Hi, everyone, It's Sophia. Welcome back to Work in Progress. As we begin the new year, I just I can't stay away and I want to lean into the new on Work in Progress. For me personally, that means the debut of my new show, Good Sam. The team behind this show are truly some of the greatest human beings I've ever had the pleasure of working with. There is something magic about what's happening here, and I want to let all of you in on it. For today's episode, I'm going to be speaking with a new castmate who is now an old friend from Good Sam. Sky p Marshall. Sky has been on so many of my favorite shows. You may recognize her from Black Lightning, Love Handles Eight Days a Week, or the chilling and cheers of Sabrina on Netflix. On Good Sam, she plays Dr Lex truly, but in real life, Sky lived a lot of life before she ever got on screen. She is a veteran of the United States Air Force and has worn many career hads since and took it upon herself to make her dreams of performing come true. I'm so excited for you all to get to know my TV bestie a little better and we had such a good conversation that we've actually decided to break this up into two episodes. Let's get started. Well, Hi, hi, baby, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be here, so happy to have you. It's funny. I feel like I don't even know where to start, but I guess, Uh, in case anybody skipped the intro, you all are in for a treat today. You were very lucky that my friend and my TV bestie, sky P Marshall is joining us on Work in Progress today. And I know because they've sent them to us that the listeners have so many questions for us about good saying. I know, but I I like to go back, because everybody who's meeting you on the show is meeting you as the Sky of Today and as someone they likely know from Sabrina and from your other work. But I always like to see how people got started, So let's go back to the beginning. You were born in Chicago. That's actually how we first bonded. Do do you consider yourself like a Chicago in at heart? Oh? You know, that's that's Uh. That's always been a complicated question because yes, I was born in Chicago. Then I relocated to what we like to call the d M v DC Maryland and Virginia until I was twelve. So I have this small town country girl in me. And then in my preteen I head back to Chicago and they taught me real quick how to grow up. So you know, I do have that small town heart, but I am quite street wise because of Chicago, for sure. So yeah, both sides of that coin have created quite the epic adventure of just getting through life at such a young age, that kind of dichotomy of big, fast paced town, well, big fast paced city and small town like quiet. Yeah. I experienced that as a kid, and I think it serves all of us well now because we have to move around and make anywhere home. And when you've made a home in places that are so different, I think you can see anywhere as a potential home. Yeah. Absolutely. And I feel like big cities they just they they come with so many rules. Small town I felt limitless. I had real estate. I have forts in the forest. I would take stuff out of my mother's house and I would take it into the woods and I would build these forts all over the place. Me and my sister, we would stay out late. No one like there wasn't so many rules. And then I got into Chicago and it was just like, don't walk down that street, don't get on that bus, don't stay out after the you know, the sun drops, or don't hang out with those people that you know, make sure you don't turn your hat to the left, make sure you don't wear red, make sure and and it was so overwhelming for me that it started to kind of dim my light that that small town gave me that freedom to feel like I felt like I had an imaginary friend. And I mean it also could be that I was, you know, younger, but it just felt more or freedom in the small town, if you will. Well, And to go back to Chicago as a preteen and to experience some of what you're talking about, like the danger that you've never heard before, of wearing a gang color on the wrong block, of putting your hat on in a way that might suggest you had a loyalty to one group and not another. Absolutely, Yeah, I had to learn how to do what's called a neutral handshake. So in case someone does, you know, walk up or what we would call run up on you and they go for a handshake, you know how to immediately do what's called a neutral handshake that you are not a left or right gang, You're not affiliated. I'm not affiliated at all. I'm neutral. What I mean, what is that experience like as a young kid, because that sounds if you think about it as a story, it sounds like a rude awakening for the lead character and the story of your life. Like no, absolutely, and it's Chicago. You know that being born in Chicago's one thing. But having a return to Chicago at twelve after experiencing a very traumatizing event where we lost everything. I went from riches to rags. So having to now go to Chicago at twelve and ballet turned to hip hop, girl scouts turn to gangs. Um, it was like everything that I knew was completely flipped on its back, and it was very traumatizing and very overwhelming. I remember it separating me and my sister, you know, because my sister, she and I are year and a half apart. And she went I went down the art road. I went to dancing, she went to the streets, and we never even today have reconnected since. So that experience of haveing to fit in and having to adapt and having to figure out what does it mean? To be black because being in a small town of Virginia, it was a predominantly white neighborhood. But they never treated us like we were the only black family because my dad was a doctor, you know, so they just saw that we were all running in the same country club circle. When I got to Chicago and I was now in a neighborhood that was predominantly actually was pretty much black people, it was the uptown of Chicago. That's where I first learned that, like, I was dart skin. That's where I yeah, honey, I didn't. I was like, wait, what was darts gonna light skin? That gave me a whole complex. That's where I learned, um that my hair wasn't good good hair, Like it was just this whole cultural segregation that was happening within the community that I was just like, it was a rude awakening, and rather than being you know, punched down by it, I rose to the occasion and I had to learn how to really love myself with the help of my mother. H did you feel like you could talk to her about what you were learning and experiencing and like the ways you were feeling like you were being made to doubt yourself or did you have that teenage thing of like I'm good and she saw that you weren't. Oh, no, I was. I was. I was and still am a proper mama's girl. Like that's my ace of Spade and my biggest cheerleader in life. And because she grew up in Chicago, she anticipated everything that I was about to experience. So while she would have conversations with me about it and try and prepare me for certain things, it wasn't until I had that