I feel like I have a responsibility to be true to who I am as an artist, first and foremost.
Salim Akil
When you're given a certain amount of power - like, you're a writer and an employed writer, and you put pen to paper, and people are going to read what you write - that's power.
Every time I get an opportunity to do what I love to do, it's huge. It never gets old.
There are so many slices to the African-American experience. I mean, I have the whole ghetto pedigree. My mom was in jail, I didn't have any money, and I didn't go to a fancy college. But that's not the type of story I want to tell or feel the need to tell on film.
Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, Thunder, and Lightning deserve their own show because they are not 'the other.' They are legitimate superheroes in their own right, and so they deserve the full breadth of exploration. That's what makes them worthy, and that's why they deserve it. They are not 'the other.' They are 'the the.'
Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, is the American dream.
As an artist, I write and I do what I know and what creatively comes out of me, and I think that other artists should do the same thing.
My wife asked me to marry her. But we did not jump the broom.
You change the landscape in Hollywood with action, not words.
America has a strange relationship with its racial memory. Death has always been a constant companion of black people.
I grew up, I had three uncles and... I loved Uncle Donald because he gave me dating advice, and I was, like, 5. But the other thing that I found fascinating about my Uncle Donald is he dressed up like a woman. And so I grew up around all of these men who dressed like women, so when I hear that, I don't hear a cause. I hear my family.
I never saw a true representation - an iconic hero - for myself. It just got boring, reading about all these really powerful and heroic white guys.
In this larger conversation about diversity, we want to really show that we're all the same. We are all experiencing the same stories.
I thought I was an actor until they pointed the camera at me.
I've worked in a mortuary and seen the consequences of what guns and knives do to people.
I don't think I'll ever do a show with violence where there's no consequences, 'cause I know the consequences.
If anyone sees anything in 'Black Lightning' that seems foreign to them, then they haven't been paying attention. This is a uniquely American experience.
If I'm walking down the street or taking my kids trick-or-treating, and I see some young girls or boys who are dressed up like Black Lightning, that, to me, would be success.
You can't protect your children from life.
My mother, Betty, was an entertainer - she opened up for James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner - and I had an uncle who would work as a chef in a restaurant, 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4. I was young, so he could have been shorter, but in my mind, that's how tall he was.
I know and understand the result of extreme violence in my own life, in my friends' lives, and so I know what violence really is.
Nina Simone, to me, singing about black culture - she's unparalleled.
Michael Schultz's 'Cooley High' is a classic. Oftentimes, we don't get to see films about coming of age, especially for young African Americans.
I have two little black boys. And a film like 'Do the Right Thing' can help illuminate the times for them with great storytelling.
Jefferson Pierce is the epitome of what black men are: He loves his wife, his children, and the community.
I think my big break was getting out of Richmond, California, alive.
If I see one kid dressed up like Thunder or Lightning or Black Lightning, I'll feel like I influenced the culture in a very positive way. That's the endgame for me. If this happens, my mission will be complete.
Black folk have been 'the other' in shows and movies and in life for quite a long time. Not from our perspective, we're not 'the other,' but from other people's perspective we have been 'the other.'
I always approach storytelling with the idea that the audience will get it. They understand almost better than we do, because they get to watch it from an entirely different perspective with new eyes.
If the only thing that was interesting about Jefferson Pierce is that he is African-American, I don't think we'd have much of a show.
Often, African-Americans' work is accepted as if we did something artistic by happenstance. It's almost like, 'They make TV shows the same way they dance. It's just natural!'
I don't walk around all the time thinking of myself as African American, but oftentimes in Hollywood, you are reminded of that in ways that can make you question your viability.
There are so many families who do not come up in a traditional household. African Americans, Latins, and, I'm sure, whites as well, but there are a lot of men missing in African American communities and in Latin communities.
A lot of African Americans, especially men, deal with this as a part of life. I've been pulled over by the police in my life, and I think I've only gotten a ticket once. It's just a part of everyday life, and it doesn't matter if you're in the car with your children or by yourself.
I remember, as a kid, wearing the Batman costume for Halloween and feeling empowered by that as a kid.
I grew up around people with a bunch of serious problems.
Oftentimes in a marriage, you really don't have to say anything. You can sort of have a conversation without words.
I was determined to make a movie - about families and a love story - that black women would be proud to see and which would depict them as being smart, loving, sensitive, sexy, and funny.
What we tend to do in our shows, especially with 'Love Is_,' is to show the humanity of characters so that people can see themselves, one, and so that other cultures can see that we have more in common than we have not in common.
I tell my children, some people can be more talented than you. Some people can be faster, stronger, but there is never a reason for anyone to outwork you.
Like anyone else in television, I like to explore my life experience. And I don't think African-American artists see doing shows or art about African-Americans as something 'less than.' I think maybe the industry sometimes does. We don't get as much attention, we don't get critical acclaim and so on.
To me, Jefferson Pierce represented every side of me. I knew that I would be able to flesh him out.
When you're young, taking a risk doesn't necessarily feel like a risk because you're young.
I had been pulled over quite a bit by police officers, especially in Santa Monica and Culver City.
If there's a responsibility, it's just to be honest in what I've experienced and to put it in my work.
It's a wonderful thing to see 'Wonder Woman' directed by a woman. That did have an affect on the character, the , and the nuances of that film. That's the same thing my wife, Mara Brock Akil, and I are doing taking on 'Black Lightning.'
It's one thing to be a comic book fan, but when you have to create a character and put him in a suit and keep the story grounded in reality, the challenge sometimes is making sure he actually uses his powers.
I think that people in America, unfortunately or fortunately, are just discovering different aspects of the humanity of African-American people. And so I think with that discovery comes, 'Oh, you could be a superhero; you could be president or whatever it is that we thought you couldn't be.'
I came up seeing what a lot of young brothers see in this world, and you learn to deal with people with a long handle spoon in order to survive.
Women want you to feel that you're just as attracted to them today as you were when you first met them, and for me, that's the truth.
