Hello, I’m John Boyega, and my last meal would be barbecue ribs, potato salad. Get some baked beans in there, lamb chops, jollof rice and fried plantain with Shirley Temple. Chicken and waffles, for sure. Cheeseburger and fries, orange chicken and fried rice with passion fruit juice. A seafood boil, extra spicy, then sweet potato pie. Vanilla Oreos, red velvet cake with coconut sprinkled in, and a bowl of Haribo gummy bears for dessert. Every person has exactly two things in common, we all gotta eat, and we’re all gonna die. Today we’re joined by actor, producer, fashion icon, and star of the upcoming Netflix movie, “They Cloned Tyrone” out on July 21st. John Boyega, welcome to the show. What’s up, man? No, thank you for having me. I’m hungry. I wrote the word fashion icon in there, and it is true, and I absolutely believe it, but I was like, “What if he shows up in just like a really nice t-shirt?” And you absolutely delivered, so thank you for not making me look like a fool. I mean, this was, you know, garage sale, picked it up on my way. Oh, just this old thing? Yeah. Can you take me shopping out after this man? ‘Cause I need to fix the wardrobe. I mean, I can elevate a few things, man. Don’t you worry. You already got the canvas. I can paint a good one. Thank you. That means the world to me. So, have you ever thought about your last meal before? No. Actually, yes, I have. But random thoughts, probably during banter with my sisters speaking about what we would eat if one of us went to jail, and it was a great time. So, I’ve discussed it for a while actually. Yeah, do you find anything out about yourself when actually sitting down in the process and getting into the meat and potatoes of it? I find that my last meal will definitely be a random combination, a combination that I probably wouldn’t eat normally, but I’d probably want to get, I would wanna get that last taste and just get it all done. Time’s ticking. Yeah, yeah. Time’s ticking, you gotta get it all in. Get a belly ache, and then. You know what I mean? How often do you think about death in general? If this is your last meal, man, you’re going out. Not often, much more when I was younger, stuff used to freak me out, you know? I remember when I first understood death, and unfortunately, it was from a young friend passing as well. I used to think he was sleep as a kid, you know? But sleep, you never wake up, but your body was still there. Then the Nigerians told me the details, my Nigerian parents, and I was just like, “Damn, we never come back?” Yeah. Oh, well. What are the Nigerian-specific details about death that you learned? That you’ve never come back, and it’s is a point in time where all the work that you’ve done kind of shows itself, the results of the decisions you’ve made. That’s the bullet point, you know? That’s just the end, the confirmation, and then they moreso talk about what you’re supposed to be doing in life to make death an important day for you. I feel like most people get that freak out as they get later in life, right? You start like hurdling towards the end point, most young people there are oblivious to it, but you had that from a really young age. Oh, yeah, yeah, unfortunately because of somewhat the environment, and a lot of young people were passing. So, death is something that your parents had to speak to you about it. You just bring it up. But now I’m cool with it, you know what I mean? Everyone in this room’s gonna die. We’re all gonna die. Everybody, give it up for death. It’s the only thing we all have in common. Listen, we still here, so we can eat, you know? On our way, you know what I mean? Well, let’s fill up those bellies before we go, man. You ready? Hell yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it. All right, John. Course number one. We are starting out with some absolute heaters right here. We have jollof rice, we have the barbecued lamb chops. We actually made a homemade suya with cashews, avoiding the peanut allergy right there. We didn’t wanna actually kill you. And then the fried plantains, and then we have some American barbecued baby back ribs right here, some potato salad beans, and then a Shirley Temple to wash it all down. I’m ready to dive. Same, man. I need to dig in, man, I’ll follow your lead, and tell me about this. I mean, you’re Nigerian, you grew up in London. Yep, Nigerian, grew up in London to both Nigerian parents who are specifically Yoruba, and in Africa in general, in several different countries there, Jollof Rice is like one of the kind of the mainstream dishes that people offer you when you go over to their house. Now, the history is they originated from Senegal, I heard, and then it went over to the Ghanaians and various other people, so there is like a conflict on who has the best jollof rice. I see the Twitter arguments about it all the time. All the time, all the time. It gets really deep. Do you have any preferences? Are you willing right now to make that political statement being like, “Senegal,” my cousin from Senegal would die if you said Senegal. Can you just say, “Senegalese jollof rice is the best jollof in the world.” And say, “Cousin Howa, Josh loves you, he is gonna come back for Christmas next year.” That’s real political. It’s just for Howa, man. I mean, I don’t even know if I could be caught dead saying that, but I would say that the Ghanaians have done an incredible job with the jollof rice. But