real world experience. So you know, she would always ask questions. And because she grew up in that area and my older siblings grew up in that area, they had ears in the streets, so they knew the vice principle of my eighth grade school, like they always knew what was going on and asking questions. So my mom was my protector for sure, but she also through me in the gauntlet, Like she was like letting me take the subway and like letting me go to the South side of Chicago by myself, and like she she allowed me to face my fears in Chicago in a big city that was so unknown, And I think that was I don't think I know that that was the beginning of me creating a relationship with fear. What do you mean by that? Um? So me and fear, like we've been together for a while, things are getting serious. Um. But yeah, it was the beginning of me creating a relationship with your I think when I hear people say again, I'm trying to stop this word think, I don't think. I know. I know that for me, when I hear people say sky, it seems like you're so fearless or like I'm fearless, and it's like none of us are fearless. We're born with fear. You know. Infants scream and cry because they're so hungry, this hungry pain, but you feed it. It's like, oh my god, Okay, all right, I'm I'm safe, I'm okay. You have to tell a toddler that there's no boogeyman in the closet, right, Like, we are always having to have a life experience with fear. And my first real encounter of day to day anxiety in in the trepidation that came with walking around the streets of Chicago. That was a relationship that would paralyze me at times. And my mom was there someone who had had experience to help me through it by making me face it. That then was advanced when I left Chicago at seventeen eighteen to then go into the military. That then trained me in a very sophisticated way on how to now use that fear. So the first thing was a revelation of the fear and then embracing it, and then the military taught me how to use it to my advantage. So I have a healthy relationship with fear. Mhm. If I'm scared of something, I have to do it. Like if I'm scared to say something, I'm like, damn it, now I gotta say it or do something. I'm like, ah, now I have to do it because I'll think about it NonStop. But something that amazes me about you, that I observe in you as your friend is when you say that and you know this about me. If I'm anxious about something, I'm like, I lose all my words, I have no idea how to talk. I'm suddenly like, if I say this thing, then everyone's gonna have their feelings her, I'm gonna it wrong or God. And you somehow have become a human who when you are afraid of something and you're like, I gotta say it. You don't say it with the fear behind it. You say it with like a supreme amount of positivity. You you somehow pushed through to an observer anyway, you push through the thing that makes you fearful with joy, And that to me is like wizard ship. Like you, guys, I'm telling you my friend is magic. The first day that we worked together, I told her she was sparkly. I'm very serious. This woman is covered in glitter. Like, how do you think you learned that? Because that that's a perspective you have. I don't know a lot of people who have it, who have that kind of ability. I think for me it's nobody's like. My emotional reaction or my emotional response is no other human beings responsive ability. That is my responsibility. I don't care what anybody does. My emotional response to anything. That's all on me. So if I do believe that everything is happening for me, it's not happening to me. If it's happening for me, I have to look at it like I don't like this feeling. I don't like, you know, the thoughts that are going onto my head. All right, So how is this supposed to serve me? What am I supposed to learn here? And sometimes I can take thirty seconds before I open my mouth and respond to somebody. Sometimes I can take weeks. It really, it honestly really just depends. It's very ala carte when it comes to how I respond to fear, because sometimes when you see me, I might be in my joy and bliss and sending my way through the experience. But then I'll go home and throw accent to my walls, you know what I mean, Like I have my ways of processing that that emotion. I just don't reject any of the feelings that I have as a human on the entire spectrum. They've all served me. Even when I hear people talk about ego, like ego this or ego that. Yeah, but ego can come in hand as well, fear this fear that fear can come in hand, sadness can come in hand. You know, all of our emotions are there to serve us, but we have to be able to just take a moment and figure out what is the lesson here? And that has taken time and I learned that again. I give that credit to the Air Force as well. That's where that began. So how how does that timeline go? You go back to Chicago as a preteen, so you go back to Chicago twelve, Uh, finish up high school and then in order to go to college, I had to get Uncle Sam to be my sugar daddy, my all my books. Um, but yeah, I went to military because I wanted to go to college, like that was very important to me. So how does that process begin? Like when you when you're sitting there saying, Okay, the military is going to be my opportunity for higher education. Where do you go? Who do you go to see? Are you getting recruited or do you have to go and volunteer? Like what's what's the process for you at eighteen to do that? So the process for me was when I was in high school. I went to Lincoln Park High School and a lot of girls in my high school we're getting pregnant, dropping out, And then there were the other girls, of course that we're excelling and getting like incredible grades. I was one of those, but I was surrounded by a lot of girls that we're having babies, and it scared me and I decided I need out. So I applied to a bunch of different universities, and I got into an HBCU called Hampton University in Virginia. I went to Hampton now as HBCU, historically black university. I didn't know that I was no longer the minority, so that financial aid was not going to be available to me, which was so brilliant for the white students that were there because now they were able to get the financial aid because they were the minority of the university. And I was like, oh my god, this is genius. And I didn't even I didn't even think about that, right, So I call my white friends like, y'all need to go to HBC When I was kidding a girl, you get to be a minority, So uh yeah, that freshman year was a penny, you know. And one thing I remember hearing from my father with med school and my and my mom when she went to school for to be a teacher was student debt. Money was a big, big fight in arguments and in just a dark cloud, and a lot of it was good old Sally May. So I grew up thinking Sally May was a real woman and she I know exactly what she looks like in my head, and I thought that she was a woman that kept calling my dad asking for money. Wait wait, wait wait what is what does Sky's Sally May look like? I