Minutes into his Zoom interview with Henry Louis Gates Jr., he was quoting Don King as he discussed two discoveries in Season 12 of his PBS series Find your roots: Actress America Ferrera discovers that one of her ancestors was a free mulatto of mixed African descent — a distant cousin of director Ava DuVernay — and actress Sanaa Lathan learns she is the descendant of a wealthy white slave owner.
“Only in America,” says the host. “Or since America [family is] From Honduras, I have to say: “Only in the Americas.” ”
Since 2012, the Harvard professor has hosted the TV series in which he presents famous figures, from Tina Fey to Deepak Chopra, with a book about their family’s maternal and paternal histories, pieced together through DNA testing and research compiled by genetic genealogist CC Moore and a team of three full-time genealogists. The conversations are simultaneously revealing, emotional, and judgment-free. “There are things in every family tree,” Gates says.
As a host, you not only transmit personal information to guests; They open up to you about their own family stories. How much time do you spend with them before filming?
I meet guests on set. But there is one exception. If you’re our guest and we find out, for example, that your father wasn’t your father but your father didn’t know, I have an ethical protocol and we’ll reach out to your publicist and say, “We’ve learned something in our research that we need to discuss directly.” Everyone knows this is not good news. It’s as if your doctor calls you on the same day you had your blood test. “Oh my God, that won’t mean you’ll live to be 120,” she says. So I would say, “We’ve discovered something in the course of our research that will change your understanding of your family forever. Do you want to know or not?” And then you’ll say: “Yes, of course, I want to know.” And I would say: “The man you call your father is not your biological father.” Or, more likely, “the man you called your grandfather” – as in the case of Joe Manganiello – “had no biological relation to you. Your grandmother had an affair” – in his case – “with a black man.” In fact, Joe did so much post-research that we’re considering doing a special in Season 13, half of it showcasing all the things we’ve learned about him as the research continues.
But on the other hand, I had people who just said, “Hey man, thank you [I don’t want to know more]“People trust us. We never had.” [an information] Breach and send them all their research because this is their story. We are not The Jerry Springer Show. When I think about how I generalize about those who drop out, it’s because the party who, so to speak, made a complicated decision in the relationship, is still alive.
How do you prepare for those conversations?
I’ve been a professor for almost 50 years, and I pride myself on using the classroom to have difficult conversations, which prepared me to have those one-on-one conversations with people. One of my friends joked that I was the only black man in the world who made white people feel good about owning slaves. But I’ll tell you something: The sad truth is that everyone was guilty of the slave trade. Over 90% of Africans captured in Africa and shipped across the Atlantic were captured by African traders and African elites. People don’t want to admit it, but it’s the truth. I also firmly believe that we are not responsible for the evil things our ancestors did. People’s lives are complicated, and I don’t think you should let anyone, no matter what we find, bully you about that. But on the other hand, there are amazing stories of triumph in everyone’s family tree. At the beginning of the interview, I ask people: “How do you think your ancestors have shaped you? Do you think you have inherited any traits from your ancestors?” And after five hours – and in fact each of these shoots takes five, sometimes six hours – I ask them the same question. In many cases, like Tia Leoni’s, when we found out her mother was adopted, we found her mother and father — her mother was still living at 98 — and then she reached out to her half-siblings, which was wonderful. I hear from a lot of people saying thank you.
It was absolutely perfect timing to have Delroy Lindo last season in the midst of his historic Oscar campaign. How far in advance do you book guests?
Well, I’ve been a fan ever since Do the right thing I will say it’s not an exact science. We get a lot of celebrities reaching out to big people desperate to do the series, and sometimes we can do all the research in six months – one guy, it took five years because he had a DNA mystery, and the only way you can solve that is if the link is in one of the publicly available databases. We can’t watch the Oscars and then pick someone and then two months later they’re on TV. On average, it takes at least six months to conduct genealogy research.
Who’s on your guest wish list?
Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Madonna – but I want Taylor and her fiancé [Travis Kelce]. I want Clint Eastwood. I would love Jay-Z. I love Gladys Knight. I had dinner with [Barbra Streisand] Several times she said, “I’ll do it, but I’m not ready yet.”
How is artificial intelligence impacting the field of genealogy?
The real revolution was digital transformation. All of these censuses, birth certificates, death records, and marriage records are available online. So now you can do a lot of research just from your computer, but there is always more research that can be done on the ground. I’m calling [AI] My liquid encyclopedia. So instead of using Google, I’ll just type “Tell me about so-and-so.” This is the method we use to search. But you can’t say: “Give me the Pope’s family tree.” I can imagine that you would be able to ask the following question: “Give me the records of every child born in Honduras in 1819.” You can’t do it now, but I’m sure it will come. It will only enhance the research.
What does it mean to you to do this work now for 20 years, dating back to the PBS series African American Lives In 2006?
When I conceived the series, I swear to God, I never thought we would be cast as anyone other than African-Americans. I wanted to give them their buried roots, their history lost to slavery. But by 2009, I realized that everyone has a hidden family history because we are a nation of immigrants — our African ancestors were unwilling immigrants, but they came from somewhere else. I always tell my guests a quote that one of my heroes, Stephen Hawking, said in a lecture at Harvard University in 2016: “It is the past that tells us who we are. Without it, we lose our identity.” He was talking about the age of the universe, but that’s true for each of us as individuals, and what we do is give each guest a gift Find your roots Their lost and complicated past.
This story first appeared in the June standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To obtain the magazine, click here to subscribe.
