00:00Tech is the future. Riri, you can actually help people. I know.
00:16My name is Oakley Jones with Essence. Dominique Anthony, how you doing today?
00:19What's up, how you doing? Hey, how are you? I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
00:24Dominique, my first question is asked for you.
00:26In what ways do you think the character of Riri has changed since we last saw her in Wakanda Forever?
00:31Oh man, in Wakanda Forever we were seeing this young girl in a fight or flight situation.
00:40Definitely under duress. In a situation she never could have imagined.
00:46I think for Riri, a lot of her focus was local, absolutely.
00:50Of course, being a young tech genius, she was very well aware of the Wakandans,
00:58but I think that Tala Kunil and that whole experience definitely heightened her sense of urgency
01:05when it came to protecting herself and also wanting to fix her mistakes.
01:09And there was just a lot of panic behind, you know, the choices that were being made.
01:18This time around, we're going back to her hometown.
01:21This is an area that she's very familiar with.
01:24We're going, you know, into her heart.
01:26This is, we're seeing the people that she's come from, the streets that she comes from,
01:32the ones who are closest to her, who've made her who she is, you know, her family and friends.
01:38And with that return home also comes a return to a lot of grief and a little bit of trauma
01:46that she hasn't fully acknowledged or processed, but probably through her time at MIT
01:52and that whole Wakandans journey was kind of able to push off for a prolonged period of time.
01:57And now we've kind of, we've met Mr. Parker Robbins over here
02:02who isn't really allowing her to run away from those internal questions of who she is
02:07and who she wants to be and who she's going to be on the other side of the tragedy that she's experienced.
02:12He's not really allowing her to run away from that anymore.
02:15So, Anthony, the character of Parker Robbins that you just discussed, he's a villain,
02:21but as I was watching the show, I found myself really empathizing with him at times too.
02:26What initially drew you to that character?
02:29I think just, you know, what you just talked about, right?
02:34Like, you know, I didn't want to, you know, we didn't want to just make a character who's a bad guy.
02:38You know, we've seen that before, right?
02:40We want to feel, we want to feel this person.
02:43We want to understand, like, why, like, what made them that way, right?
02:48You know, you think about some of the great villains, Loki or, you know, not to bring up a Hamilton reference,
02:54but, you know, Aaron Burr.
02:56Like, these are people who we empathize, right?
02:58We empathize with them.
02:59We're like, dang, like, I wish you didn't do that, but I understand why you did that, right?
03:04And I think that, you know, Parker is one of those people that, you know, we said, you know,
03:10we just saw a big opportunity to make this guy a relatable person, right?
03:14Like, every villain, every person who does bad things, they got a reason, you know?
03:20Whether we agree with their reason or not, they have a reason, you know?
03:23And, you know, somebody steals, maybe because they don't have the money to get what they need, right?
03:29Like, you know, right, somebody sought revenge on somebody, that's maybe because that person hurt them, right?
03:37Whether we agree with them or not, you know, there's still reasoning behind it.
03:43And I think that I just wanted to find those human parts of him that, you know, people could empathize, you know?
03:49Whether you agree with him or not, you still could understand why he is the way he is and why he does what he does.
03:55So, Dominique, there was a really powerful scene in the series that I saw where RiRi asks Zay, am I a good person?
04:04And I know the dynamic between, like, good and evil and something that RiRi battles with throughout the whole series.
04:09Looking at some of the decisions she made throughout the course of this season, do you think she's a good person and why?
04:15Oh, man.
04:16Yeah, that's a tough question, you know?
04:18Because you never want to just judge or hate.
04:24Literally, like what Anthony is saying right now, I think it's real easy to understand or to see the weight that this young girl is under a bit because of this genius that she was born with.
04:39I think the mental toll that she's carrying is something that we only begin to explore in, like, bits and pieces because of this trauma.
04:51But for other, all intents and purposes, there really is no one that she's met so far that can help unburden her in that regard.
05:01And I think she kind of spirals a bit, like we see.
05:05And so when she gets to that moment of asking if she's a good person, it's like wanting to lean on, you know, her homeboy, this dude who knew her since she was a kid.
05:14Her best friend's not here anymore, so if anybody knows her, it's going to be him.
05:20And I think I have to see RiRi as a good person.
05:23And I have to see her as, you know, a young girl just trying to do the best that she can and really working to be the best version of herself that she can be.
05:32And when she is operating at the level of genius, the potential and what that the bar is set super high.
05:41Yeah.
05:42Well, Anthony, Dominique, thank you so much.
05:44I really appreciate you, too.
05:45It's an amazing show and I can't wait for the world to see it.
