Best of full interview: Mara Brock Akil Talks ‘Forever,' Black Love, Lessons From Storytelling, Girlfriends’ Movie + More

Best of 2025- Queens - Mara Brock Akil Talks ‘Forever,' Black Love, Lessons From Storytelling, Girlfriends’ Movie . Recorded 2025. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Breakfast Club Morning, everybody is j n V.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy, We are to Breakfast Club.

Speaker 4 (00:10):
La La Rosa is here as well, and we got
a special guest in the building, legendary.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
That's right, Miss Mark brock a Kill.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome, thank you, good morning, good morning. Nice to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
How are you, bless Black and Holly favorite. How's your energy?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
It's great? Okay, I'm really I'm floating.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
How does it feel to have yet another hit TV show?

Speaker 5 (00:29):
Another another hit TV show? But this is global? This
is like the first time I have been on a
stage this big. Normally my shows are on up and
coming networks, So I feel like an angen new Actually
I feel I feel both veteran and both.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm also in awe. You know, it's just an idea.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
Is a global conversation that it's kind of I'm sitting
in that. Mostly my career, I've been thinking about a
national conversation, but this is a global one. And I mean,
I've always known that our stories are global, but for
it to be a reality, it's pretty special.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
And another hit, right to be at it. Thirty years
in the game, thirty years in the game.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
But let's talk about it.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
Of course, for people that are just tuning in, you
created shows like Girlfriends, the Game.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Being Mary Jane.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
You've written on The Jamie Fox Show and so many others,
but this one.

Speaker 5 (01:30):
Is so many, see so many see you.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
This one's on Yeah, this one's on Netflix.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
So how did the next the Netflix play come together?

Speaker 5 (01:43):
We're doing for I had a deal, you know, my
career did garner me a really wonderful deal out of
that deal?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I did stamp.

Speaker 5 (01:48):
From the beginning, I hope you guys all saw that
amazing documentary that Roger Ross Williams directed, but about doctor
Abraham Kindy's work about the racist lies, I mean, the
myths of racism.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
That was my first offering in my deal, and this
was the second.

Speaker 5 (02:06):
It took a minute, strikes and executive changes and whatnot.
It took a minute to get this one out, but
it was it was special. From the beginning, I met
Judy Bloom somebody Else's come on, come on, two.

Speaker 6 (02:19):
Of my favorite storytellers, come.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
On, I mean, I mean, and that's God. First of all,
I didn't even realize that the book was going to
be fifty years old.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
By the time re released, it was not even in
my thinking of that time seventy five. But yeah, it
took us a minute to get it out, but we
got it out. And so when Netflix heard that that
my take on her story she was about, they were like,
we are about that too.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
So it was a beautiful synergy.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
One thing I will say about Netflix, when they're behind something,
they are behind it completely supported, resourced. I think that's
what's important to me in this this moment of this
hit show is that it was my vision was supported financially.
And also the episode ye we went to the vineyard,

(03:12):
taking your crew across the country in the middle of production.
That is another level of support and in a place
that the infrastructure is not there. Thank you so much. Yeah,
so it was it was amazing to feel like, wow,
I'm supported, to got money, to have the vision that
I want and to get the people that I need,
the collaborators. It's been amazing. So short answer is Judy

(03:35):
bluem is marlbacker Kill Netflix wanted all of that.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
We approach Netflix, do you approach it differently? Because you
know what a lot of the shows that we spoke
about is you have to wait for next week right,
So it's almost like you can't wait, you schedule it,
you write it down. Well, Netflix, a lot of times
it's a lot differently because everything is right there, smacking,
you can binge watch it is.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
At your own leisure.

Speaker 5 (03:55):
Yeah, correct, when you know that's I think that's what
I'm thankful for, or to know how to make television
and be able to stretch the canvas differently given different circumstances.
And so my job is to keep those keep you
on those eight episodes.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I learned that back in the day when we.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
Used to have to do cliffhangers for the season, like
you know, doing Girlfriends or even Moesha.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
We had to get you watching.

Speaker 5 (04:18):
For the you know, for the end of the season
or if there was a break in the middle of
the season. So I learned how to craft that shout
out to my mentor, I'm always gonna shout out my mentor,
Ralph Farquhar. I learned how to make TV that way,
how to keep you engage, how to keep.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
That binge going.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
So I understood that, but it also was it was
also sort of just a fun way to play in
their sandbox. How do you win on their with their rules?
And so that was for me as a creative is wonderful.
But there's an like that athlete spirit in me, like
I want the ball, Like all right, I'll with the ball,
let's go. So that was fun to figure out.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
You said Judy Bloom was your first permission slip as
a story tell.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 6 (05:01):
So how does your in a child feel knowing that
you have done such justice to win her iconic works?

Speaker 5 (05:06):
Why does my innery she feels on cloud nine. She
is twirling, she is Cartwill I to cartwell, back in
the day, I could cartwheel, backband, all the things she's doing.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
All of that. I'm very proud of myself.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
It was interesting because my body of work, or I
approached my work, I don't ever I never saw myself
as needing ip. I'm like, I'm full of stories. I'm
full of original stories. So but when the opportunity to
reimagine one of her books, there was no thinking. My
hand just went up and I feel like it was

(05:38):
a little protective as well. It was like I want
to protect that story. I want to be able to
tell that story. But my little girl is like she's
she cabbage patches.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Does she feel like she made it.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
Do you feel like you felt like she's felt like
she's made it a long while ago. I think this
is different in that it's a full circle moment.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I feel I often.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
Say that you become a writer as a reader first,
and so I used to get lost in the pages
of Judy Blue, and so for me to be just
the divinity of it, like the divineness of it, that
I would come full circle fifty years later, like those
kinds of things, right, It's almost like it was written
for me. It was written for me and Judy. Matter
of fact, I'm going to get a chance to meet

(06:21):
her personally.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
I'm so excited going down to Key with yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ok,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
You live this life once and I'm gonna live in
that dream. So I'm excited to meet her. We met
at the time on zoom and talked on the phone
and emailed, but just to meet her and say thank
you and have her signed my book. I'm just that
twelve year old girl is running to Key with.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
It. I've done it a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, just to mess Blue, Yeah, just to you know.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
That's why what I really would love is for people
to honor more of their story, the craftsmanship sitting in
the chair and writing.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
That woman sat in the chair and wrote.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
I mean it's like she never got out of the chair,
just writing and that and what it would do just
someone sharing the story, just my own testimony is it
ignited something in me. And I think that even the
feedback I'm getting from the show, not just the show,
but the shows I've had in my career, it has
ignited other storytellers. And I want us to do I

(07:22):
want us to do more by that. We have so
many stories in us that will die in us if
we don't even start crafting them and writing them down.
And I appreciate like social media and we can do
things video and content. I get that too, and that's
a beautiful expression. But to literally craft story from a
writing perspective, to have those layers of theme and complexity,

(07:45):
and understanding that her book is still through this show now,
is still it still lives, It's universal, it's forever.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
But I'm bumped when I live there.

Speaker 7 (08:00):
The original book was written in the seventies, Yeah, seventy five.
Why did you choose to specifically set this story in
twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well, I had to look.

Speaker 5 (08:08):
At what would make it fresh today and what to
maybe have to look at?

Speaker 1 (08:13):
What where the kids are today?

Speaker 5 (08:15):
And Judy and I talked about, well, they know a
lot about sex, like there's so much you could just
hit Twitter, hit hit whatever.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
There's no Twitter anymore. You get the point.

Speaker 5 (08:27):
But intimacy, connection, those things, I think we're further away.
Even though we are more technical technolo I can't get
this word out technologically advanced.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
We don't have.

Speaker 5 (08:43):
Though these tools are meant to connect us, we are
using them in very disconnecting ways. And I think that
to bring the phone into the conversation, one of it
is an opportunity to talk about something unique to this culture.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I mean, excuse me culture, but this generation.

