Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist John Clarence Stewart Interview

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

here today obviously to talk about zoe's extraordinary playlist which is such a great show and for those who are unaware zoe had an mri she had all this music downloaded in her head and now she can hear people's thoughts but they come out as musical numbers and you play simon who recently was promoted to the head of pr for the tech company that uh they all work at together yeah yeah you know um so uh just give me an idea of how season two has been different for you so far than season one and then we'll we'll get into last week's episode because we really want to talk about that absolutely um i feel like um well okay so last season simon's main trajectory and his main his main relationship to zoe was through grief and he was moving through that in his relationship at the end of a relationship and the forging of this grief bond with zoe um actually simon was the first melancholic uh heart song that she heard so it was it was and for me personally as the actor uh the reason i signed on to do zoe is because it was a black man moving through grief i lost my dad similarly like when i was 19 years ago so that's the reason that i wanted to do it it was just so it was a kismet and um uh and this is different because it's it's personal it's not grief necessarily it is a trauma though and so there's there's this there these it's it's very similar in that it's it's grief um it's different in the kind of trauma it is and it's also different because it's in the workplace right and um and another difference that i'm finding in this in this season is that we get into the tension between zoe and simon like there's for for one of the first times uh there's a disconnect between them and everything in their relationship so far has been like hyper connection and so for this it to be about race for it to be um about simon's experience in the world as a black man and for he enjoyed to have this conversation so vulnerably uh is is pretty special to me yeah i was saying earlier it was so well done um that i you know i don't think of myself as being racist or biased against anybody but it made me think of maybe a time when i thought something unconsciously or maybe just made a joke quickly and not even realizing how it's perceived on the other end was that something that i know you were part of the creative process for this episode so was that something that you really wanted to bring across or does it come organically it was something that we wanted to bring across i mean i heard about this episode back in late june july and i felt and at that time it was like three to four weeks after george floyd had been killed and um i was moving through a lot as well as everybody else in the nation in the world and so i got this information from often that he wanted to go the systemic racism route and i had a lot of pause i was like um i felt an immediate sense of responsibility i just wanted to do it the right way yeah um i believe in the power of stories you know and they they have they can they can heal and they can wound and so it was a very strategic and personal thing on everyone's part to make sure that zoe um and simon and mo and tobin and even danny michael davis that all the characters were flushed out but they weren't archetypes or caricatures um because another thing that always resonates with me is like specificity is the thing that breeds the universality right if you don't have the specificity then what you have are a bunch of tropes and a bunch of um convenient things that happen to talk about a specific thing and people an audience i mean we have a very i mean our audience to be an audience of our show you have to be um you have to begin to explore you have to be a smart audience member you can go there you know yeah so the audience is very smart and we don't pull any punches and it was intentional that for zoe each step of the way uh well one that zoe be flawed and she make mistakes um it was very important for zora specifically and myself that that zoe go through this process of growing to go through this process of like learning something of trying and failing and then applying the new thing in spaces where there are no black people present so this conversation she has with danny michael davis is so paranoid because in that space she's she's wielding everything that she's learned up to that moment and without that you have without that you don't have a you don't have an episode in my opinion i love the part where she tried to almost understand what simon was dealing with by saying you know i'm a woman in tech and blah blah blah and he's like i'm a black man in the world you know i it was really very eye-opening that you know you you don't walk in anybody else's shoes and even if you think you can relate you can't um how difficult was that scene for both you and jane to shoot it was incredibly difficult i mean fortunately i have my same team partner is my friend and i trust her you know and um we had many conversations about the scene zora and i talked about that scene is actually drawn from these you know two and a half hour conversations or and i had when i was in my first quarantine here and this idea of the amputation itself this idea of um the parts of of being whitewashed by the lens of another um those are personal experiences that he and i shared with one another as a matter of fact this idea of the amputating of oneself is something that this language is something i've been wrestling with the past like three years and we talked about it and it rolled itself into the episode and i'm really grateful for that that also meant that it was very charged and very personal and um