He is a funny, funny man. The “he” is Baron Vaughn and you might be familiar with his work on the Netflix original series—now in it’s third year — “Grace & Frankie” or “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
Funny man Vaughn decided to get down right serious regarding his life, career and search for his father all of which is documented with wit and skill in the new documentary, “Fatherless” premiering on Sunday, April 2 at 9:00PM on FUSION TV.
Vaughn grew up very loved and fatherless. This humorous and heartfelt one hour doc, follows Baron as he searches for the father he never knew. Vaughn gingerly strips away the Hollywood facade and illustrates how you don’t have to become a sad statistic.
On a larger scale during this personal quest the doc also analyzes how Baron had to formulate his own construct of the African-American male identity, with no father to teach him.
https://youtu.be/z-7QZ3t9gI0
Here is an excerpt from the interview with Baron Vaughn
L.A. Sentinel (LAS): In “Fatherless,’ a brave and funny documentary you are searching for the father that you never knew. What did you come away with when making this doc? Were you afraid of actually finding him?
Baron Vaughn (BV): It’s always the anticipation of doing something that gets you but the something-itself is usually not that bad. And it is because when you are leading up to that something you can play out a million fantasy versions of what might happen, in your head and drive yourself crazy with it—some people might call that anxiety. For me being able to go through this whole experience was been very help with me letting this go! I think that what people fear is that when you dig into the hard stuff that you will never be able to escape the hole or [the] pain but most of the time, in my experience, every time I have dug into that stuff, I can let it go because I know what’s-what. Having the truth, having information helps me understand what happened even though I do not like everything that’s happened. Even [though] I don’t like every decision that [family] everyone made. I don’t like that [some] people had to hurt or be in a state of pain or feeling abandoned, I don’t like that these things happened but knowing that the past is the past helped me let it go. The biggest thing that I came away with is that it’s a giant reminder to not be afraid of feeling what I might feel. [To] not be afraid of feeling the bold stuff. Does that make any sense?
LAS: Sure. But when you found your estranged father and he causally remarked that “they were just friends” as I woman my heart sunk. I have friends we don’t engage in making life. Then he questioned his paternity. He actually questioned if he was your biological father.
BV: When I started making this [thinking] this is real. This is not a script [and] I am not making up characters. These are real people and these real things really happened.
I started thinking how is my mom going to react to this? How is she going to be ok?
My father was always a concept; an amorphous cloud that had no shape. Now that he is someone that I’ve met and that I know, I am now wondering is he ok?
For me, I was trying really hard to try not to [too] distracted in wanting to take care of everybody.
LAS: Is that part of your personality?
BV: [Taking care of every body] Yes it is. I wanted to make sure that everybody else feels ok [that] every body else feels attended to and heard, and listened [too]. That is a good quality that I have. That is one of the things that people who are my friends or that I have been romantically involved with like about me. However, I know that I can use that as a distraction from my own feelings that if I am attending to everybody else then I never have to think about what I am feeling or what I am doing.
To that other point that you made [about my father not trusting the paternity]. There was several things that he said [about my mother] adding ‘no disrespect’ that he did not know if he could trust her. At this moment I am just listening to him. I am just letting him talk. Later I was thinking that does not upset me [but] of course that’s a weird thing to be told but he does not know her. The other person that he knows is a 19 year old and then for my mom, the only person that she knew was that guy who was about to turn 21 [years old].
LAS: What question to people ask — a lot — after viewing “Fatherless?”
BV: Are you mad? Are you upset about what happened to you? This did not happen to me. This happened to my mom, I was not even alive. My mom had to deal with all this
The biggest thing that I’ve learned about this that they were young. They didn’t know how to deal with this [pregnancy]. Also the thing you picked up on [when my father said] they were just friends, my read was that it was college. They were messing around—in his mind—he was probably messing around with other people [women] which is why he assumed that my mother was doing the same. Right? But in her mind they were together and she was not doing that! So it was a giant miscommunication and of course they were too young to be able to even speak about that, I guess, and so, I get it. I get that’s how he sees it and I guess that’s how she saw it. Again….just knowing that even though I don’t love it still helps me let it go. I’ve made mistakes like that. I’ve assumed things about love.