Speaker 5 (08:58):
Excuse me, what it is doing to them personally emotional,
their emotional self there there, and then how it's even
affecting their physical self and then affecting their future. And
that's what the book was about, how do we explore
our emotional self, our physical self while maintaining a healthy future.
And this was my conversation today. Also between I also

(09:21):
wanted to talk about in the black family. By by
changing the white family to black, it allowed me to
also talk about a time that I think is very
important for us to document between Trayvon Martin's murder and
George floyd murder. George Floyd's murder, we as black people,
we as black families, as mothers and fathers, we were

(09:42):
screaming into a vacuum about the fear over our children.
And there was no amount of fancy zip codes or
education that can save your child, you know, And that
was scary and I wanted, I needed a place for
me as a mother to release all of that fear.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
And then also then look at how much.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
We are We are out of love, but we are
raising our children from that fear, and how that is
hurting our children and their inability to have a natural
right of passage, to explore again their emotional their emotional self,
their emotional maturity, their physical self, their physical maturity, to

(10:25):
have sex or not have sex, who to have it with,
what's the right conditions, all of those choices that they're
supposed to be making right now to protect the beautiful future.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
And that's another thing.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
We need to open up some space because our children
also need a future and it's tough out there, and
I couldn't imagine being them today thinking about what do
you want to be with your grow up, Well, what's
out there and so and we adults need to get
it together. And so this is a part of my offering.

Speaker 8 (10:56):
When the when the book so and back in the seventies,
it was controversial because of the things that it explored.
Today it's not controversial because we are so open. Like
what you talk about when you were crafting, like what
the storyline would be and how you would redo it.
Were there things that you were like, I want to
make sure I get to or make sure I get
in this storyline. Because you also made it feel closer
to home for like black teens. You know, now forever

(11:17):
feels like it's our story. But you had to do
it a different way.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
You know.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
I think it's controversial black male vulnerability. It's just there's
no room for it. I think there's no images for it.
And yet when I'm looking in the world, within my
own children, their friends, and the community beyond that, a
lot of boys, and more specifically black boys, they're not
all that hard, you know. They don't have any room

(11:41):
for their complexity, they don't have any room for their feelings.
Like it's always funny to me, especially by the group
of boys I'm around, they're all privileged. They live a
great life. Time to take a picture. They were laughing
two seconds ago, you trying to take the picture, and
then they get that stoic.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
What you mean mugging for?

Speaker 7 (12:00):
You know?

Speaker 5 (12:00):
And if you realize how much that's imparted on young
black boys all the time about what is manly? What
are those images of what a man is? And I
wanted to make a room.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
For the real reflection. I'm actually looking at the real thing.

Speaker 5 (12:15):
It's just what gets on that bigger screen and how
important it is. I know, we talk about representation matters.
That's why it matters. You got to see yourself in
order to decide is that beautiful?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Is that how I want to look?

Speaker 2 (12:29):
You know?

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Is that right? That type?

Speaker 5 (12:30):
You know?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
I can't see it?

Speaker 5 (12:32):
And I think I also think boys and working on
this project, it made me look at something I hadn't
looked at before.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
I think boys are getting their heartbroken a lot sooner.
I felt so bad for justin the whole time.

Speaker 8 (12:45):
Why because I just felt like some of the things
that they were experiencing, Like I mean, I remember being
that age and going through.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Like my first like relationship things. But I don't know.

Speaker 8 (12:55):
I just felt like a lot of times the characters
they were yearning for this like space of like I
don't know, to just be okay, and the things would
be going good and then something what else would happen.
It'd be something small would be like for Kesha, like
the video gets sent to her phone and she's finally
in this relationship, you.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (13:12):
Like things were just like happening, and I'm like, they
need kids, Like why can't they just be and not
you deal with these things?

Speaker 1 (13:17):
But yes, life, and it's also technology that we didn't have.

Speaker 5 (13:21):
We got some freedoms without you know that they don't
They're not afforded. And so that's what I want to
talk about. It's like, are we making any room for them?
Like one of the things that I love when we
every production meeting, I said, we're making an epic and
intimate love story within a love letter to Los Angeles, right,
And what that meant to me is that we need

(13:41):
to see them in scope and scale and epic. I
need to see them their bodies in the space in
Los Angeles. What that means is that they it's a
feeling cinematically that I'm making you feel that they belong here,
and when they belong here, they.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Belong to us.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
And so you would engage with our children differently psychologically, emotionally.
Those things are important in our image. On the details,
the details on anyone makes them feel more human to you.
So I want to make just room for their humanity
so that we think about the measures around technology, we

(14:20):
think about what the rules are for these kids. I mean, like,
these kids are being told today that you make one
false move, you won't get a scholarship.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I mean, come on, it's the truth that follows them
for the rest of their lives and the.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
Rest of their lives, and that where is any room.
There's no humanity in that.

Speaker 8 (14:33):
That's how I felt. Maybe that was the yes at
the humanity part. I'm like, yo, she's young, she made
a mistake.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yep.

Speaker 8 (14:39):
Now it's following her, and it's like he's in love
and he just doesn't how to navigate it. Now he
feels like he's not a good person or not not
a good person. He doesn't feel like he can win
the girl in the beginning of things, and I felt.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
Bad for that, Like, but you know what, back in
the day, back in the day, boys have to walk
across the room to ask you to dance.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Did you ever have you ever done that?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
This course?

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (15:02):
How did did you ever get rejected?

Speaker 3 (15:03):
No?

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Before you, because I'll be honest, I only went when
I knew I was going to be received. If I
knew I was gonna get rejected or there was a
fifty to fifty chance, I wasn't gonna try. Of course,
remember it wasn't you know back then it was a
party and everybody standing on the wall and you have to,
like you said, you.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Have to walk across.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
And if I knew this person wasn't feeling me, didn't
weaken me, didn't have a crush on me, didn't write me,
I wasn't going.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
But if I knew that I got that little stair,
that little smile, I was gonna go.

Speaker 5 (15:33):
So it was all those social duds that you have
to learn in real time. We're not learning that.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
There's no space for that.

Speaker 5 (15:41):
So I'm advocating for I want the kids to be
back outside, like it's even sad we shot on Fairfax
Avenue right it's.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
A ghost town right now.

Speaker 5 (15:49):
But back in twenty eighteen where it was depicted, that
was a place for them to be, but there's we
are where are kids allowed to be?

Speaker 2 (15:57):
But that's why I love the scene. I love the scenes,
and I.

Speaker 6 (16:00):
Love Oh God, especially at the prom, because I feel
like in that moment, Justin was you know, everybody talks
about he's chasing the young lady.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
To me, it felt like he was chasing his blackness.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yes, yeah, thank you for seeing that.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah, you know, one of the things I was trying
to say, trying to keep your son, trying to keep
our children safe. Sometimes we're isolating them. He had a
pretty prison, but it was up on the hill, isolated,
and he's looking for more. But I can also understand
don she's so scared to put him outside, you know,
also scared is he going to measure up to where

(16:36):
they are? You know, I'm saying she's probably not saying that,
but that's psychologically, it's kind of it's under there.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
But fun fact, I was so proud as.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
A producer to put all those black and brown kids
taking over the Pantamtica Peer. I don't you know, I
found one of the location. I think that's I think
the last time someone took over the Peer at that
scale was.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
I was like, okay, but That means something to me,
That means something.

Speaker 5 (17:04):
That we how we take up the space, the epicness
and the beauty of us. These these kids are looking
like this all over our country and we see it
on Instagram or TikTok or things like that. But to put
it on that scale, that level of beauty, Anthony Hemingway
directed his butt off in that.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
You know, the kids were just beautiful.

Speaker 5 (17:22):
The our costume designers amazing, our production design was amazing,
Our cinema tigraphy was amazing.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
You know what I'm saying. We had we had the
thing lit up.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
I was on cloud nine that day that we shot
and we got out of their safe and sound.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
That's also important.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
But it's uh, our kids having space in the world,
chasing their chasing themselves, figuring out who they are, including
of their blackness, including of their you know, what they like,
just who they are.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Even the making room for I know, I get a
lot of comments around.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
He likes Naruto. Yeah, a lot of black kids love Narto.
You know, we're a part of the world.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
So that was fun.

