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" I&amp;#039;m late. I&amp;#039;m late to meet Taye Diggs for drinks. There&amp;#039;s a panic that ensues when this is your reality. Oh no. Oh no. Faster taxi! Oh no. I&amp;#039;m so ruined. I&amp;#039;m going to be the girl who left a bespectacled, fedora-wearing Taye Diggs twiddling his thumbs on the second floor of The Breslin in New York&amp;#039;s Ace Hotel. Okay. It&amp;#039;s okay. I made it. Only 10 minutes late. I lumber up the stairs and freeze. It&amp;#039;s worse than I thought. There he is, all smiles and fitted tees, sipping a near-empty glass of ros\u00E9. My heart sinks. He drank without me. Cocktail hour&amp;#039;s over. But no! Taye Diggs isn&amp;#039;t done. Taye Diggs&amp;#039; work is never done! And as I catch my breath, the newly single Rent star\u2014with the Cheshire grin to end all Cheshire grins\u2014orders us up a round of Bloody Marys. The drinks are spicy, sure, but even spicier? This dude&amp;#039;s wicked sense of humor. Here, we chat about that famous stripper pole Vine, his longstanding man crush on Channing Tatum, and the crux of every couple&amp;#039;s communication breakdown: First off Taye, thank you for doing this column with me\u2014it&amp;#039;s the best part of my job. I saw the title and said &amp;quot;absolutely!&amp;quot; Let&amp;#039;s do one every day. I&amp;#039;m down. So, before we delve into contemporary Taye, I want to talk about one role in particular: Marcus in Go. I just love that movie! Oh! That&amp;#039;s quality right there. I feel proud because I feel like that was one of the first movies of its kind\u2014with all of the different vignettes that are somehow related. And it was one of [director] Doug Liman&amp;#039;s first big ones. And now Sarah Polley is such an amazing director\u2014 How about that? She was cool as hell, too. You know what&amp;#039;s funny? When that movie came out I had no idea what any of those drugs were. And now I&amp;#039;m dealing them. [Laughs] Just kidding. I really give kudos to directors like that. Number one: It wasn&amp;#039;t a &amp;quot;black&amp;quot; movie. Number two: I think it was my second flick\u2014so I don&amp;#039;t why they cast me. Katie Holmes was kind of the star. Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr had a lot of experience. They took a risk on me, and that is, to this day, one of the best movies that I&amp;#039;ve been in. There are movies that are fun; there are movies that do well; and then there are movies of which you are proud.  And Melissa McCarthy is in that movie, too! [High fives me] I bragged on her like I was her daddy! And I knew it! Oh, I knew it. I fancy myself as someone who can spot talent, and if you can make that much of an impression in that short amount of time...She made such an impression. In the theater, people were dying. And she says maybe three words. That&amp;#039;s how you know talent. Speaking of talent. I, along with the rest of the world, saw you on that stripper pole\u2026 Can I please tell you: That was not in a strip club. You know 1OAK? You know in the back? There are poles. That&amp;#039;s where that was. Damn it, 1OAK. You can&amp;#039;t lie; you had a vice-like grip on that thing. Listen! I try to keep it tight and stay in shape. I&amp;#039;m an actor in Hollywood and 40-plus. I saw you&amp;#039;re interested in the Magic Mike franchise? I&amp;#039;m 100 percent interested. If they put me in it, I would absolutely love to do that. I&amp;#039;m a huge Channing Tatum fan. I&amp;#039;ve met him and he was so humble and very complimentary of me, and I was like, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;re the huge movie star.&amp;#039; He&amp;#039;s somebody that I remember from that Mountain Dew commercial. At the time I thought he was half black. So I&amp;#039;ve been following him. Which other young actors are you spotting with your talent radar? Michael B. Jordan. He&amp;#039;s good. I wanna know what happened to the little girl from the movie where she was pregnant at a young age?  