Absolutely – because I think there are a lot of things that are imperfect about our nation. But I think the ideals of our nation and just our very humanity is at stake right now. This is a moment that is going to go down in the history books no matter what. We can either come out of this on the right side of history or the wrong side.
 
We’ve seen what the wrong side looks. We’ve seen what it looks like when we lead with evil rather than with compassion and caring and really thinking about and pulling for everyone. For the first time in as long as I can remember, it just feels so different – you can feel it in the air. It feels like we are definitely not united as the United States. Maybe we never were – but I feel that we definitely find ourselves at a serious crossroads of who we want to be in our own house in this country and [who we want to be] for the rest of the world. Because the world is watching – and we haven’t put out a very good picture.
 

This is the chance to say it louder – no, this is not what we as the citizens of this country have chosen. We want something different. We want our voices to be heard. And the way we do that is to come out in mass. Everyone has to come out – saying, “Here’s my vote!”

I was in Washington D.C. and I was a freshman in college. I voted for Bill Clinton and it felt great. I remember feeling very important and powerful and like I did my civic duty and I was a part of choosing what would happen to the future. I felt like a real adult. To me that was part of what being an adult was – being a part of a larger society and having a say.

I’m going to paraphrase something I saw on social media today. It was a clip from Blackish. Anthony Anderson’s character is talking to Junior and he says, “There are so many people right now working so hard to make sure we can’t vote. They would not be doing that if our vote didn’t actually count.” There would be no Russian interference if our vote didn’t actually count. There would be no money being poured into smear campaigns and ad campaigns, if it didn’t matter. There would be none of this consistent messaging that it doesn’t matter, if it in fact didn’t matter. It is not a perfect system -but people wouldn’t be trying to stop you if it didn’t matter. Your vote matters.

I think for those of us who have platforms using your platform to speak your truth is truly powerful. I so admire artists who go out on a limb and speak their truth and say, “I stand for something,” rather than saying, “I’m just an artist I’m not a politician.” But also so many artists have used their art, their actual creative outlets to take a stand. I’m thinking for example of the last two plays I was in and the one that I’ll be directing – these are the works of creatives who, like so many other artists, who tackled real issues that affect us all but who integrated those issues within entertaining pieces of art.
 
Your art can be whatever you want it to be – it has to be true to you. But there is also an opportunity to create something that lives on forever that people can refer back to when, either individually, or as a community, we find ourselves in need of inspiration. I think that’s something that all art can do and should aspire to do.