On today’s “Tamron Hall,” co-stars Whoopi Goldberg and Danielle Deadwyler joined the show to discuss their hit film “Till,” which tells the infamous story of Emmett Till and his family’s fight for justice. During the conversation, Goldberg discussed institutional racism and shared her thoughts on Carolyn Bryant, the woman who accused 14-year-old Till of making advances toward her, resulting in his murder. The two actresses also discussed the film’s Oscar buzz and Goldberg shared that she would be open to hosting the award show for a second time. Also on today’s show, true crime podcaster Ashley Flower of “Crime Junkie” spoke about her popular podcast and how her efforts have supported her listeners in solving their own crime mysteries. See more inside and a video clip…
Whoopi Goldberg on the importance of “Till” in the movement to abolish institutional racism:
“This kind of institutional racism grows insidious and grows out this way. And we saw people start to realize when George Floyd was killed, we talk about Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, this kind of insidious racism that we don’t see as blatant but it is there. We all have to pay attention to this because after us comes you and after you comes somebody else and after somebody else comes the next people, and then nobody’s left. So we have to get this together. That’s why there is no violence to Black bodies [in the film]. But you know, it’s happening. You don’t see it. That’s why I say you can bring an 11-year-old because they need to know the history because as we live in this country, we’re watching people erase history, American history.”
Whoopi Goldberg on Carolyn Bryant, Emmett Till’s accuser, and the recent discovery of an unserved warrant for her arrest:
“Personally, I don’t need her to be in a jail cell. I need her to be in a courtroom. Because I need a lawyer to say to her, ‘Do you see what you’ve wrought?’ And I need her to either say, ‘Yes, I do see it. And I’m devastated that I had a hand in this.’ Or I need her to say, ‘No, I still don’t understand what the big deal is.’ I need her to clear this up for me.”
Whoopi Goldberg on a recent review that inaccurately remarked that she was wearing a fat suit in the film:
“I’m guilty of this too. You write something and you don’t see it as being a snarky comment. But I felt it was important because I wasn’t wearing a fat suit. That was actually me because I’d been sick and had – I mean, that’s a lot of me, you know? But that’s a lot of steroids and painkillers and all kinds of stuff. And I wanted the young lady to know that I needed her to just do a little bit better of a job. You know, when you see me do stuff like this. I’m really trying to do the right thing. You know, I apologize for stuff when I think I’ve done something. They have a hell of a time getting me to do it when they think I’ve done something. But when I think I’ve done something I will generally come out and say it because that’s how I was raised.”
Whoopi Goldberg on striving to be a “halfway decent” person:
“There have been so many things that I have hoped to do in my life and one of them was to be a halfway decent person. You know, I have a tendency, I can be a bit of a…you know, just a ‘bon vivant.’ You know, and so I’m trying to be more compassionate to people. I’m trying to be more understanding because I realized that there are so many things people don’t know, you know, and sometimes if they’ve not been around other kinds of folks that don’t know how to talk to you. So you have to sometimes suck it up.”
Danielle Deadwyler on taking on the role of Emmett Till’s mother:
“That’s the difficulty of trying to decide whether or not you even want to do this kind of role. It’s not that, like, you want to just pass, it’s that you want to give it the reverence that it deserves. I’m from Atlanta. I’ve been rooted in the Civil Rights legacy. I’ve interned and volunteered with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. So this is something that’s been a part of my DNA and so I go into it with that reverence, and I had to, you know, stutter step into even reading the whole script, stutter step into doing the audition, and then having that experience of doing the director session with Chinonye [Chukwu] where we explored the scene where she sees his body for the first time that you know, it’s the most gut wrenching and difficult thing you could possibly even think of it’s beyond those words, right? And so that’s what I’m going into it with. You know that it’s going to be an overwhelming experience.”
In response to recent Oscar buzz surrounding “Till” and if Whoopi Goldberg would host the award show again:
“You know, I’m a big fan of the Oscars,” said Goldberg. “So would you do it again?” Tamron asked. “Oh, yeah. Because it was a lot of fun,” replied Goldberg.