Speaker 6 (18:00):
And as much as it's a story about the kids,
it's a story about the adults, right, Like like the
way Judy Bloom made people feel seen at thirteen, it
feels to me like you're making us feel seen at
forty something fifty something. So what do those ages need
that nobody's writing about.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
I'm going to keep saying this over it just more complexity,
more of our human side. Like don't you know, I've
said before, I don't you know. I don't really believe
in positive images. I think they can be just as
damaging as negative images.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Really found on that break down.

Speaker 5 (18:34):
Because okay, so the negative image is is a product
of a lie, going back to the documentary, like it's
the perpetuating the lies and the mists of us that's
been out there. So a lot of black people want
a positive image because they want to rewrite the wrong

(18:57):
of somebody else's view of me. But what that doesn't
as an artist, it keeps me behind the eight ball.
I'm chasing up and trying to clean up somebody else's mess.
I'm from the Zori nil Hurston school of thought. I
know my people, I see my people. I want to
be able to talk about them fully and in the
spectrum of our humanity, there is light and dark. We
are not we are not perfect to be perfect. That's

(19:19):
just as hard to be perfect as it is to
be bad.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Like I want to. I want the spectrum of my humanity.

Speaker 5 (19:24):
I want to be able to make a mistake and
have my village patch me up and put me back
out there.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
I deserve that.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
You deserve that, We deserve that, And so I want
the spectrum of who I am. And sometimes i'm you know,
sometimes I'm not great, and sometimes I am in the
same day, in the same hour.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
And I deserve that that.

Speaker 5 (19:44):
Sort of exploration of who I am as a human being,
and I give that to my characters. I think Dawn,
for instance, you know, people there's a lot of conversation
about her as a mother, but that black mother has
raised a lot of kids to get them, to keep
them alive. Does she does serve looking at herself? Yes,
my high my name is Marb Barack and Kill and

(20:04):
I'm a former Dawn. I put my pain on the screen.
I think, you know, I wanted to out of love.
I'm trying to overprotect my children and rightfully so.

Speaker 6 (20:15):
Yeah, But and you end up, well, she ended up
raising her child out of fear and not love. And
that's a question I always ask because I feel like
my father raised me out of fear and I love,
not meaning that he didn't love me.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yes, oh they love and the kids know that. The
kids know that they love. But it still feels constrained.

Speaker 6 (20:29):
But that dynamic was amazing though, the way you had
don you know, being the overprotective parent who was raising
her son out of fear and our love.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
But then the father Wood Harris character was, you know, high.

Speaker 6 (20:41):
Emotional like you, you know, very vulnerable, soft with his
son in a way that we don't really see on TV,
especially between black men and between black men period.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
You thought that was incredible.

Speaker 5 (20:52):
Thank you, I really, first of all, shout out to
Wood Harris and Karen Pittman.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Kill You couldn't cat did it any better?

Speaker 5 (21:00):
No, I mean that, I mean as soon as we
met Lovey and Michael and put them together, it was like,
come on, chemistry off off the jump.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Their chemistry was amazing. Karen and Woods, you know.

Speaker 5 (21:18):
That I did want to depict two types of black
families that are that we that we recognize, right but
speaking about the Edwards for a moment, it just shows
you the need to have two partners in a home.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Just the balance of it all I think that Eric.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
Could be that because he has such a solid foundation
in down and vice versa. I'm saying, I feel like
he had his emotional maturity is because how much he
is loved also by her and so and he can
allow for her fear in a moment like this. Keep
in mind, he's also aware of her worries about her

(21:59):
children were in a hoodie, So he understands and boys,
and he understands how how assertive she is, and he
knows all that stuff about her. And that's a lot
of my backstory when I'm writing those characters, and how
much it's and it is irritating in parenting when you
have different approaches at a very crucial moment when now

(22:20):
the kids can talk back, you know, I mean, when
they're younger, it's a little you know, it's a little
easier on the parenting different dynamics sometimes, but the stakes
being high right these these children are about to be out
of the house, those things get a little bit, you know,
we all react a little differently.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
We'll talk about the importance of that. I think we
missed that a lot.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
We've seen it a lot more with my parents, But
I think in these days, people don't.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
I don't think.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
Care to really respect a two parent household. It just
seems like it's it's very loose, and people forget about
what it means to kids and how important it is.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
Well, it's just another witness to the you know, to
the witnessing in a lot of ways, like you know,
one of the in my own parenting, I used to
get frustrated about why the kids seem to act up
a little bit more with me than they did with
their father.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
And I was like, and I would complain this lame
all the time.

Speaker 5 (23:13):
And then later I realized, Wow, what a privilege it
is that your children are the safest with you to
act that you know what out you know, and you're
just like, oh, I am the safest place in the
world for them to be to just show they ask.
And when you realize that honor, it's like, oh, okay,

(23:36):
so then how can I then how can I just
be fortified, you know, in order to take those moments right?
When I realized then I feel like the father or
the second parent is the first bridge to the outside world,
and how needed that role is because they kind of,
you know, they they rise up a little bit, they

(23:56):
you know, they they act, they act a little bit
better for dad, you know time and in the case
of our home, right, and so there's a bridge to
that emotional uh maturity that they can.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Move through. And then then you drop them off at
somebody's house and they come back.

Speaker 5 (24:13):
Your kid is amazing, they did this, they did that,
and you're like, oh, so you do know how to act.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
And that that just rhythm.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
And then sometimes you know, when I would be upset
about things, I did have someone there to tell me.
Are you're fine, they love you, You're you're you're you're
tripping a little bit. You just relax a little bit.
But that level of care, that level of the dance

(24:44):
between the parents and the child is actually beautiful when
you finally settle down into it and get into the roles.
They're just rolled and it's okay to it's okay to
lean into them. And then and then there's sometimes that
like I get things that.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
They don't get.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
I get not just the acting out, I get those
I get those intimate details, you know, I get those
real when they're really really safe and they're telling you things,
You're like, oh, shoot, I'm trying to remember it so
I can so I can go back and tell.

Speaker 7 (25:11):
Don't tell that and something you don't yeah for a while,
I know, well my wife, my wife will say, well,
I'm gonna tell dad, but he's not gonna judge.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
You're not getting in trouble or you know some things.
But I have the most difficult time with really being
understanding right, And the reason being is similar to what
you just said, Like my wife will yell at my
kids every day, right for something small. I yell once
a week, yes, and it's the worst thing ever. And
I'm like, my mom doesn't yell like it.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Was the same yell.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
But they feel like Mom is that safe place they
can open up, they can be comfortable. But dad is
the barrier to the outside.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
World, barrier to the outside world. And to see that.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
And then on on Keisha's side, being you know, having
a single mother, how much you need a village. So
she's very resourced and you know, the Edwards were more
resourced finance, They got nannies and housekeepers and stuff. She's
got the bills, she's got cousins, she's got her grandfather,
her dad. And then we that was that was purposeful.

(26:09):
We revealed that the dad's been around. We just he's
not physically there all the time, and he's not carrying
his complete share, but he is present.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
I would just.

Speaker 6 (26:24):
Say that everybody is represented in this show. What's the
most uncomfortable truth you had to face?

Speaker 2 (26:30):
The right forever? Honestly?

Speaker 5 (26:35):
Just you know, you'd like to think that you're an
amazing mother, just with my shortcomings as a mother. I
think when I acknowledge that, I think not only my
children and then our our community of children need more space.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
We had to look at where I was allowing that.
I think that was uncomfortable. I think the other part
was the depiction of.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
Getting into the nitty gritty around these like the sex
tapes and then the betrayals that are happening with these
children whose brains aren't fully functioned yet and making bad.
Wanted to make sure I protected Keisha by also allowing
the truth to be told. You know I'm saying, and
the way it is experienced, and it can be the outcome,

(27:26):
you know, even and it's and he's he made a
horrible choice. I actually think Christian is not I don't,
I don't. I know he messed up royally right, but
I also think that there's room for him but I
know that people are like no.