need to know? So Sally maybe she has this um she's a white lady naturally and not just kidding, but no, she is this tan white woman who um has like this gray, beautiful thick hair with a nice little Southern curl to it and the sweetest face like the big rosy cheeks. The nicest woman. She gave you that money, so you can go get that to Gred. She's just following through on the deal. She sounds like a character on designing women like her Delta birth. We're probably best exactly what it is. Yeah, the sweetest woman, great energy, but she needs her money back. But Sally needs that needs that check back that that you you know, Um, I just did want to have a relationship with Sally May. I didn't. So that's where the idea of going to the military came. And now this idea came in after I just like one prom quein in high school. So I didn't tell anyone because they would think it was absurd, Like, wait, what the Milton, you don't that's not what, that's not what we did. We don't. We don't do that, So I didn't tell anyone. So I walked into a recruiting office for the Navy because that's when initially I was going to go into the Navy. But then I found out that you gotta get your hair wet, and I was kidding then I was gonna with my hair and I was like, um no. But I went in and did what's called the ASVAP tests, and that is like the S A T A C T for the military, so they can determine on your scores, your score chart, which branch will you qualify for Army and uh, the Navy, I believe are equals somewhere around the Marines is somewhere in the thirties. Don't quote me on this please, but to get into the Air Force that was like eighty percent or higher. Yeah, very challenging. So I get back to the recruiting office and the Navy recruiter says, you pass. You're in. Now we're gonna go and do your physical exam and done. You'll be in on the same day. No, it's like the test is one day. Were called recruiting thing is one day and then you go back to a place called maps and you do your as MAAP test and then when you get the scores in, now you've got to go and do like a whole physical examination, which is like, it's intense. It's like what you see in the movies of like a cattle line of human beings testing their vision and your physical abilities and just the whole shebang. Right, So I go and I do that, and then I'm done with my physical and now at the end of the physical hours later, you have to now get in line to go into a room to swear in into the military. Right once you swear in and you dropped that salute, they own you for the next however long your contract is. My was four years. So I was standing in line in the Navy line, but I'm looking across the hall at the Air Force line, and they looked cool. They were like the cheerleader and football players in the cafeteria. I don't know what it was, but I was just like, man, they look way more fun. It was the most ridiculous choice to to shift my entire perspective in that moment, but it did. I was seventeen, you know, and so I left and I didn't swear in, and I went back to the recruiting office and I asked him what was my as VAB score because he never told me. And when he told me my as VAB score, and he looked like he didn't want me to know, and he was like, you got a eighty three. And I was like, And I ran across the hall into the Air Force recruiting office and I was just like, let's go swear in today. And I did and and and that's how I ended up in the military. And I have zero student debt. And I've ever met Sally May. I'll never know what she looks like. Okay, so then how how does the process go? You swear in? But then do you stay at your university or do you go to a military college or like what's the what's the time? So I never went back to Hampton because I couldn't afford it. So because I couldn't go back to Hampton, my only option was Chicago. So I'm like, I'm going into the military. And I didn't tell my mom until after I scored high on the as BAP tests. She didn't even know that I was going to take the actual test because I just wanted to see how far could I take this before actually committing. I'm not good at enrolling other people in my decision making because it's not their life. Now. I love to consult people that I love and trust or that I just respect because of you know who they may be in the world. Um just so I can learn. I love to learn from people. But when it comes to those high octane moments where it's like, is that the blue peel of the red peel, I really had to lean on me and spirit and universe, guy, everything you want to believe in. Um So when I then went and swore in that next day, I was on a bus to the airport and I was gone. Yeah, I was gone, and showed up to boot camp in uh San Antonio, Texas. And it was so funny because well it wasn't that funny because it was August, so it was bleeding hot in San Antonio, Texas. But it was funny because I get to I I arrived to boot camp and we're all being like rushed off the bus and our t I are training instructors like showing up and like already giving us the energy that we all know that we in television, right, And He's like, is there anybody here that knows how to play an instrument. And I'm sitting up here like what, so raised my hand and he's like, what do you play? I was like, um, symbols because in my head that's just the easiest that I can like improvise with. I was like, symbols. I'm really I could play symbols. And then and then he was like okay, great, go over there. So then we're all being whisked over to this other area of boot camp and then we end up inside of a band room. Stop. This is too much a lot of people know about this, so I just I was like, oh my god, where's we're indoors, there's air conditioning. Wait, okay, what's happening. So then they're just like, all right, you guys are the band, the band of boot Camp. I did not see this in the pamphlet um And they're like, you guys in the band. Every Friday, a new group of of of Airmen are going to be graduating boot Camp, and you're the band is going to play at their graduation every Friday. And I was like, oh, this is lovely because in my head all I knew was that means we're gonna have to rehearse, and that's gonna indoors and air conditioning, and I'm not going to be outside. And yeah, and then there was a band member from the band at Hampton University, because I danced with the band at Hampton University that was in that flight, And I couldn't believe it because he was my assigned big brother at Hampton University. So when we saw each other, we just burst into tears because neither one of us told each other that we were going to the military. So for he and I both end up in a band flight in boot camp right after Hampton University's band experience. I mean, it's just you. You already know you know me, We have so many conversations. The synchronicities that happened in my life are just incredibly mind blowing and so inspiring for me to just keep going. You know, did having a friend there make you feel like you were going to be okay at the start of something that I imagine is pretty