Years ago, I did a movie called Poetic Justice, and there was a young man, the first day, who cursed so! I couldn't believe it. I walked around behind him, tried to ignore him. But the second day, he and another young man, black man, ran to each other and they were about to fight and hundreds of extras started to run away, but one black man walked up to the two young men and I walked up. I took one by his shoulder, I said, "Let me speak to you." He said, "If these blah-blah..." I said, "Let me speak to you, honey." "Well, I tell you something, blah-blah..." I said, "No, let me talk to you, please." And he finally calmed down and I said, "Do you know how much you are needed? Do you know what you mean to us? Do you know that hundreds of years of struggle have been for you? Please baby, take a minute. Don't lose your life on a zoom." I put my arm around him. He started to weep. The tears came down. That was Tupac Shakur. I took him, I walked him down into a little gully and kept his back to the people so they wouldn't see him, and I used my hands to dry his cheeks. I kept talking to him sweetly, sweetly. For the next week while I was on that film, whenever I walked by, he would be saying, "So I told these..." -- he would say, "Good morning, Ms. Angelou."
