Daphne Valerius Interview
MORRIS: We are with Ms. Daphne Valerius and we are excited about this opportunity. I'm personally excited because I knew her “back when” and I'm excited to be able to say that. We went to school together (St. John’s University) and, you know, I saw one of… I don't know if it was the first play… Was that the first play that you did, uh…
DAPHNE VALERIUS: Yes.
MORRIS: It was, right?
DAPHNE VALERIUS: Yes.
MORRIS: So I was able to be a part of that, and so I'm excited to see where she's been brought from to where she is right now. You're gonna definitely get to hear a lot about this young woman today, but you're definitely going to hear a lot more about her in the future. Welcome, Ms. Daphne Valerius.
DAPHNE VALERIUS: Thank you so much. I am honored.
MORRIS: So what we're going to do now is I just want you to kind of give us just a little background about who you are, where you come from, your family life, and just give our readers an overview of who you are.
DAPHNE VALERIUS: Wow. Okay, well, my name is Daphne Valerius. I'm 27 years old. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. I went to school with George (Morris) at St. John's University and completed my Bachelor's there in Communications, where I really started to really dive into mass media as an academic study and then I graduated and got a corporate job right after college, which then gave me the opportunity to also go back to school. So, I went from undergrad straight to grad school at Emerson College in Boston where I went to pursue my Master's Degree in Broadcast Journalism.
So I always had my hands in the arts in some capacity. I always gravitated towards the arts where I could feed my creative spirit. And so while I was at St. John's, I did a research paper. I was a McNair Scholar with Dr. Lez Edmond who was my mentor and I did a research, which was called Self Esteem and Self Confidence: The Effects of Mass Media on Women of Color… Forgotten. And I did that always knowing that going into grad school, as I was groomed for graduate school through the McNair program that I wanted to base whatever final thesis I would do on this research that I had already started.
And at the time, I believe it was one of the the black organization Haraya that you were president of brought Chuck D to the campus for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration. And during that time when Chuck D came, I was introduced to him, but we didn't really do anything together because my research was already done and I had already passed it in; but I knew that I wanted to continue to be in touch with him so that if I did something else in the future, then maybe, you know, something will happen… and so it did.
So I went to Emerson College, I did my Master's project, and that has since turned into the documentary, The Souls of Black Girls and that was all done at Emerson College.
So, that was a blessing for me. And basically since I graduated Emerson College, I've traveled and toured the country with the documentary and the message of the film, which is self-love and self-acceptance. And the film itself is about how media images affect the self-esteem and self-confidence of women of color.
So, I did that for about a year and a half after I graduated with my Master's, and then that's when I decided to make the move to L.A. so that I could further pursue my career in front and behind the camera. So I'm in L.A. now and I love it! And it's the perfect place for me to pursue everything that I would like to do. And I just hold onto the dreams that I have and I've been blessed and fortunate that I have the talent, and the talent is recognized in my work.
MORRIS: Give our readers a little more detail about The Souls of Black Girls documentary. First of all, you talked about how it basically started off as a research paper. Did you ever imagine that it would be what it is today?
DAPHNE VALERIUS: Not at all. I really did this paper pass in as a requirement for the McNair Scholar's program. But I always knew in my heart and in my spirit that I was going to do my thesis based on the research, and that's part of the reason why I knew that even with interviewing Chuck D, he's much more compelling on camera than to be written on a piece of paper, "Chuck D says, Chuck D says." That's not really compelling.
And I'm a visual person, so when the time came for me to do my Master's thesis, I called him up and I was like, "Hey, I'm getting ready to do my documentary, and he was like, "Yeah, let's do it," and so we did. And then, at that time, I had already started to create relationships with others like Regina. I had been introduced to Jada and developed a relationship with her assistant, and everyone else just sort of fell into place. And the other notable person in the film was Gwen Ifill.
But it was intense because I did all the writing, I did all the shooting, I did all the editing, I did all the transcribing, I did all of the “everything” that had to get done for that film and when you see the film, you only see 50 minutes of it… of the entire thing. But you have to understand that I had an hour worth of footage on every single person. So I had to go in and comb through the best parts of it to then tell an accurate story. So it was a lot of work, but I loved every second of it. I love what I do.
And I also wanted to do something that was going to get people to think… I just wanted to change the perspective that people had as far as how women of color receive media images and how we're affected by media images. And so my supervisor and producer on that, when she as a white woman could say, "I really learned a lot from watching your piece,"… that's what I did it for. I only did it for that purpose and the fact that it's touched so many still baffles me oftentimes. And so only now as I've grown in my faith and in my journey have I now really accepted it as my own ministry.