scary. Yeah, absolutely, because, um, you know, you're not allowed cell phones anything, You're not allowed any connection to the outside world because their job is to break you down as a civilian and rebuild you as a soldier, so they can't have any outside influence interfering with that process. But my flight of women, and I was the flight leader of my flight of forty, was in a barrack right next to the mail flight and there's a door that separates us. So we called that door the telephone. So anytime somebody would knock on the door, anybody around the door would be like who is it? And they'll be like it's John and look sky there and like skytt come to the phone and it's the door, right, and then you just come to the door and sit on the door and just like talk under the door through the door to whoever is there. So like we were able to just converse through the door and that was really nice. Um. And then there was a girl who didn't graduate from boot camp because of medical reasons. But they'll still keep you there and make you work, but you're not held to all the rules and relations. So I got her to sneak in some snacks um and a cell phone once. So you know, I played my I played my part well, I got what I needed. So but yeah, no, it was challenging but very rewarding. But as a flight leader, if anybody messed up and had to say do push ups or run laps or whatever, I had to do it with them. So that was the beginning of having an accountability partner, which if I did not have that, even up until today, I wouldn't. I definitely would not have accomplished what I have accomplished thus far. What do you think it is about accountability? The thing about accountability for me is that we can have a dream, we can have a goal, we have a vision, you can have motivation and inspiration. That's that's that's great. But what I have learned that gets real results is habits. That's what gets real results. Is what are you doing even when you don't want to do it? You know, Um, A lot of people would would ask, because I do I still do this today as soon as I can put my feet on the floor and make my bed. And I've been doing that ever since, you know, the training that I had in the service, And people would say, like, what is there with the military in the in the bed, in the bed, in the bed, and I'm like, it's not about the bed. It's about creating discipline. It's about when you wake up in the morning, you start the day with something that you don't probably want to do, and it will start to roll out throughout the day. So discipline for me in habit is very important. And for me to stay habitual, I needed those accountability partners, you know, um which later in life I changed the name to destiny advocates, so I have a few of those. You're one of them. You became one of them, for sure. But I can tell I can spot a destiny advocate where I'm like, oh, this person is supposed to be in my life on purpose, Like there's there's purpose in the relationship, and the version of me that shows up is just a little bit, just a little bit different than what the day to day you know, associate or family member may receive. Why do you think that is? Like when we're around the people who make us want to be our best selves, why do you think we know? That's a really good question, Sophia Bush. So knowing I don't. I wish I could. I wish I could figure the formula out, But it's a knowing. It usually lines up with certain events that take place, a synchronicity that happens. You see the person once and then you run into them again, and then a third. Oh no, okay, now come here, let's talk. I'm supposed to be someone in your life. You're supposed to be someone in my life. Or we're just supposed to drop some gems on this table right now and walk away. Either way, there is something that I am in to give and or receive in this moment. And if that keeps happening over and over, now you're a destiny advocate. Now you're you're You're there, You're stuck. You're with me for life? How I know it's just synchronicity start to happen. That's my first queue. Or I'll think about the person and they'll text or they'll call it. Energetically the world just my world shifts to reveal to me, pay attention to this relationship or this moment. And I'm very obedient to that feeling and I lean into it and I don't care heavily on their response to it, meaning that if I if I'm the one calling you but you're not calling me, I'm not going to trip about that. I'm really not how you feel about me and none of my business, you know what I mean? Like, I'll just I'll still support, I'll still you know, now some rejects the invitation, then of course I fall back. But um, not everybody has that same reaction or response to you. You know, sometimes it's up to us to just listen. Yeah, I think it can also be so important to remember that we're not all always in the same stages with the people we connect with very important. So like, let's say you and I are in a stage where we have time, glorious, we probably can put in and and output about the same amount of energy. But sometimes, you know, one of us will be in a position where we have time, and we'll meet someone who's supposed to be in our lives who has very little and so then we can give time where they might not be able to give as much in return, but us continuing to show up and give it means more to that person who doesn't have a lot of time than just about anything. And like learning that has been such a lesson for me in terms of trusting how I feel and also trusting that I'm loved. When I'm the one who doesn't have much time and other people show up, it's like it like brings me to my knees. It touches me so deeply, and I think I think choosing to trust your instincts and to and to name what's happening can help you kind of lean into those behaviors. Because you speak of that may not have a lot of time, Please believe they too have their destiny. Advocates that they will make time and that they are on the the see me, end, feel me, hear me, or let's have this, and I feel I don't. I don't think anyone is short of that, even the way that Oprah speaks of sitting fortier, like everyone has that person. Yeah, you know, um, Alicia Keys Over a decade ago said something that's stuck with me forever at an award show, and she said, you can't go through life with with you know, two catchers mits on. You have to be able to give and receive. You know, you can just be there to receive, receive receive. Right. So while I, for instance, I am soaking up as much as I can, watching you and learning from you and studying from you, I then go and like open the door for like like one of our like our extra Kayla, you know who I've been mentoring and I've had her over to help me with a self tape. You know what I mean like she She's like, Okay, here we go. Like anytime I feel rewarded to have somebody that I can learn and watch and and feel supported by in my journey, I then have to go and look back. I have to look back to see is there anyone needing my time that may think I'm too busy? M hmmm. And that's