To me, Jefferson Pierce represented every side of me. I knew that I would be able to flesh him out.
— Salim Akil
I thought I was an actor until they pointed the camera at me.
There are so many families who do not come up in a traditional household. African Americans, Latins, and, I'm sure, whites as well, but there are a lot of men missing in African American communities and in Latin communities.
What we tend to do in our shows, especially with 'Love Is_,' is to show the humanity of characters so that people can see themselves, one, and so that other cultures can see that we have more in common than we have not in common.
My wife asked me to marry her. But we did not jump the broom.
I never saw a true representation - an iconic hero - for myself. It just got boring, reading about all these really powerful and heroic white guys.
I grew up around people with a bunch of serious problems.
You can't protect your children from life.
There are so many slices to the African-American experience. I mean, I have the whole ghetto pedigree. My mom was in jail, I didn't have any money, and I didn't go to a fancy college. But that's not the type of story I want to tell or feel the need to tell on film.
Oftentimes in a marriage, you really don't have to say anything. You can sort of have a conversation without words.
Like anyone else in television, I like to explore my life experience. And I don't think African-American artists see doing shows or art about African-Americans as something 'less than.' I think maybe the industry sometimes does. We don't get as much attention, we don't get critical acclaim and so on.
I tell my children, some people can be more talented than you. Some people can be faster, stronger, but there is never a reason for anyone to outwork you.
I always approach storytelling with the idea that the audience will get it. They understand almost better than we do, because they get to watch it from an entirely different perspective with new eyes.
I was determined to make a movie - about families and a love story - that black women would be proud to see and which would depict them as being smart, loving, sensitive, sexy, and funny.