Speaker 8 (27:43):
So when he came back into this not that I was,
I was like, why did Why is he backing around
and all these things?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
And she's dealing with so much stuff right now. We
don't make And that's the other thing too.

Speaker 5 (27:54):
I've seen grown women not make great decisions, I'm saying,
and we just put all this pressure. She's sixteen, you're young,
and we're trying to negotiate a lot.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
One of the things that I was trying to arc
out what the.

Speaker 5 (28:05):
Keisha character is what would it be like to be
invisible at a PWI for most of your life, not
I think, not be reflected back that you are beautiful?
And then the first time you get attention from the
ball or I'm saying that, who is How are we
making those decisions? How are we making those choices to

(28:25):
be seen, to be loved, to.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Be cared for.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
In a time when speaking about sexuality, especially that period
and on, young women are saying, hey, I have sexual urges.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
I mean girls need love too.

Speaker 5 (28:42):
There they're the ones leading sometimes the blowjob conversation.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
They're like, we can do so you're.

Speaker 5 (28:49):
In this world that some things are really okay to
do and just trying to negotiate all of these things.
It's she made, she made a batch, he made a
bad choice. Everybody's trying to impress, somebody trying to do.
These kids are managing a lot, and then the public

(29:09):
record of it and the forever record of it.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
It's very hard to live with.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
So I think that faith your question was what some
of the hardest things, trying to be honest about the
times and honest about why people are making the choices
that they are making, even when you are I know
that it's no not a lot of compassion for the
Christian character, and I'm aware of that, and that was

(29:35):
very That was a very tough choice to make, trying
to make it as honest and grounded as possible and
so that it can be the thing in the middle
of this love story that they actually moved through. What's
great to me about the Justin and Keisha's that they both.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Come from love.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
They know it.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
It may be a little complicated, it may not be
you know, ideal and times, but they know they're loved.
And what's beautiful is to watch two young people choose
love from having been loved. And I think what's beautiful
for us as a community, especially family, especially as parents,
is our ability to witness our children's choices while they're

(30:18):
still in our home. What it's also happening in society.
They're calling it late bloomer. I think that's a new term.
I mean, young people are not even getting to feel
desired until they're like damn, they're thirty.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
They're not even know like that reciprocal like he liked me,
I like her?

Speaker 2 (30:35):
What they got to go outside? You got to get off.

Speaker 5 (30:37):
Well there for that, I think there's that's there's that too,
and then and then, and that's the other layer we're
putting on it.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
We go outside.

Speaker 5 (30:44):
But some of our kids and some you know, that's
I wanted to talk about putting our kids in private
white institutions. They go through most there's a there's an upside, right,
you're trying to give them the best education, set them
up for the best you know, future.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
But the consequence of that is they're not being seen.
That's social.

Speaker 5 (31:04):
They don't feel beautiful, they don't feel handsome, they don't
feel important, there's nothing marrying them back.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Oftentimes that's what I feel.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
Like that So that so when you say they have
to get outside. They are outside.

Speaker 8 (31:18):
To that party in the stairs, and Justin tells her
that she's beautiful, yes, or gorgeous, and she stops and
I'm like, I mean, but to your point what you
just said, they're like the only black kids.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yes.

Speaker 8 (31:27):
For her to hear that from him, it probably was
a whole different type of your gorgeous or you're beautiful,
whatever you had said to her. But I didn't even
think about that point of it. I just thought it
was just our first time interacting with a boy. She like, yeah,
you know, yeah, there's not enough to sort of like.
And it may be that maybe other kids like them,
but maybe they're conditioned not to for race reasons or
things of that nature.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
But I don't know that.

Speaker 5 (31:46):
Our kids sometimes they're outside, but they're not always connected.
That's why we've spent a lot of time and money
trying to get to the vineyard.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
But that's two weeks. Yeah, that's two weeks.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
But it's funny that you said it.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
That's you know, my daughter had the same problem, and
I wanted her to go to HBCU because of that.
I went to Hampton and she didn't. She went to
great schools. A lot of white kids but nobody ever.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Approached her, so she didn't feel beautiful, she didn't feel away.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
And then when she should there approached her.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
No, nobody proud now, But the problem is she never
felt that love, so she a little depressed. She felt
like she wasn't as beautiful as she is. And then
when she finally when she got when she went to
n YU, there's no campus, so she felt even worse.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
And then COVID hit.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
So now if you you know Manhattan, Manhattan is your campus,
so there is no campus, so you're going to venues
and clubs with everybody. And that made me nervous because
now she's not well equipped. And thank god she found
somebody that that did find it. But at first black, yeah,
but at first she.

Speaker 8 (32:46):
Was You have to say that, y'all kids are going
to very nice schools, so it might not always be black.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, but you know, it was very difficult.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
But I felt guilty about that for years because I
was like, am I setting them up for failure?

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Am I setting them up for somebody not to love them?

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Because I went to a black school, I lived in
a black neighborhood, so I'm seeing love all day long.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
And she didn't have that feeling. She didn't have those friends.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
Which which is probably why she's so close to me
now and I'm kind of like her best friend. Like
we go out and we do things like right now,
she just text me Dad, what time you coming home?
And she's twenty three years old? What is just that relationship?
But give me it gave me a guilt as a parent.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's funny when you asked me what I have to face?
That's that, that's that's.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
I know we made choices for a certain reason. But
you're thinking, ooh, what you know, my kids are fine,
But also that's what you moved through when you're just
trying to give them the world, the best, the best
you can give them, and you realize, oops.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
I missed that part.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
So they are getting outside and then La specifically, you
know these kids don't want to drive it Like I
was at the DMV, like at nine am on my birthday.
They are not so I mean that. So it was
how are they even seeing each other? And that goes
back to where are the spaces. I was at the
skating rink, I was at this, there was I was
at the mall, I was here. That's not happening that

(34:01):
much anymore, and so that concerns me as well. So
I'm hoping that some of these images on the show
makes people want to connect, get outside, be back outside.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
I think we need that.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
I mean, the beauty of it is.

Speaker 7 (34:18):
Let me get a damn question, miss k how the
whole town knew about the sex tape?

Speaker 1 (34:25):
But Keisha mother, Well, now it's funny.

Speaker 5 (34:29):
That's why we were in la That's why I did
above the ten and below the ten certain communities can
know it and hold it and let you know it
when they feel like it.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
But below the ten, she was able to keep that.

Speaker 5 (34:41):
She was able to keep that going, and that shows
the disconnect of the village. There was no parent from
those communities that thought to call Shelley.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
That is all, you know. That's the other thing I
did make.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
A commentary on that, being a black parent, sometimes in
these schools, you're you're a parent, but are you really
part of the community. Sometimes, and now I'm not saying
it's one hundred percent like that, but sometimes that's where
things do part. You know, when when there is judgment
or or maybe that's the right wrong word, when there's
not real community, when there's not real connection, when there's

(35:16):
not real care that you're just seen as a part
of this, like a sprinkle on top to our communities.
And I say that in a generality, I think there's
certainly some families who are figuring that out. But so
it's not please don't come for me that we can't
figure that out. But what I've also noticed in these

(35:37):
communities is sometimes I mean in these worlds because Shelley's
from a different economic backets she's lived, she doesn't live
anywhere close to where these communities are. She's further away
from the information. And it took Dawn to find out
to bring it.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Back to her.

Speaker 6 (35:56):
You know, black love has been so commodified lately, right
Like I feel like, you know, you see people doing
the matching outfits on the ground, or you know, they
have Black love weddings.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
But what makes Forever feel real and not curated?

Speaker 1 (36:11):
I would ask you, what did you feel.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
That I actually saw myself?