as I always say, the Nigerians perfected it. We’ll dig, man. We got this from a phenomenal Nigerian restaurant called Aduke down in Inglewood, they do great work. I’ll start to dig in. So what I normally do is put the plantain with that, normally my plantain is caught up into little squares. I started eating up, my bad. And then, normally as a Nigerian, you pray for your food before you start eating your food. Amen. Amen. All right. Where’d you guys get this from again? Aduke, down in Inglewood. Aduke, thank you. I love it. And then, we made the lamb ourselves. I’m gonna try some of the lamb. I wanna talk about, we can talk with our mouthful, man. That’s how the show goes. Hell yeah. I wanna talk about your new movie “They Cloned Tyrone,” because on the one hand, it’s just like an incredibly fun movie. There are laugh out loud moments, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx. Absolutely incredible, but also deals with like really heavy, one, social, two, philosophical themes. And one of the ones that I found most interesting was the idea of free will, right? Do we actually have control over the decisions we make, or are they a combination of market forces, companies spending billions of dollars to learn and predict? Do you ultimately think that humans have free will, or we’re all just a product of the things around us? I think mostly we’re a product of the things around us, and we find a sense of freedom within those restrictions. That’s how I feel. I don’t know how I feel about humans having total freedom anyway. There still needs to be some order and structure, but within those structures, we can find some form of freedom. You taste that lamb? Holy crap. Yo, culinary squad, Nicole, everybody, Lily, the lamb. That’s one of the best things I ever tasted, man, I don’t know. I’m automatically being sophisticated with this knife and fork, but I’ll be real, I should have been eating it the way you eating it. I was gonna say, you have much nicer clothes on than me. That’s why I buy a $6 T-shirts. That’s the reason I’m eating this way, if it was a normal day, I’m using these hands. You can take the jacket off. If somebody wants to take his jacket, we can just get real down and dirty with it. Word. There’s another line in “They Cloned Tyrone” that really hit me. It’s said by a villain, so it’s being facetious, but, “Assimilation is better than annihilation.” And this, I mean, these are two examples of just like, incredible black soul food from different parts of the globe, right? Barbecue from the American south, heavily influenced by black cooks and pitmasters. Yep. And then Nigerian food, which there’s a common link to a lot of southern food, right? Yeah. What’s the importance of preserving cultural traditions, and also food traditions? Well, in order not to reach a point in life where none of our food has proper seasoning and flavor, we must ensure that black food, black culture stays within the variety and the buffet of other cultures all around the world. And obviously, I think it’s a food worth sharing. People usually don’t get exposed to native food, and sometimes feel that the variety we have is farfetched. You can have a rice dish with Korean food, you can have a rice dish with American food. It’s good to taste those dishes that you’re familiar with from different cultures, you know? So, I find it important to always try different things, but when it comes with this kind of familiarity, I know plantain is used in various dishes, whether it’s Mexican dishes and all of that. It’s good to just explore it on the other side of the globe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about taking the Harrison Ford to Nigerian food for the first time. Yep. Is that a thing you did? Yep. That was an amazing experience, because we were on set of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and we had filmed the whole day, and I guess the man was tired. Take a rib, man, take a rib. He was just tired of the whole filming, and then we had to be on a diet. And so he asked me on the Falcon, he was just like, “Hey, kid, I want to eat something that’s gonna be a little bit different. If you can take me to a restaurant, I have to rewrap, that would be a great, a great, great time.” I said, “Okay, cool, Harrison, I’m gonna take you over to this Nigerian spot.” As soon as I said that, his bodyguard turns purple and greens like, “Okay, where are you taking this?” ‘Cause obviously, they need to do, you know, it was Harrison Ford. Sure. And I said, “Harrison, where I’m taking you, you can’t rock up with 16 members of your security. That’s gonna attract more attention. So let’s ditch the security, get in the car, get over there, and let’s have ourselves a good time.” He ditched the security man, picked me up at my accommodation at the time, and we drove over to South London to a place on Old Kent Road called 805 where they sell all of this, jollof rice, plantain, pounded yam. Now I’m thinking this is the entry level African food, this is what you would offer. Beginner mode. Especially for our Caucasian brothers and sisters. We need help, thank you. This is how we would introduce you into the flavor, but Harrison went past that and went for the real native meals. The guy had Amala, Ewedu, pounded yam and Egusi, like he ate the food that my forefathers ate. Yeah. He had a really, really good, amazing time with it. He finished every single