LAS: Talk about being raised by your great Grandparents.
BV: That was a big thing. These were my mothers’ grandparents. They were old school— Southern Baptist. I realized that while I was making this doc —(“Fatherless”)—….why are you laughing so hard?
LAS: (laughing) Old school means that when you were being punished you got your own switch from the nearest tree!
BV: (laughing). Oh yes that switch was straight off the tree. I grew up in a church community so there was a lot of people. We had that little neighborhood and everybody knew everybody. It was a close community. When we moved to Las Vegas it got very isolated. It was just me, my mom and my grandmother. That’s when I sort of begin to feel the absence [of my father] because I just left the really close knit community to being a kid an apartment complex. It [quickly] became the new normal.
LAS: Growing up in a Southern Baptist community without a father must have been challenging. Am I correct?
BV: Indeed. My mom was 19 [years old] and having a baby outside of wedlock. These same Southern Baptist that were the bigger community that we had, they did not know how to deal with that. So they treated [my] mom like she was a problem. They were ashamed of what she had done. Their method of dealing with it was not dealing with it. They never took her aside and told her that she disappointed us [them].
When I was born no one was there. It’s not in the documentary but my mom went to the hospital in an ambulance, by herself, she had a friend who just happened to be a nurse [at the hospital] who came by to say ‘hey’ — she had a roommate come check on her, to see if she needed food, to see if she need clothes. Then two weeks after that the great grandparents came. Then they did not talk to her for two years. And then they came to get me and they raised me while my mom was finally in a position to finish school. Because obviously she was on an emotional turmoil with everything happening because it effected her grades, it effected her scholarships so she needed to get herself back together. So when they came to get me it kind of gave her a breath. Where she could work some jobs, make some money and get her grades back up and get her scholarships back. She did not have a choice when my great-grandparents came to get me. It took her six years to finish college. It’s a double-edge sword. They were there for us in the long-run but there was a lot of mis steps just like with my father.
LAS: Sometimes Christians can forget about empathy and forgiveness. Do you agree?
BV: Christians are like anybody else. They are people. When I think of being [a] Christian I do think of forgiveness of giving but sometimes people get focused on damnation and what you’ve done here is evil in the eyes of God and therefore I don’t like you either.
LAS: You’ve done wonderful for yourself. You are far from being a stereotype which “Fatherless” shows with humor and facts. Talk a bit about Netflix’s “Grace & Frankie” has been renewed for a third season. You play Lily Tomlin’s son. Please tell me what you love about being on that critically acclaimed new show!
BV: The best part for me [working on “Grace & Frankie”} has been knowing that I can hold my own with legends: Jane Fonda, Lilly Tomlin, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterston.
I am fortunate enough to be in scenes with these people and learn from them. Also to be able to do something that they feel that they are in a scene with an equal as opposed to some amateur. They have always treated me as a peer.
With the documentary it’s all me, everything is coming out of me. So it’s nice to be able to have a well written role with jokes here and there is a flow to a scene. The other thing is being able to practice, going back and forth with a scene and seeing different ways it can work. It’s like playing and playing in a way that Lilly Tomlin is improvising with me and I am making her laugh on set. That’s probably the best thing for me.
LAS: You make Lilly Tomlin laugh! You are a funny man!
BV: My great grandparents had cable so I watched Nickelodeon and I watched “Laugh In.” I was telling her [Lilly Tomlin] how much I loved the show and how the character, Ernestine, the operator, was my favorite. Once, on set, she actually dropped into that character for like five seconds. She did that snort laugh and I realized how important that was to me.
LAS: Baron Vaughn you should be proud of your work on “Fatherless.” Your family help raise a wonderful young man. Please make sure to tell that to them and especially your mother.
BV: Thank you. I promise that I will.
