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Kenya Barris, the creator of “Black-ish”, knows a thing or two about resilience. Eighteen failed pilots before he finally struck gold? That’s dedication — and, as it turns out, a family value. I’d always been drawn to Kenya’s humor and storytelling, but during our conversation it really clicked how much his experience as a father — and, as he openly shared, navigating divorce — informs his work. We delve into the intricacies of comedic structure, the tightrope walk that is satire for Black creators, and the moral considerations of challenging the status quo. Plus, we reflect on our time on set together. I’m a huge fan of Kenya’s, and if you aren’t already, I have a feeling you will be soon.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

David Duchovny, Kenya Barris

David Duchovny  00:06

I’m David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Kenya Barris is a movie and television writer, a producer, a director and an actor. He is best known for creating the ABC sitcom black ish, which ran for eight seasons from 2014 to 2022 Kenya has been working his way up the ranks of the entertainment industry from a young age, and now he has more projects to his name than I’m able to name right now. One that’s near and dear to my heart is the 2023 movie, you people, which I acted in and Kenya co wrote and directed for Netflix. He also has a new podcast called The unusual suspects, which he co hosts with the writer Malcolm Gladwell. They talk to the world’s most extraordinary individuals about their specific paths to success. I’m waiting for a call. Kenya is a thoughtful, vulnerable guy, beautiful guy, and I always enjoy talking to him. I’m very, very fond of Kenya. I think you’ll enjoy listening. So without further ado, Kenya Barris.

 

David Duchovny  01:14

It’s been a while since we talked, and I.

 

Kenya Barris  01:18

Still love you.

 

David Duchovny  01:19

I love you too. I wanted that. The burning question for me is, I don’t know if you remember, but I’m wondering if you’ve ever worn the onesie that I gave you as a wrap gift.

 

Kenya Barris  01:33

Of course, I have actually wore Christmas.

 

David Duchovny  01:38

You did?

 

Kenya Barris  01:39

Yeah.

 

David Duchovny  01:41

That’s warm for me. I’m glad I was thinking about, you know, supposedly the show is about, about failure, you know, but we kind of go everywhere with that. But I was thinking about because, you know, I one of the interesting things about doing a podcast, which I’m sure you can talk about too, because you’re, you’re doing one now as well, is I find myself learning about somebody who I consider a friend, or somebody I know a little bit you, and finding out things about you that I, you know, I didn’t know at all. And, right, I find that to be a fascinating aspect of this. But, you know, I guess it’s, it’s common knowledge that you had 18 pilots before blackish hits, right at number 19. So was there something along the route of those 18? I’m not going to call them failures, but, you know, well, no, I mean the failures in the sense that they don’t work, their failures. I’m saying, like, well, they don’t get on the air. Yeah, that really worked. It just wasn’t whatever. But what was it like in your head as you’re going through 1314, seven, you know you? Are you? Are you saying? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with this subject? What am I not getting? Or are you just like, next one’s gonna hit?

 

Kenya Barris  03:07

I think the last like, five or six, I kind of was like, it’s gonna happen. I’m saying like, you know, like the last like couple years, I was doing certain like, two and two and three years. So the last two or three years of them, I was like, something, you could tell they were getting too close. I started understanding, like, over the at 12 and 13 and 1112 you started being like, okay, um, casting really matters. So get up, you know, start talking about, get who’s your actor, you know, I’m saying. Then you start thinking about, like, who’s going to direct this? Then you start thinking about, is there something that sort of, like, start, you start, like, realizing that the package really counts. You start really, like, how do you sort of stack the deck, you know, a little bit more. Um, and then I think toward the end, I really got so I was getting so frustrated, I think I said, fuck it. And I was like, I’m not going to tell someone else’s story. I want to really just tell my story. I used to write pilots in, like there were in the earlier years. I would write pilots about, like, my family or about a job situation, and I would change the characters into white characters, because I was, like, nobody, like, I want to make this sell. So I’m going to make the characters it’s for ABC, so or NBC. I want to make the characters white, because I, you know, but I would write him originally as I heard him in my voice, and then I would change the names and all that. Just I started, just, I was pandering, you know. And I think I, once, I start pandering, and I got Lawrence Fishburn I’m saying, and then Anthony Anderson as well. But Lawrence Fishburne really was like this movie star, and he people had not seen him do comedy in that way, right? And for him to come and sort of really embrace that character and be so good with Anthony and Tracy came in, we cast her, but it was written first Tracy came in, and we knew at that point and those kids were so, so good, I started getting. The kids those kids are so, yeah, so good. It just it really helped.

 

David Duchovny  05:04

Well, you say pandering, it’s interesting, because you know what you’re talking about. Over the course of 18 pilots that you, that you tried, you were learning the business aspect of it. You say, I’m learning the business of it, but pandering part could be called a business move as well. I mean, that was kind of, maybe your naive notion of of how you should go about this business.

 

Kenya Barris  05:28

Yeah, I think that that that is normally, actually, you know, what you do is you pander a little bit, right? I’m saying like, you’re like, it’s for this, this station, it’s kind of this type of thing. You pander. But that doesn’t necessarily work when you haven’t made it, you know I’m saying, I guess kind of feels like your pan. They feel the pandering, right? But once you they feel like pandering, yeah, once you get on a little bit, then you can sort of pander, but not feel like you’re pandering. Yeah? I think it also really, timing is everything? I also, like, during that time was like, you know, people wanted to hear something different I’m saying, and we also sold that pilot in to a lot of people. It was a bidding war, and we sold that pilot to a lot of people. And so it was a big commitment from ABC, if it didn’t go and from the moment we started shooting it, you started, I don’t know, you’ve, I’m sure you’ve been a part of support this. You just, I just, and I don’t, you don’t like to say it, it’s kind of like a pitching, a no hitter. But you kind of, you kind of knew, you know, I’m saying, from the moment on the pilot. We were like, you know, it was, we were wrapping pilot days early. We were like, you know, doing takes for safety that we after, like, two takes. It was like, this is for safety. Like, we kind of, you know, I kind of, it was like, Oh, this is this. I worked, that worked, that worked, you kind of just knew it was, it was clicking.