Speaker 6 (36:16):
I saw me and my wife, you know, I saw
my teenage daughter and her friends. I saw how I mean,
It's a little simple things like the conversations they was
having it to cookout, like arguing about you know Kanye, Yeah,
they're smoking the weed and then the kids come and
they try to put it out, but you know, they
dance into their own music. I just felt like, that's
just real aesthetics. That's what real black love and black

(36:40):
relationships look like. And even things like, you know, not
arguing it or trying not to argue in front of
the kids, or even if you and you and your
significant other disagree, not showing that in front of the child.
It was times that Wood would be like yo, yea,
and then she would know, and then he would say
what he said, all vice versa, and I just I
just thought that was powerful.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
It's just be paying attention to my own life, the
life around me, just paying attention to us. I think
that's my job as a storyteller, you know, Nina Simone says,
I'm here to reflect the times. It's for me to
look at us, look at each other, and find all
those I know about your guilt because I have it.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
And I have my own.

Speaker 5 (37:19):
You know what I'm saying. I know about these things.
I know about how how beloved by a black man
who can be very strong in his opinions. But it's
not intimidating.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
It's you know, he might feel intimidated to the world.
He's not intimidating to me. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (37:34):
I know there's love there. And also and he knows
I'm strong black, a strong black woman. She's got an opinion.
I'm gonna say something. I can say it without losing
my softness.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
I want your kids to bring home a black significant other.

Speaker 6 (37:47):
Yeah, yeah, not because of racism, but because you want
somebody to understands. You want somebody that's gonna understand you
and what you will.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
To protect you and protect you and protect you. That's
what I mean.

Speaker 5 (37:56):
Think at the core of a parenting, we want to
be we want to love our kids, and we want
our kids loved, and we want them protected.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
We want them safe in the world. And so.

Speaker 5 (38:06):
You know, our history will tell us that it just
seems like the odds are better that way.

Speaker 8 (38:11):
Keisha's story, well, first to bring home the black significant
other when Dawn she's upset, she and Justin doesn't have
his phone or whatever. But then at one point she's
open to him getting back into the world and having
the phone or whatever. Because wood Harris is like, you know,
he met a girl like you know, ease up on
them a little bit when they had that conversation when
she findances down with him and she's trying to like

(38:31):
get in his business about who he's dating and who
the person is. As a mom yourself personally, what did
you put into that conversation that you do with your
own kids when you're trying to enter into their world
and like make sure that even though they're at the
white schools and all these things, the blackness is still
there without being like you got to be black because
she was very like soft, but she was also it
was obvious she wanted him to be with a black girl.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
We just talk real, you know.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
We've always just been honest with our kids from the jump.
They're from their level of understanding, you know what I'm saying,
using their language for their entry into the conversation, you know, uh,
being very honest.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Why, I mean, why I want you to be with
a black woman?

Speaker 5 (39:15):
You know, even though that could be challenging, even though
it's like I can, yeah, you can date whoever you
want to date.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
This is going to be your life. But I'm gonna tell.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
You why, and just I just why. I think it's beautiful.
I just think I just give my opinion, but make
room for theirs. That's I think that's what's important, is
for me to make room for theirs for so I
use that, I use you know, it's funny because even
the music, I think one of the things. Music is
a big part of the show, and it's funny. In

(39:45):
my car, I let them have the OX. I just
want to know. I just want to witness them. I
want to know what they're thinking about. So every like forth,
you know, like if you get like a Spotify account
and you don't you do like the base, you got
to get a commercial like every four songs. So in
my car, you get a lecture every four songs. And
we used to debate about, Okay, if I don't let

(40:07):
you eat McDonald's all the time because of x y Z,
I need you to understand what these lyrics are doing,
what you're eating, and so.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
He's like, mama's just to beat, just to beat. Well, no,
it's more than a bee.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
So we talked about that. They push back because we
talked about misogyny and things like that. He was like, well,
the women, some of the female rappers that got I said, yeah,
misogeny is not particular to one group of people.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Massage he's misogyny.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
It's just like you know, racism is racism, it's it's
it's so you get to talk to your kids and
find out who they are and and give them your
point of view while the world gives them gives them
their point of view. And so I think if you
remain a trusted place, they are going to hear your voice,

(40:49):
God willing, they will hear it before they get themselves
in any kind of danger or you know that kind
of thing.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
But I feel like just giving them my opinion, what
emotional space, and then show my.

Speaker 5 (41:00):
Life, you know what I'm saying, living my life, you know,
like even like with even like your career paths or
your future path, teaching them how I recognize that I'm
a writer? I reminded, how did I know that I
was a writer? How did I know what my path was?
Teaching them those things, what it's going to feel like
in your body, what it's going to look like, how

(41:21):
you're going to act, you know, when it's going to
take discipline.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Where's the sacrifice in these ideas? You know what?

Speaker 5 (41:31):
Even like you know, yes, mom and Dad, we made
a lot of money, but understand we're built on a legacy.
Let's go back to grandma and granddad and grant grandparents,
and let me tell you where you came from. This
is you know, us owning more than one home is
not new to this family.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
It happened over here. Understand that.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
Understand So you got to give them history, opinion, knowledge,
show it be it. You know, even when we talk
about dreams, I talk about my dreams. I still got
dreams and so and dream take resources.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
So are you going to hit that basketball train or not?
Because I could use that money.

Speaker 6 (42:09):
I want you to stay there for a second, like,
how was your own evolution spiritually, emotionally as a mother.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
How did that influence the writing of.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Fel Oh completely?

Speaker 5 (42:20):
So my writing styles I tend to muse off of
I find them. I tell the truth through fiction. I'm
a journalism major. I went to Northwestern. Shout out to Northwestern,
I allus called shout out. I love Northwestern. One of
the best choices I've ever made. I went to medil
So A lot of my.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Approach to a to a story, I start to lock in.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
On there'll be a muse and then I open up
to see what what is happening in the zeitgeist?

Speaker 1 (42:45):
What is happening.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
At strong sociology classes, like what's where are we at
as a people? So I figure out where the teenagers
were where we're at today. So my children were my
muse because that's what I was concerned about. So I
came into this this project just as a concerned mother.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
My guilt.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
Am I doing this right? Am I giving enough space?
Did we pick the right schools for them?

Speaker 1 (43:11):
We pay?

Speaker 5 (43:11):
Did we set up our life in a way that's
really going to support them as you start to think
about the more complexity parts of their life as and
life was changing fast because of technology as well. Right,
So that's where I was at the same time that
the Judy Bloom opportunity came. And that's where my big
bang happens. Wow, And that's how I put those So

(43:35):
I'm musing off of my own parenting. So I started
therapy because of parenting.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
I realized.

Speaker 5 (43:41):
People are your amazing mom. But I was like, I
need to feel like a better mom. So let me
start unpacking some of the things, all these sort of
all the things that therapists take you through. And so
I started doing that and realizing how I was parenting
from a catastrophic place a fear, not just because of
the times, but just all the things, and you realize, Okay,

(44:03):
I need to let this go in order to be
a better mother. And I think the best way I
can do that is offer it in my work and
mirror myself and allow. And I think that's the power
of storytelling. When you share your story or a testimony
in church, it actually hits the hearts and souls and
spirits of so many other people. But that's why sharing

(44:25):
of the story is so important. It's not just about you,
It's about the collective us, right, and so bringing all
those things to bear and having this amazing opportunity with
the book to place all of these things.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Even in the translation of the book.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
I got to talk about what it's like to be
black parents, you know, Judy got to talk about what
it's like to be white parents of that time.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
But let me tell you what it's like to be
black parents in America.

Speaker 5 (44:53):
I don't it's probably not that different from you know,
other generations. But this is the These are the details
of our time, and this is what it looks like.
And this is why we love our kids just as
much as you love your kids.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
But they have it. They don't have as much freedom sometimes.
And here's why.

Speaker 5 (45:10):
Black boys are just as vulnerable and actually are just
as I'm nervous mostly about black boys when it comes
to sexuality, because before they can even say they love someone,
they're considered enemy number one because of their They're they're
not little boys anymore. They are their bodies just getting
bigger muscles on their body, having a penis, They're suddenly

(45:33):
like a threat.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
You have to talk about rape. You got to talk
about that with black boys. Just your presence.

