MADE FEATURES
and what it ’ s like to be an African-American woman , more specifically what it ’ s like to be an African-American woman in Los Angeles .
MADE : Especially for millennials , a lot of people are in that familiar period of self-discovery like the lead characters . What elements of “ finding yourself ” are covered in the show ?
PP : It ’ s circled around dealing with things of culture , race and politics that we all sort of talk about behind closed doors . Some characters talk openly , some make fun of situations and we just kind of like unapologetically talking about all of these things . Just on a very human level , it ’ s about what it ’ s like being insecure and what it ’ s like to question yourself . What it ’ s like when you ’ re in a relationship and you ’ re not sure it ’ s the right thing and if you ’ re just making the right choices as a human being . So I think it has all those elements that are interesting for our show .
MADE : We heard that you have a writers ’ room of diverse individuals of both men and women . How important was that for you , especially knowing the show is about Black women and there are only certain struggles that Black women know about ?
PP : It was extremely important . I ’ ve worked on shows where I ’ ve been the only young black person , and there might only be one person of color . So , seeing and having a diverse room ( and I hate repeating that word ... just makes it seem like it should be the norm ) that ’ s more reflective of the world we live in was important . It ’ s important because I ’ ve seen where , you know , having a room that isn ’ t just filled with eight people who have the same voice will get rich and very complex stories . You get very “ Oh , I didn ’ t think of that ” kind of stories from their point of view . The show was about two Black women given an opportunity and also having the opportunity to voice for Black women ( which doesn ’ t typically doesn ’ t happen a lot either ). We knew that we couldn ’ t just hire comedy writers . We didn ’ t just want a couple of single people . We didn ’ t want a certain age group . We wanted a wide variety to give us different stories , ideas , thoughts and perspectives that would make our show better . Event if we would have had eight Issa Raes in the room , we don ’ t need another Issa . The Black women we have are completely different and no one has a background like the other .
MADE : It feels like Issa Rae and Yvonne Orji are our new # FriendshipGoals . What are the long-term goals you all want to accomplish with this series .
PP : You know it ’ s funny that you asked that because Issa and I just met a couple of weeks ago and we were just talking about and asking ourselves bigger picture questions for the series . Asking where we want these things to go , where we want to end up at the end of the whole series and obviously that ’ s predicated on HBO deciding to make more .
MADE : * Fingers crossed *
PP : I don ’ t think we have an overall “ this is where they ’ re going to go ”, but the one thing we have maintained is that if the story makes us feel uncomfortable , then we want to explore it . Those were the things that gave us the best stories because the room was split . Everybody had a point of difference about that . I think those are the things that I can ’ t wait for people to see because I think that ’ s what people will naturally respond to . You ’ re going to have five or six friends watching the show who will all have a different opinion about what happened that we [ writers ] had a different opinion about . Our best stories were when we said “ Oh okay . This is a good idea , but what if we push it there ”. Those are always the moments that made it livelier , real and more interesting stories . I think that has always been our thing . I think going forward is asking how do we make ourselves uncomfortable and then what does that bring up for other people . What questions will that prompt ? And there ’ s no right or wrong answers . We just want to certainly ask those questions , push the envelope and challenge people . I think that is very important for us .
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