 

David Duchovny  06:59

Yeah, what I remember about, you know, shooting with you as as a director, I found you extremely collaborative and supportive and willing to, you know, wanting to improvise within the structure of of the movie. And I thought, you know, you reminded me a lot of, for me, of working with Shandling, because you guys are both really sharp and funny, but you I don’t think I’m wrong here that to you, like the backbone of the thing, the structure of the thing, is all important. You know, if you don’t have that, if you don’t have the character, and if you don’t have the structure of the piece, then you can have as many fucking jokes as you want. They’re not just they’re not gonna.

 

Kenya Barris  07:47

Need the skeleton. And if you get the skeleton in the and we have the right, just such a blessing to have that group of people together, but you get the skeleton and you get the right people together, then you can work from it, but you do need the structure I’m saying.

 

David Duchovny  08:00

But that’s not, that’s, I think people forget that, you know, when I see, when I see comedies, and I’m wondering, you know, it’s not something that somebody is going to come into this world knowing, you know, you think, Oh, I’m a funny person. I’m going to do funny shit, I’m going to write jokes, I’m going to say funny things. But where did you learn, not only the structure, but where did you learn that the structure was, was make or break for something?

 

Kenya Barris  08:27

I think I was always like, I had a kid. Was a kid asthma. I just read a lot of books. I got, like, super into a love of, like reading, like, literature, comic books, anything that I, you know, told a story that, like, kind of took me out of like, having to sit in the house all the time. And the thing I learned, like, the best writers, the best storytellers, their structure and their character, right? You can just find you can hear the character on page, you know, 450 the same as you could on page 10, him saying you you understood who that character was. And I think that’s still the same thing in film. I’m saying like the best are the best filmmakers that we the ones that we love. If someone didn’t tell you were walking into, I don’t know, a Wes Anderson movie, right? Yeah, right. 1010. Minutes into it, you’d like, is this a Wes Anderson movie? Like you can hear the voice and the structure come out from how those you know filmmakers Tell, tell their stories. And I think that’s the thing that you know really counts.

 

David Duchovny  09:30

And for you, when you’re writing, when you’re making something like it’s it’s your voice. Now it’s your voice. It’s Kenya’s voice. Now you’ve worked long enough, you probably, you probably, you know, kind of moved within it and outside of it enough to know when it’s there. How do you court it, you know? How do you because it’s not easy. No matter whether you know the structure, whether you’ve been there 1000 times, it’s always going to be hard. How do you get into. That zone, and is it just like, Oh, here’s an idea that got pitched to me. I feel it. I understand that. I can see it. That could be in my voice. Is there a way that you get into your voice, or is it just something that comes naturally?

 

Kenya Barris  10:13

Yeah, I think the voice thing is the most important thing damn near anybody, no matter what they do. But if they do something passionate, like, can have like, you can look at a trade on Wall Street, right? And you can be like, That’s a warren buffett trade like, the street, oh, no. Or you can look at, you know, a piece of architecture, and you’re like, This, such, such, built this. And I’m saying you can hear the same thing with an actor, you know, certain actor. But as a writer, I felt like, I think the key is to not make it your voice, person, quote, quote signs, but make it like the type of thing you like to say in the way you like to say it. But make sure you keep each of those characters an individual person, so that, I think one of the things that helped me with that is TV doing, like, doing TV every week. Yeah, you have to, like, learn that each of those actors is special, and they make, they make your show. That’s why casting is so important. It’s so so so so so so, so important. It’s like, this is the place where I say actors are magic, I’m saying because I have a great Jason Alexander moment. We, I worked on this, this show called listen up. Lot of good writers in there. But Jason comes in one day before the table read. He has the script in his hand. He’s like, Guys, this isn’t it. And was like, right before the table read, like, what? He’s like, this, isn’t it. This isn’t work. I’m like, we’re like, oh, okay. And he goes to the table read and he fucking murders, I mean, like uproarious table read, like, brings the house down, right? Comes in after the table read, back to the writers room. He comes, guys still need to stay still, isn’t it? And he because what he was said was, and what was true is that a great actor as you know, as you’ve done like, you can sort you can take material and make it work. You know how to make your put your thing, because that’s an actress. There’s the magical part. You know how to make but you also know when that structure, that story part is, is not right, and it’s hard. You’re like, I’m gonna put you in a position where all we you’re gonna be struggling to make this work, you know? And he was like, I made it work so I didn’t embarrass you at the table read. But this is wrong, and it was such a pro move, I will always remember that.

 

David Duchovny  12:25

It reminds me of I had a meeting with Robert Towne because I had we got to know each other a little bit, and he was kind enough to read a script of mine, and we had a meeting afterwards, after he was talking to me about the script, and he said, the first thing I do when I read a script is I look at the last 20 pages and I see if there’s a lot of dialog. And if there is, if there is, I worry, because in my mind, the in the last 20 pages, the audience should know what the characters are thinking. I love that. And in a way, that’s what you’re saying in the Jason story, I think, is that he was saying, yeah, these jokes are funny or whatever, but it’s like the character is not there. And in way, some of those jokes wouldn’t have to be even said. Some of those are just looks, you know, yes, once you get to know the character now, now, as as an as an actor, like I love that. I like that. You say actors are magic. That’s great. Do you feel, what were you? You know, I look at you and you’re doing you’re doing so much. You’re producing, your writing, you’re directing, you’re acting, you know, you’re doing it all. And it’s for me, I do a bunch of stuff too. And in a way, it’s like me hiding from, you know, being shot at as one thing, in a way, you know what I mean. And it’s also just exercising different like limbs or different skill sets somehow. And I’m wondering, what was it about acting that you needed to do, that you needed to find out at that point when you did Black AF, it was that the first time that you acted?

 

Kenya Barris  14:09

Yeah, I mean, I did little parts here and there, just and I told you.

 

David Duchovny  14:12

Really, I love watching your work, and I love that show. Is it is, are there going to be more seasons of it?

