“Queenie” Author and Executive Producer on Creating the “Black Bridget Jones”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And so, next we do go to the black experience in modern day Britain. “Queenie” is a new TV series about a Jamaican British woman navigating London life in her mid-20s, from struggling with personal relationships to her cultural identity. Take a look.

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DIONNE BROWN, ACTRESS, “QUEENIE”: Loud, sassy, confrontational. I cannot be a strong black woman. A girl is vulnerable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this you?

BROWN: I can’t breathe. I’m so far from where I was, I don’t even recognize myself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forgiveness is hard, but I’ve seen you conquer things that were much harder.

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AMANPOUR: So, the series is based on the bestselling novel by Candice Carty-Williams, and she’s joining Michel Martin now to talk about how the show aims to defy racial stereotypes.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Candice Carty-Williams, thank you so much for joining us.

CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, AUTHOR AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, “QUEENIE”: Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: You have described Queenie as a — as the black British Bridget Jones. For people who may not know what that means, just say more about that. What does that mean?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: So, when I was initially talking about the book, I really wanted people to think about the scale of what the book should be. And so, where Queenie isn’t Bridget Jones per se, because she is obviously way too political, I really wanted people to understand that the scale of this book should be the Bridget Jones scale and it should be in every household.

MARTIN: People love her so much. She’s so real. She’s regular. She’s messy. She’s a little messy. She’s very smart. You — throw some adjectives out. Tell us about her. Who is she?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: She is — she’s someone who is — I mean, she’s often described as a problematic fae, whichever you like. But she’s funny and she’s smart and she’s questioning and she’s heartbroken and she is kind and she is inquisitive and she is someone who is trying to (INAUDIBLE) from being strong, I would say.

MARTIN: How did she come to you as a character?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: So, I knew that I wanted to write a black woman who was trying to break free of the strong black woman trope. And I was like, that’s probably quite easy to do. She just has to reject everything that’s been put onto me and like me. And when I was about to write her — so, I won a place in a writer’s retreat hosted by Jojo Moyes, the author. And on the way there, I was like, OK, I should think about writing something, shouldn’t I? And she came to me in sort of bits and pieces and stories I’d heard and things I’d seen or things that my friends had told me or things I’d seen on the internet or, you know, maybe a couple of experiences with dating and the like. And then, when I started writing her, this kind of fully formed character emerged, and I just had to kind of follow wherever she took me, you know?

MARTIN: Look, she’s a smart, funny, you know, spicy black woman, and so are you. So, obviously, people want to see it as, you know, biography, as memoir, but that’s —

CARTY-WILLIAMS: Yes.

MARTIN: But that’s not the case.

CARTY-WILLIAMS: No, no, no, no, no. And it’s so interesting because, you know, if I’d put myself — you know, if I’d written it for TV and put myself in it, then maybe you could be like, OK, maybe is that you? But I just kind of wanted to present a fictional character to the world who was, you know, we might have things in common. We’re both from the same background. We’re both from South London, but we both have Jamaican family. But, you know, we diverge in a lot of ways. And actually, I think Issa Rae put it best when she said that she wanted to write a character who was outside on a Friday night because she was inside on a Friday night. And I could definitely, definitely relate to that.

MARTIN: You said this in one of the many interviews that you appropriately have done to celebrate your work. You said, you were desperate for a black woman that wasn’t the sassy sidekick or angry girlfriend, but was just real and honest. Say more about that.

CARTY-WILLIAMS: You know, the presentations that we had of black women growing up were always that person, they were often the sassy best friend, the magical negro, they were the angry girlfriend, and I was like, oh, but what if you’re none of those things, or like the confident colleague? And I myself, I’m a relatively shy person. I remember always thinking I wasn’t good enough because I could never match up or be as loud or confident or stand up for myself. And I realized that actually, I’m not those things and I won’t ever be those things. And I didn’t think I would be alone in those things. And so, I also wanted — I wanted that, but also, I wanted Queenie to be a lead character. I wanted her not to be someone who comes on the screen every so often and you want more of her. I wanted her to be front and center and I wanted her to be surrounded by a cast of people who are equally smart and funny and interesting and engaging.

MARTIN: So, “Queenie,” of course, started as a novel, bestseller, and was adapted into this eight-episode series. It’s called a drama series, but it’s really kind of more of a dramedy, isn’t it? I mean, there’s lots of laughter, even when she’s getting a gynecological exam. And I must say, I’ve never envisioned seeing a television show start with that camera angle.

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BROWN: Things I should have done today. One, had a wax. Two, not had another dumb argument with Tom. Three, prepared for my pitch. How long is this going to take?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I’m afraid it’s going to take as long as it needs. So, what do you do?

