An interview with Kadeem Hardison
An interview with Kadeem Hardison
Interviewed and written by Allison
Kugel @theallisonkugel & AllisonInterviews.com
Kadeem went on to play Zendaya’s father in Disney Channel’s K.C. Undercover, and to recur in Showtime’s Black Monday. Hardison star in the AMC television series, Moonhaven, which takes place 100 years in the future in a utopian society set on a 500 square mile Garden of Eden built on the moon.
On
Lisa Bonet confiding in him about how early fame affected her:
“I had worked with Lisa [Bonet] the year
before A Different World. I did a guest spot on The Cosby
Show and I was just really interested to know how she dealt with the
fame thing. She was probably the most famous person I had ever met at that
point. So, our conversations were me asking her, ‘So what’s it like with that
big spotlight on you everywhere you go.’ She said, ‘Well, you know, I used to
love to go to malls and I don’t go to malls anymore. I used to love to go out
to the movies and I can’t do that anymore.’ It was all about these things that
were kind of restricted, or she restricted herself from, because it brought so
much attention. She was someone I was gaining knowledge from. Then on A
Different World, I got to pretend to have a crush on Lisa, which was the
easiest job in America.”
On having a crush on Jasmine Guy as soon as
they met:
“I met Jasmine the year before [A
Different World]. We did a film together. Our characters didn’t speak, but
in the down time we kind of got to hang out a little bit and be at parties and
stuff like that. Oh boy, I had a crush on Jasmine the minute I saw her. When I
met Jasmine [Guy] it was an instant skipped heartbeat. Once Lisa was gone, I
got to pretend to fall in love with Jasmine (on A Different World).”
On Marisa Tomei’s character being the only
white character on A Different World:
“[Marisa] was cast before I got there.
Usually when you make a show, you better have some white characters in it (laugh),
or someone is going to raise hell. Someone is going to say, ‘Why are there no
white folks on it?’ It’s a historically Black university. Black being
the operative word. But I loved her character. I was sad when she was gone in
the second season.”
On directing Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac
Shakur together on A Different World:
“It was fantastic. They had a seamless
chemistry. How do you direct De Niro and Pacino? You just kind of stand back
and let them go. You hope that the cameras are in focus. I didn’t really have
to tell him much. I didn’t have to tell her hardly anything. It was a joy to
watch. It was awesome to direct the two of them. They were good buds.
On almost turning down playing Zendaya’s dad
in Disney Channel’s K.C. Undercover:
“When K.C. Undercover came
along, I didn’t really know who Zendaya was and I was a little skeptical about
Disney Channel. I wanted to curse, bleed, and do all kinds of adult stuff, and
that’s not going to happen with the Disney Channel. When I got word of the
audition I was in New York and my nieces and my sisters were asking me, ‘What
are you doing next?’ I said, ‘Well, there’s this show with this girl named
Zendaya or something like that, and they want me to be her daddy.’ Everyone
from my six-year-old niece to my 30-year-old sister all flipped out and said,
‘You have to take that. That girl is going to be something!’
On why he wishes Malcolm X had lived a full
life:
“Once you die, you become a god, but I think
if he was still around, the teaching would have reached more. He would have had
to grow, change, and adapt. All of that would have made him better, and us
better, for having him. He would have been able to import that into us. It’s
hard to say, because now he is It. He’s the one you look to
and say, ‘This is what this guy said,’ or ‘This is what he was saying,’ but you
never get to hear what he would have said had he lived another 10, 20, or 30
years. That’s where it would have gotten groovy, because I think he was gone
before I was born. It would have been nice to see him as a real person instead
of this god that you have to read about in books, or look at on old tapes from
the time that he was living, and not the times we’re living in. In my 20s, I
would have liked to know what he thought about the world we were living in. In
my 40s, I would have liked to know what he thought about the world we are in.
That’s the version of things I would want.”
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