 

Kenya Barris  14:20

No more seasons of that, but I’ll be hoping to do some stuff. But it was, I did it out of fear, because there’s you can rob me with a camera if you wanted to, you know, saying, a camera or a snake, you could rob me. And I feel like the idea was to, like, confront your fear really. You know, saying, like we had, I think Jamie Foxx was talked about. We had had a great another actor that actually his deal closed. It was like, super in demand. And Rashida being as smart and talented as she is as a director, writer and actor, she was like, You should do it. And I was like, what? And then, you know, we worked with a lady who worked with Larry David, and had a conversation with him. And. And I felt like, you know what? It started resonating like, maybe, I was like, because black people don’t really get to do satire. And I was like, oh, like, maybe this actually will come off, like, in a satirical way. And like, kind of like, give us, like, open a little bit of a different door. And she supported me the whole way through I mumble. And you know, we’d be in the middle of saints, and she’d say, the middle of the scene, she’s like, you know, no one can understand you, right? You know, no one listening to this could understand a word you’re saying, right? And actually, just was like, no one else would have supported me like that. But it was, I’m so glad that I did it. It taught me so much about writing. And now you know that because you actually as what does it teach you about writing? Oh, my God, that you we write words sometime, and we’re not realizing that someone has to read these words and act this out. And we’re just like, we’re just writing words. You’re like, this isn’t as you if you don’t, if you haven’t done it. You don’t really think like, this is impossible. What you’re asking of this person, right? You’re asking of this person that is not, it’s like you’re asking them to play a game of Twister that they can’t finish. Right? I’m saying, Yeah, and I think it changed the way I wrote blocking, the way I wrote character, the way I wrote, you know, thing, because you have to understand, like a person has to be these words. And I’m saying, and live this.

 

David Duchovny  16:22

Yeah, when you say black satire, I’m not exactly sure I understand what you mean. Or when you say satire, can you just, can you maybe explain what you mean by that to me?

 

Kenya Barris  16:34

Like, we don’t get to, like, take, you know, satirical things are like, when you look at really, real stuff, grounded things, and you’re able to sort of, like, in a proposally real way, make light of, you know, I’m saying, like, our stuff is we have to be broad, you know? I’m saying like, George Jefferson, like, should have been able to be satire, but he had to be so broad, right? You know, saying, and he had to like, because it wasn’t able to be played in with a level of groundedness, you know, I’m saying. And so, like, if you think about it, like, that’s not really something that we get to do. Like, you can’t like Mike spike, right, plays with it, but he’s more on the dramatic side, even though he’s a super funny guy, and the things that the characters would whatever, but like, and because it’s features he doesn’t like it in a television show. Like to do satirical, supposedly grounded things, but talk about them from a grounded but honest place. That’s not something that culturally we have been able to do. We have, we are set up, set up a show, broad, big comedy, you know, saying, um, Chitlin Circuit, you know, you know, like, big def Jam, Def Comedy, gym laughs. That’s why Dave Chappelle is so important for us. Yeah, because he provides a real, grounded prior. But even he makes his prior with Carlin, with, with, you know, new heart and, but he, it’s from a crowd. His his newest starting alive. Monolog was genius to me was, yeah, I really, really was. He’s had a couple of them. This one really worked.

 

David Duchovny  18:12

So do you see that as your that’s your ambition, or that’s your past? That’s what you’re doing, that’s what you intend to do, that’s what you’ve done.

 

Kenya Barris  18:20

I don’t know that that’s what I’d done. That’s why I know that the people that inspire me are like thinkers. I know that prior was a thinker. I know that you know Seinfeld a thinker. I know that Chappelle is beyond a thinker. I love comics like Shane Gillis. I love, you know, people who I think are thinkers and really aren’t afraid to sort of like have a point of view that doesn’t necessarily Just come from just one side or the other.

 

David Duchovny  19:13

You I know that like me, you went to school for another discipline. You were, I guess were you pre mad or you were going, Yeah, I was, I was pretty mad, yeah, so when you, when you flipped and started to say, I’m a writer, I’m going to be a writer. Was there was there, like, guilt involved in that or because.

 

Kenya Barris  19:31

There was organic chemistry.

 

David Duchovny  19:34

I remember that. I remember orgo that separated the men from the boys, didn’t it?

 

Kenya Barris  19:39

It does. It’s the only time in my life I ever felt dumb.

 

David Duchovny  19:44

Why is that? What is it about organic chemistry that’s so hard, let’s.

 

Kenya Barris  19:48

I don’t know my wife became a doctor and but she always said, that was the thing they always told you, like it was, that was the turning point. Yeah, I. And I don’t understand. I don’t understand because I was pretty good at math. I wasn’t great, but I was pretty good, but I was really good at science. I’m sorry, I thought right, but it combined math with science in such a parallel congealed way, yeah, that you had to have like, a handle on both of them in a way that I did not. That’s like I was getting like, twelves and fourteens on tests, you know, 12% like, bad fails, I was like, shit.

 

David Duchovny  20:35

I was so bad at math and science, you know. And I was not pre med. I was, I was liberal arts, whatever they made up these phony science courses that people that were scared of that stuff would would take. I took a course called physics for poets. Yeah, but, but there was, was there a sense for you at that point? Was like, ah, you know, I’m, it sounds like it was so clear that you weren’t gonna go there. So there wasn’t a sense of like, I’m making the wrong decision, or I’m failing at this, or is there not? What am I gonna do now.

 

Kenya Barris  21:12

It was definitely a sense of failure, because I felt like, you know, you’re in college, I was, you know, I was broke growing up, and like you kind of choose a career that you feel like is a little bit of, like a short shot I’m saying, right? Like, I felt like being a doctor. Was like, Oh, this is gonna work, you know, saying, How can I do this? I’ll be okay. So once I wasn’t gonna be able to do that thing that I knew if I could do was I was gonna be okay all the rest of the careers. Like, I didn’t want to be a lawyer, and I knew a lot of broke lawyers growing up, so that what that didn’t feel the same to me and I, I felt like taking the other side of like, really diving into the thing that I actually really always loved, which was, you know, trying to be tell stories and make people laugh, And that felt like what you’re supposed to do and what you know, you know, parents of kids are a little bit more entitled and have a little bit more freedoms tell their kids to do. But I took that, that jump, and my mom was not supported. I understand, so it was,  different thing.

