Mara Brock Akil has been floating for the past two weeks. Or, as she joyfully puts it, “I’m riding the sea turtles.”
The feeling is understandable. The prolific TV mogul’s latest creation, “Forever,” a modern adaptation of Judy Blume’s beloved (and controversial) 1975 novel, premiered on May 8 to overwhelming praise from critics and viewers for bringing a new kind of coming-of-age tale to life. The TV series is just as revolutionary and forward-thinking as the original novel.
Brock Akil’s “Forever” reimagines Katherine and Michael, the protagonists from Blume’s book, as Keisha Clark (Lovie Simone) and Justin Edwards (Michael Cooper Jr.), two Black kids from Los Angeles — one wealthy, from a loving two-parent home, and the other raised by a struggling single mother and a tight-knit village of relatives. The show then follows the childhood sweethearts reuniting years later as teenagers at a New Year’s Eve party at the close of 2017. That party is the catalyst for their whirlwind high school romance full of firsts, which isn’t without its hurdles.
“Forever” turns Keisha and Justin’s lives inside out as they fight to save their relationship, futures, and most of all, themselves. It’s a teen experience many folks can relate to: navigating academic pressures, living up to parents’ expectations, fearing missteps, discovering who we are and who we hope to become — all while trying to make sense of a first love that feels so messy and out of control.
Those endless layers of honest storytelling are part of why “Forever” was named an instant success. Less than a week after its debut, “Forever” became the No. 1 show on Netflix. At the same time, the streamer renewed the groundbreaking series for a second season, to everyone’s delight, including Brock Akil’s.
“Won’t he do it?” she says over a sunny afternoon Zoom call. “God knew.”
The TV renewal glow practically radiates off Brock Akil as she buzzes with excitement over the impact of her new series, from the impassioned “Juke” (Justin and Keisha’s ship name) debates sweeping social media to friends flooding the superproducer’s phone with congratulatory messages. She rarely gets to soak up these moments in real time, so she’s enjoying the high.
“I feel like Dawn when she found out that Justin got into Northwestern,” the creator says excitedly, referring to Justin’s mom, ferociously played by “And Just Like That” alum Karen Pittman. “Forever” also stars Wood Harris, Xosha Roquemore, Will Catlett, Niles Fitch, Ali Gallo, Xavier Mills, Marvin Lawrence Winans III and Barry Shabaka Henley.
“I’m also trying to ground myself to feel it,” Brock Akil adds of the buzz around the show, “to feel people’s love poured back into me. It feels like a beautiful rain shower, to be honest. It feels warm outside, rainbows around, and I just feel showered.”
Brock Akil has something special on her hands with her newest series, which is seemingly always the case when you look at her exceptional track record of hit shows: “Girlfriends,” “Being Mary Jane,” every iteration of “The Game” and “Love Is.” “Love Is” was her first romantic TV drama, inspired by the beginning of her relationship with her husband, producer-writer Salim Akil (“Black Lightning”).
“Forever” is simply a continuation of Brock Akil’s legacy of telling Black stories, all rooted in love, imperfection and curiosity. It couldn’t have arrived at a better time, with Black audiences starving for more authentic representation. As the shelf life for Black shows — especially in the YA genre — gets shorter and shorter, and images of Black adolescence remain scarce onscreen, the creator feels especially honored to break the drought with everything she planted in “Forever.”
“I use this phrase often, when my kids play sports, and I found myself saying, ‘Go get what you came for,’” Brock Akil says of rising to the occasion. “My soul contract is that I’m an artist who found her voice in writing, and I’m still wanting to get better with every project, every script. And I feel like I’m getting what I came for, what I think I’m here to do.”
Throughout her decades-long career, Brock Akil has made it a personal mission to “paint beautiful portraits of human beings,” but “Forever” highlights her true passion about providing audiences “beautiful portraits of Black people and Black families.”
In the half hour we spend chatting about “Forever,” Brock Akil gets particularly enthusiastic about the global conversation she hopes her show sparks. Where Blume’s novel was ahead of its time, talking openly about teen sexuality before it was socially acceptable, Brock Akil hopes her rendition sparks a more evolved discussion that allows more “space for our young people to be seen” in the fullness of themselves.