plate, and even on top of that, as soon as we got back in the car on the way home, he slept like a Nigerian after he has eaten. Which, for me is, I said, “Harrison, you gotta do your Ancestry DNA, got some black in you, boy.” Harrison, when’s the Nollywood debut, man? I’m saying, hook him up, John. When’s the Nollywood debut? But we had an amazing time. That’s incredible. I’m gonna go and get this rib, because. Jump in, yeah, we’ve really been neglecting the ribs here. How did American barbecue end up on your list? Well, I think we have a few restaurants out in London that serve American-style barbecue and stuff, but it’s not until I started going, coming to the states and spending time with my best friend, Asia. She brought me around family, brought me to like barbecues, little family events where they would serve American food, American ribs. And I’m a rib guy, you know? And so, since then I’ve just been a big fan of just American barbecue. Wow. Do you think we’ve replaced God with technology? God? Yeah, well, thinking about the idea of like, so from “They Cloned Tyrone,” it’s like this idea of you don’t have free will because there’s predestination with technology, right? Predicting movement. People used to have that argument, and still do of course about predestination with God. If God is omniscient, all-knowing, then how can we have free will? I feel like we’re dealing with that with technology now. Yeah, but you know what? I mind my business, and that’s biblical. Yeah, yeah. It’s biblical. The God thinking, his ways are not our ways. I try not to get involved in his business. Yeah. I play my position, a human being that doesn’t know it all, and is just trying to figure it out, and trying to have a good heart while in that process. So I would say maybe to a certain extent, yes, you know, tech and God, there may be some debates, but are you ever gonna find out the answer? I’m not sure, just keep your heart good and strong through that process, that’s the most important thing. Just control what you can control. Yeah, control what you can control, because the rest of that, all of that God stuff, that’s some “Harry Potter” shit. That’s Expelliarmus, I can’t get involved in that. I am a physical being, so I have to like, try and do my best through this physical realm before I transition to the other side. I don’t know any Expelliarmus, I know Expelli-ribness though, that’s some good Expelli-ribnesses. Yeah, yeah, they are. That word play was swift, bro. Was it, was it good? I don’t know if it was good. I mean, it was good. It was charming, you know what I mean? Thanks, man. All right, John, course number two. This is something a little bit lighter. We got the fried chicken and waffles coming up here with melted butter, syrup, and hot sauce. We got orange chicken with fried rice. This is all homemade, and then we have a classic cheeseburger and fries, lettuce, tomato, ketchup. Tell me about it. I mean. They’re light. You survive the night. When I started coming to the States doing “Pilot Season” in LA, I was obviously sworn to take public transport during the time, ’cause I couldn’t drive out here. Saying public transport and LA in the same sentence is wild, so in order to make those commutes, you have to be powered by meals that are just light on their feet, but amazing to eat, and so that’s where these options have come from since I’ve been spending time out here. I love that. Dig in, I don’t wanna stop you. Where are you going first? Oh, tell me about the drink. Oh, yes. I mean, this is a recent thing. I don’t know what’s been going on, but this is a passion fruit juice. Passion fruit’s got that little lingering bite. As my sister would say, “Taste the flavors,” you know what I mean? But I just started drinking it because I’m a juice man, and got sweet tooth as you probably noticed, so more flavor, the better. So I was in the store at Ralphs, and they said they got passion fruit. I said, “Yeah, I like passion fruit,” Rah, so I bought it, and now I’m here. I feel like I’ve been talking a lot off camera, I should probably tell them, anything that was on his menu, I was like, “This must be a British thing that I don’t know about. Yeah, yeah. ‘Cause we’re dumb, I thought you’d be like, “Every single person in London drinks this every single morning.” I should have said that. I should have said, “Yeah, this is actually what we do to our tea certain times.” But, yeah, man, this is something I found out here in my journeys in the states, man. I make my tea in the microwave. Dig in, please. I will. I mean, I like the fact that you are stuck to the dark meat too. White meat chicken’s useless. Yeah, I mean, white meat is good. It’s more healthy apparently, more benefits if you’re on a diet and stuff, but if you’re trying to hang that belly a little bit, I’m buying into that dye. You’re dying tomorrow, so like, ain’t no reason skimping. Hey, cheers. Cheers, mate. Oh, it’s so hot. It’s so hot. John, would you mind passing me the hot sauce, please? Well, thank you so much, sir. Thank you. I got some syrup here as well, right? With some butter, melted butter. Just the waffles, and check-in however you do it. I wanna see how you do it. I’ll be real. Since tomorrow’s the last day, ain’t no need to be sophisticated about it. Tip it, tip it. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. I mean, I’m just spreading the love, you know what I mean? Is there anything else you wanna do before you die? Just like, I don’t know, you know, go skydiving and see if we can jump a motorcycle over a bridge? You just told me things that lead to death. Well, yeah, but I’m saying after the meal, after the meal, we’re gonna finish the meal, but. Nah, you know what? I just wanna be around family and friends, and just pass out in the process, man. Just have the last view as the people that I love the most smiling at me. Yeah. And saying, “Bye, John.” You know, that’s what I would want to do. I’m into the whole sentimental stuff, they’re the ones that make life meaningful, so, that’s who I would wanna see on my way out. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It’s funny having that sentimentality, but there’s also a couple stories that I’ve read about you that seem like you almost have this kind of beautiful and very fearless, like disregard for the self. Like you talked about a story of being sort of held captive by a boat captain, right? And being held up for money, and you said, “I’m not giving you anything. If you want to kill both of us out here, if you wanna die at sea, I’m with you. If you’re gonna burn this thing, I’m gonna burn with you.” And reminded me a lot of your Black Lives Matter speech in Hyde Park, where you said, “I might not have a career after this, and I don’t care.” It was like both of those just screamed like utter selflessness and fearlessness. Yeah. Do you think that’s true? To a certain extent. I think those moments have motivated that feeling based on the circumstance, you know? I spontaneously went to a protest because I care about the issues as a black man, and having black family and black people that I love. And then spontaneously, I was given the chance to say something while we were waiting for Bella Macchina’s family, who was a family of one of the victims we were protesting on behalf of. And while I was protesting, I kind of look up and I see a helicopter, and I see more people crowding around. I’m like, “Oh. Oh crap.” To some people, this might go down well, to others, not so much. So it gives that feeling of, you know, “I don’t care. We’re in this moment where it’s important. It is an important issue to highlight. It’s part of my heritage. It’s part of who I am. Just because my life is cool, I’ve got financial stability and all this stuff, doesn’t mean I don’t care about those issues” Now, I can’t lie, there’s some issues I don’t care about. I’m not gonna come in here and be Mr. Green, but there are issues that I am passionate about where I do fixate that based on my life, my experiences. I think in Nigeria, while shooting “Half of a Yellow Sun,” that was a crazy day. The whole reason why I was on a boat by myself while shooting a movie was because we had an explosion scene, and they used those squibs to protect your eardrums. Unfortunately, one of those squibs were forced down my eardrums, and the only ear specialist on that side of Nigeria was now a university lecturer in some remote town in near Caliban across River State. So I had to take this boat over there to get this university lecturer to take this squib out of my ear. So obviously I go down there, they get nurses out. The first thing, as a Nigerian guy, he asked me, “Why did you do this to yourself?” I said, “Uncle, we’re shooting a film. Just get it out of my ear.” He gets it out of my ear, little spots of blood, but I’m fine. And I get to the docks wanting to go back to set because we’re shooting on an island called Creek Town, and I accidentally get on this boat that I thought that the crew had paid for. But unfortunately, once we got to the middle of the lovely, the lovely oceans, they decided to stop the boat and try to rob me, and that’s where that conflict, I wouldn’t say it’s bravery. I feel like it’s matter of a fact, because we’re in the waters. You wanna rob me? I don’t have no family members or no backup in a side of the country I don’t really know. It’s either me or you are gonna die, right? Because you’re not- Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. When you like actually think about it, that’s kind of like the only option, so I was merely just stating what was factual, that you’re just gonna have two bodies on the boat, and why would you want that? But like, most people don’t, like in the face of that, they react with fear, they don’t react with logic. And I remember you talking about you kind of reaching this crossroads where you realized early in your career, you started acting when you were like 19, 20. I mean, you started acting much earlier than that, really coming up in your early 20s, and you could have just taken as much money as possible and run and shut the hell up, and you didn’t. And I remember hearing you talk about that, and you said that you sort of just forecast out the future, that how would you feel about yourself if you just took the money, retreated to a Hollywood life, took up a rich person hobby like sailing, or if you actually helped pave the road for other people that are gonna come after you. And you were like, “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do that.” There’s something intrinsic inside you that makes you choose those sort of harder decisions, but you see them as logical. Yeah, to a certain extent, I feel also, because I feel like when people, when you get into a certain position in life, people feel like all of a sudden, everybody you know is