 

David Duchovny  22:23

Yeah, I have a similar story in that. I went to graduate school for English literature and my when I was a kid, I had the same two choices that you did. I thought lawyer or doctor, because they seem like sure things, as you say, Yeah, and I just knew that I I couldn’t do either. So I was going to be an academic, you know? And I thought, oh, well, then I’ll get great vacations, I’ll get three months off a year, and I’ll be able to write, I’ll be able to write novels in my my off time, you know. So that’s kind of where I was going. And I was in a PhD program, and then when I wrote scholar, right? No, I wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar. I tried to get a Rhodes scholarship, and I might have made it, you know, to the regionals. It’s a lot like the Final Four. Okay, if you had me in your bracket, you would have been busted.

 

Kenya Barris  23:10

Like the sweet 16.

 

David Duchovny  23:14

Oh, Kenya. It’s a weird thing that they do when you make, like, the 32 from your region. Everybody’s got a region, they do. And so I was in the Northeast region, and they have a cocktail party, and you mill around, and you don’t even know who the selectors are, as you’re milling around this party with the other with the other applicants. So I knew I was, I was I was lost. The first question they asked me was, I think they asked me if a writer, had any responsibility to be moral, you know, not in his life, but in in the writing. And, of course, would you say not the right thing, whatever it was, you know.

 

Kenya Barris  24:00

What do you think now, in hearing that question back?

 

David Duchovny  24:03

I think, no, I mean, I think I think a writer’s responsibility is to tell, tell a story and to raise questions, and instead of answering them, I think I think great art has a certain sense of morality, but it’s not necessarily as cut and dried as as the one that we like to abide by in our lives.

 

Kenya Barris  24:27

Well, isn’t isn’t it interesting when you like really break down that homology of words, morality doesn’t necessarily mean the positive for morality is the spectrum, right? And if you if we’re really being honest, like, morality is a spectrum, if a character is is corrupt and lacks what we consider positive morality, that is his morality. I’m saying in some aspects, I’m saying like, and I feel like that is, I think we sometimes forget that I’m saying the idea of a lack of morality is, morality is a form of morality. I’m saying it’s it. It’s just a spectrum. You know, saying morality is, is often thought of like, we we look at, I think that’s one of the problems I have, just like, is like, there’s such like a formulated like, this is what we’re supposed to be, yeah. But then we look and we’re often some of our heroes, whether it be in film or in politics, like, you know, JFK, I’m saying by a lot of definitions. I don’t know, I’m didn’t know the man personally, but from the research reading I’ve done, by a lot of definitions, he may have not been as high on the morality spectrum. I’m saying, but he, but I wouldn’t say that he was, didn’t have a morality to him. So anyway, it’s just interesting.

 

David Duchovny  25:49

No, it is interesting. And I think, you know we’re, we’re in a time where, where that discussion is really appropriate, you know, because you know we are, we have often been recently, I think judging works of art by a morality or even by a political position that they’re they’re putting forward as if that was what an artwork or a work of entertainment was supposed to be judged by. And I wonder […] What’s that?

 

Kenya Barris  26:16

Always my term to that is close the museums, if we start doing that, close them, because a lot of seemingly really bad people, man, a lot of beautiful things.

 

David Duchovny  26:27

Yeah, and even the things that are challenging, even the things you know works, that might seem ugly to us today are for the future, in a way, are kind of opening a door into another time. So, I mean, I’ve felt the pressure as somebody who writes and somebody who’s trying to get things done, you know, is this going to be seen as saying the thing that people want to hear right now? You know? And I find that that’s, that’s a time to close the museum as well. And I’m sure you have been dealing with that more than me as a white person like you know what? I think I have less kind of a sense of responsibility to to be a certain thing for a certain group of people, that somebody in your your powerful position.

 

Kenya Barris  27:23

That’s interesting. A lot of my guy, my friends that are white, actually, particularly the men, they feel more obligated to like be certain ways than they ever have before. So it’s interesting. You say you feel like.

 

David Duchovny  27:37

Yeah, well, I think, I think I do feel more obligated to do that, but to be that way, but I feel like that’s not going to lead to the best work for me. No, that’s coming from the consciousness or whatever, rather than the unconscious, where the where the good stuff is going to come from.

 

Kenya Barris  27:57

Yeah, I feel like that in political conversations, which you’re not supposed to have. But, you know, is the idea that I feel like that so much now, in terms of, as a writer of what’s right, what’s wrong, which you can agree with, like, I think it’s almost become, like, you know, a cult of politics saying on the left and the right that, like, we have to, sort of like, you buy everything one side says, or you’re not truly a part of it, and not really, I think that that’s caused a real, you know, it’s interesting. When I went to a dinner with some friends, and one of the one of the people were helping Biden run for office at the time. He will remain unnamed, but he’s a you know friend, you know, wealthy contributor and it was really smart guy, and he wanted Biden to get in one of the commercials. They were going to do a commercial or ad with Mick Jagger. And it’s gonna be Biden, Mick Jagger. Mick Jagger was gonna just start him up and kind of like, dance around Biden and then fist bump him at the end. And everyone was like, you know, yeah, nodding. Like, Oh, that sounds good. And I was like.

 

David Duchovny  29:02

What have you have you seen dancing in the streets? It was like, shit 30 years ago.