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MARTIN: So, very real. And you’re also the executive producer and you’re the showrunner. So, you had the opportunity to kind of really shape this project. When you are adapting the novel, you know, it was already very well loved and you’re adapting it for the screen, what was your primary consideration? What was front and center for you?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: I think because I was working with three sets of executives, my thing was protecting Queenie, protecting her world, and protecting the politics of the show. And I’ve always — I always wanted Queenie to be bold and political and say what she needed to say.

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BROWN: We just focus on the big names. Like, yes, thank you to Mary Seacole (ph) for everything you did, but it’s —

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you mean?

BROWN: I just meant that it was nice to see Nanny of the Maroons, and Althea Jones LeCointe, and Jocelyn Barrow, and even Dawn Butler. Oh, and Khadija Saye. I think it’s important to break the tradition of what a black woman has always been. Also, to shift the focus away from what she did for white people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but then you know what they say, tradition is peer pressure from dead people. So —

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CARTY-WILLIAMS: Also, I wanted to have the through line of her family and the trauma and everything that she’s gone through. And so, it was about making sure that I could make those things heard. And yes, Drama Day, I’ve had this before with “Queenie.” And it wasn’t meant to be. So, I think it just ends up being funny because I feel like we have to be funny if we’re going to talk about really difficult things, which isn’t necessary, but that’s definitely the person that I am. I’m someone who is like, if I’m going to talk about something that’s very hard hitting, I’m going to sort of wrap it up first nicely so we can — so, your back isn’t up, you know.

MARTIN: You’ve said that “Queenie” is 1,000 times more political than Bridget Jones. And one of the ways in which I think that was expressed is you see her at work. So, talk a little bit about that.

CARTY-WILLIAMS: So, Queenie joined the Daily Reader, it’s the Daily Read in the book, but the Daily Reader in the TV show for, you know, reasons of copyright, et cetera. And she joined as a social media assistant, but her plan was to sort of sneak in and then start writing pieces and changing the world. And in the novel, she’s constantly pitching about political matters, environmental matters, black matters, and she’s always being shot down.

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BROWN: This is what I met the Daily Reader to do. I’m going to change the world. But not today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, keep your head up. You got this.

BROWN: The new boy makes one good pitch and he’s giving me advice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You’re almost there. But maybe we can work on your delivery.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Queenie, could I grab you for a second?

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CARTY-WILLIAMS: And so, Queenie in the workplace is somewhere where she is, I guess, in the biggest way, straddling both cultures because she has tried to come into this space and she tries to make herself heard and she tried to change the world and let everyone know there’s stuff going on in your own backyard that you’re not seeing and thinking about, but she’s constantly pushed down and told just, you know, stay in your lane effectively. And it was really important that she was the only black person in the office, as I have often been many times, I think every time. And so, for me writing that, it was thinking about how there are so many, black women who are the only black woman in the workplace. And I actually went to South Africa to talk about this book. And loads of women were like, you’re in South Africa, which is, you know, there are black people here, but I’m still that person and it really helped me to understand what it felt like. And so, it was really important for me to capture that and to capture that hostility that you feel when you have, you know, a dozen eyes on you that are kind of like, why is she here? What does she want to do? She’s not good enough.

MARTIN: I think one of the things that I think many people will enjoy and feel just really appreciate is the way you lift up her friendships. Queenie’s friendships are very important to her. But I just wanted to talk a little bit about that. How did this idea come to you? And why was it so important?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: So, it was important for me in this realm of Queenie straddling two worlds to be having work as sort of one world and family as another, but the intersection of friendship that sits kind of in the middle space and actually the people who know her for who she is, not the people who were like, OK, well, you’re working with me or her family who were like, this is who you need to be. And I really wanted to show the friends that she has chosen as she has gone through her life. She has a friend from school, a friend from university, a friend from work, and they all know kind of the truest sense of her. And that was really important because I think that without friendships, a lot of us, you know, what — you know, that our friendships make up so much of our identity. And Kyazike is obviously kind of like her best, best friend, because that’s the person she’s known since school. And then, you have Cassandra who’s a little bit frostier. And you sort of — you know, like she’s the person who sort of like tries to steer Queenie in the right direction, even though it doesn’t always work. And then you have Darcy, who is very kind, and maybe a little bit too kind to her because she can see what Queenie’s going through. But I think that we see ourselves through our friends a lot of the time, and I wanted Queenie to be able to be telling her problems to her friends, and then they will kind of come back with their different versions of what she should do and how they see her.