in money. And every problem they have is solved, and you move away to a lovely, nice little mansion, and you don’t need to worry about anything. Yeah. If anything, when you are the one person in your group that gets to a certain part of success, you are now exposed to the issues that surround the people around you, their friends, people from your community, people that you were friends with coming up. And you are actually more exposed to the issues, because a lot of the times, if, especially finances is the answer, you could possibly help. So, whereas you are dealing with the stereotype of, “Oh, you got the money now, just go to a house and chill,” the reality for me is that no, you know? Once you get this opportunity, it is about opening doors for others, and that’s exactly what happened to me. I was blessed by those who said, “Okay, let me put my hand in my own pocket and help John, whether it’s my agent for me, whether it’s youth leader, Pastor Fuller or Steve McQueen that came to talk to us in college.” I kind of have been a beneficiary of charitable people, so for me, I just kind of like, if I keep this going, perhaps the good Lord would be like, “Okay, all right, we’re not gonna lose him for a second. He’s got a mission.” So, it’s a way to stay on the planet too. John, course number three. Yep. We finally reached it. We got we the seafood boil with the king crab legs. Dig in, help me dump it out. Got a couple pounds of shrimp, some corn, potatoes. That’s a big ass crab. Oh, that was our pet. We named him, Trevor even took him home. I mean, I can’t lie, you guys should have took the head off that shrimp. It’s looking at me. But, no, well, hold on. You gotta like do the shrimp head proper. You don’t need the shrimp heads? Nah, nah, nah, I don’t deal with that. I can’t. Come on, but you take the shrimp head, you dip in the sauce, and you go. Alright, lemme try it. I think I just pushed John over the edge. That was my bad, that was rude. I’m your show host, I need to be respectful. I can taste his thoughts. What’s the shrimp thinking? I don’t know, he’s scared. Tell me about the shrimp boil. What’s the first time you had like just a big old cajun shrimp boil. This is gonna be crazy, but the first time I had this was 2021. Wow. Ever, the first time ever in my life. My family eats it, but I just kind of stayed away because it was too many eyes involved in it. Just as like, ain’t just a lot of ocean creatures, and I just didn’t grow up with the option of eating it. But then recently, in Atlanta, I went on a date with a sweet one, and I had plans to where I was gonna take her. I was like, “No, no, don’t worry babe. I’ll take you to STK, you know, go somewhere nice or whatever it is.” And then she said, “No, I wanna go Juicy Crab.” I said, “All right, baby. Cool, we can go Juicy Crab. All right, it’s gonna be on your dime though.” She said, “All right.” She took me Juicy Crab, had the best date, best meal ever, and that’s the first time I had this. I’m a big proponent of eating the messiest thing you can on a first date, ’cause it’s like a stress test, right? Yeah. If they can’t hang with that. And we were more formal, you know what I mean? She helped me put on my napkin around my neck and all that kind of stuff, so there was nice little intimate connection there as well. I wasn’t typically leading the date as well, because I was technically a tourist. So, from there I just ate the food, and I’ve just loved it ever since. So now, maybe like once a week on average, especially if I’m not dieting for some form of roll, Juicy Crab Sundays, man, crab Sundays. Juicy Crab. Damn, how do I get the invite? You got like an exclusive invite list to Juicy Crab Sundays? It’s like, I can throw it down there. I’ll be a good asset. Hey, look man, you gotta be black, female, and pretty, man. You don’t really… I’m at least one of those things. Hold on, man. You gotta hit it with the Tony Chachere’s extra spice. Also, you can take this bottle. You can take this bottle home if you want, man. This is our gift to you. Usually, I go for like, crazy spice. John, if you want some extra spice, we got the Trinidad Scorpion Pepper. This is one of the original Super Hots. It’s a hybrid. Here, just like put some in a pool of the, are you gonna go straight on it? Yeah. Just gonna go straight? Don’t worry. He’s gonna get you, you want me to dust it? Mm-hm. There we go. Hold on, hold on, we gotta do the LeBron James, I’m gonna clap it in the air. What, what? Oh, God, that’s a giant chunk. I don’t know what happened. Now, that chunk is gonna send us to the other realm, I can’t even lie. Brother, we’re already going to the other realm. Send me there quicker. Here we go. That’s a lot. Mixed in there. You needs a spice to keep you going though. If it ain’t spicy, I don’t want it. I hear it, man. Yeah, I never get this mild. I always get it with a little bit of spice. Is that hitting you hard? Nah, you all right? No, I’m doing great, you doing great? Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, man, no. You know, I just got a little something in my chest. It’s against you. No, no, no. Nothing’s getting me man. I was just thinking about “They Cloned Tyrone,” there’s a really emotional scene, and there, hey, speaking of “They Cloned Tyrone,” you’re in that movie. Mm-hm. There’s a scene where there’s a preacher, and you’re just running through all the bad things that are happening to you, right? Like, can’t pay your bills, they shut off your water, your son got killed, but it’s okay, because God has you, right? It’s just kind of really, it’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie. And it’s kind of a little bit shows like that religion is the opiate of the masses thing. It’s obviously more nuanced than that. Right. But do you think that’s like a current thing happening in religion today? Yeah, to a certain extent. It depends who your leader is, especially in the institution that you join. I think certain ministers have a nuance of experiences and can sometimes speak from a more real perspective, and certain leaders kind of go off the playbook of, “Even though this happened to you, and it’s trials and tribulations, you’re gonna be all right,” you know what I mean? But even those that went through trials and tribulations biblically, they weren’t all right either. For sure, for sure, yeah. It depends on your perspective on it, what you’ve been taught, and then obviously how you communicate that message. It’s all relative. It seems like so many people, they blame the idea of the religion as opposed to blaming the actual person, right? Like, these are people in all these powers, in all these structures who are saying things, and you seem like you have an incredible belief in the self. Do you think that’s often misdirected towards the faith, and not just the actual people themselves doing the talking? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, ’cause the only way to articulate and judge a group is by the institution that they’re under. Sure. So the way in which you approach them, you kind of have more of a generalized approach to who you think they are. And funny enough, this is what “They Cloned Tyrone” kind of deals with, because you do have a pimp, a prostitute, and a drug dealer. When you hear those titles, you hear those professions, you have those kind of generic assumptions of who you think they are. But as you know, as you go deeper into the story, specifically Yo-Yo, a sex worker, you realize she’s actually intelligent, she’s actually smart. She has ambition, she’s a nerd too. She’s into Nancy Drew books. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I just guess it’s more comfortable for us as human beings to digest things that are more generic, and kind of sort it out for us tightly rather than going into the specifics and details of people, and the why’s or that kind of stuff. That can sometimes be too complicated for us. So, a lot of times what we do is just generically just go, “Well, if you are that, you’re that. If you’re religious, you’re that,” you know? Sure. And that can, has helped a lot of people navigate a complicated world. But as we know, if we fall in love, when it comes to family where we are forced to be nuanced, it then becomes a little bit of a struggle for us, you know what I mean? So. John, I’m struggling right now. I’m full, how you feeling? I’ve got space, man. Easy, got space for dessert. That’s good news. We are at the final course. We have our sweet potato pie. We got this from a spot called Gus’s, originally from Tennessee. They do great work. Nice. We have a red velvet coconut cake. This one is homemade, and then we got the vanilla Oreos, the Haribo gummy bears. Yep. Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar. Sugar. You transformed right into a nine-year-old boy when this hit, man. It’s just like. Yeah, I love it. I love a red velvet cake. Yeah, this is, God, this is good looking. First time I ever had a red velvet cake was when I was working with Spike Lee on the HBO pilot. It’s a good person to eat red velvet cake with. And he told me about, I think it was somewhere in Fort Green, like a bakery around there, and they had something called a red velvet cake. I got some red velvet cake, and I’ve been addicted ever since. It’s delicious. And then the coconut though, that’s my own specialty. Yeah, the coconut little sprinkle situation. I never heard of that, I know coconut cake and red velvet cake, those are like big southern staples. I know, I know, but I must’ve been at some org, like little get together somewhere, and I must have tried both and went, “Oh, crap.” You’re correct. So now, I just tell ’em to put it on top. It’s good man. What about the sweet potato pie? My best friend’s family, they had Thanksgiving in Baldwin Hills, and they had a nice little buffet set out. And I was just like, “Ooh, what’s that brown stuff over there? It’s smell good.” Like, “It’s sweet potato pie,” so I had the sweet potato pie. Since then. You’re hooked. I’ve been hooked. This has been one of my favorite foods for a long time, and to me, it’s like better than pumpkin pie. This is a skill to eat this. I needed a safe space. I’m glad you did, man. I’m still burning, I’m still burning from the scorpion pepper. You still burning up? I mean, we’re fine. I’m a professional, I do my job. I know that’s right. Thank you, thank you. You mentioned earlier that you had a close friend die when you were a kid. Yes. And that really affected the way that you thought about death, you thought about life. Tell me about how that sort of set the trajectory or did it, or was it all just a sort of a thing that happened for you and you had to deal with it? Well, I was so, so young, you know, rest in peace, Damara Taylor, but I was so young that you usually take in the effects of that a little