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PeopleTranscript
00:00Hey there, I'm Brian Tyree Henry and you are joining me behind the scenes for my Ebony cover
00:04shoot October issue. You have to have tenacity in order to matriculate through Morehouse.
00:10It was an interesting time for me, you know, because I got in there at the beginning of 2000,
00:14the turn of the millennium. It was also a time of my life where I was really trying
00:19to figure out who I wanted to be and Atlanta, Georgia definitely helped with that. My community
00:24of Spelman was thick as thieves, very tight. I mean, we did some of the most kamikaze missions
00:31when it came to plays. Like one semester I was playing Tartu for Moyer and then the next semester
00:37I was doing an original work by Anna Deavere Smith. So, you know, what was also great was
00:44that we were able to go on into the community of Atlanta. So, you know, we were doing a lot
00:48of theater around the city, but it was just like we, it was like a troop, like a traveling troop
00:52of these black students, like doing theater and it was great. And I just remember immediately,
00:57I was like, oh, these are my people. Like this is where I need to be. The mystique of Morehouse,
01:01you know about it before you even embark on the journey to get there. And so I remember
01:06finally getting to Morehouse and I remember orientation, right? And I remember thinking
01:13very, I just remember thinking, I was like, is this what I really want? You know, like,
01:18is this what I really want to go through? Is, do I feel like I can be who I want to be here? I mean,
01:23like everything that they told me for some reason, I was like, I feel like I have to find my own way.
01:29I don't want to be so rigid within the construct of what this is. What I learned from the lesson
01:34of that is that that's what college is supposed to be about. You know, you finding out who you are,
01:40you experiencing the world the way you want to fight it for your individuality in a way.
01:44And the history and legacy of Morehouse is so deeply rooted in such a wonderful way.
01:49But at the same time, I was like, I really think I have a sense of who I am and who I want to be.
01:54And yeah, I pushed back a lot, more than I should have. But at the end of the day,
01:59I don't think that I'd be sitting here. I don't think that I would be the man in the world that
02:03I am now had I not gone through that experience at this institution. I think knowing that in this
02:11industry, they don't make it easy. Still today, they don't make it easy. It allowed me to have
02:16more freedom because I was like, well, I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing this for me and I'm
02:20doing it for the people who recognize and see me. I think about a lot of the characters that I
02:24have portrayed and most of them are characters that most people wouldn't even allow in their
02:30living rooms. Like if you don't go into certain areas or you aren't in certain places, you probably
02:34would never even interact with them. And so for me, I'm always like, but there's still people
02:39that exist and that you need to know. They're relatable to us. They're our cousins. They're
02:43our friends. They're people like you interact with them. And so I just try to keep the truth
02:48of that. I just try to always play all the different men that I knew in my life and try
02:54to make sure that they see themselves reflected and make sure that they feel like, oh my God,
02:57like, man, we know this dude. Doing theaters is one of my favorite things in the world
03:02because that curtain comes up and then you have two hours maybe to tell a story from beginning
03:06to end and there's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to go. What's really crazy is that
03:09because we're black anyway, we're always trying to figure out how to act and be and move in
03:14different places. Like we are the, like we are the amazing shapeshifters of a culture, like
03:19because we are always told the places we can occupy, where we can be, what's dangerous, what's,
03:23you know, we always do it. We're always doing it. We have to always be culturally conscious,
03:28but there also needs to be a sense of deep pride at the end of the day. What will you fight for?
03:33What are you willing to lay down for? I have Morehouse to credit for that in a big way
03:38because it was like, I don't ever want my visibility to be squashed. We always have to
03:43find ways to move and shapeshift in order to survive. That's just a part of our life.
03:48But at the same time, I just hope that we don't lose the true identity of who we want to be
03:54because sometimes you can get lost in that shapeshifting and then, you know,
03:57there's glitches and you don't even know how to get back to who you were to begin with.
04:00What I love about being in Morehouse in Spelman is that I got to really submit the man that I
04:05wanted to be in the world and recognize all the ways and places and spaces I can
04:10navigate and shapeshift in there, but also come back to the root of who I am.