 

Kenya Barris  29:10

I was like, What are you talking about? That sounds like an awful idea. And I was like, I guess I wasn’t supposed to say it, but it just was the idea of at that point, I, at that moment, really felt like Joe did, unloaded an amazing, you know, some amazing things, and did a great job, but I thought that he was was, you know, too long in the tooth and past his pride. And I was like, We need to get out of this now. And I was supposed to say that, but I felt it at that point, and I just, I think that sometime, like they were asked, I said, if I was on the Democratic Party, I would have taken and made a blue Maga hat, you know, saying, and that would have been my von said, I would have said I made a blue make America great again. I’m like, what can they say? No, say he took it. He took it from Reagan’s. Take it again and be like, we’re gonna do it. And like, I feel like, I think, you know, with all we talked about having a voice and all that, like, I felt like I looked in all in when Hillary ran, I asked somebody on my friends. I was like, after over, I was like, what was her campaign slogan? People were like, I’m with her. I was like, Nope, you know, say, and I was like, but you knew drums, and I was like, when you know congress, I was like, what was her campaign song? And I was like, no, you know, I was like, the idea that we get so caught up in ideology and who’s right and who’s wrong, and that we’re on the right side and the right side is going to win, and the right so I wonder if that’s not what it’s about. It’s about, you know, the idea of how you as a writer, if you’re not, if you’re not worried about being moral, you act, but which you do actually compel someone from the inside him saying touches their their core, then you are a success, you know. And I think it’s not about you writing the story that’s the most moral. It’s about you writing something that actually touches and affects the most people. And I think that we, we’re kind of like, we kind of get away from that sometime.

 

David Duchovny  31:11

Well, yeah, I mean, I think we’re, we’re kind of siloed off. I mean, pretty clearly, uh, preaching to the choir a lot, and that kind of stuff. But you know the idea, and I think that your your work does this, which is one of, one of the things I love about it is that I can see the guys in the Maga hats laughing their asses off at your stuff, you know. And I’m sure that would be really satisfying for you as well. I don’t feel like you’re I don’t feel like and correct me. If I’m wrong, it’s like, Okay, I’m going after a black audience or going after a white audience. No, you’re going after an audience that thinks your stuff is funny and moving.

 

Kenya Barris  31:49

Yes. I think the whole as artists, we can say whatever we want, but their true, true like definition of us, inside of us of success is mass appeal. I’m saying when someone tells me, like, I don’t want I’m like, You’re full of shit. I’m saying like, I’m like, I’m like, you want as many people as possible to enjoy your work, because that is, you know, it’s why writing is so acting is hard when I, when I when actors come in and they audition, or actors, you know, yeah, do something and they get turned on. My God, this is a rough job. They have to go on three more of those today, right? Yeah, but maybe they just weren’t. There’s time when actors walk in and, you know, before they speak, they just start right for the role, right?

 

David Duchovny  32:36

Well, that’s probably 90% of the time.

 

Kenya Barris  32:39

Yeah, you just know before they say anything, but when someone reads your work and they don’t like you, they don’t like they don’t they don’t like you, like what’s inside, it hurts, because that’s like, what’s inside of you they don’t fuck with. And there’s something about that that really stings.

 

David Duchovny  32:58

Yeah, there was one episode of black AF that I that I thought was like the best episode of TV that year. And I was pissed off, you know, I wanted more of that show, because I loved watching you. I loved Rashida and and there was one episode, I don’t remember the name of it, but your character was you were having a hard time because you were supposed to either give an award to or say some nice things about a the work of a black director.

 

Kenya Barris  33:32

Episode 105, that’s the one.

 

David Duchovny  33:35

Everybody asked me about that one.

 

Kenya Barris  33:37

Tyler Perry was on it, and it was talking about the sort of policing of ourself and that sort of black woke majority and woke morality and all that type of stuff. It was. I’m so glad I got a chance to do that episode

 

David Duchovny  33:52

That I was my mouth was dropped open when I watched that, because it was just such a it was so smart and and so full of pain as well, you know, and confusion. You know what I mean, and again, it’s not something that you know. Art is not supposed to be a position piece, and that’s why I come out of it, not knowing where you stand and not caring where you stand, because I got the confusion of that episode was what I was supposed to get. And I just really thank you for doing that one. And I think, I think that should be put in a time capsule.

 

Kenya Barris  34:30

You know, where that episode to me worked, is that I talked about doing black satire, yeah, is that Tyler was a really big part of that, right? Because he came on, he spoke in a way that people don’t really hear Tyler. The criticisms were put in his face on a TV show. And he spoke about him, you know, I’m saying, but also, like you had Issa and Ava and Will Packer and all these, like prolific black, you know, our tours and and you know filmmakers and you. Yeah, they were having a conversation that, like, is sort of like home talk, that we don’t usually say outside, and we got to, like, say things that you don’t really hear black people talk about, I’m saying, but we talk about inside, we don’t get to say it outside. And I think we don’t get to say it outside because we haven’t made that leap yet. And because we haven’t made that leap. You’re the you had. Everyone has to support everybody right?

 

David Duchovny  35:24

What leap do you mean?

 

Kenya Barris  35:26

We haven’t made that leap to, like, mainstream acceptance. You know, I’m saying like, I can talk to you about, and we can have a really open conversation about the best point guard ever, right? Because we’ve there’s enough black point guards, if you like, if you want to say John Stockton, I’m not gonna say, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna say, I’m not gonna say you’re crazy. Yeah, if y’all want to say, if I want to say, I first even as a shooting guard, but I want to say Steph or magic. Okay, you know Dick there are, you know, if you know, if you like Jason Williams, are you like, there’s enough black of in blacks in the NBA that we can have an open discussion about it and not feel like we have to like, sort of like, hedge our bets. But there haven’t been enough Black Filmmakers, you know, saying, writers and directors and creators, that we can feel like there’s an open, open we can speak openly and be critical of one another in public. And so in public, if we, if we walk out of a screening and we’re like, that was garbage. When we walk past the person, we’re like, oh my god, so good. Because we’re like, we cannot speak, you know, Ill of our work, because we haven’t had mainstream acceptance check. And so the idea that that sort of like let the world in on a little bit of secret that we kind of police each other internally, I think that was like something I was so happy to do, because it it gave us real, um, it gave us real intentionality. It gave us real awareness, awareness, you know, of our own work, yeah, and, like, the idea that we’re not blind, you know, I’m saying that we see our own stuff. And, like, you know, we understand and we have our own conversations. And that was something I was really happy to be a part of.