Speaker 5 (45:39):
Sometimes it may not be what you and the young
woman consent it to, but you are and still in
the time if their parents say, we witness that in
real time, these things are happening. So we've got to
be we can be real clear on consent. We've got
to be real clear on these sorts of things. Wanting
to put that not for wanting to not only protect

(46:02):
my own sons, but all of these beautiful black boys
that I get to, you know, be in community with
that I love, and I don't want to see hurt
and I don't want to see miss understood and misjudged
just by their physical presence, nothing more than that. And
because they don't like to smile because you know, they
want to keep it real. I want them to see

(46:23):
I want them to see beyond that. I want to
see black boy vulnerability. I want people to see them
as they're fuel that that that they actually can cry
and Michael jokes, Michael Cooper jokes and goomore, I gotta
cry again.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I was like, yeah, you gotta cry again. He's hurt.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
He's more sensitive, I said, the character sensitive. I said that, so,
but yeah, because I just want to Yeah, black boys
cry and they also ball, and they also go for
their dreams, and they want the girl, and and they
they get the grades.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (46:54):
They do all they struggle, you know, they they're frustrated,
they're all of those.

Speaker 6 (46:59):
Things, and then when they finally get what they want,
it scares them for some reason. Because he know he
didn't mean none of that stuff he said. I don't
want to give it away, but he ain't mean none
of that stuff on that last episode.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
I don't think he really want I know he didn't
want to walk away.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Why I think no.

Speaker 6 (47:14):
I think he was just afraid of what he was.
He was afraid of losing it. So he feels like
letting it go would be less painful than just losing it.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
You know what I love about storytelling because it meets
the viewer where they're at. You're going to see it
that way, and someone's going to see that. While he
understood that, he did not have the capacity to let
go of her and choose himself, so he needed to
choose himself, he would have just stayed up underneath her.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And a lot of people do that. A lot of
young people do that because it feels good to be loved.
It feels good.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
For somebody to call you and want to see you
and hug you and kiss you, and you can get
lost in that and you can lose time. I think
he understood time is ticking, and that's a reality to
being young and making that leap in the especially in
the capitalistic democracy.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
You gotta go. He understood that, and she helped him
understand that.

Speaker 6 (48:18):
It felt to me like he didn't He wasn't chasing
her by the end of the series though, he was
literally just chasing an identity that he hadn't felt before,
like that, like that real blackness, like the blackness that
you know his mom and his dad wanted him to
have and not lose.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
By growing up the way he grew up.

Speaker 6 (48:38):
By the end of the show, he felt like yo
going to that prom with her and just being around
her and her and her friends and hearing her say
she wanted to go to Howard. It didn't feel like
he was just he was chasing her. He was chasing
his blackness.

Speaker 5 (48:47):
To me, I think all can be true, all can
be true, But also imagine you get to Howard and
all you know is Keisha.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
He might just be all up underneath Keisha. Yeah, and that,
and really, I.

Speaker 5 (49:00):
Mean, hey, I'm sure he played those scenarios out.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
I know he did, because we do as a writing team.

Speaker 5 (49:07):
But what I again, what I love about storytelling is
that it meets the viewer where they are. And this
is what's beautiful about the show, and all the different
conversations that are coming up, all the different opinions that
are coming up.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
This is us.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
This is the best dinner party you can ever have,
and you just this is what we think. And everybody's
got opinions, and what sticks to you is for you,
and what sticks to you is for you, what irritates you.
It's also for you what irritates you as a writer.
This is some game I give. It's like a lot
of times people like I don't like that. I don't
like that is just as important as the what you

(49:46):
do like in writing, because I say, what sticks to
you is yours. That's your examinations. That's for you to examine.
It's called your attention. You can't shake it, you can't
let it go good or bad. Look into that, investigate there,
dig there. I think that's what I think. That's why
my I think that's why I keep getting hits after

(50:07):
hits is because I like digging deeper into to us
and I think, who doesn't want to be seen? And
I think a lot of our stories either they're missing
or they've been distorted, like it said the negative, like
they've been distorted. I think when you start to really
see yourself, you know, you might want to tighten up here,
little tighten up. They for the most party, like I'm cute,

(50:29):
I'm cute, I'm doing okay.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
I'm doing all right.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
I can lose five pounds whatever, but for the most part,
I'm doing all right.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
I think that.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
Those ideas of ourselves or what we're stuck on, that
may be for you to examine.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
You to look at. And I think that's why we
need more storytellers out there.

Speaker 6 (50:51):
I got three more questions if you've got to, Yeah,
what emotional space does Forever occupy than none of your
previous shows.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
What emotional space is it occupy that? I think the
cross generational idea. You know, for the most part, I've
written at adult conversation, though that I've had parents come
into those stories. They're not They're like drive bys in
a lot of ways. I just think the complexity of
family and the and the generational.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Connection and that I just really enjoyed that.

Speaker 5 (51:28):
I think also the scale emotionally, it allowed me to
really scale.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Us that I enjoyed that. And it you know, the
kids say, take up space. It allowed me to take
up space for us and for myself.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
And what did Judy Bloom teach you about softness? And
how does that show up in your characters now?

Speaker 5 (51:54):
Well, softness is details, I think, especially in the book Forever,
most of the book is about Catherine's internal feelings, thoughts,
and to use that much time on the internal space

(52:15):
is really a privilege, a luxury. Oftentimes, most of our
storytime we're more observed than we are explored, and I
enjoyed being able to explore. And that's what Judy taught
in her in her writing all the books. She's an

(52:35):
internal writer, and then she allowed us she gave as
young people reading her books, you're validating these feelings inside
that I don't necessarily show because I don't want to
be embarrassed or I don't want to be judged, or
I don't want to be misunderstood.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
So kids are keeping a lot to themselves. And she
was being honest on the page.

Speaker 5 (52:56):
So I believe I've been doing that in my body
of work, and I got to do it again to
give young people a view of themselves today like she
gave us, you know, fifty years ago.

Speaker 6 (53:11):
My last question is forever about love you've had, love
you've lost, or love you still believe.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
In all the above.

Speaker 5 (53:18):
I believe in love. I believe in love. One of
the things I'm really proud of with the ending. I
know there's a controversy about the ending, but what I
love that Justin and Keisha showed us is how love
endures and it takes its shape, shifts, can it's dynamic,
can change, but love can stay present. And they showed

(53:39):
us how to let go and keep love in that
in that ending, I think we could learn a lot from.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Justin and Keisha. You know, the question, you know.

Speaker 5 (53:56):
Is someone is this Is this a forever love or
the one you rem forever? And I would like to
think that we as we move through our lives as
human beings, that when we choose to use that word
right I loved you, that you there's a present that
you were so present and so loving that even if
you don't last, the couple doesn't last, the love can last.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
It just it might shift to.

Speaker 5 (54:23):
Wow, it might just shift to we always just sort
of text each other on each other's birthday that you
matter to me.

Speaker 7 (54:31):
You know.

Speaker 5 (54:31):
One of the fun things you realize when you're re
visiting the work, especially as young people. Oftentimes that's where
our big dreaming happens, and those young loves that a
lot of times the best part of you is packed
in somebody else's memory of you.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
And so to have access back to those people actually is.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
Good for you to remember who you are when you
lose your way, because you're gonna lose your way, so
love holds you there. So it is about the past,
the present, and the future. And I think that love
can take many different forms, you know, And you know,
I have my young one plays baseball and I've learned
a lot about watching him sit in the stands play baseball,

(55:16):
long games, long games. But what's beautiful about it is
everybody who walks into that batter's box has a different fight.
And so I often think about relationship. Right, did you
swing the bat? Did you have a they call it?
Did you have a good at bat? And sometimes you're

(55:36):
at bat, you strike out, but you still had a
good at bat. And I think that's what I think
love is about. Are we having a good at bat?
Are we swinging? Are we using our technique? Are we
using all the knowledge we've spent all week learning for
this one to two times we get to walk in
that batter's box and are we using it?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Are we do we?

Speaker 2 (55:58):
You know?

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Do we whatever the shoulders and the hips.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
And all that kinds of.