MARTIN: The other thing is that she’s — as we meet her, she’s kind of navigating her relationship with her white boyfriend, Tom, and his family. And I thought that was very — it was funny, but it was also very poignant. And talk a little bit about that.

CARTY-WILLIAMS: Well, you know, we come into the point where Queenie and her boyfriend Tom have been having some problems and she’s talked it up to, oh, you know, I’ve moved house, you know, I’ve just got to adjust to living with you. And then, as we get into it, we recognize that what’s actually happened is her moving has disrupted this idea of home that she doesn’t have a good relationship to in her head, and we explore that in this series. We understand what home means to her, what relationships mean to her, what abandonment means to her, and we kind of — we start to understand that things have begun to unravel and that she’s not telling her boyfriend what’s going on. And he’s had enough and he’s someone who says, you know, we’ve all got stuff. But as we understand, his stuff isn’t Queenie’s stuff, you know.

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BROWN: I should have handled that better. He should have handled that better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go.

BROWN: Oh, jeez. You scared me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What’s going on with you?

BROWN: What your gran said wasn’t OK. And you know that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you know it’s not OK to tell my gran. You know she’s dead by the time we have kids, right? She’s from a different generation, Queenie.

BROWN: Fine, but you’re not. This is what I’m saying morning —

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Listen, listen. I don’t want to get into this, OK? It’s late. I’ve been drinking.

BROWN: Well, there’s always a reason that you’re not on my side, Tom. I mean, what happens —

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, I can’t always be on your side, Queenie, OK, because I can’t always be angry.

BROWN: Always angry?

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CARTY-WILLIAMS: And so, they — you know, they go on what Queenie thinks is a break and she does a lot of things to distract her that are not very good for her. But in the back of her mind, she has this idea of the relationship and it resuming again and everything being OK again. But actually, what she needs to think about is her relationship to herself, rather than with anyone else, obviously.

MARTIN: I think people who have been in relationships with people of a different backgrounds that will relate to some of this kind of frictions, you know, his family and some of the ridiculous things that sometimes people say, you know.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to admit, they would be lovely. Color of milky coffee. And if we’re in luck, they’ll have your eyes, Queenie, which are just gorgeous, all those lashes. But they’d get Tom’s lovely straight nose.

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MARTIN: But I think you’re also really honest about some of the stuff she’s bringing to it. You could have sort of made her a saint. You didn’t. I was curious about her own immaturity. I mean, she could have figured out like how to communicate better to tell him from a — you know, what’s going on with her? She doesn’t. I was really curious about that choice.

CARTY-WILLIAMS: You know, I think the thing is, Queenie is 25, and I meet so many women who want her to, you know, navigate her problems properly. They want her to take a break. They want her to, you know, go to therapy sooner. They want her to not sleep around. And they want her to sort of answer all the questions that you’d answer. But I’m always like, she’s 25 years old, and that’s a lot to put on a 25-year old’s head. She’s doing everything for the first time. This is her first relationship. This is her first big break up. This is her first-time moving house and living with someone. This is her first time, you know, sleeping around with people and she’s making mistakes. And, you know, if we met her when she was in her 30s, it would be a very different creed. She would be knowing what to do. She would know how to do it. What’s best for her. But in this instance, I really wanted to paint her as a human person who we are following as she kind of figures things out for the first time, you know. It’s really important that she wasn’t someone who had all the answers because, then where would we go, you know?

MARTIN: know that one of the things that I think you’ve said in this conversation and others is that the work itself, creating these characters, presenting them in their fullness is its own message. But apart from that, is there any other message that you hope people will draw from the novel and from the series?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: I think one of the most important things about Queenie is that she’s trying her best. I do think there is something to be said for, you know, when I wrote this novel, I was trying my best. When I wrote “Champion,” “People Person,” “Queenie” for the Screen, you just try your best. And I think that’s all you can do, you know. Life is — life will throw things at you, but as long as you try your best, you’ll be OK.

MARTIN: Gosh, it’s been a delight to speak with you. What is next for you?

CARTY-WILLIAMS: So, a big rest is next for me. Just because I’ve been writing, as I said, every day for about eight years. But also, writing another novel, which is really nice. So, kind of going back to my roots. But also, there are a few people who want to develop a few projects. I’ve just got to figure out the right thing to do. But it’s been a really good time, just kind of coming out of this and sort of having time for myself again. Yes. But I like to spend time with my family and spend time with my friends. So, it’s been nice to catch up with them. And it’s my birthday soon. So, I can throw a big party and see everyone.

MARTIN: That’s right. Well, happy birthday. Happy almost birthday. Congratulations on everything. Candice Carty-Williams, thank you so much for speaking with us.

CARTY-WILLIAMS: Thank you so much for having me.