Meet the Johnsons!

Black-ish is a comedy series that has won over the hearts of audiences worldwide while also intelligently speaking about race and family. Acclaimed cast members Tracee Ellis Ross, Anthony Anderson and Laurence Fishburne talk about the intricacies of comedy and their show’s message.

In the show, what stands out actually is that the kids are color-blind (in terms of race) Is there a big hope that future generations are going to be blind to color, sexuality, all these things?
Laurence:  Oh, this generation that’s come up now in America, these young people now are color-blind. They don’t discriminate about anything. I mean, I have a seven-year-old daughter, and my wife and I were watching a trailer for a movie called Dear White People that’s about to come out. It’s full of a lot of these kind of references, like in our show. 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 color-blind, said, “I have no idea what any of that is about,” and she walked away.

Is it easier to do comedy?
Laurence: Comedy’s hard! But the good news is I have Anthony, Tracee, (executive producers) Larry Wilmore and Kenya Barris to work with. And I said to Larry very early on that I’d never done this and he said it would be fine. Later, he probably privately laughed and said, “It’s going to be so good, it’s crazy.” So going back and forth is just a blessing — I’m grateful to have both things going on. I’m also really excited to see, what we’re able to do.
Tracee: Listen, comedy is about telling the truth. And if anyone can tell the truth in a talented and fantastic way, it’s Laurence. There’s no one that can do a one-liner like this man. Comedy’s hard when you try and make people laugh. That’s part of the reason that I think this show works, because we’re telling the truth, and that’s what’s universal about it. If you’re authentic and you’re real and you actually have a point of view, — which this show does — then you go across the board.
Anthony: We don’t have a laugh track on this show because we don’t need to tell you when to laugh. We don’t know when you’re going to laugh. It’s going to affect you all differently. We hope you laugh in the right places and other places where we didn’t expect. We’re talking about a universal theme amongst families, amongst human beings. And that’s what people are going to respond to. That’s what is resonating with the people right now.
Tracee: I also think there’s a confusion sometimes because of the color of a cast, people decide that that means something about — it’s not identifiable for everybody. That’s not the situation with our show. I mean, there’s a difference between a black cast and a black show. Like, there’s a lot of different things there. For a white show, people don’t say that this is only going to identify with white people.

We know you from multi-camera comedies on TV. How does that work into you playing those characters now, with the single camera?
Tracee: It’s not much different. Although, there will be a bit of a growth curve for me, because I’m used to guiding myself on hearing that it’s working, to a certain extent. But I have to say that’s what comes with the trust that you have with your team, and getting the thumbs up from your producers every once in a while. Knowing that it’s going in the right direction and it’s playing well on camera is great. And that’s a trust that starts to come as the season progresses, and we start to feel the rhythm.

(Black-ish season 5 airs on Star World and Star World HD at 10pm, Monday to Friday)