Todd Tucker | Family Issue 2018

Tell me about your beginning,
growing up, and also do you feel
like your culture has a lot of influence
on your career today?
Well, growing up, I would say
I had a pretty good balance of
things as far as things in the
arts, athletics, entertainment.
My mother, she worked a lot.
So by the end of the week, every
Friday, she felt bad that she was
working so much that she would
take me and my baby brother to
the movies basically every week.
That was kind of my first love
with cinema, and I knew I wanted
to be a part of that world at
some point.
I was always playing sports, and
so that kind of took over for a
while, but I always knew that
I wanted to be in the film business.
My father was a really good
storyteller. He really gets into
his stories, like anything that
happened at work. He was a correctional
officer for 30 plus years.
When he would have something
to say from work or growing up
or something, he would always
get real animated about his stories.
So I think that kind of the
storytelling kind of came from
him because he would always
have us so interested.
Culturally, being an Afro-Latino,
like black American and Afro-Latino,
I’m Black and Panamanian.
I think I was always
looking for, always connecting,
and looking to relate to characters
who I identified with later
on. Earlier on, I think when
you’re a kid, you’re kind of innocent
and whoever you liked is
whoever you liked, but then it
really starts resonating when you
start getting your identity and
knowing what you are and who
you are. Then you start relating
to stuff.
One of my earlier inspirations
was Will Smith on the Fresh
Prince. That was like, oh, he kind
7 The Quintessential Gentleman | Summer 2018 www.TheQGentleman.com