We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Espie Randolph III. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Espie below.
Alright, Espie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
I think it’s important to be learning every day. Whether I’m reading new books or watching films or reading new books about films, my thirst for knowledge is infinite. Every new thing we learn serves as inspiration for our art. We should always be expanding that base of knowledge and growing. I can’t imagine a world where I stop and say “You know what? That’s it. I know everything there is to know.” When I see people like that I cringe for them. Maybe they’re acting out of a fear of learning something that might shift their belief system or challenge them to do more or be better. I suppose there is comfort in ignorance. Ignorance is bliss. There are probably a lot of happy dumb people out there but I’m not gonna be one of them. I find my happiness in learning more and doing better as a result.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a writer and a filmmaker. I’m an often very dramatic soul and also a hilarious comedian. I’m a business grad student graduating soon. I’m a future published author and feature film director. I’m a podcaster. I’m a fiercely loyal friend. I’m the guy you want to have around when you’re feeling bad. I’m wild and fun. I’m quiet and reserved. I’m very kind and considerate and I’m also an angry Black man. I’m the guy you call with your secrets. I’m the one you don’t want to betray because that won’t go well for you. I’m a businessman. I’m a creative. I’m the future. I’m the past. I’m a visionary. I’m an artist. I’m a complicated work of art.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission is to amplify unheard voices and shine light on lesser known experiences through my writing and film in order to empower people and bring about a more fair, equitable and empathetic world. More specifically my writing is both fiction and non fiction and in alignment with great writers like James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. And just as they wrote fictional novels and plays, I write screenplays. I describe my film work as Spike Lee meets John Hughes as my films focus on people of color coming of age stories with an avant-garde aesthetic. I just had the most amazing moment of alignment with my work and my mission last month as my film premiered and was up for a jury award at the March on Washington Film festival in D.C. It was such an honor being one of 12 films selected to screen and to stand in the shadow of giants like Martin Luther King Jr. on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. My year of focused work on getting the film out paid off big and I’m so proud to have been a part of it. And I will continue to use all of my skills and talents to continue to make my mission a reality in a big way.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I’ve had to unlearn a lot honestly. First off – hide the likes and delete the comment section. That’s cheap dopamine and will leave you in an endless cycle of peddling garbage for empty clicks. That’s not what I’m here for. That’s not my mission. Secondly, everyone has an opinion and they’re all valid but I don’t need to hear them all. This goes along with deleting the comment section. I read an article around this time last year about the new rapper Glorilla and her meteoric rise to notoriety with a Grammy nomination right out of the gate. I said “Hey maybe I can learn something from Glorilla.” And to summarize the article she basically said she set out that year to be extremely focused and cut all of the negative voices out of her life and set out on her mission to be a rapper. That begat the song “F.N.F.” which carried the same message and connected with a lot of people. And thus began her meteoric rise to stardom. So starting in January of 2023 I did the same thing. I started listening closely to people and noticing all of the ones projecting their inadequacies and insecurities onto me and I promptly told them GOODBYE. You have to silence those destructive voices because they are just going to break your focus. Those people can take all of their negative energy, limiting beliefs and crippling self doubt and go tell they mama all about it, or their therapist, or go talk to Jesus about it WHATEVER YOU GOTTA DO but you gotta do it far away from me. We are on a mission over here. We ain’t got no time for that.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.espierandolph.com/
- Instagram: @espierandolph
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spedolf
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/espierandolph/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EspieRandolph
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/yespie-w-espie-randolph-iii/id1660195014
Image Credits
Jon Frenkel Garcia, Espie Randolph III, Aditya Gupta