That's why Serena Williams is such a hero for me, because she's got such incredible swagger, and it's earned, and she can teach us that it is a good thing. The fact that she has been denigrated and called cocky - I mean, she's the best in the world! I hope my work can inspire other women to have that swagger and believe that they can have it all.

Be passionate about your [movie] material, because you're going to have to overcome a lot of "No's," and it's that passion that fuels the fight.

A Different World was run by black women, Debbie Allen and Yvette Lee Bowser. Lead writer Susie Fales-Hill was a hero of mine, because she was 28 when she was running one of the top shows on television. Going to work every day and seeing black women in charge made that normal to me.

I thought that the R&B / Hip-Hop world really hasn't been explored on film and there's some issues that we're going through right now. It's in a very dangerous place , for women especially, both in terms of the songs that men are singing about. You know, R&B used to be a safe place for women and now it just seems like the songs coming out are so angry but also what women have to come out with. You have to get noticed. You see, it's like a script to follow. You come out hyper sexualized but what happens when you can't pull back from that. That's not authentic to yourself.

Even if someone doesn't look like you or you don't know people like this in your real life, you get to know them and you get to see their humanity and you get to empathize with them. Our hope is that through empathy that can spark change. We hope people start talking to each other and our show sparks conversation because we need to start talking to each other, not at each other.

I write to music, so every script I have has its own playlist. Music just opens me up to the emotions that I'm writing.

When killings of black by policeman happen, there's the victim, there's the family, there are the police, there are the politicians, and there is the community. Everybody is affected. Everybody has a point of view. We really wanted to dig into that and get to know all these different people that are changed by it.