Photo courtesy of Kareem Black/BET* Existing as a 20-something black professional, attempting to reach your career aspirations is an experience marked by stomach-churning self-doubt, stupefying imposter syndrome, and walking into rooms where you’re often made to feel you don’t belong. All while attempting to find some semblance of a work-life balance and maintain important relationships. Navigating all this and more can be found in BET’s new 10-episode series, Boomerang, executive produced by Lena Waithe and Halle Berry. i-D chatted to Emmy award-winning screenwriter, producer and actress Lena about her fresh new take on the 1992 romantic comedy film, the pressure for black young people to be excellent, and the profitability of blackness in Hollywood. The half-hour-long comedy, which premieres tomorrow, picks up where the original film -- which starred Halle Berry, Robin GIvens, and Eddie Murphy -- left off, but 25 years later. Boomerang follows the children of the iconic characters: ambitious and determined Simone Graham (played by Tetona Jackson) who also happens to be the heiress to her father’s advertising legacy and her close friend Bryson Broyer (Tequan Richmond), the charming newcomer at the Graham Agency who isn’t shy about his big ambitions. We follow the lead characters, alongside their ebullient cohort of long-time friends, as they tackle careers, love lives and all those messy Big Issues. The idea of adapting, change and making your mark runs like a thread throughout the series; a very real stress for young black people as we are rarely afforded the luxury of being mediocre. “I think ultimately, black people still have the burden of being excellent, whether we like it or not,” Lena says. She refers to the impossible standards that black people are held to in relation to the current US president, saying “half the stuff Donald Trump is doing, if Barack Obama ever did that, he’d have been impeached”. With a narrative that requires black people to work twice as hard, rise above any maltreatment and maintain respectability, it begs the question, when do people like Simone and Bryson get to take a break from being excellent and trying to step out from their parents’ shadows? For Lena, part of the problem of black excellence within Hollywood lies in the fact that, despite it feeling like we’re seeing so many black faces on our screens, there are just less black films. “There’s so many black shows and Boomerang’s adding to that, but if you think about all the channels, if you think about all the programming that exists, and then you tally up how many shows have predominantly African-American casts, and then you whittle it down to [shows that have] a black showrunner, and then whittle it down to [shows that] have a black director… it gets smaller and smaller and smaller.” Even with The Chi, the coming-of-age series created by Lena following the lives of black members of the South Side neighbourhood in Chicago, she had a white showrunner for the first season. “Luckily in the last couple of years, things have changed, I had a black [showrunner] in season two,” she tells i-D. “But we’re still playing catch up… we have a lot of catching up to do in this business.” The actress explains there are just a handful of major corporate companies “that own pretty much everything, all these channels, all these streaming services, you see all these mergers happening -- the pool of people that own everything is getting even smaller”. This ever-shrinking pool of white gatekeepers in Hollywood means that, as Bryson quickly discovers, black skills, creativity and pain become simply another money-making opportunity. “The truth is, yes there are black people that make money and profit off of those things very well, but at the end of the day, the people that own the properties, the people that distribute the movies make way more money in the long run,” notes Waithe. In episode one of Boomerang, Bryson is told that the problem with young people is “you tend to overthink things. You’re so afraid of failing that you wind up getting in your own way and not listening to your gut” -- a sentiment that will ring true for many young professionals today. Forging a career path in a white-dominated industry as a black working millennial where you’re made to feel like you should be grateful for each opportunity or, quite simply, shouldn’t be there, tends to lend itself to overthinking, fear of failure and that ever-looming imposter syndrome -- a psychological pattern where individuals believe that they are frauds and are undeserving of their achievements. Unlike her character, however, Lena Waithe’s confidence in her craft and her skill buoys her when moving through such spaces. “I’ve earned this spot, I’ve worked hard… a lot of people know my journey, they’ve seen me being a personal assistant… they’ve watched me try to make videos online -- a lot of people in the business have watched me work my way to where I am and also see me still working to where I want to go.” However, despite her personal growth and having a deep understanding of what she brings to any table, the Emmy Award winning star knows that that's not the case for everyone, particularly those of us still trying to muddle out the next steps for our careers, but she stresses the importance of instinct. “I like to go with my gut. I don’t always get things right but at the end of the day, that’s what I do. I go with my instinct. A lot times I see artists think too much and they’ll make the choice and then they’ll go ‘no, no, maybe we should do that’ and I’m like, go with your gut, go with your instinct. Follow your heart rather than try do what you think is right.” Boomerang promises a fresh look at young black adulthood, as we embark on a journey with the characters attempting to make sense of their lives guided by intuition, because as Lena explains, “Usually what you think is right is right, and if someone else thinks it’s wrong, that’s on them.” Boomerang premieres Thursday 14 February on BET — Sky 194, Virgin 184, Freesat 140.