Charles Clark: I start all of my interviews with just saying, “Thank you”. I really appreciate you taking out the time, particularly on such short notice, sir. I really appreciate it.
Darrin DeWitt Henson: You’re welcome. Thank you for your interest in doing the interview, as well.
CC: Oh, most definitely… I start all of my interviews with what is really my signature question and I can’t wait to hear the answer, really… Who is Darrin Henson?
DDH: Darrin DeWitt Henson is a[n] individual who probably asks more of himself than anybody else could ever ask of him, which is how he has the ability to do what he does and in the capacity that he does it… Expecting more from himself than anyone expects from him. That’s who he is. So he can give of himself without feeling exhausted. He prepares properly. He studies properly. He educates properly. He listens properly. He speaks at a time when it’s necessary because we can do the right thing at the wrong time. So, I try to be methodical when I do what I do. He is a person who cares.
CC: Wow. What do you think are the misconceptions of Darrin DeWitt Henson?
DDH: I do not know…
CC: You do not know?
DDH: I do not know. I don’t focus on the negative and I don’t focus on gossip. I don’t focus on misconceptions because they lead you astray. So, I don’t focus on that. One of the things that I’ve learned in my life is whatever you’re looking for is also looking for you. So, if you’re focusing on confusion, you’re going to find it. I don’t focus on those things. So, I don’t know what a misconception about me would be.
CC: Okay. You have honed a career that is really not based on what you’ve done previously. If you go through your credits, from being an award-winning choreographer to an awesome actor, it’s not based on what you’ve done before. How do you pick your projects?
DDH: Um, I think in some respect it is. I think the work that you’ve done speaks for you in the future because that is your business card. That is your resume. That is your reel. Collectively, it’s about the body of work that you do that kind of introduces you to people before you physically get to meet them. But the way that I pick characters is simply from a perspective of a choice of what I am feeling. What is it that I want to convey? Are the characters interesting? Are they whole characters? Are they flawed characters who are evolving? Are these characters, I think, within our society now who need to be heard and seen? Is it someone who I have not played yet? Is it someone that I would like to play and live in a few months of? And will these characters – hopefully – make a difference, a positive difference, in society?
CC: Is there a character that you haven’t played that you really want to play?
DDH: I would like to play a police officer who has joined the force to make a difference but had been introduced to some, uh, not-so-lawful way by his own cohorts or his own peers. In other words, he joined the force to be lawful but within his badge his own peers have taught him to live above the law. But I’d like to see that struggle within him and what the outcome would be. Does he choose the above-the-law perspective or does he choose to be lawful and have some kind of, you know, light disagreement with his peers because of it. I think that would be a very interesting character because we normally see the characters that are the good characters or the ones that are above the law but we never see the ones that kind of struggle with the two.
CC: Wow. What do you think you bring to each and every one of your characters?
DDH: Truth. Truth. I try to bring a holistic truth. We’re not gonna love everybody.
CC: Right.
DDH: And we don’t necessarily hate everyone but we have difficulties because of our own simple belief systems and our own masks with other individuals and with people. It happens in religion all the time. Someone else’s belief that their belief system in God is greater than the other person’s, which is absurd. But, it’s because of our own masks that we wear.
CC: In your recent book, Intimate Thoughts, you said, “It describes my life from a poetic perspective.” What made you want to put down your thoughts about your life thus far? I know you have a lot more you want to share. But what made you at this time in your life and your career want to put pen to paper?
DDH: First of all, I wasn’t writing to write a book. I just always write. I was actually inspired to write the book by many different college professors and/or doctors where I’d lectured somewhere and they’d ask me why didn’t I have a book out and I didn’t have an answer for them at that time. And I heard it so much that… And I heard it from the right person, who is a doctor, and he said, “Darrin, you have to put out a book because you can inspire people to be greater than they are by them hearing these words. And you can’t be everywhere at one time, but a book can, so it can speak for you when you are not necessarily physically there.” So I thought, "You know what?" It would be selfish for me not to write the book. And then I basically got the book published by God’s Child and, uh, that is the history of Intimate Thoughts that is now nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
CC: Most definitely. And congratulations on that, my brotha. I can’t wait to see the show. When the reader gets a copy of your book, what do you want them to come away with?
DDH: I want them to understand that their life is the questions they ask of it. So, sometimes, we have to learn to ask better questions. I want them to understand – and overstand – that whatever you are looking for in life is also looking for you. I want them to understand that when negative things and bad things happen and are existing, also, there are good things happening and existing. I want people to think about the possibility of life not happening to them but happening for them because if you look at something happening for you, it can create a positive change. When something is for you, it means that it’s working for you, to build you, to help you ascend. Normally, when we feel like something is happening to us, it’s negative. If we look at life as happening for us, we can grow.
CC: Most definitely. We’re just coming off of National Mentorship Month. Who have been your mentors and what have you learned from them?
DDH: In life, I look at Jim Brown, who has been a mentor to me. A man named Dr. Maurice A. Lee has been a mentor to me. Michael Jackson was a mentor to me. My father is a mentor to me. I think Tavis Smiley is a mentor to me. You know, these people that I can look at and talk to… Even people that I can read and spend time with. Ah, Tony Robbins – the motivational speaker and the life coach – is a mentor to me. I spent time with him. These are mentors to me because what they do is help me to understand and learn more about myself which means that I am able to learn more about others in life which makes me make better decisions and put into practice daily that which can create positive change in my life and in the lives of people around me.
CC: When you were putting the final touches on your book – I know it’s pictures, poems [and] your intimate thoughts – was there a part of the book where even you had to sit back and say, “Wow, I forgot I learned that”?
