Toni and I agreed to meet up at an IHOP in Harlem. You know I love my craft to travel all the way
to Harlem for an interview when I live in the not so quaint section of Brooklyn, in East New York. But anyway, travel aside, it was a decent day, not too hot. I waited in the IHOP waiting area for Toni, seeing quite a few... “characters,” to say the least, passing in and out and walking by outside. o_O. But she finally came, we grabbed a booth, and sat down for our interview. She ordered breakfast while we talked. C.E: When was the first time you realized you wanted to do film, what was that spark that made you realize “this is something i want to do”? Toni: Spike Lee, when I was younger.... I was watching School Daze and Do the Right Thing all the time. And I watched a lot of movies... My mother never really let us out the house - I have a twin sister she was always worried abot something happening to us [chuckles] ... But she would buy us tons and tons of movies. Old movies, new movies, and she always made us watch Alfred Hitchcock movies... We watched a lot of movies from the 40s, 60s, 70s... But when I finally got into Spike Lee, seeing someone black do it, and he would be in it and write it and direct it, and I was like “I wanna do that...” C.E: [chuckle] And have his sister in it also... Toni: Yeah.... exactly. [chuckle] C.E: Is that something you’d want to push with your sister, cameos? Toni: It’s funny. I think she expressed interest in acting a long time ago, before I did, but she’s not really the type to go after it. She works in corporate America, she works in Advertising. But, when I was in film school she was in my very first film that I shot for class. And I just told her to do something really simple... It was just really us learning how to use the camera and work with film. And she was so good, like she really started crying in the scene, so I was like “I really think she’ll be better than me!” [laughs]. But yeah, I think eventually I will, definitely. I know that’s a dream of hers... I never thought about it, but it’s like one of those inevitable things that I’m sure will just happen. C.E: Do you see yourself stepping more in front later on in your career? Toni: Yeah definitely. I shoot most of my stuff now. I make a cameo in most of my work, like the IHOP scene in the Kanye one [laughs].... C.E: And the Trayvon Martin one also... Toni: Yeeahh... [laughs] C.E: So you started in college, or was it high school, with your filming? Toni: I started writing scripts and stuff in high school - treatments, in high school. Then after high school, I started modeling, but I was doing treatments and trying to learn how to write scripts. But it wasn’t until college that I actually got into it. I didn’t start directing until 2 years ago though. I went to film school, we had to direct in school, but i only wanted to write and I never wanted all that pressure to fall on me as the director... Like if the movie comes out bad, you could just blame the director [laughs] ... But then I was working with Dame Dash a couple years ago, running his film department at DD172... he made me start directing. He used to taunt and torment me! [laughs] Cuz I always wear hats, like army hats, like different fatigue hats, and he would smack my hat off and be like “you not no soldier, you scared.” [laughs] Everybody else would be sitting down having fun and he’s like “Toni go get the camera, lets make a movie right now!” I’m like “what?” “go get the camera!” and I’m like, “Fuck.” [laughs] C.E: [laughs] That’s actually what I wanted to touch on, I saw you had the few videos of Dame Dash and his “Damonisms.” How’d you get involved with having Dame Dash as this sort of “muse” for these videos?
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