Hulu‘s new romance drama, She Taught Love, written by and starring Darrell Britt-Gibson (Judas and the Black Messiah), is an emotional roller coaster with many important layers to it. It also stars Arsema Thomas (Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story), Alexander Hodge (Insecure), D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place), Edwin Lee Gibson (The Bear), and Taissa Farmiga (The Nun).
Directed by Nate Edwards (Afro), She Taught Love follows actor Frank Cooper (Britt-Gibson) who is feeling lost in life while auditioning to play stereotypical gang members and drug dealers. When he meets Mali Waters (Thomas), a sports agent living for the present, his whole world changes. Despite their own worst instincts, Mali and Frank are inescapably drawn to one another. As Mali is forced to face her own mortality, the two must learn to rely on each other, choosing to love and live for the moment, even if that’s all they get.
We were joined on the Popternative show by director Nate Edwards, and cast members Arsema Thomas and Darrell Britt-Gibson to discuss their new film and the collaboration that went on behind the scenes.
On what inspired him to write the story, Darrell says, “It’s a little mish mash of things, my ex girlfriend, her sister was diagnosed with something and it was sort of a little bit of finding my space and how to navigate it and how to be different. Hollywood gets it wrong so many times in how they depict sickness and this idea of sickness being this death note, and in reality more people are surviving from this terrible illness than are dying from it.”
On taking on the role of Mali, Arsema tells us, “This was such a beautiful script that I felt like I could see myself in. It’s very rare to have a script that is written for somebody that looks like me and to have her at the kind of the [middle] of this entire web of stories, it was very overwhelming. I felt the imposter syndrome immediately.”
Watch the full conversation below.
She Taught Love is streaming on Hulu.
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