While growing up, Fridays often meant taking trips to Hollywood Video with my father, who also kept a large VHS collection of recorded movies and music videos. In high school, I created a short documentary about children and adults who had experienced foster care, however, it wasn’t until I watched American Gangster that I became interested in making narrative films. It seemed rare at the time to see a large Black cast on screen for close to three hours and I felt hooked by the opulence, drama, characters, and time period. After reading the script, I wrote my first dramatic screenplay and began studying media production in college.

After years of only writing drama, a TV comedy class at AFI helped me discover my ability to write funny and my love for doing it. My professor suggested that I lean further into comedic writing, and I did by following up a very well-liked spec of Ted Lasso with my first comedic feature screenplay. I happened to be taking a helpful Improv for Writers class at the same time, yet wanting to strengthen the comedy in the script even more, I took a Level I comedy course at Flappers Comedy Club. At the end of the course, students were required to perform a five minute set in a real show that we had to promote, though I was completely oblivious to this when I signed up! Still, I would do it again.