MORRIS: You talked about working with Chuck D, and you mentioned Regina King and Jada Pinkett. What was it like working with these people and how did they fit into the whole scheme of what it is that you were trying to accomplish?
DAPHNE VALERIUS: A lot of people ask me, "Well, how did you even choose the cast?" I really didn't have a hand in that. It was really God choosing who He wanted to be in it. I just happened to have the relationships, so I had done my part, and then God made everything else fall into place.
And Regina King, she's just great. You know, she was like a mentor to me at that time just as an actress, you know. We had a relationship and she would encourage me in terms of my own acting pursuits and everything. And so getting a chance to finally work with her on camera was a moment for us because all of our interaction up until that point had always happened via e-mail and over the phone.
So to see her again in person after the first time that we had met, which was back in New York at the film festival was great. It was a touching moment, you know. It was a very touching moment where we got a chance to share and exchange and to see her after so many years, it was beautiful. And she just shared very candidly and very honestly how she felt.
Working with Jada was the same kind of experience, but I'm such… I'm a huge Jada fan and so I had to sort of tone that down, you know… I had a moment. I'm sure she was just doing what she does on a regular basis. But I was having a moment and it was just like okay, wow!
MORRIS: So, you are out in LA now. And I know that you're pursuing several different things and I know you have a lot of different things going on… But let us know about what's going on. I know that you're working with the “My Black is Beautiful” project on BET. And so I want you to talk about your involvement, but I also just want you to talk about that campaign overall
DAPHNE VALERIUS: I've been ever so fortunate. Ever so, so fortunate to be a part of the My Black is Beautiful campaign. It was a dream of mine to be a part of it from the moment I saw the first advertisement in an issue of Essence Magazine. Before they even launched the national campaign and everything, and I just said in my spirit, "God, if you just make a way for me to just be a part of this, I would be elated!" and He did.
Being a part of that campaign is interesting because I did everything I could possibly do to reach out to the people who are at the forefront of the campaign; you know, just blocking up, putting together proposals and doing all the things that you do professionally. And you know, the crazy thing is that God really… I mean it was literally… you know, it just reminds me how, when He's going to do something, He's going to do it!
And so what happened was that after I sent these proposals, the person who was at the head of making the decisions, as far as what talent would be involved with the film, she literally found us after we literally launched our FaceBook page for The Souls of Black Girls. So it had nothing to do with any of our proposals…
It was a dream come true. So I was a part of the actual tour before I was a part of the actual production of the show. So the tour was actually where, My Black is Beautiful went to three different cities that year —Chicago, North Carolina and Atlanta—and they used the first 10 minutes of The Souls of Black Girls to actually start off the conversations among the women who were participating in that day's activities.
So I was blessed and fortunate to do that, and so that was a beautiful experience. I was able to share that experience with my family. And from there, I mean just God works, you know.
And what ended up happening is I became involved with the TV production not because of any major effort on my own, if you will, it was really God putting everything in order because what ended up happening is that the executive producer of the My Black is Beautiful television show just happened to be my mentor already. So when the production was happening, I was her first hire on the TV project. And that's really how God works and that continues to happen in my life and in my career time and time and time again.
And so the My Black is Beautiful campaign is all about uplifting and empowering women to really embrace their beauty and embrace who they are from the sole of their feet to the crimp and the curl of their hair and everything in between.
So I've been so blessed and so fortunate to be a part of the campaign and to have worked on the television show was a dream come true and to say that was really my first official thing here in L.A. is a blessing. I love that show, I love that project, and it's been great.
MORRIS: For our readers, what is the role of a producer? What is it that you actually do?
DAPHNE VALERIUS: In the show basically my job is to do a multitude of different things. There are producers who are the visionaries of a campaign or an idea or a concept, so your job is really to once you have a vision, once you have an idea, to basically execute it to the best of your ability.
But the crazy thing is that it wasn't until I did my film and I just happened to go through some old paperwork, I came across the newspaper article that St. John's had wrote up about the play I wrote and directed while there. And I went back and I read it, and they had already started to give me that title. I had never really received it in that way.
This is what makes my heart beat; creating projects that speak to the masses.
But as a producer on a TV show, I've been really supporting a lot of the senior and executive producers. Those are the ones who came before me, if you will; supporting them and learning from them and soaking up everything. So I make sure that all the necessary elements to actually shoot the show are in place.
