96 WSJ. MAGAZINE
THE EXCHANGE MY MONDAY MORNING
5
Monday
Must-HavesLEROSETT FACE
MASK
“I put on my mud
mask [during my morn-
ing sauna].”THE PRESIDENT’S
DEVOTIONAL PRAYER
BOOK, BY JOSHUA
DUBOIS
“It’s phenomenal.”
[Dubois worked under
President Obama, as
a Special Assistant.] •DOUBLE SHOT
OF STARBUCKS
ESPRESSO
“I drink it with half a cup
of eggnog. It’s beyond.”INFRARED NEOSAUNA
“A ft er I do my hike,
I come back to my gym
and I do a sauna.”GOOD MORNING
AMERICA
“I have Robin Roberts
fever. Her Black girl
magic puts my Black boy
joy to shame.”What time do you wake up
on Mondays, and what’s the fi rst
thing you do?
I start at 7 a.m. I pray, which has
really been new, because I didn’t
do that before. As this pandemic has
grown, I’ve found myself praying
longer. I pray, meditate and, after, I
do my hike [in Franklin Canyon Park].
I do a brief workout. I do my infrared
sauna. Then I shower and begin work.
Do you have a go-to breakfast to
start the week off right?
I put on 17 pounds at the beginning
of the pandemic, so I had to drop it all.
If you’d asked me at the beginning,
I would have said pancakes and bacon.
But now I don’t have breakfast at all;
water is what I have. I don’t eat until
2 or 3 in the afternoon.
You’re doing the fasting thing.
I’m in it to win it.
Do you drink coff ee or tea?
So I lied, I’m sorry. During the
holidays, I wasn’t completely fasting.
I’d have a double shot of Starbucks
espresso with eggnog. I’d put it in a
blender with ice. If I wanted to
treat myself, I’d put a slab of whipped
cream in it, but that’s rare.
Do you take any vitamins?
Once you get past 60, you take every-
thing under the sun. I take eight or
nine every day: vitamin D, a men’s 50+
daily multivitamin, vitamin C, Flora
Plus, lecithin, an advanced probiotic...
adrenal support and liver detox.
Do you have a time-management
or effi ciency hack?The last thing I do before I go to bed
is I look at my schedule for the follow-
ing day, and that really gives me an
understanding of whether it needs to
be edited, altered, [if] I need more on
it [or] I need more me-time so that I can
pace myself. Sometimes I like to cram
it, but then I fi nd myself out of steam.What’s your media diet?
At the end of my workday, around 8, I’ll
go into my bedroom and I’ll start with
CNN, I’ll move to Rachel Maddow, and
then I’ll hear Fox, so I can hear what
they’ve got to say. I get a lot of alerts
on my iPhone, [so] throughout the day
I’m listening to news [on] Apple News.What have you been reading and
watching lately?I’m currently watching the best tele-
vision show that’s on—Veneno on HBO
Max. I’m currently reading [Barack
Obama’s memoir] A Promised Land
on audio. I go back and forth between
that and Scott Eyman’s Cary Grant:
A Brilliant Disguise.What drew you to The United
States vs. Billie Holiday?What drew me was Billie Holiday’s
story, really telling the story of her as
a civil rights leader, [an aspect of her
life] that [many] don’t know about.
What defi nes a leader? It’s rare we hear
stories about women, Black women
who are heroes. I thought she was a
great singer, and I knew that she had
a tragic drug problem, but that was my
knowledge of her. I didn’t really knowthat she was taking on the government
by singing the song “Strange Fruit.”What was the most challenging
part of making the movie?Raising the money, because every stu-
dio passed on it. But what’s new?
I should be used to that, because every
studio passed on The Butler and every
studio passed on Monster’s Ball and
every studio passed on Precious, so it
is what it is. I’m getting too old for it to
go around. Fundraising for fi lms is
pretty hard. It gets harder as I get older.What’s one piece of advice you’ve
gotten that’s guided you?It’s never personal. Don’t take it
personal.Do you think the role of art and
moviemaking has changed at all
during the pandemic?I’d never seen a Tyler Perry movie
before. I found myself craving to laugh.
I stumbled on [one of his Madea fi lms]
and really enjoyed it. I called him to
tell him how that fi lm helped me. Also
I watched The Prom, and it was nice to
have a smile on my face from beginning
to end. It made me think, Wow... I go
into real-life situations that are some-
times dark. What would a Lee Daniels
comedy be like? Could I do one even?What do you think?
I don’t know. I mean, I’m terrifi ed.
But I’d give it a whirl, so I could check
it off my bucket list.
This interview has been edited and
condensed for clarity.FROM LEFT: PAULA LOBO/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF GUNILLA OF SWEDEN®; COURTESY OF NEOSAUNA.COM; NOR GAL/SHUTTERSTOCK; COURTESY OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS“IT’S RARE WE
HEAR STORIES
ABOUT BLACK
WOMEN WHO
ARE HEROES.”
—LEE DANIELSPASSION PROJECT
The United States vs. Billie
Holiday wasn’t easy to get made,
even with Daniels’s Hollywood
clout. “Every studio passed
on it. But what’s new? I should
be used to that.”