Kerry Hines with Camille Friend, Academy Award Nominee, from Wakanda Forever!

Camille Friend: Thank you so much for having me. I feel so blessed to be here and to be able to share with my people my heart.

KH: Well, let me. Yes, let me tell you, just reading your story, we have been with this show for about 28 years -this year doing "The Hair Radio Morning Show". And we've had on many hairstylists from across the spectrum of hair. But I've got to say, you have one of those types of careers that all of you guys out there listening right now. This is where they have been striving to get to and just to meet somebody like you, you are a true inspiration, a trailblazer. And so ..and I. Yes. And the video I caught of you was amazing with so much humility to boot. So this is something that is incredible. And I can see why all these wonderful, good things that are happening for you. So, yes, absolutely. So let's just jump on in. Let's talk about Wakanda Forever. Let's talk about Black Panther a little bit, too! You have been nominated for an Academy Award. .

Camille Friend: Let me just say that.

KH: Again. Let me say that again. And Academy Award. Okay. That is for your incredible work on the movie Wakanda Forever. So we've got to start there. Tell us about that. How does that feel?.

Camille Friend: You know, it feels surreal. It almost feels dream like. And I just want to say, like, what people don't understand is the journey. So I just want to talk a little bit about the journey that got me here. So this is my third time that I've been that I was really close to getting nominated for an Oscar. So, you know, I was on Guardians of the Galaxy Two. We got to the bake off and I'll explain what the bake Off is on Black Panther. Once we got to the Bake Off and we didn't make it. So, like, for me, this is the third time is the charm. But I'm kind of this way. I feel like God has to work on me and he has to prepare me for this moment. So. Well, that's why we are here now.

KH: I love that. You know, I totally understand what you mean because it really happened. Not on our time, as they say. And that's quite literally.

Camille Friend: That happens right in God's time. And it's something that I think is a culmination of a long, you know, 25-year career to get here and be in this place. And, you know, I'm just feel happy that we got to it has happened. And, you know, that kind happened for a movie like Wakanda Forever. Because if you really think about it, this is a movie that could have been over in the sense of, you know, we lost our star, Chadwick, you know, Chadwick Boseman. Right. So this could have been a movie that Marvel scrapped. We're moving on. We're not going to do it. We're not going to touch it. So for us to be here and this movie and in this climate, I feel so blessed, I feel so humbled. I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity. And it happened on this movie.

KH: Absolutely. And I have to say now that the movie, Wakanda Forever. You guys have been nominated for several, several Academy Awards. So you've got an amazing team. And I just want to take a moment in front of the camera and behind the camera. And it takes literally I have to say it. It takes a village. Okay. It literally does. We're working on a little bit. Right. So I want to hear everything. Tell us about some of the incredible folks. Because, you know, like I said, this takes a lot. And everybody is an artist to me. Every single movie project, TV project, you know, everybody's an artist. Wherever you are that you are connected with these incredible opportunities. So tell us, what was that like? What was it like doing something like this? Well, you know, working with these incredible folks. Yeah.

Camille Friend: No, I'll tell you how it all started is, you know, actually, it started from what I call Black Panther one. And what we did there was so inspirational. And I feel like it was so empowering, especially for the black, like for the black community, the black culture. And it also was something where I think, you know, we really started honing into that idea, which we always have known, but really in a global way that black hair is beautiful and that black people are beautiful and seeing us in that way. So I think it started that great movement in that sense. So starting from there and moving into the next one, it was like, how can we connect these two movies that are very, very different? So for me, in the design context, it was something that I started with Ryan Coogler, which is the director.

KH: Of Black Panther.

Camille Friend: Yeah. And started talking to him and really dissecting what this next movie was going to look like. So this movie is going to be let's call it about the women. It's about if you look, there's not a lot of men in the movie. So it's right about the women. It's about the connection. It's about the mother, it's about the daughter, it's about the relationship. So all of those things came internal also. So that's something that we started. So when I looked at is starting off with the character of Ramona, ensuring the mother daughter story and the mother element of it is that what would they look like if, according to West African tradition, if they had shaved their heads in mourning? So if we took from that time to a year later, what was their hair look like? So that's how I started like designing it and coming from that concept. And then, you know, working out with other characters in the sense is building characters that still were familiar to the audience because we didn't. If you change people so much, sometimes you don't even know who they are on camera. So I think that I always want to tie a thread. You know, if you have from the first to the second to the third movie. So, you know, like, for instance, you know, keeping Ramonda's hair, Angela Bassett keeping her hair in the platinum color. She's not in the locks, but she still has that platinum silvery, beautiful afro curly hair, keeping her in that and then taking taking the character like Shuri, Letitia Wright, taking her into something where you see her as this movie. She has truly evolved as a character. She's more of a leader. She is in mourning. She is. She's discovering who she is as a young woman. So seeing her through that process and seeing her hair evolve, then taking somebody like, you know, Nakia, which is Lupita Nyong'o on the run, taking her and seeing how she's going to evolve, but like changing her hair and allowing her to evolve and giving her longer locks, but still keeping her in the beautiful Nakia red that people love so much. All the ladies love that color, you know, And even like, you know, the flashbacks that we have of Michael B.Jordan, of Killmonger still, you know, even for a one day shoot, making sure that he has the locs in because the ladies love the LOCs ever made. So, like keeping all of those characters familiar in a new story and keeping it grounded in that way. And that's how I always like to hone in on what the hair story is going to be internally inside the movie. So that's that's how it came about.

