On Tackling the Teen Dramedy Genre
We were fortunate to have Lauren as our partner, I mean, she is a YA queen, so from the jump Jeremy and I were excited to work with her on it. This is an area though in terms of the Latino world that Jeremy and I have floated in before – we've sold pilots within that world of teen drama – but the chance to do a comedy with drama in it just made sense. It's one of those things obviously inspired by my life, but also, when you look at stories like this, it's not all bleak. It's hopeful. You know, you see a lot of stories like these and it's depressing – that's not how my childhood was, so that's not the experience we wanted to portray.
On Portraying South Central Without Judgement
It comes from a place of authenticity, and people are three-dimensional. I grew up with gang members in my neighborhood, I have relatives who are gang members. And it's not this simple, one-sided story – it's complex, it's nuanced. To do justice to the world, you have to show all sides of it. That's why Cesar is so complicated, that's why Oscar is so complicated. Oscar is one of our favorite characters. He's a three-dimensional character, he's not just this intimidating person – he's complicated, and we wanted to show how he became what he became.