Ellen Page? &amp;#039;Juno&amp;#039;? Juno! I love her. Zac Efron, I think, is a talent. I do, too, but he&amp;#039;s kind of going through something, right? Yeah, but he&amp;#039;s nowhere near Bieber. Cats like that are more talented than what people are seeing. I get annoyed when people aren&amp;#039;t being used\u2014young, old, middle-aged\u2014to their highest potential. That is a critique that I have of Hollywood. Because I consider myself one of those people. There&amp;#039;s so much that I have left to do. And I&amp;#039;m sick and tired of waiting. Is that what you&amp;#039;re doing with your forthcoming reality project, &amp;#039;Single Urban Dads&amp;#039;? That&amp;#039;s a different side of things because that&amp;#039;s not on the performance tip. After I turned 40, I told myself that I was going to &amp;quot;get it.&amp;quot; Because I&amp;#039;d see all these other people\u2014seemingly less talented people\u2014being very successful at many things, and expanding their outreach. And I&amp;#039;ve always wanted to do that. So producing was one of the things that I wanted to take a stab at. The reality is, though, it&amp;#039;s easier to get these things done. It&amp;#039;s not as easy to get these things on the air. I actually came up with the idea for Single Urban Dads before I got separated.  You were like, &amp;#039;That&amp;#039;s such a great idea, that\u2026&amp;#039; [Laughs] Yeah, like, &amp;#039;You know what, Idina?&amp;#039; No, unfortunately. No offense to these, you know, &amp;quot;housewives,&amp;quot; but it seems like they make things up for them to do. Those shows are about the drama. Being a single urban dad, you don&amp;#039;t have to make anything up. The drama is there. The comedy is there. The heart is there. The heartbreak is there. Also, because of the differing dynamics between men and women\u2014and I don&amp;#039;t mean the stereotypical, &amp;#039;Men can&amp;#039;t change a diaper&amp;#039;\u2014men handle situations differently than women. And I think that makes for interesting TV.  What&amp;#039;s a situation, for better or for worse, that a man would handle differently than a woman? In my experience, if a girl has an issue and speaks to a guy, the guy wants to solve the issue. For me, if you come to me, and you said, &amp;#039;My boss at work disrespected me.&amp;#039; I immediately, if I see you hurting, I want to stop that. I&amp;#039;ll be like, &amp;#039;Well, you should go to your boss and whatever,&amp;quot; but a lot of times that&amp;#039;s not what the girl wants to hear. They just want you to listen\u2014 Yeah! It sounds clich\u00E9, but it&amp;#039;s true. A lot of times I&amp;#039;ll give suggestions, and I keep getting, &amp;#039;I can&amp;#039;t do this! I can&amp;#039;t do that!&amp;#039; So I get frustrated because I feel like I need to help. So, now, with the young lady I&amp;#039;m hanging out with, I say, &amp;#039;Before you start, what is my assignment? Do you want me to try and help? Do you want me to listen? Or do you want me to just be here?&amp;#039; My son&amp;#039;s mother is constantly keeping up with the latest and most accurate kind of philosophies on how children act, or really great schools that allow children to artistically express themselves. So, when two kids are having a skirmish on the playground, [she&amp;#039;s of the school of thought] to let them work it out. I would say, &amp;#039;Kick his ass!&amp;#039; and then I&amp;#039;d go to his mother and father and be like, &amp;#039;You need to watch your kid because he&amp;#039;s throwing sand\u2026&amp;#039; The mother might say, &amp;#039;no violence,&amp;#039; but I say, &amp;#039;Absolutely! You should stand up for yourself. Send that kid a message.&amp;#039; So, what changes about drinking as you get older? Oh, my God, alcohol will never go out of style. Ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever. Alcohol is taking on a completely new role in my life after having a child. I may be a functioning alcoholic. I&amp;#039;m kidding! Channing Tatum has said that before, actually\u2014 I know. And, I get it! And he&amp;#039;ll drink even more as his kids get older. Because on the days that I have my boy, I need a glass of wine. That&amp;#039;s like my prize. It&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Okay, I got through it. My kid is still alive. Break open the chardonnay!&amp;#039;   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a14514/hot-guy-cold-drink-taye-diggs/>