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It’s not easy to have a hit show either. Why has Everybody Hates Chris caught on?
“It’s just because we don’t insult your intelligence. People have watched 1000s and 1000s of hours of entertainment. They’re smarter than everyone gives them credit for. They know when someone’s being manipulated. They know when it’s not real and they know when, ‘Oh boy, this is manufactured.’ People are really, really savvy to good entertainment and bad entertainment. That’s the way it is right now. Just as of late, the little three cameras with the couch sitcom thing just hasn’t been working lately because you’ve seen a lot of it, and there’s been a lot of bad ones. But when you make something good, it stands out. I’m proud of my show. I’m extremely proud with it. We sit and we talk about the things we get to do, Tichina [Arnold] and I. We’re so happy because we get to say these lines.
The same thing with this kind of show, with Harsh Times. David Ayer lived this. It’s like you knew this guy knows this world. You would have sensed anything funny in it, but you can’t say that. You may not like it, but you’ve got to respect it. That’s the deal about Harsh Times. You may not like this movie, this may not be your type of thing, too intense, whatever, but you better respect it because this is what’s really going on. This is how it goes down in South Central Los Angeles. This part of Los Angeles, this is what’s up. If you don’t want to see it then my God, close your eyes because this is true.”
There are people like Christian Bale’s character out there.
“By all means. I mean, I’ve been hearing rumors about people coming back from Iraq and getting back into gang life, but now they know more about how to really put on an offensive. They know all the weaponry. They know everything. This is the real deal. This is life. People from the Gulf War are coming back and running gangs.
People don’t remember this but he wrote this movie 10 years ago. People think, ‘Wow, it’s just a statement on what’s happening now.’ No, this happened 10 years ago. In his mind, this all went down here. It took him 10 years to make it, so I just think it’s a testament to the screenwriting and directing ability of the guy [that] this story still remains fresh and still remains new. Like I said, it’s the truth.”
Do you consider yourself a role model?
“Oh yeah, yeah. This is the way I think of myself as a role model: not in regards to someone should be like my characters, but in that you should do 100% when you go out. One thing I want to be said about my career, because everything has an up and a down and there’s a good time and a bad time, but you would never say, ‘He mailed that in.’ I don’t ever want anyone ever saying that about me. ‘Oh, he really didn’t care. Oh, that was a paycheck.’ It’ll never be a paycheck for me. It’s always about the love of the craft because I love film. I love entertainment too much to treat it lightly.”