bit later. You don’t really notice at the time how that affects you. It was strange to a certain extent, you know, seeing somebody that you knew, especially ’cause he was closer to my sister. So seeing someone that you knew that was around kind of just suddenly leave, that definitely made me feel some type of way, but I definitely feel like it made me maybe stay indoors a little bit more because of the circumstances of his death, so I guess that’s the only thing that I would say affected me in that situation. But then obviously when you get older, it’s more of an appreciation for life, family, and to love, because you never know when you’re gonna go. So, I guess that’s how it affected me in that sense. Yeah. Do you think that currently affects the way that you think about death now? Yes, most definitely, in a sense that anyone can get it, you know? It’s not selective in that sense, like it could be you, could be a starring moment. So, I try to live life to the full, try to do right by people, even though sometimes I can fail miserably. Yeah. But I definitely put a lot of work into trying, growing, and then learning from them lessons, you know? Coming from a very Christian background, and like, is your, would you say now your Christian faith is as strong as ever, or have you gone through a sort of- Hell no. I don’t know, man, I don’t know. Hell no. We just met today. Who? Throw the first stone, people. No, nope. I even to a certain extent get scared of calling myself a Christian. Yeah. Sometimes call myself an upcoming Christian, you know what I mean? One day, you- Yeah, yeah. I know that the foundations of my heart are, and the intentions are good. But, you know, sometimes you do a lot of dumb stuff, and I like a lot of stuff that are unchristian. I feel that, and a lot of it’s really fun. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it’s a back and forth, it’s a back and forth with that like anybody else, like most of us really and truly. But when it comes down to the foundation of it, or I would say I feel comfortable knowing that I have strong enough faith in God to be like, “Okay, just continue working on me, man. As long as you want to, as long as you gimme the grace,” kind of thing, you know? Where does your moral compass come from? Because like everything you’ve said, you feel very comfortable in the way that you interact with other people, it seems like you just have such a strong moral compass and a direction that points you very assuredly in a way that like, I feel like I don’t. I’m always wondering what the right thing to do is, and I feel like I’m always failing. I feel like you’re somebody who has that really strongly, and how do I get that? I don’t know, man. I really don’t know. I’m glad it comes across that way to a certain extent, but I don’t really always have it figured out. I just guess for me, the things that have worked for me in my individual life, I stand on, you know? And I stand on that moral direction, but there are some things I’ve most definitely got wrong a lot of the times, and it’s even shocked me. Like, “I thought you had a brain.” No, you don’t. But then you go back to the drawing board, and you try to work again. You will be so surprised as to how similar a lot of us are despite our beliefs, the differences and everything. We’re still trying to figure out what’s right and wrong a lot of the times, obviously separate from the blatant things that are wrong. Sure, yeah. There can be those gray lines that we’re trying to figure out our lives, and trying to figure out the way in which we exist and coexist with other people. Mate, as I said, I’m an upcoming good person even, you know? I’m like, right now, like an undrafted good person free agent, you know? Right, right, right. If I get my shot, if I get my shot, I feel like I could be a good person. Yeah, yeah. If I’m given the opportunity and the chance, you know, little bit more patience and tired, maybe. Maybe. Maybe I could hit. Until then… You’re gonna try? Oh yeah, you can’t try these gummy bears. We were just talking about, I have too much now. Sometimes I’ll fake it on camera, I’ll be like, “Mm, these gummy bears. Man, that is good,” and that’s acting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t get rid of them fillers, mate. I have so many crowns. People will brag about how much their car’s worth, I got like 40K in this mouth, all right? I know that’s right. Tell them, let them know. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah but- Them biological grills. It’s all porcelain. John, man, thank you so much. You ready to get in the lighting round? Yeah, let’s do it. Ready to do it? Let’s go. Let’s jump in. All right, other than me, who’s the one person dead or alive you’d wanna share your actual last meal with? Other than you? Mm-hm. If you want to pick me, you can pick me. Oh. Wow. I’d say my best friend, Asia. I think that that would be- Are we acting like Asia’s not six feet away? What’s up, Asia? We can break the fourth wall. Yeah. My best friend, Asia. She’s the biggest fan of the food too, bye the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll say her, for sure. Her for sure, because I know that I’m gonna be belly laughing until the moment is over, so that would be a good transition now. We all need an Asia in our lives. Yeah. What song do you wanna be played at your funeral? Not a song, but a score by Hans Zimmer from “The Dark Night Rises.” Solid. And for me, I’d want my coffin to be going into the ground, and then that… That kind of, like, “I lived.” You know, that epic feel. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, producers never stop producing, man, look at you go. When I’ve imagined it, even if it’s a cremation situation, you know they do have that moment where it’s going in. It’s like, just play that score that reminds people of how my imaginative brain operates, which scores every moment of my life based on kind of like, the movies and the scores that I love. So, yeah. Bring in the live orchestral, man, and play something epic, because I’m gone. I’m buying tickets. Epic. And I’m definitely gonna die before you, but I might do this. And there might be tickets available. Hey, why not monetize the ting? Man’s thinking smart, man’s thinking smart. Hey, hey. What’s an accent that you’ve never done in a movie that you’ve always wanted to do? My own. My own, and when I say my own, I don’t mean my generic, you know, the RP accent, I mean my accent here where I’m sounding like I’m from south. Yeah, yeah. Where it’s kind of hard to understand a man certain times, you know what I mean? Where I can just flow and grow. I’ve never been able to use that, but maybe, maybe soon. Maybe soon. Damn, I walked into that trap. Didn’t even think about that. All right, who plays you and the biopic about your life? Wow. It’s gonna have to be a newcomer. It’s gonna have to be- Who is it? Who’s the 10-year-old out there? Oh, do you know what? It’s my nephew, JJ. It’s my nephew, JJ, ’cause I remember seeing him, and he’s got the hooded eyes a little bit like me. Yeah, yeah, I feel that. So, yeah, yeah. We’re just always looking a little bit angry when we go to sleep. JJ, get your nice suave gums on, and get ready to play Uncle. JJ, if you don’t have an agent yet, I can represent you. I am not a lawyer, I don’t know how to do anything other than cook and ask uncomfortable questions. Right, right. It’ll be JJ. What’s your biggest fear? My biggest fear? Mm-hm. I’d say, I don’t even want to say it, because I feel like when you say, it puts it out there though. I think it’s like reverse manifesting, you say it so it doesn’t come true. Oh, yeah? Well, being in a plane and being involved in any sort of aviation accident, I’ll say it that way, that would not be appropriate for me. Now I feel like you shouldn’t have said it, ’cause now it feels like it’s gonna happen. Dang it. No, damn. God forbid. I’m sorry, we can walk. I didn’t even need to touch wood, god forbid, Zefen me, you know what I mean? Yeah, but nah, that creep me out, and I was on a small little jet the other day, and this pilot came and asked me, “Oh, you know, we have this two flight paths as an option for you.” And for me, I’m going, “My guy, don’t tell me about, like, what do you mean you have two flight paths as an option?” Yeah. Like, none of that. You do you, let me do me and try to survive the night, you know what I mean? And that, yeah, that just freaks me out. I get mad when Google Maps gives me two options. I’m like, “Nah, you should know better than I do.” Yeah, like, do you wanna go this way, or that way’s faster? Like, oh no, no, you’re all right. What’s your greatest regret in life? I don’t have any. Confident. I don’t have any. Self-assured. Yeah, I don’t have any. But also, you know, you never know. I haven’t lived as long as, you know, as the potential, so I don’t know, I might have one. When you regret something, just call me. Yeah, no, no. But, currently so far, even in my mistakes, I’ve kept up pretty well, like I don’t have any regrets that makes me go, “Damn, if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have done that again.” All right, finally, are you happy? Yes. You seem happy, man, I love that. Yeah, I’m happy, I’m happy, and I’ve been happy for a while, which I didn’t know what that meant to me before. I thought that you were always supposed to be smiling, but happiness to me, especially for this long amount of time, means that there’s always a foundation that go back to that makes me grateful, and that makes me smile even when there’s problems happening. So, I’m happy, I’m good looking. He really is. And I’m great, and I’m grateful for life, you know what I mean? And most definitely, I hope everybody else feels that way about themselves, more and more people each time. I mean, you certainly inspired me to be happier. John, I really appreciate you coming on the show, man. Thank you for sharing your last meal with me. Thank you for being open to the questions of all. Stop it, oh my God, you really did turn back into a nine-year-old. John, you’re gonna deliver your last words to that camera right there. What, what, what? Deliver your last words, man. You’re dying tomorrow, your last words. It’s the theme of the show. Oh, my last words. It’s the theme of the show. Hey, you lot behave yourselves, man. This world is messed up. Chill, relax, have peace. I’ll see you on the other side. Everyone, check out John Boyega in “They Cloned Tyrone,” out July 21st. Fantastic movie. I literally did a spit take with this one line, you know what line it is, ’cause I told him that, and then he recited the line. I was like, “That’s the line,” and it sure was. Hell of a film, check it out. You’re too hot to handle, and so is your bakeware. Get a Mythical Kitchen oven mitt, available now at Mythical.com.