<doc-sep>Lena Waithe has praised Viacom-owned BET for speaking the same language as her on the half-hour comedy Boomerang. Waithe and Halle Berry are exec producing the remake of the 1992 movie, in which Berry starred alongside Eddie Murphy. They are joined on the team by by Dime Davis and Ben Cory Jones, who is showrunner on the series from Paramount Television and BET Networks. “Most of the shows I do are being pushed through a white filter. The most exciting thing about BET and Paramount is that we speak the same language,” Waithe said Monday at TCA. “There is no, ‘Well can you have more joy in that moment of black pain’ – I don’t have to do that. That’s no shade at other partners I work for but the best thing is working with people who look like me and trust me. Black and honest as hell.” The Chi creator added, “I’m a big believer that if there’s a show with black people that too many white people like, chances are it’s not for black people.” The 10-episode Boomerang, which premieres Tuesday, stars Tequan Richmond, Tetona Jackson, Leland Martin and Lala Milan. It follows the lives of Jacqueline Boyer’s son (Richmond) and Marcus and Angela Graham’s daughter (Jackson) as they try to step out of their parents’ shadows and make a legacy of their own. Richmond’s Bryson is resourceful, tough and charming. Raised by a single mother, he’s self-assured and doesn’t hide his vulnerability. Every bit as driven as Simone, Bryson wants to make his mark on this world. Jackson’s Simone is privileged, beautiful, cool and driven to a fault. She has an easy confidence that she inherited from her father, but a down-to-earth, chill vibe, which she inherited from her mother. The shadow of both her parents looms large and she is eager to step out of it and make a name for herself. Martin will play Ari, a digital producer with big dreams. He is handsome, charming, effortlessly confident, and has an edge and swagger that is completely disarming. Ari doesn’t believe in labels. He’s an equal opportunist when it comes to dating. Milan is Tia, a misguided performance artist with high ambitions. She is a classically trained dancer who wants to topple the patriarchy. She’s charismatic and wildly unique. Tia is an activist at heart, but she doesn’t mind being a little ratchet every now and then. Berry revealed Monday that she may also make an appearance in the small-screen version, which she called a fresh take on the 1992 film. “I wanted to tell the story in a fresh way and deal with all of the issues that millennials are facing, which is very different to the issues of 1992, and to carry on the legacy of the original movie.”<doc-sep>
Halle Berry wasn’t immediately sold on the idea of a “Boomerang” reboot. The 1992 romantic comedy, which starred Berry, Eddie Murphy, and Robin Givens, told the tale of cocky ad executive and insatiable ladies’ man Marcus (Murphy) who meets his match in his new boss Jacqueline (Givens) — an exec who treats him the same way he has treated his conquests around the city. Berry played Jacqueline’s quiet assistant Angela, who he eventually falls in love with. It was a role that launched her career. So, when “Boomerang” TV series creator Lena Waithe approached the Oscar winner with the idea, she was hesitant at first. Waithe’s pitch was so good, though, that Berry ended up being the co-executive producer of the project. “She came to me and she said, ‘Hal, I really want to redo “Boomerang” and I was like, no,” Berry told the audience with a laugh as she took the stage at the “Boomerang” premiere Monday night at the Saban Theater in North Hollywood, Calif. “At first I was like, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I didn’t think it was a good idea. I love this movie so much. I know how many people love this movie so much. I was like, ‘I don’t know if there’s a way we can do this, Lena. '” “I quickly realized that Lena was not taking no,” she continued. “She was not going to let me off the hook and I realized it was a good thing to do. We talked about what the new version could be and how we could take the same story and modernize it and make it about the millennials of now.” That new version is not a remake, but a spinoff of sorts. It centers on Marcus and Angela’s daughter, Simone Graham (Tetona Jackson) and her and her friends’ dealings with life, career, and love. Jackson told Variety she would tell die-hard “Boomerang” fans and skeptics of the TV show to “give it a chance,” adding, “It’s not the same story. These are new faces. We’re not trying to remake a classic. We’re just adding on to it.” For Waithe, having Berry be a part of the project was essential. “I talked to her and I was like, ‘Yo, I would really appreciate having you be involved and watching what I’m doing just to make sure we don’t veer too far away from what the movie is really about,’” Waithe told Variety. “She was like, ‘I will but I really think you got it, I’m just here to support you’ and she was on it. She was really about that life and just supported me and let have me space and room to do my thing. So I’m just really grateful, for her, and all that’s she’s done for the show.” Waithe said seeing the project come to life has been “emotional.” She continued, “It’s a culmination of a big dream, you know, of watching that movie every single night to being here right now and having Halle next to me, and this amazing cast behind me. I’m just so grateful.” As guests took their seats inside the theater, Berry talked more about what “Boomerang” meant for black culture and to her. “When we made ‘Boomerang,’ we were babies and it was about our culture and while it seemed like a fantasy,” she said, “it was so aspirational. It was so aspirational. It was lives that we as black people were all seeking to live,” she continued. “With this new version of ‘Boomerang’ it’s no different for these new millennials. It’s about the life they’re hoping to live freely in so many ways. We deal with so many issues our community is facing today. A lot of people are going to go kicking and screaming but they’re going to have to swallow it bitter and spit that s— sweet.” “Because that’s what it is,” she went on. “We have to move forward and we have to be inclusive and accept all of who we are and love all of who we are.” Following the screening, Waithe took the stage and told the audience, “now we’re gonna party.” Guests went on to mingle, toast champagne, and dance as DJ Mos pumped out hip-hop for the bash. “Boomerang” premieres on BET Tuesday night, Feb. 12, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.