Mandy Patinkin and Dara Starr Tucker in Conversation

have you share your heart your soul I know you do it regularly yeah but this is a most unusual setting we're in yeah it will change the lives of our children our grandchildren our great-grandchildren people who haven't even been thought of yet to be born it's for real it's not a joke it's not politic talk it's not spin it's for real so please take me down the road I'm here to learn what to tell other people so I'm now going to be be quiet I don't need you to be quiet because I I I love hearing your passion and I love hearing your wife's passion when you all talk about politics especially considering the era that you all come from you know what what your youth represented and this this election or this uh Democratic uh National Convention has been compared a lot to the one from 1968 or people were concerned that there might be a repeat of that era which I'm assuming you actually have memory of you know commercials in Chicago on Wacker Drive during the convention oh my God yes I've come a long way my wife Catherine groy who you were aware of yeah she brought me up and my two sons Isaac and Gideon to have a political conscience and our dear friend Martin Sheen wants when we were having lunch I said I I just don't know if I'm political and he said do you breathe he said yes I breathe he said well the air you breathe is political wow yeah it's something I've had to come into as well I don't know if my parents ever voted I don't know if either of my parents I know my mother most certainly never voted my father became politically aware and started to care and understand that politics affected him but I don't know that he ever actually cast a vat so I did not grow up in a deeply political household with a um involved in in the in the religious organization my parents were ministers so that's the world you understood yes yes and so there was kind of that sense of well that's that's all very much out there it doesn't affect us yeah yeah and so I had to kind of come into an awareness myself of like hey you this this is in your hands this is not something you observe from AF far like it's it's all right to be active and involved and even now I hesitate sometimes to put that stuff out there because a lot of the folks on on my socials and that follow me and my family and friends and people that I grew up with it's it's it's very much looked down upon how did that seed get planted in you I think just growing up a little bit and sort of dis disconnecting a bit deconstructing from that world lot helped me to understand we're not just kind of waiting for the end of times to come like we have to care about the world that we live in and you know we have to care about the planet and we have to you know plan for something Beyond The Rapture you know being caught up you know in in the air and so once you realize like this life matters we're not just waiting for the afterlife once you start to realize that you know you're you're you're opened up you know in so many ways and you begin to understand that our our our objective is not simply to dominate you know that's that's that's the the verbiage we grew up with to to have dominion over the Earth you know and to be fruitful and multiply and that was pretty much all we understood our directive to be but now it's like hey we're invested you know I care I care about what happens to the planet and you know and I care about how people that um I didn't grow up with are are treated you know I care about my my lgbtq brothers and sisters and yes you know there's that's something that has to be ignited within you so it's it's kind of new for me you know the past probably 10 years or so you're a preacher you're good at it thank you come from a long line of preachers so can I ask you what your top three issues or concerns are in this moment in this fight in this most important election I think uh probably you know as as most people are concerned right now I think just the preservation of democracy itself is really at the top of of my mind simply because of of who Republican candidate is I think this is this is an unusual time simply because we have Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and so I think it's just it it puts everything in a completely different space I think we're not in in that space of Republican versus Democrat conservative versus liberal I think we're we're we're literally having a conversation around and I I don't even really mean to be hyperbolic about it but good versus evil that's the way I perceive you know of of what's going on right now uh Reproductive Rights are really important right now as far as I'm I'm concerned I've done a lot of advocacy work for the first time ever like I said I grew up in a very uh religious environment and that was a no no you didn't talk about that you didn't advocate for that right and so kind of learning and understanding how abortion bands have impacted particularly black women's health you know we suffer more than any other group when these bands are in stated and women are dying and babies are dying and you know it's it's just it's not as black and white as as it was you know as it was taught to me so understanding more about Reproductive Rights climate Justice is really important as well environmental issues are very very important to me as well so really any any any issue that you you could possibly reference or you know think about it's it's it's when I when I think about the contrast between these these camps it's just it becomes very obvious the choice you know where I choose to land as a compassionate human being how I understand the energy of of kamla Harrison Tim Waltz and and how it's ignited our party once again in an extraordinary way um but what do you say to people that have be been exhausted by politics and exhausted by the rhetoric by The Lies by the just just all of it that just spins your head around and you stop you know before these past few weeks when everything changed when you just couldn't hear anymore that you just couldn't take any more of it when you didn't have it you know when you just didn't have the energy what do you say to people to get them to attend be there wake up that has been the focus of most of my content since I started speaking out and I started speaking out right around 20120 and that was when you know the world was going crazy um as as it kind of is now with the George Floyd murder and Briana Taylor and of course the pandemic and then all of the election stuff happened and just the world was exploding around me and and it was really one of those moments where I had to wake myself up I had to shake myself up I definitely understood what I believed and what I was passionate about um but I'm a singer by trade that's what I do and so I had to ask myself you know is my audience going to be okay with this are they going to be all right with me speaking up because this is different I'm not accustomed to being in this space where I allow my opinions and my feelings to be known and you got to kind of dip your toe in the water and um decide to be okay with disappointing the people that are going to be disappointed that was one of the things I had to come to terms with just be okay with disappointing people there are people that are going to fall off and they're not going to be okay with you talking about these things but we have all got to reach inside and and find that Humanity that allows us to really plug into these foundational issues of of really good versus evil and when a lot of times when people like me who have been really heavily indoctrinated with religion uh we have that stuff piled on top of us and I'm not talking about pure Faith okay when we have been inundated with that then it can be a very confusing thing to understand right from wrong when we're observing the political landscape it's like well I've been told this team is good this team is bad and if you