But then on the flip side, I also come up with creative ideas and different ways to make it better as well. So you come into agreement with the vision and then your job is to make sure that it is executed to the best of your ability.
MORRIS: As you talked about supporting senior executives, you put it in a way that I thought was really important. You said that, it was you supporting those who had already come before you, the people who have already paved the way. Talk about a little bit about what you see as the importance of that role, not just in television production, but in life because I know that that's something that you always have valued.
DAPHNE VALERIUS: There is nothing like being able to work with the people who sort of pave the way in whatever your thing is. Whether you want to be a singer, whether you want to be a doctor, whatever it is, really understanding that people have to go through a journey to even execute that vision for themselves. I mean my whole career is based on that. I've been talking about my mentors since day one. Without that in my life, there's no way I would be where I am right now. There's no way I would have made it through the things that I've gone through to get here. It's just the number one thing that must be done. I mean I've been fortunate to be in a position where even now I'm working with someone that I've admired for years before I came to this place and it's a privilege and an honor, but it's also a blessing because these people were at the forefront of the battle before I got here. And so I pride myself because what happens is that these individuals come into my life and they're grooming me so that in time they see a light that shines within me that isn't really a light of my own. But it is the light of God that shines within me and they are obedient to that and cultivate and develop what’s in me so that I can continue to fulfill what has been placed within me. Then in my work, I only see it fixed for me to then move forward and operate in such a way where I always hear their voices prompting me to always operate from a place of excellence.
DAPHNE VALERIUS: You know, and even right now I'm working on
MORRIS: That's great. Now, you know, in dealing with mentorship, being mentored, there's always one of the main desires of the mentor is always to see his pupil, if you will, then turn around and mentor someone else. How important is that aspect to you?
DAPHNE VALERIUS: It's my everything. It's me… paying it forward, and that's the principle that I live by because if it wasn't done for me, then I wouldn't be here. My mother and my father were immigrants who came to the United States from Haiti. So their whole entire purpose and function in this life as it relates to me was just to mold me and shape me as a child. But there's only so far they could take me in what they were assigned to do. So it is very much a concept of “it takes a village to raise a child”, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a village that is in close proximity to you. There are these people in your life, whether they’re teachers or principals or guidance counselors or people who are just in the industry doing what you want to do… that's really how I've been able to get here.
So I try to do that to the best of my ability for anyone, particularly young black girls who want to do this, who want to, create their own film or produce or be on camera. As long as the intention that they have is for them to fulfill their life's purpose, then in any possible way if I can help that, then that's what I do.
MORRIS: Talk about sacrifice as it relates to actually accomplishing or achieving the things that you have set out to do.
DAPHNE VALERIUS: Oh, wow. Well, I left everything behind. Everything that was comfortable for me, I left it behind to pursue this. And I'm the oldest, so it's even harder when you are an older sibling to leave.
But I do believe that God is the source of our dreams. And I believe that literally as well as figuratively. And I believe that God speaks to us in our dreams literally and figuratively because that is the only place in which we are quiet enough to just simply listen. But oftentimes, we get caught up in the distractions because the enemy will try to distract you from what it is that you are trying to do and what it is that you are trying to accomplish, but it is your obligation to really take the enemy by force and just cast him aside and say that this is not going to happen here and just continue to walk in the place of pursuing your dream. And the distractions will always be, but the fact of the matter still remains, is that God placed that vision within you, and that's just the bottom line.
Even as I was putting together the Souls of Black Girls documentary and then it began, you know, taking momentum in a way in which I wasn't expecting. I mean I had to create a business backwards really because usually when you're creating a business, you come up with an idea and the plan and everything first. I had to basically really reorganize and create a business after its product had started to take off.
And in pursuing my dreams, there has not been a day that I have been here the last two years that I have ever been homeless or hungry or sleeping in my car or without…
MORRIS: Please leave our readers with words of encouragement, words of advice, motivational tools, whatever you have that you want to leave our readership with to help them as they pursue their dreams.
DAPHNE VALERIUS: I would just simply say that there's more than a word or a phrase or a gesture when it comes to simply being obedient and walking in faith. That's what I live by is to really, honestly and truly walk in faith even when you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring and what tomorrow is going to look like. And when you begin to really take those steps and walk in faith, I promise you God will truly, honestly give you and fulfill your heart's desires. And it might not happen at the time that you want it to happen or the manner in which you think it's supposed to happen because He is going to make it happen the way He wants it to happen.