“‘Forever’ has made some room for our children to have this rite of passage, understand its importance, not just to the children, but to the families as well,” she concludes. “I think if you make room for them and make sure that they belong here, then, collectively, we subconsciously and consciously will protect them in their right to grow.”
In this interview, Brock Akil discusses with HuffPost the making of “Forever” and how she flipped a literary classic into another love letter to Black humanity.
Watching “Forever” was such a therapeutic experience — seeing teenagers and their families figure out how to be the best version of themselves at different stages of life, like so many people in the world do every day. Did you have your own healing experience creating the show?
Oh, always. Writing for me is always therapy. And that’s why I started The Writers’ Colony. I want my legacy to be known as someone who understood the power of writing, whether you make it to Netflix or not. I think our most valuable asset is our story, and our ability to craft our own story from our own emotional maturity and intelligence through our own lens. It’s very, very important. Now, maybe [your work] is only read at your death. But at least those left behind you would know who you are and what you’ve been through, and be able to learn from your story.
Even if you just write in a journal, it is such therapy. It’s a mirror, actually, to yourself. It’s funny because — by the way, I know people are mad at this and they’re mad at that [in “Forever”]. They love this, they love that, but that is a mirror. You have to almost ask yourself as a viewer, “Why are you mad at that? Why is it engaging you that way? Why are you loving this part, mad at this part?” That’s what art does. When you go to an art gallery and you look at that painting, you don’t even know why you’re feeling your feelings, but it’s mirroring something back to you. And I think that’s why we love art, knowingly and unknowingly, because it touches the human soul and spirit.
That was a long answer to say that writing, to me, has been my healing. And real therapy has helped me understand myself more so I get deeper in my writing. God willing, I’d like to think that every project I do, I’m just getting better.
Absolutely. That’s why I personally had such a strong reaction to “Forever.” Not just because it’s another iteration of you telling these romantic stories onscreen, but I saw so much of myself in the show. That said, Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. are the anchors of this love story —
Aren’t they amazing?
Oh, they portrayed this story so beautifully. What about those two convinced you that they were your Keisha and Justin?
Ooh, you know, their talent. At the end of the day, their preparation for this moment, they’re going to get what they came for. Lovie’s been around. She’s been more of a veteran. Michael’s new to it. But they both have a knowing that this is how they best express themselves in their art form. In the casting process, for someone to pop off a computer in their own self-taped situation, that’s special. And then when we brought them in — that’s a testament to [casting director] Kim Coleman. After I write the script, I call Kim and I tell her what I’m looking for… And then she finds all this talent.
It was interesting because Lovie and Michael were different with different people [in the chemistry reads]. But when they came together, you could just feel it. You felt it. I remember when we were casting, it was raining all day. But when Lovie and Michael [auditioned together], it poured! It almost was like God’s like, “If you all didn’t feel it, I’m trying to let you know.” I mean, to the point where it affected their audio on the tape. It was raining that hard.
Wow. It’s crazy, when Michael told me how they just happened to meet right before the chemistry reads —
I just heard about the plane story when we were doing a For Your Consideration event, and they tell it—
You didn’t know?
We were all finding out at the same time. That they literally sat on the plane together, did not talk. It’s like, that’s crazy, right?
I love it.
But that’s God. That’s the magic. That’s the sea turtles. That’s it! We giggle about it now, but it was always there. I think the best part for me is to watch it in real time. For me, when it rained, my goosebumps [gestures to arm], my body literally went up straight, and I knew it was them.
That’s beautiful. I also found it interesting how Keisha and Justin essentially reverse gender roles in the show, with Keisha being more dominant and Justin more submissive, in a sense.
Well, two things were there. I think that it’s reflective of the times. Young men, they’ve been boxed in and have no place to express their vulnerabilities, and so it gave us an opportunity to see those. As a result, young women, over time, have gotten more assertive. People would say aggressive, going after the things that they want, and then that translates also, sometimes, into how they approach relationships.
But the real key is what I did in the reimagining of the book. I decided that if Katherine, back in 1975, was the most vulnerable, in a sense, to go through the experience of firsts, I would wonder who is the most vulnerable today, and I posit that it is the Black boy. So I flipped the book. I gave the essence of Katherine to Justin. And in the book, Michael had more sexual experience than Katherine, so I also gave that to Keisha. And did it in the form of the modern challenges for young people, which is this phone, and how the phone is used for communication, blocking and an extension in sexuality. Both young and older people are doing it; that’s a modern thing.