just kind of I don't know. That's been the cycle that's worked for me. I love that, and it's interesting to be able to trace it to those kinds of behaviors. People say, what's with the bed, and you're like, it's not about the bed. About discipline. It's always a principle under the action. So how long did the Air Force last? Like? What all in was your time? Where were you? What's it like to be in the Air Force and be going to school? Like how does that that is that chunk of skies timeline play out? Huh So going to school while in the military was extremely challenging because when I enrolled, I enrolled, it was enrolled. I've been hanging out with way too many life coaches. When I enlisted, um in the military, it was peacetime. Everybody was going into the military, so they can get college paid for. And then that was two thousand, two thousand and one. It got real real quick, and I was like, um, excuse me, Um, I wasn't really trying to like serve my country, like not like that. Can we talk? You're like, could I have a desk job? And we could help out right, because it's it was moving really fast because Bush was the president and there was no social media and uh, we all had like cell phones. They were nice and flippy and fun, but we weren't pulling up the news on our phone, you know. So I was, I mean, I'm gonna share this with a lot of people. But when I was in the military at the time when not eleven happened, I was and what was called motivational camp, and I was like, what is this? What is this? And it was like doing boot camp all over again, even having a canteen on my hip, Like it was just like what is this? And it was while I was in motivational camp that I was watching the television when nine eleven happened, and that timing just was a little that's always been a bit odd to me. Whatever. But then we were all um asked to come to the base and we were like restrained to the base. We had what was called a commander's call, where the commander of the base came and pretty much told us to just go to our dorms and just sit still, sit tight. And that's what we did. And we like didn't really have we didn't have any resources to like pull information from anywhere. So we're just sitting here, like what's gonna happen. Clearly we know the Army and Marines are heading first, right, so we're not stressed. We're air Force. If they need us, the pilots will go, and then the medics in the PGE. You know. So I worked in the hospital. Um, I wasn't stressed at that time because I didn't have enough information and we didn't get to see it. Like, say, if if that happened today, oh my goodness, with a number of social media platforms available, the military would have been in shambles because people would have been sharing and posting like the things that were being said and happening. I'm not even gonna get into that anyway. That's a whole other podcast. But um, that's when it got real. That's when it got very real, and our base slowly started to become a bit chaotic because other military bases were underman because Marines and Army were being deployed constantly, and in order to maintain a base, you have to have people covering all of the positions at home, right, It's not just about let's sending everybody overseas. So, um, they pulled me out of the hospital and ate me a cop. Yeah, so I was a military police officer. So I got out of the military, thank god, and um, to my surprise, I remember I was like, I should do acting, and I thought that that was the most ridiculous idea of all time, and immediately went straight to college because I was like, I did not just go to the military to then go do a job that a high school dropout can do. I'm going to college. So I had that idea for about a week and then it was gone. And then I went to school, and I went to college. I got my bachelor's degree in communication minor and media, and uh, then I got my corporate job that I've always wanted and went to Manhattan because I wanted my Carrie brash Shaw sex in the city life and except I was gonna be Miranda and I wanted my corporate job, and that was the plan. Two years in the corporate I realized the cubicle was my idea of who. But I had worked so hard for that cubicle and what was the job? I worked at a pharmaceutical marketing firm called b g B New York, which I had a good laugh because one of the drugs that I worked on that I had an account with with Bristol Model Squibb in Santa Fe Adventus was Plavix for a proof arterial disease p a D, which is in our upcoming script. You're like, there is I know this one? So um So that's the the alignment of all these like life imitating art moments that I've been having. It just constantly just affirms to me that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and that even deciding to pursue acting at and knowing that I was the underdog, meaning I was about to be thirty with no experience, black female like it just there were very limited opportunities, as everyone told me, and uh, to now see how that life, that adult experience that I had from the military to corporate New York to growing up in Chicago, how I kid, you not. I would say, of the roles that I have done in the industry, have mirrored, mirrored a lot of those experiences, even down to the tiniest detail, like peripheral arterial disease. I mean, all those little things. It's weird when you realize there's something special going on. It's so weird, like the most delicious ways. And it like with our show premiering, people were asking me, you know, did you ever want to do anything other than acting? And I was like, you, guys, I wanted to be a heart surgeon. Like I'm I'm out promoting our show talking about Mr Hallman, who was my ninth grade biology teacher who used to stay through the end of class through lunch with me in the classroom so I could do the next advanced level of the dissections we were doing. Because I was like, I really need to learn this. I'm going to be a surgeon. What what? What? Like? What is happening? And I don't know, it's just such it's such a trip to me, all the little things. And one of the things I want you to tell people about because you're telling me the stories I don't know about the military. But one of the stories I do know about the military is something the audience needs to know because it's a synchronicity before we move on to like changing the career into acting. You working in the hospital in the military, like you don't tell people about it because it's crazy that now you're on the hospital show. No. I got and and my supervisor, um, Sergeant Jimenez, he messaged me. It was just like are you kidding me? Like when the episode aired, so many people from the military like reached out, so like, yeah, I know that way, and I love that. I'm like sitting back like waiting to see like because you know, we're all spread out all over the world. I don't know where they all are, um, so to know that they can find me on social media after I pop up on their screen. Back in the hospital, it's it's not it's pretty wild, but yeah, I was all over that