triggering to go there and so even in the in uh uh rehearsal we did our rehearsal um i went back to the green room and i just felt so raw i just i i you know i broke down a little bit and jane was there and she looked at me and she was like are you okay yeah i'm good i'm good and i have to remind myself you know i choose to do this i'm a storyteller this is my instrument this is my choice um and it's it's my joy my responsibility to tell that truth like the point is to go to the nerve that's the thing um and even speaking of that specific scene we we cracked the code on that on the day so zora viking gaga yeah zora our writer but the episode was in the space you know this brilliant scene and he came to me before we shot it and he was like i think we have to earn simon going to this place that he goes to at the end we have to earn him feeling the need to tell his friend this and we experimented with a few different things on the day wow um and the the idea of zoe zoe trying her best to relate and i'll never forget the feeling of receiving that for the first time when when she was trying her best to relate to me and she used you know the closest thing that she could muster which was being a woman in the world in the workplace and this feeling that i had of looking at a friend of mine that i love and i care about and seeing that she's trying her very best to relate in the way that she came but realizing that i still have to articulate to her that it's not the same and um and to do that with a firmness but uh a care um because the intent the intent is the intent in my opinion is to um [Music] is to make sure that the compassion and the empathy that zoe has which she's known for due to her ability encapsulates the entire human being that she's empathizing for um that she's and i think that one of there's this language that always comes to mind to me that compassion without taking in the entire human being is that compassion um is that empathy to take in a portion of a person um uh i think empathy and compassion is taking in the entirety of the human being in front of you and um zoe was forced to do that with simon and with mo and tobin and uh yeah i think that's part of what makes the episode so effective is that it you know a lot of times people try and do these types of episodes and they come off preachy and in this instance it didn't it came off as personal it came off as like i said trying to fit into another person's you know mind and what they're going through and not really being able to step into their shoes um we only have a few minutes left so i want to i want to ask you so much more about the episode but which i loved but um i just want to talk generally about the show we know it's you're on hiatus a little bit now although you're working uh so what can we expect when you guys come back do you have a favorite musical number coming up that we can look forward to what can you tell us you want the spoilers um yes what i can do is tell you this there is um you're gonna see you're gonna see us dip into maximo um very soon um you're gonna see us dip into maximo in this very intentional and uh robust way they have there's a number that happens at maximo that is one of the most um joyous numbers that has ever been on the show so i think that that's one thing to really look forward to also you're going to take a dive into i think what we have right now in this season is you're taking these deep dives into these different character character relationships and you're going to see a deep dive in the relationship um and inside of uh the familial relationship you're going to see a deep dive that you might not expect coming and that is one that i'm i'm really looking forward to everyone going on that journey i think it's going to be yeah well that's certainly something to look forward to um is there a song that you know you love that you if they could fit it into some kind of plot line that you would absolutely want to perform come on yeah yo i mean i like i love music but i okay so there's there are so many different artists and so many different songs um that i would love to sing uh but i will say that there is a there's a few songs that hold a specific place in my life and there's a case of you by joni mitchell um which is i think just one of the best love songs that i've ever heard ever um i think the poetry might make it difficult to find its way into the show yeah but it said yeah because it's like you're like okay uh canada what where um uh and but then i so there's johnny mitchell in billy eilish i love oh my god yeah she's such a revelation you know like for this younger generation like yeah yeah um yeah yeah those two come to mind lenny kravitz is always a favorite and prince is always a favorite too so there you go yeah anything else you want to talk about in the last minute that we have the last minute that we have well and every time if i have some time i just want to thank everybody that's involved so anya adams our director zwarte kenda writer um luther brown uh choreographer extraordinaire mandy moore german meyers jeff mortenson um austin linzberg showrunner it's not a given that we'd even be able to tell the story the way that we have um it takes a lot of courage on behalf of austin and a lot of space and emphasis and listening to the black and brown voices in the room and he did and i'm really happy about that well the episode was phenomenal um and the episode leading up to it as well and i mean the show is just so great and i wish you all the success in the world and i can't wait to see what's coming next and i know we're waiting for hopefully a season three so we'll keep our fingers crossed let's go yeah yeah absolutely thank you so much for your time it was lovely speaking with you today you