DDH: It was the very opening of the book. It’s called Oh, Children. And one of the reasons that I did that is because we as adults are so busy being adults, we forget the child in us which is the dreamer, the believer, the achiever, the one who crawls before they walk, the one who cries before they can talk. And what happens is the process of most stunts our own growth because we miss the child in us and the child is the one who is doubtless, the one who’s the achiever… The one who will jump off of a high ledge because they know that they will land and if they don’t land properly, they’re gonna get back up there because they enjoy the process of understanding that when they learn to jump properly they’re going to have the fun that they wanted to have in the first place. So, it’s not about the process; it’s about the final result. And as adults, we’re so focused on how hard the work may be we forget to keep our eye on the prize which is the end result. So, Oh, Children is that poem.
CC: Wow. What is in the next five years for you?
DDH: The next five years…?
CC: Yes, sir.
DDH: Collectively, it’s to win an [NAACP] Image Award. And it’s not just the award, but it’s the reward that comes from the accolade of knowing that I could do something… And I did it and other people acknowledging that it is helping them which is why I do what I do. It’s not just for me, it’s to help others.
CC: Right.
DDH: It’s to have a production company. Producing movies with content that inspires people to be greater and uplift them from their subconscious mind. I’m gonna say that again: from their subconscious mind. Also, to be a free man... Freedom is what I’m looking for. Freedom. I’m looking and I desire freedom, so if somebody were to ask me what I’m looking for in five years, I want to be free. That means economically, socially, morally, mentally, spiritually free…
CC: Do you think that most people – from your many travels [and] your many conversations – know what it means to be free?
DDH: Unless you have done the work and unless you have discovered and are in proximity with those people who are free, I don’t think that most people understand what true freedom is.
CC: Was there a point when you were afraid to really do the work to really get to know who Darrin DeWitt Henson really is?
DDH: Yeah, I can speak for myself. Yes. I think sometimes when we hold up a mirror, we don’t like what we see. We don’t like what we’ve been practicing. We don’t like what we learned. But when you can take a deep breath and when you can say, “It’s okay. My past doesn’t equal my future…” and you know that… You can move on. And you can move on constructively.
CC: Wow.
DDH: Once I learned that my subconscious is 30,000 times faster and stronger than my conscious mind, I understood that I wasn’t in control of everything that was being stored. But my job was to clean out my computer. And to start controlling what was stored. So, in other words, I had to think about what I was thinking about.
CC: Yes, sir, I understand. I love that. We’re prepping for a special Father’s Day edition of Brotha. Are you a father?
DDH: I am.
CC: I wanted to know, as your children grow into young adulthood, what is the one lesson you want them to remember to say this is what my father taught me?
DDH: What true freedom really is... What true economic, social, physical, spiritual freedom is...Because when you are free, that means that you are outside of the box. And most people think inside of the box and don’t know it because they’re conditioned… Because they sleep in a box bed, in their box-shaped house. They leave and get into their box-shaped cars. They walk into their box-shaped buildings, sit in their box cubicle, turn on their box-shaped computer and then check their inbox.
CC: Hmm, okay…
DDH: How do you think outside of that box? What is it that we have to do? You see, and that comes from the questions that we ask ourselves. So, I just want to be the person – or one of the persons out of the two persons – who originally show them and guide them. And then, they will choose because they will be rightly guided to make their own choices. But their choices will be from the perspective of true freedom.
CC: Yes, sir. When you first started your acting career, did you feel like you were fighting to get out [of] the box? “No, I’m not just a dancer… I am more than what you just think I am…”
DDH: Yes. It was a way for me to express myself in a different way. It was a way for me to express an intellectual side. It was a way for me to express an emotional side. It was a way for me to express a physical side. It was a way for me to express a spiritual side by dealing with those emotions and thoughts and physicality of the character, yes.
CC: Yes, sir. Now, previously in the interview, I asked a question and the answer was you don’t deal with negativity. Love the answer. But in part of that, in not dealing with it, do you feel that sometimes as you go up for a certain role, as you want to create a certain project that sometimes people continu[ally] want to put you in that box?
DDH: Well, a better answer is I do deal with it, but from a positive perspective…
CC: Okay.
DDH: In other words, I know I can’t control what other people do; but I can control what I do and what I say. And when someone else is inhibited by negative thoughts or wanting to put someone in a box, I don’t take it personally.
CC: Yes, sir.
DDH: I don’t take any of that personally. I go. I do the job. And I tell the truth. And as long as I’ve told the truth, and I would suggest it is the other person’s truth in my truth, then that is my job. Where their consciousness lies, it lies within them. But what I have found is that whatever you ask, you will receive. So my job is to be as open, as understanding and as giving as possible. And then everything else falls exactly where it’s supposed to fall.
CC: Yes, sir. I think this is my last question. But every time you give me an answer, I think of two more questions… Okay, what have you learned from your children?
DDH: To continue believing… To be a dreamer and then act upon the dream... To know that anything is possible… To remove fear from my consciousness… I mean, some fear is good, but we’re talking about the fear that castrates your possibilities…
CC: Wow. Yes, sir.
DDH: And to love unconditionally.
CC: Wow. I can keep talking to you but I do have to get you off this phone… I’m gonna let that be my last question. Sir, I really appreciate you taking the time out. I’ve learned a lot in this half an hour. I really appreciate it.
DDH: You’re welcome. I look forward to reading the interview.
CC: Thank you so much, sir.
DDH: Thank you and God bless.
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