KH: When you say about the hair story and crafting that now and I was reading somewhere, so you have a team, a team that you work with working to design all of this. And I worked with 300 wigs. Wow. That's a lot.

Camille Friend: I mean, yeah, I always say this, you know, teamwork makes the dream work. So. Yeah, because people always ask me things like, Well, how do you pick people? Do you pick the best hair stylist? Do you pick the best? And I say, this is really truth, Kerry. This is something people don't like know about me. And I don't care sometimes if you're the best hairdresser.

KH: Or the artist.

Camille Friend: The reason I don't care, because if you have an attitude that is not well or if you're not calling when you don't know how to be, please, that doesn't work inside of what I call the society of the trailer. And that's where we work. So it's no, you can be for me, you can be a mediocre hair stylist, you can be a mediocre barber. But if you come to work with the right attitude, with the right mindset, you know, the really the mindset for me is how may I serve? Because we all that's what we have to do. We are serving people that we are serving the movie in the best way that we know how. So going into it like that. That's how I look it and that's how I pick people. And I was really fortunate to have a great group of people, and I'll just give everybody kind of a shout out. So I have my Key, which is a position under myself. I had two Keys and that is Evelyn from the Piano and Margaret Stokes. They were my Keys. And then I had my Master Barber, which is Victor Paul's, and Victor is, you know, he's he is, he is. My brother died and he's been with me through all these. And he did the first Black Panther and he is the master barber and he is a phenomenal barber. And then we had Amber Mayor, we had Jason Simmons, who also a barber, and we had Derrick Washington, who's a barber. And then we had Nancy Martinez and we had and they were on second unit. And, you know, we'll talk about all about the water unit. But those are all the things people don't know, like all that has to happen in order to make a film of this size.

KH: Absolutely. Well, let me tell you something. It's just incredible to pull something like this together. And I love it. And also and I can hear it in your voice and we can see it on screen, obviously, but we can also hear the passion in your voice, the professionalism in your voice, how you have kind of, you know, connected everything. You literally connected all the dots. So I want to talk and go back a little bit now. I read somewhere that you started out in Tempe, Arizona.

Camille Friend: How did you get.

KH: From Arizona to Hollywood? Literally.

Camille Friend: Well, I can tell you this. I'm a third-generation hairstylist, so I come to family of hairstylists. So, you know, like being at the salon, it is being like at home for me. Like I love being in the salon. And, you know, as a little girl, my uncle, my uncle Robert Watson, you know, he's deceased now, God rest his soul. He was somebody who was very pivotal for me and my career and growing up because, you know, if you wanted to get your hair done on Saturday, you had to be in there and be the shampoo girl. You have to take out rollers, the hair like, you know, you have to do your job.

KH: Exactly.

Camille Friend: You have to know how to base people and get the base, get ready for the relaxer. So all of those things I grew up knowing and learning and being in the salon. So, you know, that's just something that's in my DNA and it's something that, you know, you know, my family is so proud of. And we call it some of us call it the family business, because so many of us, I do have quite a few cousins and people in my family who are basically hair stylists, you know, but they don't work in the business, but they're hair stylists. And then I say from the Tempe to the L.A. part, that's something that just happened. You know, I'm just going to be honest. I fell in love with the guy and I decided I that it always.

KH: And it always comes down to love.

Camille Friend: Doesn't it ..always come down to that.

KH: Yeah, but.

Camille Friend: That part didn't work out. But everything else. Oh, I think I'm doing pretty good. I was about to say.

KH: I think it really worked.

Camille Friend: Yeah, it did. It did work. Right. In beautiful way. Yeah.

KH: Exactly. Because everything happens for a reason. You know that, Camille.. Everything happens for a reason. Yes. And I just don't think so.