The way people feel about New Orleans is so tender. I have fallen in love, and I completely understand not ever wanting to let go of life here. I’m from New York. I can relate (the post-Katrina experience) to my experience after 9/11. I just wanted to be in New York. I wanted to be home. I wanted to go home. It’s even more personal here. In the way David (Simon) is portraying New Orleans as a character in the show, it truly is a character in real life. It’s hard to tell people this, but when you’re here, you (see that) this city lives and breathes on its own…It happens to me almost every single day. I’ll be walking back from the gym and someone will literally come over and start talking to me, and the next thing I know I’m either in their kitchen or I’m sitting in a restaurant. People will literally take me by the arm, I’m not kidding, and just take me somewhere, and I find myself just going. Every single day this happens to me. It’s to the point where if I just need to be alone and study lines, I have to stay in my apartment, because if I go out, someone’s taking me somewhere. That’s just what’s going down. I’ve been in so many people’s homes and kitchens and restaurants. I will have an agenda for a day and then it’s just blown. I feel so at home here, and it’s very important to me that I get it right. I want people to know that I want to get it right for them. It’s not an ego-driven situation here for me. It’s more a deep respect for everyone here and what they’ve gone through. It’s respect here…Talk about how I walk to the gym and people take me places. Before they went to the Super Bowl, that last game when we knew they were going, the ‘Oh my God, we’re going to the Super Bowl!’ game, I had to work, so I was tired. I was watching some of it. I had to lay down. I laid down and the next thing I knew I just heard screaming, cause I’m staying here in the French Quarter. I went downstairs, and, right outside my door, a crowd of people came rushing down the street, and the next thing I knew, I was standing at the river. They literally just took me. The entire crowd just lifted me off my feet. It is so magical…That Lombardi Trophy coming out of the sunroof of that car was so gangsta. Nothing will top that. You couldn’t make that up. That was so gangsta. That was a beautiful thing right there.
— Treme’s Khandi Alexander — who plays LaDonna on the show — has fallen in love with New Orleans. (via cajunboy)
