed away right rest in peace and all that
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had to offer a story, but all the way over
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to Marlon Brando on the Waterfront and my pops one
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of my pop's favorite was cool Hand Luke and what
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Paul Newman met to my pops, a black man from Savannah,
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Georgia who went to college in Boston. Pops and grandfathers
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were able to present a lot of diversity within their
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bag that got had gifted them with Kyle to the
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world in a country that wasn't necessarily checking for a
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lot of what black men had to offer out of
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their grab bag of goodies. And so I found myself
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having permission really early in life to go, so why
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not be an athlete and also be a poet and
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I like acting, and should I go that route? Get
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the University of Georgia and major in journalism, finish in
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the classroom at four, but have a redshirt year to
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play one more year of football at University of Georgia
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SEC football, as you know, no less, and I minor
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in theater. And you know who would have thunk it
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that instead of tomatoes being thrown by teammates that are
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in the NFL, one of whom was Chap Bailey, not
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just in the NFL, one of whom was Terrell Davis,
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not just in the NFL equally, but both of them,
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as you know, in the Hall of Fame, and all
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of them say, Yo, if the football didn't work out, Bro,
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there's something with this theater thing. And that's how I
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kind of found my way to it. And in the
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midst of that cow I found music. And I was
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already musical. I already understood what Frankie Beverly met when
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he said Joe hooy and paying I kind of was like,
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oh right, they go together, and Bro, the best way
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to get down the field on kickoff coverage was to
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get down the field on a set called kickoff coverage
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as a character and whatever character is being asked to play,
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and the greatest of which is an industry that says
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we want your joy and your pain. Thank you, film industry.
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I will bring both. And now I'm able to uh,
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which is hard for me, especially as a Capricorn, to
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boast about anything, but I'm able to boast the reality
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that I've now been you know, Grammy nominated in the
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world of music, which I haven't used to put food
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on the table. So God made me a bag of nuts, bro.
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And I just will always say God because it can't
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you know what I mean. I'm crazy discipline and I'll
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meet him halfway where I can, whilst being super flawed
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and not the greatest of human being. But I'm doing
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okay at using all the shit that he put in
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my bag. I'm pretty I love that.
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I love that. And it's speaking of music, you have
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a your latest single DMX right.
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Yes that that was It actually isn't my most recent single.
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We got other singles, but yes, it was one of
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the big singles, and it was myself in Guapolai, who
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is from the Bay Area, the legendary dear heart of mine,
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who actually has has found her way to stage and
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she was in sparkled with me in a late great
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legend of them all and that being Whitney Houston. And
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in many ways it pays homage to DMX and what
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his hook was and y'all gonna make me lose my
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mind and we just flipped it and made it more
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about the reality of love and that, you know, the
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love story is the greatest of story that makes you
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lose your mind, falling a level kill you or kill
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you softly one of the two.
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Yeah, absolutely, And I love how you you know, you
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are multi faceted. And as you said, you know, all
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the way from the beginning where you're doing poet Street
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and theater and multiple sports, here you are, we're talking
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about your single, We're talking about, you know, a new
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film and not just any film in the Star Trek universe.
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Which to me is you know, it's like this huge thing.
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You know what I mean that I appreciate that my parents,
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my grandparents, this is you know, a multi generational thing
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and here you are right.
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At the front line of it.
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Amazing it.
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I love that you are able to, you know, put
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yourself in these various things. Why did you decide, you know,
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I want to do section thirty one.
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I could piggyback off of what you do. Then you're
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a journalist, Kyle, and you know that. And there's a
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lot of pundits, there's a lot of armchair quarterbacks, there's
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a lot of podcasters who don't necessarily know the art
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of journalism. As a black kid who loved Tom Brokaw,
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and I think what I love most about Tom Brokaw
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is that he was reporting on everything, and you're supposed
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to be unbiased, and he's supposed to make us believe
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that you are not leaning with your eyes to a
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direction in terms of the story you're telling. And I
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think one of the great things about section thirty one
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in Star Trek is that perhaps is the first role
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within my career that I got to be more so
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a journalist, I am sort of the narrator of what
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the universe was three hundred and fifty years prior, because
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a lot comes from three hundred and fifty years prior.
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And I now put this motley crew, ragtag group of
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individuals together so to become a policing agent for all
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the decades and decades ahead for the galaxy, remaining the
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way that Roddenberry wanted the galaxy and Galaxy's plural of
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Star Trek to remain, And in many ways, when you
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think about it, that is me bringing finally my major
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to the forefront and being a journalist. A lock is
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simply a journalist. He's not necessarily actually driving the car
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at all points. He's bringing in different people and he's
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saying they will drive the story the way that I
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want the story driven. And if that's not necessarily the
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journalist on microphone like yourself, it absolutely is the program
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director saying, hey, make sure we cover this subject, Hey
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make sure we talk about this. And so I think
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I just knew that I was a lot more and
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on a journalist. But in many of these opportunities as
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as an actor, I haven't been able to be a
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locke who is reporting the nightly news and where we
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now stand as a society. And that's what made Star
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Trek so cool. It was a reporting from William Shatner's
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Captain Kirk, it was a reporting from Leonard Nimoy's doctor Spock.
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It was they were reporting and then having to deal
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with the fallout of what didn't go down as to
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what they reported. And I think maybe this is the
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first time, bro that I got to play that guy.
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I'm just at a desk like you, albeit me standing
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up and walking around, but I'm still reporting on what
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should be and this was a great opportunity to be
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just that.
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I love that, you know, with Michelle, I mean to