Jalen Rose talks taking over an iconic position with Cassandra Freeman
Earlier than actress Cassandra Freeman landed the position of Aunt Viv in Peacock’s “Contemporary Prince” reboot “Bel-Air,” she had come off a heavy position and informed her supervisor she wished to play somebody who was wealthy and exquisite. She wished lighter fare.
“That’s it, I don’t wanna do any extra unhappy tales about black folks,” she informed me on this week’s episode of “Renaissance Man.” “I’m like, ‘I’m completed. I don’t [want to] be crying on the street over my useless black boy. I’m completed with that.’
“However when this position got here via, I used to be like, ‘OK, no, not this one,’” she continued. “And my supervisor referred to as me. He’s like, ‘That is actually all the pieces in your listing.’” However Cassandra didn’t suppose she’d e book it. Her enthusiasm was unnecessarily lukewarm.
“Then lastly I noticed Jalen Rose Morgan Cooper’s trailer of his imaginative and prescient of this factor and I used to be like, ‘Oh, that’s sensible.’ Cooper is a genius.”
She was in Greece, on her first post-COVID trip, when she realized she landed the half. Her supervisor informed her she wanted to select up the telephone, regardless that it was 3 a.m.
“Since I stated, ‘Sure,’ to this position, my life has been a curler coaster of plenty of highs and simply so excessive,” she stated. “I’m simply so relieved how a lot the tradition has embraced this model of the present. I wish to say it’s not a reboot. It’s a deepening of ‘The Contemporary Prince.’”
Final month, Peacock’s adaptation of the sitcom was renewed for its third season and Cassandra’s Aunt Viv continues to thrive. As for creating a powerful TV mother, the Florida native stated Phylicia Rashad as Clair Huxtable and Marla Gibbs in “227” had been inspirations. She additionally channeled Diahann Carroll in “Dynasty.” And he or she has some all-star mother work underneath her belt. In 2016, she portrayed Kevin Durant’s mom within the Lifetime film “The Actual MVP: The Wanda Durant Story.”
Her first appearing gig, when she was recent out of NYU grad faculty, was working with Hollywood legends Denzel Washington and Spike Lee in “Inside Man.”
“They had been all the pieces that I’d hope anyone would have on their first movie set, the place they didn’t deal with me like a child. They handled me like I used to be part of this world simply as a lot as them.”
Cassandra was accustomed to sturdy male figures. She was raised by her father, Mack Freeman, who was Jacksonville’s first black tv reporter, and the one that turned her onto “Star Trek.”
Her father additionally taught her the virtues of the Bible and “The Godfather.” He would quote them each “in the identical sentence,” she stated, including, “He was type of like Martin Luther King to me. He would have these booming speeches and he was very magnanimous. And the women love Mack Freeman. He used to have his personal radio present. He was like a DJ and he was once a Black Panther. I actually grew up within the shadow of being Mack Freeman’s daughter. It used to really feel like I used to be just like the princess of one thing.”
She additionally acquired a significant enhance — and a profession pivot — from Chris Rock, whom she starred alongside within the 2007 rom-com “I Suppose I Love My Spouse.” Cassandra was filming a scene with him and after they reduce, she made a crack about Whitney Houston, which he stated was an ideal joke.
“He’s like, ‘No, no, however you’re actually, actually humorous.’ I used to be like, ‘Actually?’ So due to Chris Rock is why I began my stand-up profession. I labored on the Comedy Retailer, but it surely was actually due to him. I’m such a fan of Chris Rock, and he has been such a assist in my profession,” Cassandra stated, including that he’s all the time checking in on her, advocating for her and asking if she’s getting paid correctly.
“I’m saying, like he’s a supporter of black girls out right here.”
However the greatest MVP in her life is her husband, Tom Paul. “Even on my lowest days, he nonetheless thinks I’m a queen,” she stated.