laurence Fishburne returns to the small screen with Black-ish. He shares why not many American shows deal with class issues and why he finds comedy the most challenging
In the pilot episode, the kids are colour-blind. Is that a big hope that in the future generation kids are going to be blind to issues like colour, sexuality and related thingsIJ
The young generation of people that’s coming up in America now are colour-blind. They don’t discriminate about anything. I have a seven-year-old daughter, my wife and I were watching a trailer of a forthcoming movie called Dear White People. It’s full of a lot of references, like in our show which are really funny.
My wife and I laughed hysterically at one of the jokes. And my daughter, not because she was seven, but because she is colour-blind, said, ‘I have no idea what any of that is about,’ and she walked away.
From switching gears between Hannibal to Black-ish, you have done everything — action, comedy, horror, suspense. What do you find most challengingIJ
Comedy’s very hard. But the good news is I have Anthony to work with, I have Tracee to work with, I have Kenya and larry. I had once said to larry very early on, ‘I’ve never done this.’ He had replied, ‘It’s fine. I’ll take care of you. It’ll be all right.’ And then he probably privately laughed and said, ‘It’s going to be crazy good.’ So going back and forth is just a blessing. I’m grateful to have both things going on. I’m really excited to see what we’re able to do.
You once commented on how in many ways this show is about class more than anything else, which is something that just very few American shows deal with. Why do you think American shows are afraid to talk about classIJ
The reason is pretty simple. We don’t have any class system in this country.