 

David Duchovny  37:15

I think a lot of when I when I look at your stuff, I feel a lot of your identity as a as a father, in your work, a lot, that’s my life, yeah, a lot of your comedy, a lot of your wisdom, a lot of your questioning.

 

Kenya Barris  38:01

Guilty, guilt, seriously, guilt.

 

David Duchovny  38:06

What do you mean?

 

Kenya Barris  38:09

Like I think that men, there’s not enough like, talk about like, when we get divorced, or when our kids mess up, or when they like, we feel awful. I’m saying because, even though.

 

David Duchovny  38:23

Let me just tell you the numbers, it’s 3:45 in the morning. That’s when David wakes up and thinks about the shit that he’s done and how he’s Yes, yeah. And it’s always like, why is it 3:44 Why can’t I sleep past this number? But that father wakes up at 344 and things, what have I done?

 

Kenya Barris  38:42

Yes, man, I went to this program, Hoffman, and it was really interesting. You know, I’m saying if it was like a, you know, psycho analyst, but like, you know, it’s intense thing. But it just was like, as a father, all I could think was just like, you just start to feel like your job is to protect your family, right, yeah, but your job is also to provide, right? Yeah. And sometimes those things don’t necessarily coincide, and then we also have our own trauma and toxicity that we grew up with that we’re sort of bringing with us into stuff. And whenever something goes wrong, Mom knows that she did her best. Mom was there. Mom knows I feel like, I don’t think there’s enough talked about, like, as a father, the guilt that we sort of, like, take with us, and we’re sort of good at masking things sometime, and not necessarily, but like, we take a lot of guilt with us, and that guilt is, for me, comes out in a lot of my jokes, yeah, a lot of my shit. But it is definitely like something that you I think you take with you.

 

David Duchovny  39:48

I think that’s what I that’s the stuff that I laugh. I mean, I laugh at your stuff a lot, and I’m not an easy laugh. But I No seriously, and the lines, the lines, like, I. I don’t even know. Maybe it was from black AF, but whenever one of your kids would say something that you liked and you say, that’s why you’re my favorite, it’s just like that kind of stuff that’s so honest about the stuff that’s so difficult to navigate when you have kids and stuff like that. You know, playing favorites or not, playing favorites and but.

 

Kenya Barris  40:23

You have favorites as a parent. Anybody who says differently is fucking lying. You love all your kids the same, yeah, but at different times, you like them differently, and that’s just life.

 

David Duchovny  40:36

Yeah, that’s like with people, and there are kids, you know, when my kids had friends, there were kids I didn’t like that kid. Whatever, I just don’t do I have a reason. No, I just, I don’t like that fucking kid.

 

Kenya Barris  40:48

About your face. Just something about your face man.

 

David Duchovny  40:53

Yeah, and what I see in, what I see in in your work, that that really resonates with me is, and because I I feel like a lot of my writing work has been changed drastically when I became a father, and it’s like, and as a parent, you, you know the question is, and you’re and that famous episode that I read about hope on blackish and and, and also that that the kids on blackish had never known that there wasn’t a black president. Like, like he was, like, we always had a black president. So, so the quesion  for a father of any color, is, do I prepare my kids for the world as I want it to be, the world as it was for me, because that’s the one that I know I can really prepare them for, you know, life in New York and the 1970s I could do that well, or for the world as it is, which I really don’t know what it is, but I’m trying to figure it out as they are, you know. And it’s like the between protecting between, like, trying to get them to be, use that word, be moral in a way that is not necessarily lining up with the world at this point. You know, it’s like, or do they how much history do they have to know as to like, why don’t I let them forget a little bit and, like, enter into it as newborns? You know, this kind of.

 

Kenya Barris  42:20

That’s poetic. This want was at I want was is as I want it to be, as I was, as it was, and as it is. I such a poetic, fatherly, sort of, like, you know.

 

David Duchovny  42:32

But that’s at 3:44 in the morning. That’s what I’m thinking. It’s like, what did I do? How did I, how did I develop them? How did I stand by? How did I did I get enough involved that I was I did I back off enough? You know, all that stuff, and it’s, it’s an impossible Rubik’s cube to fix at any point in life.

 

Kenya Barris  42:54

Right which Instagram has told me Rubik’s Cube is very possible to solve.

 

David Duchovny  43:01

Not for this. I took physics for poets, Rubik’s Cube. I can’t, no, I can never solve it.

 

Kenya Barris  43:09

But it’s like such a trick. And I’m like, oh man, it broke the Rubik’s cube for me.

 

David Duchovny  43:16

But so you feel that, you feel like that’s where you’re coming from, parenting.

 

Kenya Barris  43:21

100% I tell I I tell my kids, I was like, you’re only getting inheritance because I stole all everything I got from you. All my stories come from them, and what they have, you know, sort of given to me, and like, what they continue to give to me.

 

David Duchovny  43:39

And as they get older, are you going to have to have more kids to get more material, or what are you going to do?

 

Kenya Barris  43:45

And that was crazy. I had said I was done recently. I was just like, I I’m not. There’s something about baby energy. I’m saying, Am I my youngest is still? Like, he’s.

 

David Duchovny  43:56

Hearing that out of your mouth makes me laugh.

 

Kenya Barris  43:58

He’s eight. He’s kind of a baby, and I’m saying still, but like, it’s something you have an eight year old, I do. Yeah, I do. And there’s something about that baby energy that, like, it is, you know, I don’t know, like, people’s like relief and, like, a higher being or whatever, but you feel like you look down at that baby and you’re like, Nah, it’s gonna be okay. Like this guy. I’m saying, like this, this guy or this girl, like this person, like, I see divinity in this face, you know, saying I see something beyond the sort of whatever, you know, morose place I’m allowed to get because of whatever day I’ve had. I’m saying, you look into that face and you see something that way. It’s like looking through a telescope and looking into the stars. You just see divinity.

