My parents put me in sports when I was 5 years old, and they put my sisters in sports. So that's what I grew up with, that mentality: "It's OK to want to be the best. Aggression is good." You have to have that little walk on the court or down the track. I love to put that into my female characters, because I don't think enough girls are taught that at a young age.

My parents put me in sports when I was 5 years old, and they put my sisters in sports. So that's what I grew up with, that mentality: "It's OK to want to be the best. Aggression is good." You have to have that little walk on the court or down the track. I love to put that into my female characters, because I don't think enough girls are taught that at a young age.

What we were most hoping to achieve with Shots Fired: empathy for all of the characters and conversations about our criminal justice system, which is broken on every level, from the street all the way up to the highest level of government.

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.

People often ask me if I feel discriminated against as a black female director. I don't. I'm actually offered a ton of stuff. But I only want to direct what I write. And I prefer to focus on black female characters. What's most important to me is to put characters up onscreen who are not perfect, but who are human and flawed.

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.

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.