Speaker 5 (56:03):
All those things, all those things you gotta do with
this ball coming at you eighty ninety miles an hour.
That's love And I think that I would like to
think that we can all approach it at a good
at that.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (56:21):
I have one final question Regina King in her directing, Yes,
thank you for asking. Yeah, because okay, so I was
trying to look to see what the conversation around it
was online. But I remember when I first found out
that she was doing it, my first thought was, I
wonder what their conversations were like, like what changes she
made and what she brought to the screen, because I
heard you say a lot of it was about gear
life as a parent as well too.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
But no, it's you move. Let me be very clear.

Speaker 6 (56:46):
I muse.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
I have a muse entry point, and then once I
go into that entry point, then I become a journalist
almost and look at the world around and then that's.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
How I sort of craft my stories.

Speaker 5 (56:59):
That said it's beautiful about the art form is that
the art form is a collaborative art form. I had
to sit in that chair. Judy had to sit in
that chair to write that book. I go look at
the book. I had to sit in that chair and
adapt that book. But one of the first phone calls
you make after you have a script, you call your

(57:21):
casting director Kim Coleman, and then the second immediate is
who is going to direct? And I called Regina King
and said, I think it's time for us to collaborate again.
She first Regina I first worked together when in early
in her directing career she directed episodes of Being Mary
Jane and she went off to have a really wonderful

(57:42):
directing career, and it was like, okay, I need you
to help. This's helped me reset the tone. We both
are mothers, we both love our sons. I needed Regina King,
I need that chemistry, her iconic performances as an actress.
I would love them rooted in these characters, especially helping
us launched this love story within these two young actors,

(58:06):
anchoring them and their chemistry and everybody knowing where they
are in this play, in this world. Then, of course
we built out the team and the decisions that we
make together, you know, finding Combio, who is our DP,
Suzuki our production designer. We collaborate on the ideas of
our you know, our costume, Minka and Tanja, these are

(58:28):
the principal storytellers that.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
We need to help tell our story.

Speaker 5 (58:32):
Just helping to make those decisions together, it was really
lovely to help set the tone for it so that
we can take off and run. I mean, you know,
Anthony Hemingway coming in, Timby Banks, all of these major
decisions are editors, you know, Carolina and Naomi and just
Gary gunn Our composer kier Lehman. We put like it's

(58:54):
almost like speaking of baseball references, almost like you have
your baseball cards out, You're like, we should bring this
for this I got this for this thing. You kind
of put it together and it's fun to puzzle together.
It's fun to sort of collaborate on that level. So
she and my company Story twenty seven Hers Royal Ties,
we've come together to help set a bar of excellence

(59:15):
that we want the show to live in and thrive from.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
And you know what Season two is going.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
I do.

Speaker 5 (59:22):
I'man, I have ideas. I still have to go through
the process.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
You know.

Speaker 5 (59:26):
Part of well, I think another thing that makes me
successful is how I honor my partnerships and I come
into it respectfully and really to always garner that to
garner that energy back to me. But I have a
concept of what I need to do. I won't share
it until my partners are signed off on it. But

(59:48):
my next steps are me coming into a meeting ready
to talk to Netflix around Hey, this is where I
see it, and this is where I think it should go.
Hearing their feedback, their concerns, taking that in consideration, sometimes
debating it for a while, but finding a way to

(01:00:09):
communicate why I think it's the way it's to go,
and if not, where is the compromise in that, and
feeling good about the artistic flexibility that I have to
craft story to figure that out. So I'm looking forward
to that and success especially. You know, sometimes success can
make people tighten up too.

Speaker 6 (01:00:29):
Right, it's not playing tomorrow. Yeah, I hit after hitt
in multiple decades. Okay, streaming services, the linear television, give
her what she wants, that's right, including the fifty million
dollars for girlfriends we need.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
It's that simple.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It's that simple. We've been talking about this. It's real.

Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
It's really that simple, and I'm excited. I think it's
gonna come. I don't know, I feel I feel it
like I don't know. Last time I was here, we
talked about it, and I think what was beautiful in
my journey at that time was for me to claim
the value and understand the boundaries and understand what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
I don't know, just I think.

Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
And also this success breeds more success, so I kind
of feel, oh know, I kind of feel like I
think it's.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Time and a success Girlfriends just had on Netflix.

Speaker 8 (01:01:14):
Oh my god, oh my god, like they should see
generational success and people watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
I watch that.

Speaker 8 (01:01:18):
I rewatched the whole thing with my mom and I
was like, this is so different, But.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
You know, it's fine.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
Finding out people are putting girlfriends on for their go
to sleep. It's their they call it their comfort TV
show that they put on and they just let it run.
And some people let it run while they go to sleep.
Blows my mind. Secondarily, my youngest son. I noticed that.
He will tell me like his friends are watching it
and they think, I'm your mom is cool.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Because she does girl. So I still got street cred jobs,
I still got it in the game. I'm up and
down all that up and down for thank you, thank you,
thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
And I don't know if people know, but nine to
eleven of this year marks twenty five years of Girlfriends
ago this.

Speaker 5 (01:02:02):
Year, so we need to make that announcement, right, it's time.
That would be the announcement today.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
It only makes sense. The first episode was nine eleven,
two thousand.

Speaker 7 (01:02:11):
Still looks so good, all of them still looks.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
I saw Tracy recently.

Speaker 5 (01:02:16):
We went to go see the Wiz went back on
the screen.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Did anybody see it on the screen?

Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
Oh, you guys, I've seen the Wiz over and over,
you know, but the Wiz on big screen. I haven't
seen that since I was a young girl. And Tracy
and I went together to go see it and we
had a ball. And it was also really fun to
watch her watch her mom. It was kind of like, oh,
this is like very meta, right, So that was amazing.

(01:02:43):
Then Jill, Yeah, Jilly gold birthday party. So to your point,
they look smashing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
To it has to happen. It's going to happen. I
know what's going to happen.

Speaker 6 (01:02:54):
Yes, because it's like the one black sitcom that we
really did not get any closure on whatsoever, and there's
so many loose ends to tie up.

Speaker 5 (01:03:02):
You know. It's really it's not just loose ENSEI it's
actually very relevant. I think it's a very karmic idea
to have the show have a ending in a film.
I just want to do a movie because of where
we as a society have grown around the importance of relationships,
and Tony and Joan breaking up I think has been

(01:03:24):
the hardest thing on the audience even over Joan not
getting her man, you know what I'm saying, And so
I think that that's an interesting thing to put back
in the chat.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
So it's still relevant to this day.

Speaker 5 (01:03:37):
It's like, how does friendship come back together or not
come back together? Right? Can you still find that love
of your life when you choose? You know what I'm
doing all right? By myself, I'm doing nothing. There's nothing
wrong with me for not having had a husband like
we But that was a different conversation back at the
time we were producing that show to where we have

(01:03:59):
progressed today twenty five years later.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
There's a different.

Speaker 5 (01:04:03):
Value in society around relationships and friendship and how important
friendship is and the you know, the the sustaining of it,
the care of it, the beauty of it, the complexity
of it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
And I'm like, okay, look at us grow.

Speaker 5 (01:04:19):
And then and then also this idea that you're not
broken because you're not in partnership romantically. It's not to
say that you don't want that, but understanding that there's
a different there's a different you know, entry point into
that that it's not just being married to be married.
You want to be really partnered with your soulmate or

(01:04:41):
your you know those was a twin flame?

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Which one it did? Whatever joy fair one it is,
whichever one's the hot one?

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
That one? No one.

Speaker 8 (01:04:48):
I was gonna say, So Joan is, you can't say anything,
but Joan is, actually she does still want to be
married and be with a person or she's just gonna
do it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
But I'm just talking about where we left her. And
I'm not gonna give it. It's funny because like it
sounds like you're not doing all by herself still. I'm
just talking about where we are in society again, because
she would be shared with you guys very openly that
my writing process, My writing process is like who am
I musing on? And then you open up to seek
where society is the journalist in me, And that's where

(01:05:16):
we are. And that's all I'm sort of commenting on
in that where we left the show twenty five years,
where society is. I feel the relevance of girlfriends is
almost matched to where our ending was. Yeah, wow, and
so and even and we've talked about their physical beauty
even that I'm saying, even how as you know that's important,

(01:05:41):
you know, and and and also how do we get
there and what are we doing even my generation of women,
which is also the generation of those women on girlfriends,
We've pioneered a whole new conversation around We're openly going to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Talk about paramenopause and menopause.