agree with that then you know we don't talk to you and that's evil and we shut down and it causes a lot of confusion hard to get away from the shackles from the table yes it causes a lot of divestment and I see that in a lot of my family members and friends so I empathize with that and I have to remind myself that that can be a very confusing space to live in but bringing things down to just that Bedrock of right and wrong good versus even even if we're just even if we're just reading the words and read the words of Jesus himself when we really focus on those words understanding what is right and what is wrong and what we're facing politically right now it's not difficult to parse out if we really ourselves to kind of strip away those layers of of propaganda and indoctrination and that can be hard and I I have to be empathetic to that what did Jesus say about right and wrong he said love your neighbor right he said he said uh be good be good to those who who have who have done you wrong he said take care of the widows and the fatherless and people who are afflicted my my grandmother was uh uh someone who worked with the homeless she was um someone who took care of people who had nothing they had nothing to give her nothing to offer her and I I don't see any of that Consciousness in someone like Donald Trump and it's really for me as I said beyond Republican versus Democrat we're talking about um issues of humanity and so you know when you boil it down to just that that raw Essence the the decision before us is not difficult it is not a difficult kindness to a fellow human being yes Here There and Everywhere yes absolutely so yeah those are very easy decisions so your progression with speaking out how did how did that happen I mean I I I've loved your content since I first realized that you were even online at all um I love your work period but you're a beacon for those of us who are are speaking out and there are not a lot of folks I I hope this doesn't come off in any particular way but there are not a lot of folks in your age group in in the Boomer age group who are doing what you're doing in the way that you are doing it so what's what's the role that you are are interested in in playing in in you know this political climate do you see yourself as being I see you as being essential right now how do you see what you and your wife are doing right well I'm a student of my wives my wife not wives wife uh she's my my life teacher and my political teacher of my two sons and me uh I didn't even know whether my parents like you voted Republican were Democrat they were you know men's club Sisterhood of the synagogue and so uh she was shocked that I didn't know that but she brought me up politically and then brought our children up around the dinner table and then it just one thing after another this cause and that cause came up and um and gave me a life that I never imagined as an actor I set out to be an actor and then all these other things happened I you know I I'm shooting Homeland in in Berlin and and the refugees are crossing the Balkan route to try to get refuge in in Germany of all ironic places and uh those are my family those are my children those you know how do you help I want to just walk and sit with them and uh and um and she woke us up as a family and and she runs the show and then has she has passed that baton to our children Gideon and Isaac to do the work and and guide us and uh as people know on social media they can hear Gideon's voice yeah they know he's part of the of the frame whether yep whether you see him or whether you see him or not he is uh he is he's the glue that binds the family's future together because he has the energy when we're too tired to go on at times and he goes no you're not you know come on work to do work to do work to do work to do that's just because I'm a bit younger yeah he's well he's younger but that's a m major part of it when I always ask Gideon or son Isaac or my daughter-in-law Lennon what do you want to come out of my mouth what do you want to come out of my mouth in this exact moment that we're in considering who our our nominee will be who our presumptive nominee is this is our first first black female Presidential nominee and so I put out a video when when when Biden first stepped down and I said I am this is very instructive for me because as a black woman it wasn't that I didn't think kamla could do the job it was that I didn't think that other people thought that kamla could do the job and so hearing that confidence you know that reassurance coming from people who don't look like me especially coming from a white man you know when I hear that it it is surprising inly moving and affecting to me because it it speaks to me and it speaks about me it speaks about your belief that I am capable in whatever it is that I set out to do so I guess that I was confronted with my own sense when I saw her being elevated in the way that she was which absolutely shocked me it confronted my own sense of of you know that just that limitation that I put on myself you know and my expectation of the outside world for what you all believe that we can do which really shouldn't matter shouldn't matter like it does but it does Joe Biden gets credit for being our teacher because what would have it it took that what what would it have said had he not skipped her yeah had he passed her over yeah what would that have meant yeah and he knew he knew it when he chose her to be his vice president he knew that he was questioning whether or not after loss of his son he had the energy to do this but because of Charlottesville yeah and and what happened there and uh he knew he had to step up and he he knew the responsibility of that appointment then yeah and uh and then she hit it out of the park and then she HIIT it out of the park she did and and and it's so and it feels so natural at this point it feels like well of course you know that's how it feels at this point but yeah hearing hearing folks out outside of my own demographic address the issue of Race address the issue of gender and lean right into that and and and speak about it from from a an historical point of view talking about people like Shirly Chism talking about the impact that race has had on your own life talking about the impact that black women have had on you you know um and I guess in you know a non-condescending sort of way but just your own personal experience and your own passionate around that that's that actually a black woman gave me my voice Lena mclin a reverend at Kenwood High School in in the south side of Chicago oh wow I was in the choir and she led the choir and I got up to sing something and I didn't sing it loud like some of the other incredible people in the class in high school and she literally looked at me and she I said oh miss mclin miss mlin I'm sorry she said child you use that voice anybody tells you not to use that voice you haven't come come see Lena and I'm not kidding you my whole life that that africanamerican woman yeah gave me my freedom wow there's been so much talk about Freedom it comes from so many places when you're not even paying attention to it think about it think about what black people did in this country you know yeah it's it's just it's it's it's time it's time and it's never been more necessary yeah it's uh it's not politics it's about being alive it's about being human beings it's about morality I have no ability to remember statistics or facts or even the list I mean I can remember I can like go down some of the lists of the most important things but I I'm I respond to a person's energy to a person's nature that's that's the person I want to have take care of the world for my new grand son who's 2 and a half and my new granddaughter who will be two weeks old this coming Saturday I want that granddaughter to grow up in a world will she'll go like well what do you mean a man can be president is that allowed