hospital. I started in medical records, which felt hazing. It's like starting in the mail room exactly like it was. It was terrible, um, but again, it really definitely helped with just like crossing your eyes and dotting your tease and like filing is just so like, oh my gosh. Anyway, it's yeah, it's it's intense anyway. Um, until I had like friends of mine messaging me like, so I'm started dating David, can you open up his medical record just to make sure. I'm like a girl. No, people is listening, leave me alone. Um. But yeah, So I went to family practice, and then I had a lieutenant who was running pediatrics who wanted me to come buy pediatrics and I ran out of there immediately. And then I would volunteer at the er when they would need help. So I kind of bounced around there, went up to labor and delivery sometimes when I felt sad because that's where the babies were. Um. And then a lot of people don't know that, like in the hospitals at least in the Air Force. I can't speak for the other branches, but you have plastic surgeons there obviously there for war wounds, but there who are like dependents of of active members like their wives or daughters or whatever, and active duty men and women that would go and get free plastic surgery while they're in the military. So I thought that was pretty wild. Wait, so is that just like in downtime if the plastics it's downtown, the plastic surgeons need work they need, so they got theirs. They have to do that. So like they provided it for free, and when I would mention that to people, they wouldn't they wouldn't believe me, right, But then I'd see like one of my airmen friends walking by with a new set of breasts and I'm like, cool, you did that. Now, let's hope we don't go to war, right because all this is happening again my first year when it was time. That's incredible. Yeah, So working in the hospital in the military, it could be its own TV series because a lot of people don't know like what actually goes on inside of the hospitals on a military base, which is extremely It can be very dramatic and intense from like the PTSD and the mental health ward of course, but then it can also be absolutely hysterical and like say plastics area or um. You know, because when you get free healthcare, everyone shows up and it's a party. So it was fun for me to be able to experience that free healthcare right like just anything anything anybody felt. They just came in, everybody, unlimited, come on in, get your prescriptions. And I still get it today, And isn't that amazing? That it keeps people healthy. Would you would you look at that? If we just had it for everybody, we would spend less annually as a nation on healthcare. You wouldn't have be something, you know, but it's more important to go to space. So yeah, space hotels are. But I have been privileged to have free healthcare my entire adult life. That's incrediblem I definitely had to serve to earn, but I got it, and um, I do wish that everyone got to have that experience for sure. Hell yeah, I just I love hearing about all the departments you worked in and all the surgeries you watched and assisted on and every bit of that that prepped you for this show. And oh my god, I just want to see a scene where there's some incredible military plastic surgeon who can like put any part of a body back together, who's like, nothing's happening. Will somebody just come in for a nose job? Anybody, just somebody come on, Like, I gotta get to forty hours this week, Come on? That is so like all my friends they're begging, just begging for hours, and people are like, I mean, I couldn't use a ship and plant since some year like unbelievable. Oh no, it was and dental, like everybody was like racking up on all the free stuff. It was amazing, It was amazing. It was a blast. Oh man, it is kind of crazy to be filming a show in Canada because like, you know, we're not citizens here. But I had to go to the doctor from my asthma and the fall and I had to go to the pharmacyat to get an inhaler and my inhaler was twelve dollars as an uninsured person, and I was like what, wow, what well this is special? Wow? Yeah, like, oh, you just you've regulated medicine to keep people safe here. This is cool. Who knew? Maybe we'll write a story about it. Isn't it wild too? You become an actor and you just like you see the good scene in every funny thing that happens around you. You're like, this is everywhere and not just a good scene a frame, Like I can see a frame that's like, oh that would be beautiful to shoot something right here. Um, but yeah, I have so many ideas that people are like you should started writing, and I try writing, and I'm just I'm that's not my jam. But I do as an actor, I see scenes constantly. Um or I'll put on a scene myself. I'm very dramatic girl. The right song comes on in the car, I'll do a whole music video in the car. I'm like a casie animal in there. If titanium comes on, yeah, yeah, um that. I think that was definitely the uh, the first, the first cue that I was meant to do to do this for a living, because I've always been quite animated. So how did the how did that sort of repeated hint that you were being sent turn into I'm gonna quit my corporate job where I saw a heart medicine another another nod? How did you decide like, um, I'm gonna go and pursue acting, and then how do you start? So? Um? Well, after the military, while I was going to college, I started working at plastic surgery clinic in Chicago. So that was my part time job outside of the military. Because of my experience, I was like, Okay, I'll go work at the surgery clinic. So I was working at a plastic surgery clinic. Um. And there's a woman there who ran all of our consultations called lilyan chumption and Lily in Chumption said to me all the time, I don't know why you're going to college to go like work a real job. You are supposed to be an actor. Nobody else on the planet was saying this to me. And she was like a fly in my ear buzzing all the time. And I'd be like, Lilian, go away. But I would make everybody laugh so much in the clinic that she would just stare at me and be like, I'm so confused, like why are you doing acting? And I'm like, it was just so random that she kept doing that. She watched the episode, by the way, and called me like, so she's still in my life today, and she called herself your first fan. So she was also like in my ear about it. And it had no effect on me at that time. I was like whatever, I did the job until I finished college, graduated, got hired in New York, went to New York Corporate. Two years into corporate, um I I spoke to my mom and I told my mom. I was like, Mom, I am unhappy. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. And here i am in my late twenties. I know, and I'm not supposed to be doing, and that's this job because I'm eventually going to throw myself out the window or downstairs. Um, I can't do this anymore. And she says to me, Um, well, then that's what you need to ask God for. You need I don't know why I made her a southern bell um. You need to ask God for guidance for um for a vision. And at that time, I did not have a relationship with God. I was a fan of his work, but we didn't talk. You feel me. So I was just like, okay, I'll do that. So I went to bed and I did. I prayed every night. I didn't know. I did not even have a direct prayer as far as specificity. It was just you, whatever I'm supposed to be doing, just tell me. I'll do it. I won't judge it, I'll just I'll just do it whatever it is, like like please like. And I had that kind of like a bit of a question about it. Um. It wasn't like a subtle like cue Bible prayer. And I did that, and two weeks later, I'm not I'll never forget it ever in life. But two weeks later I woke up before my alarm clock and it was as clear as day. I had this very vivid dream. Um, it was very much l A acting all that, and and I woke up and I immediately was like no. I judged it immediately, like, no, hey, I hate l A. B the same narrative that I held onto for ten twelve years. I'm not going to do a job that high school dropout could do. I would say that to myself all the time, over and over and over. The longer you hold onto a narrative, it'll be real, right, it'll be true to you. So I held onto that. No, I did way too much work to go and do a job that anyone could do. And then that moment on I left my apartment and it was everywhere. Buses would go by this says visit California subways of l A. Like people would. Friends were moving to l A. Friends were telling me like, oh my god, have you ever thought about doing acting? All of a sudden, everybody started saying it to me. It was everywhere. It was like the matrix, like people started turning into that agent. And I was just like, okay. So after all of that, I convinced in a very funny way, my boss at the pharmaceutical marketing firm to lay me off and not fire me because I wasn't gonna quit. But if you lay me off, I can get unemployment. If I can get unappoyment, that means that will give me two years to give this a shot. And if it doesn't work out in two years, I'm gonna come back. So I commenced him to do that, and he did, and uh yeah, I got in my car, drove to l A. And I had two years of unemployment and I I worked as an extra on Cside New York for a full season of twenty one episodes. And on that show was an actor by the name of Hill Harper, and Hill Harper, without me asking for permission, became my mentor and I would come to him with questions. He would come to me with answers, and he was very, very professional and just stern with it, like like a like a military way. And I'm I text Hill just the other day and I said to him, I said, whether you know this or not, you were my first in person professional actor mentor when I was an extra on the show. And I isn't it wild that here we both are on Network TV medical dramas with the word good in the title, and that's what he would always say to me. He'd be like, did you do do do? Did you get this? Did you do that? I'd be like, yeah, people like good and he would just always say like it was never great or like nothing big and and he replied back and he was just like, I saw you pop up on my TV and my smile was just so big, and I was so proud of you, and I'm so like, he just gave me all the all the flowers. But that's where it started. Hill Hill Harper kind of taught me how to build my foundation and and then I learned from being an extra on the set of c S I New York and from there on that's a whole other conversation as well. Um, I feel like you and I can have multiple, multiple conversations like the process that I've been able to experience while brutal, m levitating. I think that's so important though, because so many people just think some people get like the Midas touch and there are success overnight and it's just not real. I always tell I always tell people it takes ten years to become an overnight. Absolutely, it was ten years until I book this job from when I started. It's hard. It's thousands and thousands of nose. It's like, how am I gonna make rent this month? It's it's crazy, and I don't know. I think there's always something to it. And by the way, even the way that the arts are judged, even the way that you learned picked up or or further to narrative, like oh, high school dropouts do that job. And then like I'll never forget turning around years ago and meeting Mirrors or Vino and being like, oh, this's like Academy Award nominated, like incredible artists, you know. And then I find out that she graduated magna cum lauda from Harvard University, and you know, like yeah, speaks Chinese and like and I just was like cool, yep. I don't know why I judge my profession so hard, but maybe I should stop. Yeah, well that was the thing they here here. I was a front of Hill Harper who has a Harvard law degree, and the roommates with Obama for a semester, so like, the universe could not have aligned me with anybody else to tell me, like you kill that narrative because this man went from having a Harvard law degree to waiting tables kill it. We're done here. And and it wasn't so much that like that's a job that high school dropout does. It was anyone could could go and become an actor like a high school drop I could do it like I could. Anyone can go do it like it's not No, there's no prerequisites, right, But then you realize anyone can't. Anyone absolutely cannot. No, ma'am. Now is there the magic wand effect that happens out there? Yeah, sure that happens, and that's that person's journey. I was thrilled for Lupia when she came out of high school and went straight to the Oscar. I mean when up came out of Yale and went straight to the Oscar. Yep, go girl, get to work. You have work to do. You know, they're not. Everyone's journey is the same, of course, But whether you get tapped at that magic wand or not, it is not easy. Is it worth it? When it's what you love, it's what you're meant to do? Yeah, And you know, I think about it. In any industry, we need a Loopeta story. We need the guys who created Warby Parker. We need, like, we need people who do it and soar fast because they inspire the rest of us to keep going when it's slow astely. You need examples of magic to do your wizarding work. I like that, you know, like who's going to go to Hogwarts if you don't know there's ever a musician. I'm leaning into adjacent now, But yeah, I just I don't know. I love it, and I'm curious when you talk about the journey, you know, learning as an extra, And I love that too. My dad always used to say to me, you know, and before he retired, my dad was a photographer for a long time and he he always said, like, we need to have to hire a photo assistant for the studio. He was like, I never hired the person who's the most impressive. I always hire the person who says, I will do anything to work here. I will stay late and repaint the studio floor every night. I will do runs to the film place, I will pick up launch, I'll make coffee whatever I want to learn. He was like, that's always the person I hire. And when you want to learn and you're willing to do the work, Oh, it's just my favorite