I think the stakes are always high when you're an artist of color - to get things right, to get things perfect and make everybody happy. But I'm not concerned with politicians and what they think. And I'm not always going to succeed. I'll have missteps, but I hope that people will be patient with the show and us and know that our intentions are good.

I really want the sense of black people being interconnected: If you black and you from Chicago, there's a connective tissue we all have. Even if you're not blood related, that doesn't mean I can't look out for you.

I never like to do something that it feels like I've done before.

Today, you'll have a following for a film before it even hits theaters. We can reach out and touch our audience in ways that they couldn't. So it's about getting eyes, getting interest, and getting people involved.

I'm not in the business of making us look clean, but I don't want us to look like monsters either. I think there is a little bit of hero and villain in all of us.

Your first obligation as a writer is to tell the truth and to tell a good story.

I sort of knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. Even in high school, I was a big movie buff, very much into TV shows, and would critique them.