 

David Duchovny  44:45

Wow, yeah, I mean, you’re seeing where they came from. You know, they still have, they still have that, that smell on them from.

 

Kenya Barris  44:52

That new car, celestial smell. They do seriously, yeah, nobody can explain that. Why do they keep that? Smell for so long, like, you wash exactly, you don’t wash your kids.

 

David Duchovny  45:04

So you don’t say don’t throw them away probably.

 

Kenya Barris  45:07

No, you’re probably more right than wrong either. So much shit like that. My wife told me that there’s a thing that babies actually look like their fathers.

 

David Duchovny  45:17

Yes, exactly. So you don’t kill them, you know.

 

Kenya Barris  45:19

Which is so crazy. Like, that’s why. But they go through a drastic change. Like they do.

 

David Duchovny  45:25

Okay, I got them on my side now I really look like, I can start to look like Mom, yeah, that’s I’ve heard that as well. And also that they know they learn very young, that a smile gets them Yes. They want Yes, you know, yes, like, they’re fucking manipulating us. You know.

 

Kenya Barris  45:45

So crazy.

 

David Duchovny  45:45

We’re not making them smile. They’re smiling because.

 

Kenya Barris  45:48

They know it.

 

David Duchovny  45:52

Yes, so true. You’re also, you’re, I know you’re making a documentary about Jerry West right? Right now?

 

Kenya Barris  46:01

Every I’m just left it. I’m in it every day.

 

David Duchovny  46:05

What is it about the West story that is that is calling to you? Why did you decide to go there and and start it in the first place?

 

Kenya Barris  46:15

I was I’m a basketball fan, yeah? Like I feel like, when you start looking at the teams that he made and what his contribution was to who it is, Jordan esque, you know, saying, like, not just as a player, but as a as a GM, and as an ambassador to the game, like he the game was, like, the warriors wouldn’t be the Warriors. You know, I’m saying like, Memphis would have maybe not made it as an expansion. Yeah, Clippers wouldn’t. Was my team wouldn’t be the Clippers Lakers, definitely wouldn’t be the Lakers, you know. And I feel like, you know, he’s the only player to ever be inducted into the Hall of Fame three times. You know, he still has, to this day, the highest points per game playoff average in basketball without a three point line, does he? I didn’t know that. And I’m like, this is a white dude who just had mid range jumper. And I’m like, you have to, like, give it up. The big thing is, when you when I met him, I crossed lines. It was like, I met a great man. I met a great man who put an amazing amount of trust in me, you know, who, who I felt was a civil rights hero, a sports legend, a troubled father like I feel in myself, you know, and a questioning man, a man to question, constantly questioned the world, And I just felt like I wanted to do a good job for him. I wanted to please him.

 

David Duchovny  47:47

That’s wonderful. I can’t wait to it sounds huge. It sounds like it’s awful. Is this your first doc?

 

Kenya Barris  48:02

Um, first doc that I’ve directed, I’ve had, I produced a few, I’m saying first style, and, you know, Ava DuVernay, um, produced a doc called 13th, which I really loved. I really loved the Beck the Beckham series. For me, sinner probably is like, one of the docs that, like, it’s just defining docs. You know, Kid stays in the picture, one of the defining docks, um, fog of war, one of the defining docs. But like all those docs, they had something leaving Ava’s out. It’s they, they, they got on a horse and they rode it, and it wrote that saying, you know, you hear a horse and you know the footsteps, yeah, that’s the key to a doc. It’s riding that Doc out, and I realized that that’s sort of like, it’s such we talked about, like wanting to act or wanting to write or direct. The fear of doing it made me want to do it. Because I’m like, now I’m like, I want to do this, and I want to do it great.

 

David Duchovny  48:54

The fear that you’re talking about with acting and then with doing a doc, is, is that just the is that the fear of failure, a fear of humiliation. What is it?

 

Kenya Barris  49:03

Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, like when you get up every time you go take a role, when you walk out, we go down a premiere, if you, if you didn’t do good, that’s, that’s you bro, you blew that. But if you did, and you can hold your head high and go do it again. There’s something really empowering about that. And I think that’s the thing about our industry, is like, when you’re able to actually succeed, it’s very in your face. Yeah, I’m saying it’s like, the rush I think comics get from being on stage, I’m saying.

 

David Duchovny  49:38

Well, the fear gives you more life. You know, it makes you aware. It’s like, if you just think of it, like, physically, obviously, you know, and you if you can extend that to the to the duration of a undertaking, of a film or something, then it’s, you’re, you’re living your life in those moments, even though you’re making a movie, which is the opposite of living life. But you’re, you’re living in your psychic life. And. In living in that fear. Everybody, you know, people are always talking about, you know, get rid of fear and stuff like that. But you know, on that side of failure, if fear and failure are brothers in some way, you know, it does bring you into the present moment, and it does make you feel alive, you know. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be seen as a negative thing. It can be seen as  a life.

 

Kenya Barris  50:23

Yeah, Tracy Ross is a friend of mine, and her mom is Donna Ross, and she’s had such done such amazing job, having such amazing children and having such an amazing career. But she told me one time that her mom was like, after all the time she’s performed, after all the things, she still gets a little nervous, like getting on stage, and she was, like, the moment that you’re not, you don’t feel that, yeah, you probably shouldn’t do it, I’m saying the moment you don’t, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done it, the moment you don’t have that, like, a little bit of fear, of anxiety, of angst, of what’s going to happen you’re probably done.

 

David Duchovny  50:58

I you know, I’ll get that. I always get that where there some days are worse than others, but I’ll be standing there, you know, waiting for the take to start, and I’ll just think, fuck, I’m terrified, you know? And I’m like, why are you terrified? What just and what I’ll do is I’ll just, I’ll just touch something, you know, I, like, learned this trick a while ago. Like, okay, I’m just gonna touch this desk here and bring me back into the present moment, you know, because I’m spiraling into some, you know, certain fears are good, but there are certain fears that are paralyzing, you know. And if I can, like, if I’m spiraling into this, like, oh my god, this is life and death, you know. No, this is just play. And it’s a play at life and death, you know, I’m just playing it at being.

