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Some of you know the story: I was scraping by as a social worker in Harlem and the Bronx, part-time teaching at a public school on the Lower East Side twice a week.

One night in late March of 2005, they were one poet short for the iconic Friday Night Poetry Slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café.

I got a couple urgent texts and then a call from the host, so I pivoted my Friday night plans to look out for a friend.

Walking into the Café, Rocky told me a big-time casting director was there scouting for a new movie. I shook my head and chuckled (the kind of mythology that seemed ubiquitous in those days). I didn’t take it seriously for a second.

The final poet in the first round, as I walked on stage, I saw two women get up to leave and I called them out. Had no idea it was Kim Coleman and Eve Streger, who respectfully and awkwardly crouched while I performed the hell out of my poem.

Then, the call for me to come in for a one-line part that would end up getting cut from the film. Kim Coleman seeing a spark in me and asking if I’d be open to “trying something.”

She handed me a four-page scene, and I glanced at my watch, knowing I had a meeting with a client in Harlem and needed to be out of that casting office in SoHo in 10 minutes if I had any shot of not being late.

She told me to take an hour or two with the scene. I focused on it for about five intense minutes and then knocked on the door. I’ve always had a great memory (and so much practice memorizing things quickly under pressure), so I felt calm. She shook her head and reluctantly shot my audition. Then, her eyebrow raised, “You’ve never acted before?”

“Nope.”

First call back. Then, the second. Then, the third with Spike where he and I improvised and then he asked me to freestyle a poem on the spot, after which he jumped up and gave me a pound and a firm hug, whispering in my ear: “My man!”

What a wild fucking ride. My first day on set, my literal first day of acting in my life:

The improvised interrogation scene with Denzel and Chiwetel. The rest, as they say, is history.

20 years ago today “Inside Man” was released. Went on to be the #1 film in the world and still the biggest blockbuster of Spike’s legendary career. And, without a doubt, one of the greatest heist films ever made.

I’ll never find the words to express my gratitude to Spike, Kim, Eve, Brian Grazer, Karen Kehela Sherwood, Jon Kilik, Kim Roth, Daniel M. Rosenberg, Jonathan Filley, and everyone who believed in a kid with no SAG card, no agent, no acting experience, just instincts, swagger, and guts.

It still feels like a dream some days to think back to that summer of 2005 we spent in the Financial District and Brooklyn collaborating on something indelible. Forever connected to the cast and crew for sharing this. So much love to my 40 Acres fam.

#InsideMan

#20thAnniversary

#SpikeLee

#SpikeLeeJoint

#DenzelWashington

#GreatestHeistFilms

#40AcresAndAMuleFilmworks

#40AcresAndAMule

#YaDig

Mind-blowing to be the latest cover feature of The Pith Journal, joining former The Daily Show host Jordan Klepper, Thomas Middleditch, Glen Hansard, The Moldy Peaches’ Adam Green, Kaki King, Joel Kim Booster, & others.

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More than gracing the cover, it’s particularly meaningful to be photographed and captured by one of the greatest living photographers: Jung Kim

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Jung has photographed so many icons and legends over the years. To join that lineage is dumbfounding.

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Check out the full interview and story here, in which I discuss where I find hope, cultural duality, the personal versus the political, fatherhood, tenderness, masculinity, and how art can save a life.

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#CoverStory

#MagazineCover

#CoverFeature

#CarlosOnTour

#JungKim

#PithJournal

Twenty five years ago—today—my best friend, Brent Shuttleworth, first introduced me to the word, as he remembered it: Excelano. I asked him to literally write it out. He recalled hearing about it, and Excelano Day, from his favorite high school English teacher the year before.

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We were freshmen in college. It was spring break, and I’d traveled to Fair Haven, New Jersey from Philly to hang out with him on his birthday.

Nevermind that it was actually Exelauno Day—observed each March 4th (originated by legendary Roxbury Latin School teacher of classical languages, Clarence Willard “Pop” Gleason, more than a hundred years earlier, apparently as a pun on the Greek verb ‘exelauno’ (to march forth)), this serendipitous (mis)remembered word by Brent gave birth to a seismic creative and cultural force, and an indelible legacy, beyond anything we could have imagined:

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Initially, it was just Brent and I collaborating with a motley crew of artist friends similarly moved by the conviction that art is inextricable from resistance and social change. That with an artistic practice comes a sacred oath to wield creativity toward something greater.

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We did an initial series of summer shows that were fundraisers for the Treatment Action Campaign (a South African HIV/AIDS activist organization), which was followed by numerous other fundraising events, artistic collaborations, sold out shows, grassroots organizing, and socially-engaged work that continued over many years.

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But well before that, and just days after seeing Brent for his birthday, I returned back to campus at the University of Pennsylvania. More specifically, I shared the idea of Excelano (and the Excelano Project) with two dear friends: Warren Longmire and Joy Dyer.

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Immediately, we put plans in place to formally found EP as a student performing arts group on campus: the first spoken word poetry group ever at Penn, and one of the first few to exist on a college campus in the U.S.

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I won’t belabor the story that many already know (and has been documented and retold and borders on myth), but we got rejected. Unanimously. By the subgroup (SMAC) shortly after all nine members told me (to my face) that they didn’t have any questions and would be voting to accept us in the Performing Arts Council.

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On appeal, I sought to make us the first group, in the history of the University of Pennsylvania, to win on appeal and become a recognized student group after being rejected. We were told we needed an affirmative vote from every single student member present to overturn the initial rejection.

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I spoke from the heart. No notes. A knot in my heart, passionate tears down my cheeks. And would you believe it? We won.

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Literally made history the first moment of our official existence on our college campus. And it’s only ascended from there.

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I don’t know what I’ll most be remembered for when I die, but I feel fairly certain that helping to found The Excelano Project will be on a short list.

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More than anything else, beyond the long list of glittering accolades of EP’s alumni, I remain most proud of the transformative (even life-saving and life-altering) impact of the deep relationships and profound connections within and across this FAMILY that persist and expand and grow and give back.

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With all my heart, I love this EP family. Forever.

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March forth,

Carlos

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#TheExcelanoProject
#ExcelanoProject

#Exelauno

#ExelaunoDay

#25thAnniversary