Tyrese Gibson's Personal Connection To His Movie 1992

Now, you said the word number. Uh-huh. I have a number for you. Yes. 1992. My God. Where do we start? Yeah. I was going to ask for a little singing and you did it without me even asking. Okay. I watched. I couldn't believe it. It took me places you were so good. Back to the drama roots. I was there, I was there. And I'm a mom. Mm. To a son. Mm. Who's my everything? And you're a dad. Mm. You have two girls. Mm. So, the layers of being a parent and then what South Central went through at that time, there were just layers and layers and I I ended the movie, I was like, He blew me away.

I was in the riots. I was living in Watts, South Central LA where I was born. It's almost like for us in South Central, it's no need to compare tragedies, but if you think about September 11th for a New Yorker, and then 30 years later, you're now making a movie about September 11th, it's very triggering, as you can imagine. It's like, oh, wow, we're here making a movie about something that I actually lived and experienced, or either lost friends and loved ones and it wasn't acting, it was reacting for me. I lost some some loved ones in '92, April 29th, or just that whole week. The military was there. A lot of traumas that I've learned in therapy. It's not just what you've seen or what you've heard. It's what you remember. From the smells, it's uh, the things that you physically seen with your eyes or experienced. One of the things that I can't stop thinking about to this day is the presence of military. It's one thing to deal with the police, excessive force and murder and just kind of what we see every day to this day. Sadly, we got George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and the list goes on. So many unsolved murders with police brutality and excessive force. That was one element, but then we all knew in the hood during the '92 riots, that if the military were to shoot you and kill you or blow up your house with their tank or your car, there's literally no investigation. They are there on behalf of the government, and whatever happens, there'll never be a trial. There'll never be video footage of who caused what and who it's just like, it's over. The ashes is something else that scars me to this day because we live in LA. We had black, black clouds for months. Even when the riots were long over, it was still black. The sun never came through and it was ashes all over the cars, the grass, the neighborhood, every home, every apartment, every store, every parking lot was full of ashes because everything was literally burning. It's it's just interesting. I mean, I don't really know if I'm lucky to be a part of a movie, or it's just God having a sense of humor to say, you were in the riots not knowing that 30 years later you're going to be in a movie, uh, even though the whole movie is not about riots, it's about a heist, but it's really interesting to to look at the sense of humor in God, I guess.

And Ray Liotta's final film. Incredible. Snoop Dogg attached. Executive producing. It's got some names.

Snoop was in the riots too. Yeah, he told me. Crazy thing is, people don't know this, but the original Chronic album, one, two, three and to the fo. That came out in '92. I mean, can you imagine though, '92, song is out. It doesn't matter how incredible the song was leading up to April 29th. That album came out in '92. So, the song, the single, everything got compromised because the focus shifted into the civil rights moment, literally giving birth to a legendary album in the middle of a crisis. Shout out to Snoop and Dr. Dre. And for him to be a part of this film as well as a producer, Long Beach, Compton, Dr. Dre, Tyrese, Watts. I mean, we're all from South Central. It's interesting. So, even being on the set of 1992 for me, this was right after my mother died. So, you didn't have to worry about me being intense and serious. It was very real for me. Ray Liotta, rest in peace. I mean, I haven't, I haven't had to deal or process the trauma of losing a co-star since Paul Walker. So, here we are again, releasing a movie with someone that I did a film with that's not here. And thinking about his wife, thinking about his family, and just like, wow, you know, let's just hope we could make this last gesture and sentiment and piece of art, literally that Ray Liotta left us with. Let's just hope that we can go as far as we can to make sure as many people see this film as possible, right? So, when I think about Scorsese, I want you to watch the movie. I think about Del Toro, I want you to see, I think about Spielberg. When I think about Ava DuVernay, when I think about, what's the brother name? I can't pronounce his name who did The Revenant with Leonardo. Birdman, director. Oh. Come on. Who got who got it? Come on. Alexa, who directed The Revenant? It was directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Yeah! Alexa, you get the prize. Come and get your T-shirt. Everybody had it wrong. Alexa, please take the rest of the evening off. Did Alexa eat already? Man, let's just make sure she eats and get a foot rub. She got it right. Jesus.

Well, of course you mentioned Paul and you're still doing such amazing things in his honor, even this summer. You did the charity event for him and. Yeah. So that still lives with you and you're doing good now with that.

Oh, yeah. I mean, the thing is, it's really good to love on people while they're here, but what can we do to keep their memory, their legacy, everything that they are, everything that they stood for, how do we keep that alive, you know? So, me and Cody Walker, uh, we do these events around the world now called Fuel Fest. Literally, a portion of every event, it doesn't matter if it's sponsored ticket, we've raised a half a million dollars for Paul Walker's charity. Thanks to you and your love and support. It's called Reach Out Worldwide. It was something that he was very passionate about. The crazy thing is we're about to do something for Ray Liotta's uh, charity that he was passionate about as well. So, we took his movie chair that he used on the set of 1992. We're gonna sign it and we're gonna auction that chair off. I know this is not normal, but I do want to say this to Lionsgate, I don't think y'all could ever understand how much it means to me that you have literally went above and beyond to do what was never contractually obligated for you to do. That's important. Even sitting here on this couch right now was not in the budget, but they still made it happen. And I'm so grateful.