 

Kenya Barris  51:41

I have a question for you, what’s your hardest? So, what’s your the role that you were most challenged by?

 

David Duchovny  51:58

I know, probably Californication, because we were trying to make a comedy, you know, but there was, there was a lot of other stuff going on. There was a lot of heart, and there was a lot of, like, bells and whistles with nudity and stuff like that. So it was just like, how do I not, you know, give into the absurdity of some of these situations, keep it grounded and yet still have fun, you know. How do, how do I, how do I make this guy who, on paper, is not very lovable or even likable, you know? And how do I make him kind of undeniable?

 

Kenya Barris  52:34

I just spent three months studying you in Californication. I’m doing a pilot at Netflix, and it’s about divorce, and it’s about my own divorce, and like, the notion of, but it was the closest thing I could think. I watched fleabag. I don’t watch California fornication, the closest thing I could think of, like, you know, there’s no version of going through divorce where the guy is not the bad guy, I’m saying. And the idea of, how do you sort of take this flawed character and sort of make him palatable, and in some aspects, likable and then heroic, and I feel like, which you do account fornication, was nothing short of this, like brilliant.

 

David Duchovny  53:20

Well, again, I, all I can say is that’s definitely going to be in this podcast. Thank you for saying but I, you know, it kind of, it was something I wanted to ask you, and you don’t have to get into any details or specifics. But, you know, I’m always like, I always think of ideas to pitch you. And I like, I like pitching in public to you right now, but I was when I was looking I didn’t know that you had filed for divorce twice and I had separated. I separated once, got back together with my wife, and then we eventually did divorce. So to me, like an unexamined period of relationship is that time after you’ve failed and gotten back together, it’s like I haven’t seen, I haven’t seen many shows or movies that are about that moment where we’ve already said we failed, we split up, and now we’re now we’re back together. And you went through that twice, I guess I went through it once, twice, and it’s kind of an interesting dynamic at that point, because all the illusions are gone, because we’ve already fucked up, the blinders are off. We kind of see each other for who we really are, hopefully at that point, and even then, it doesn’t necessarily work.

 

Kenya Barris  54:39

Yeah, there’s this I learned this thing. I don’t know if it’s the infinite pause or the victor. Franco has this phrase, like, between a reaction and an incident reaction, there lies a pause, and then that pause is like a world of everything. And I think that’s what if I could go. Back and do my marriage. I would, I would look at that him saying, like, how you react to things, yeah, how I react to, like, getting breaking up and getting back together, especially whenever your your breakups and get back together are going to be put in the newspaper. Fucking sucks. Um, but the idea of, like, taking a little bit more time between the acts, between what happens and my reaction. I’m saying, I think is really something I’m learning. I, you know, could, in relationship, in life, just in general, like, take a little bit more of a that moment before I react. It’s hard.

 

David Duchovny  55:38

Well, I can’t say I totally relate to this idea of of of a moment, of being less reactive, or of even kind of thinking through, or feeling through a reaction rather than just reacting. And it’s something that I I go through with Monique, my my girlfriend now, because she’s way better at taking that moment than I am. If we’re having an argument, I want to get to the end of it, and, you know, not be in the argument, you know, and she’s actually there, going, Well, wait a minute. I really want to think about this. You know, I don’t want to finish this until I know what I’m feeling. And I’m like, that’s so stupid. Now, that’s brilliant. You know, that’s really.

 

Kenya Barris  56:23

I used to cut my girl off in the middle of her talking, like, what are you trying to say? What is your point? Like, that’s gonna make the argument. Hold on. What are you What is your point? What are you getting at? Stop the next 15 minutes of what you’re saying and just get to what you’re getting at. Yeah. And I was like, and I realized that that probably wasn’t, probably wasn’t great.

 

David Duchovny  56:44

No, but I think that’s, I think it’s a good perception to start something new with. So I, you know, I wish, I wish you luck, my friend. You know, I, I feel like it’ll be okay. I think that’s a good, a good place to end, Kenya. And I, I hope I get to speak to you more. You know, not, not in this form necessarily, but I, I’m really so fond of you.

 

Kenya Barris  57:09

I felt the same way immediately and you, I, you have no idea that movie being you and Julia were such mentions like the way that you guys sort of like, brought professionalism every day. I was so terrified all these big stars and you guys every day brought it and made me feel so comforted, so I would I wouldn’t always be, you know, thoughtful to remember those moments kindly.

 

David Duchovny  57:36

I appreciate the hard work that you put in and built a brilliant career.

 

Kenya Barris  57:43

I appreciate you, bro. Thank you so much.

 

David Duchovny  57:45

Thank you. Thanks for taking the time. All right.

 

Kenya Barris  57:47

All right, guys.

 

David Duchovny  58:02

Okay, just some post talking to Kenya Barris. Thoughts on a rainy thank God. Sunday afternoon. Been a rough couple weeks in the City of Angels. Everybody knows about that. I think I ended, or I began the conversation with Kenya by saying how fond I am of him, and I keep on using that word when I think of Kenya, it’s fond. And I wonder why I come back to that word. It’s not a word that I use with a lot of people, and speaking to him again, I realize, or at least for me, my perspective on it, is this that the word fond comes to mind because, you know, Kenya is super funny, right? I mean his, his shit is funny. Black ish is super funny. Black AF, funny talking with him, funny, funny guy, strictly his POV, like we talked about. And what informs that point of view is the heart of the man. And that’s kind of where we got to we’re talking about, like his love of babies, that everything he writes comes from a point of view of being a father. Now that surprised me, but it made sense when I thought about it, because that is where the fondness comes from. And I’m not saying he doesn’t cut, but his cuts are also informed by love, by this fatherly type of love, and that’s where I’d that’s where I’d put my estimation of Kenya and why, why he works so well for me? Why his point of view? Why his art? Why his humor? It works so well for me and why I’m so fond why I’m so fucking fond of them.

 

CREDITS  1:00:14

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