So that’s how I made the decisions around Keisha. Because in the book, a lot of the more challenging ideas of what was happening in the ’70s were in the peripheral characters, and I decided to take the tough stuff and give it to our main characters. They have to navigate love and the tough stuff, whereas in the book… I just did a lot of, “Oh, what if I flip it?” If I make the family Black, it’s going to change everything, too. Whereas white families allow their children independence because they know they’re safe in the world. Black people still, in 2018, maybe 2025, we don’t feel that. We parent differently, and so that’s going to be a complication to the love story.
So those were fun flips. That’s what you’re experiencing when you use the words submissive and dominant. I would say that we’re, for the first time, seeing young men’s vulnerabilities onscreen. I would posit that they’ve always been this vulnerable, but society told them masculinity looks this way. Conversely, with young women, we want equality in our work, in our education, in the world, but… I think there is some question mark about what is the romantic dance around who chases, who doesn’t? But, ultimately, what I want to say is I don’t care who does what. A love story, making room for love, has to be with communication, and most of the reasons why most of us are having our rollercoaster ride is because of miscommunication. And so it was really about that.
Well, I love the flips on certain aspects of the book and how you were able to take it and adapt it to the screen. It felt like its own thing.
Yes, yes. It needed to be.
I want to talk about the sex tape storyline, because that has sparked all kinds of discourse and conversation online. Why did you choose to explore that through Keisha specifically?
Because it’s the most complicated. Even historically, the image of Black women and sexuality has always sort of been distorted. I wanted to use it as a way to have many conversations. To me, as an artist, I think I just got the conversation started. I offered some perspective to jump off of, and I really think that it’s for the community to talk about and sort through. All of these young people in the story have made mistakes, and the complicated nature of who’s bad, who’s good, all of that, we need to really start talking about more, instead of in this siloed way. It’s complicated now that this very challenging technology, the phone, has created a lot of challenges in society, period. But it’s really hurting, or helping, our children. And so, what do we want to do about it?
The parents are another aspect of the show that people love.
I wanted to show two different sides of tradition. It’s not the only setup, but I wanted to show a traditional family as well as a village type of family. The Edwards have financial resources, and Keisha has relationship resources. Both families want the same thing for their children. Both are striving for the best that they have, and for their children. They both are engaged in the same thing; their families just look different. But both of these children come from love. Parents aren’t perfect, but we know that they are loving them. And though we’re economically different, our goals are still the same.
Exactly, the parents still just wanted to see the best for their kids.
Yes, and look how many people it took to fill in the gap for Keisha’s dad, and that there was still love for him. You know what I’m saying? I do love to play on stereotypes — that’s consistent in my work, that we think one thing and then we keep pulling back and showing the full humanity of someone. I hope that people love Keisha’s dad when he shows up in Episode 7. We are playing on the collective stereotype of the Black man, but he’s not missing. There was a village that stepped in in his physical absence.
So I hope that people, when they go back — because I hear people are watching four times now — [they see] every time Keisha’s taking a picture, she’s thinking also of her father. And though we didn’t see the pictures come in, if you look at her wall, that’s her dad. These are things that may not be picked up on the first round, but these are how detailed we thought about love in its reflection in these two different families.
What do you think a show like “Forever” would’ve done for you as a teenager?
Of course, I would have felt more seen. I would have felt more inspired. I would have felt more everything. But I also think about it like this. Just like my whole body of work I’m painting in, I like to paint in what is not there. Maybe it was meant for me [to create “Forever” in this era]. I don’t know what it would have done [back then], but the fact that it wasn’t there has ignited me.
I found a purpose for me by it not being there. I was able to know love so much in my upbringing, though I was raised by a single mother … I had a village around me that loved me. In a sense, I’m a Keisha, with a little bit of Justin, because I’m actually a little bit of both of their families. But more than anything, what I’m trying to say is, I knew I was loved. So when I would read Judy Blume’s book that does not have my description in it, I know me, and I could project myself into it so that when this opportunity came years later, and I was actually on my path, it would meet me. That’s destiny.
Maybe I would feel like the storytelling was fine, and I might do something different. But the fact that it wasn’t there was a part of my journey and part of my story.
Season 1 of “Forever” is streaming now on Netflix.