Speaker 5 (01:05:55):
We're not going down like the previous generations being oki doped.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
By the lies over there.

Speaker 5 (01:06:00):
So it's like those there's so much to talk about,
I think in a new a new iteration of the
ending that we're still holding on to from twenty five
years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
So it's an interesting thing.

Speaker 5 (01:06:11):
To hold on to in terms of like the details
of what I would do. I'm not going to share
that because that's my currency, you know, My ideas are
my currency. My craftsmanship is how I make you know,
everybody got a dressed, but it's how I make the
dress right, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
And so.

Speaker 5 (01:06:29):
I'm excited for that opportunity. I just I don't know, energetically,
I just feel it differently. I mean, because I'm on
your show now. See it's like it's like even that
is a beautiful omen right because we talked about it
last time I was there, and now I'm back and
we're talking about it again.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
And yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Mean there's nothing guaranteed, but the girlfriends is a guaranteed.
I don't care what nobody why global easily.

Speaker 6 (01:06:50):
I want to show you this opposedly this last week,
now that we're grown, which friend was the most toxic?

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Why did you leave?

Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
Because we're her own now, so we have a different
perception of all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Uh Todd?

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
Todd?

Speaker 6 (01:07:10):
Todd had no business, You had no business maritime, But honestly,
people always leave Lenn out. Lynn would be considered very
toxic nowadays because she didn't have no boundaries.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
She didn't respect nobody's boundaries.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
I think she was the most at one with herself,
was the.

Speaker 6 (01:07:28):
Only one that was unproblematic to me. But Lynn didn't
respect anybody's boundaries. I have interesting theories about Joan and
uh Tony.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Let me ask you, why did you use the word toxic?

Speaker 5 (01:07:41):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
I reposed to me that was just a conversation starter,
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
But why did you repost that conversation starter?

Speaker 6 (01:07:50):
I think I think that they had traits that could
be considered toxic.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
You know what I want to say about that?

Speaker 5 (01:07:56):
What I love about the vulnerability and the complex city
of the characters that later they can be analyzed yes,
and give some language about what they were brave enough
to be. And what I look at between the generations
is that when we there's this generations, we have more

(01:08:18):
language to label things, to label it. I feel like
those characters and so the word toxic, I just sort
of underscore, highlight and circle because that can be this
blanket over them that doesn't deserve to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
And that's what I'm saying is that we are complex. Now.

Speaker 5 (01:08:40):
I'm not saying that the complexity means you need to
be friends with them for a lifetime. You may only
complex for a while, you know. I'm not saying you
can't grow from them. I can't say you might, like
I said, you might not have a good at bat
and strike out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
But I don't know. I just I want to be
I think it's.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Important to examine, but not hold the label true and
what because one of the things that Lynn represents to
me and what she I think represented to the generation
that was actually beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Is that.

Speaker 5 (01:09:19):
At the time that I was writing that series, all
black women were presented that they knew exactly who they
are what they needed to be in.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Order to be accepted. Lynn represented she didn't know but
she was still loved even in her sexual like she was.

Speaker 8 (01:09:39):
That was probably like the first time I ever saw
a woman, black woman on camera that she was queer,
but like, we didn't know really what that was.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
We didn't know that. Yeah, I just thought Lynn was
just like the girl who just did whatever she wanted
to do.

Speaker 8 (01:09:53):
And everybody has that friend, yes, and those friends they
have to be strong in themselves to a certain extent
because you're so different than everybody else.

Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
And if you think about len and you put it
in this new drugs, she was break the no boundaries.
She was actually instead of it being toxic, she was
actually being progressive. Most people would align queerness to progressive thought, right.
She was challenging notions why one could say the way

(01:10:22):
she lived her life was communal living, which is now
a conversation for the future.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
I'm just saying how.

Speaker 5 (01:10:29):
We look at things and being careful not to I
think it's beautiful to analyze because that's how we progress,
but be careful not to then blanket everything with labels.
Let's go back to forever. In twenty eighteen, we were
saying ADHD. Twenty twenty five, we're saying you're divergent. Language

(01:10:51):
keeps changing as we understand ourselves. And I think that's
an interesting thing about the power of language. And one
of the things I want to be mindful of, especially
in our community, is how quick we are to say, Oh, he's.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Toxic, she's toxic, toxic, toxic, toxic.

Speaker 5 (01:11:07):
I would love to say, Okay, maybe that aspect of
that person needs some development, needs some growth. Don dj Mbi, Mara, Don,
we are in this, Okay, our guilt fear. Maybe as
parents we need to release that, understand what it is,
and let it go.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
But just be careful not to keep blanketing us.

Speaker 5 (01:11:31):
And our desire to grow and our desire to urge,
you know, and get whole. So that's what I would say.
I think what I love about the collection of those women,
those characters is as complicated or toxic as they were,

(01:11:52):
even in that we deserve love and they were trying
to figure it out, and they're different ways to stay
together and their friendship and then their respective relationships, you know,
and and that how do we move forward together in
the complexity of us.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Just Carrie and Samantha fell out and nobody called them
toxic when they.

Speaker 8 (01:12:11):
They did know people people so toxic. You to the
first person I can remember say that. People feel like
Carrie is like was wronged by Samantha, and Samantha is
just his free friend who just eventually. They still want
to see him get back together as friends. People want
Jill to never speak to Jone again.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
No, that's not true.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
People feel like they were bad friends to each other.

Speaker 6 (01:12:29):
Maybe, but that's not true. We definitely want them to
get back together. That's part of the closure. We want
to see if Jill and Joan become friends again.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Arguing do you guys know? But I'm asking you guys,
do you really? I know you do? Charlayne, you are
very clear about wanting to see a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
You are sixteen.

Speaker 5 (01:12:52):
I want to also say I'm always going to take
a moment to say thank you because you also that
means a lot to me as a storyteller, Like wow,
that that level of impact on you and even the
fact that me and Judy Bloom are the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
So I'm a thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:13:07):
Now, you three you want to are you going to
go spend some money at the theater to go see
a girl walk to the theater.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
I'm trying to be in the damn Yes, I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
My wife is taking me there so fast.

Speaker 6 (01:13:23):
It would be an event. There's not too many events anymore.
It would be an event.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
I think so too. I think peopleoul dress up.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
I think people on this nice dress and.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Be something.

Speaker 8 (01:13:37):
You asked on Sherry Shepherd for her to open her phone.
She knows somebody with fifty million dollars these too, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Who you got in your phone? Let's call somebody. Yeah,
I'm trying to say, let's call somebody. Yes, thank you
for joining us, thank you for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
It's on Netflix now. We appreciate it. It's a long conversation.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
I loved it, and I love what you say.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:14:00):
You've always been so intentional, and you're right. Girlfriends gave
us a lot of a lot of vocabulary.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 5 (01:14:08):
I had another question, but it gave us a lot
to It gave us a lot to have a conversation about.
And I think that's really where everything is at is communication,
have conversation, share ideas. Were not all we're going to agree,
but I think we all get to know each other.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
But what do you want for ever? To get people
permission to do?

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
And that's my last question, I promised, what do I
want forever love?

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
I want people to think more about love in every
aspect of their life. And actually, even if we're older,
that it's okay to want that that first love kind
of feeling. Like what do we need to do to
get back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
First love kind of feeling? I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:44):
I just think it's I think as a human spirit,
having a human experience, dancing with love all the time, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
Got to be our top endeavor. So that's what I want.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Marl Rocker Kill. We appreciate you so much. We love you,
we value you, appreciate you and all your work.

Speaker 1 (01:15:05):
That's right, Thank you. I really appreciate being here. Thank you.
Breakfast Club.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
It's the breakfast Club.

Speaker 3 (01:15:09):
Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
The Breakfast Club.