kind of people. Why we're here together as well. That's the thing. It's like, it's not about what you're doing, it's about who you're being while you're doing it. Always, So I saw that the extras there were just like I just walking like zombies, Like I'm just an extra, I'm just a background actor. And then whenever they say cut, they just go back to holding and staring their phones or staring their laptop. That's what you're that's what you're doing. That's what you're doing, and that's who you're being. That's great, that's twelve fourteen hours of your day Monday to Friday. That's not who I'm going to be. So instead I would wake up every day and who I was being was a paid intern. This is a paid internship. All I knew was some theater that I tried out and in classes, but I didn't know what banana around the camera and martini shop meant. I don't know any of that kind of stuff like or the difference between the framing and I don't. I knew nothing. So I would sit and stay on set while they would go off to holding. Because in order to be a paid intern, I had to be an intern first, right, So I would take notes. I would I would I would take the call sheet at the end of the day for next day's you know, shoot schedule. I would research the people coming in. Every new director I knew about, I knew the history, I knew where they were from. Um. I was able to have a conversation at that moment. Ever happened with the writers as well, Like I was always a couple steps away from video village. Like it was very strategic, um and and that's what made it a part of the process for me. It wasn't a side job. It was the job that was my mail room, that was my medical records room, you know, Like it was there for me to learn the foundation and to build some principles around the industry. And that's what that did for me. And again without him knowing, Hill became like a bit of my supervisor. And from there I went on to doing those one liners, and then the few more lines, and then a guest star, and then a Top of Show guest star, and then recurring and now here I am in my first series regular. But it's definitely just been me graduating every every year. It just has felt like a shedding of a skin and just consistently graduating. And I do not compare myself to anyone else. I genuinely do not. I believe that I am unique in my own way, and I and to honor how interesting and and crazy and just incredible my parents are, and to honor them, I can't compare myself to anyone else because they are both very dynamic people in their own way. So in order for me to to feel good about the process with all the nose, as you say, is i'd have my only comparison is was to just like, Okay, what did I do last year? Is this year looking better? It is great? Keep going like that was enough for me of just like comparing my my year to last year's, Like did I even make more last year? Great? That I make one new friend? Awesome? Did I? You know, it was just just kind of and and that is just allowed me to watch the growth just you know, kind of consistently take place where I don't stop and quit or see it as rejection, you know, you rather yeah, the whin are you learn? Mm hmmm? And if you when are you learned? You're kind of always winning that part, that part, but you know a lot of times people will romanticize about the goal but dread the execution. And and we we have to just remember that with that goal, having me having this, this is the goal. This was this was the wedding, this was the first child, This was like something I have been planning for for twelve years. Right, it's this moment that I'm having right now. The goal was the thought. The execution was the worst. And that is the part that is it is that's the part that many people dread well. And the irony is when you meet your goal, you only meet it for a moment, and then you have to execute on it. Everything is actually in the execution. And if we only celebrate when we achieve our goal, we celebrate for so few moments in life. Even if the goals are big, it's like, all right, well we got this big show. Now we have to make it. So we better love making things. We better love creating things, whether they get made or not, because then when it does get made, then you get to create it every day. Like And that that's a practice that takes work. Yeah, yeah, being present takes work. Sometimes some of them have to tell myself, stop it just totally right now, right now, look around, Look around, look around, lookin. We ought to be alive. I'm not a singer, sorry, um, but like it's just that I have to do that so so often. Um. I saw this video of Tom Hanks from around table with the Hollywood Reporter and he said, I guess they were asking him because it was cut, but I think they asked him, you know, like like dropping a gym, and he said, um, this two shall pass, like he wished that he really understood that, like this two shall pass when you're feeling low, when you're feeling sad, when you're feeling unsuccessful or or undesired, or this two shell pass, but also when you're feeling high and like you're on top of life and everything is working out in your favor, this two shell pass, you know, and just knowing that time is inevitable, but time is always there to bring you through, bring you. Just just give it time. Just give everything time, you know. And that's what being in this it's like this experience with you all on this show. I just constantly want to just stop time and just sitting it. I know, it's so funny. I mean, and I know I said this to you last night, but like I had such a hard time over the holiday break, Like I was so happy, and you know, we were home, we hosted our family. It was great. But to be present at home meant that I didn't get to see you for weeks. And like I tried to be really conscious when I was home of being off my phone, like just putting my phone away, like I'd leave it in the bedroom, I'd leave it in the bathroom. But like, but that's why I was just after like eight days, I'd start sending you text at all gaps, like, oh my god, I missed you. What are you doing for me every day? Tell me everything again? And then I'm like I don't even know what to say. I just miss you. And it's like and it's crazy because then I have that there are some days when I'm here and I'll realize I haven't talked to my best friend back home in the three weeks, and I'm like, there is just not enough time. If we just had a little more time. But but then what I think is how lucky am I that there are people in my life who if I don't see them for a few days, I ache for their smile, Like I just I like ache to know what they're doing Oh yeah, and that's the long game too, you know, Like that's that's being in it and and finding your people and leaning on your people and and creating a world around you that you want to be in. And like we got to create this, we really did. You want to tell the people how it started Aboutely, Well, this was a lot of fun. Do not forget that this is just part one. I'm so glad that we did this today. Yeah, let's keep doing it.