[Interview] ‘Young Love’ Creator Matthew A. Cherry Discusses His New Show And His Source Of Inspiration
The odds of becoming a professional football player in the NFL are very low. A little over 1% of all college football players continue their playing career in the National Football League. The odds of becoming a successful filmmaker in Hollywood sometimes feel even lower than that. For Matthew A. Cherry, his hard work allowed him the opportunity to accomplish both of those feats.
In his Oscar-winning short film Hair Love, Matthew A. Cherry explores the adorable relationship between a father and his young daughter as he attempts to do her hair for the first time. With emotional undertones that permeate throughout the story, the film connected with viewers and gathered immense support. The film took home the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2020.
With Young Love, Cherry expands on Hair Love and focuses on the highs and lows of parenting in the modern world. The show stars Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi as Stephen Love, a struggling music producer who is attempting to make his mark. Mescudi is joined by Issa Rae, who voices Angela Young, a hairstylist attempting to get back in the swing of things after a battle with cancer. Together, the couple attempt to raise their strong-willed daughter Zuri (Brooke Monroe Conaway) while facing the challenges of everyday life.
We had a chance to sit down with Young Love creator Matthew A. Cherry to discuss his new show Young Love and the issues that matter the most to him.
From Top Athlete To Series Creator
Despite his recent success, Cherry wasn’t sure where his passion for entertainment would take him. The Oscar winner says that while his ambitions were always there, the opportunity to explore a career in entertainment wasn’t readily available.
“I never really even knew you could work in the film and TV business growing up in Chicago. When I was in high school, I played four sports and I was part of the radio and TV club. In college, I was there on a football scholarship and I majored in radio TV, broadcasts, and media production. So I always knew I was going to do something in entertainment.”
With a wide range of talents at his disposal, Cherry eventually saw a pathway to his future career open up. Though it wasn’t a path he was entirely expecting.
“Early on I thought about maybe working in the music industry, at a label or something. But through some chance meetings, after I retired [from football] I was able to come to LA and start as a production assistant, and then from there, I was working my way up. I started out with music videos and there are a couple of independent feature films, short films, and web series that I did. And 10 years later we did a Kickstarter for Hair Love in 2017. Now we’re here!”
As a wide receiver for Akron University, Cherry put up some solid numbers on the football field. He amassed nearly 2,000 total receiving yards in his collegiate career. In the 2004 NFL Draft, Cherry went undrafted, but he left enough of an impression with the Jacksonville Jaguars to sign as a free agent.
After a few years of bouncing around with a few different teams, Cherry decided to hang up his cleats in 2007 and pursue his career in the entertainment industry. But his time spent as an athlete gave him some unique insight into what makes a production team run well.
“What’s interesting about sports is that you just have to focus on your own individual position… obviously you want to motivate the team and linemen have to block properly for you to have the time to run your route for the quarterback. But when you’re out there, you just focus on running your route and catching that pass. Film and TV shows are really a team sport. We had a very good writer’s room [with Young Love]. That was instrumental in helping flesh out a lot of these ideas that we had. And all the animators we worked with at Atomic Cartoons in Toronto as well as House Of Cool, which did a lot of our storyboards. It takes a village to do anything at this level.”
Cherry believes that while the teams he’s been on in the sports world and entertainment industry share similarities, his role on each team has shifted.
“I liken it to going from being a player to now being a coach. Now you’re responsible for this entire organization. The wins you get the credit for but you also get blame for the losses too. I’m just really excited and so happy and blessed that we have the team that we had that worked on this. To really do it at a high level. I’m honored to even have it coming out.”
Finding The Right Voice For ‘Young Love’
While developing his series for Max, Cherry wanted to pay homage to the shows and themes that were most important to him. With Young Love, the show captures the charm of a Saturday morning cartoon while still being grounded with relevant topics that viewers can relate to.
“We wanted it to feel like a live-action series in some ways. Like those classic shows that we watched in the 90s, right? I think the setting of them being millennial parents and not having their life figured out yet and still trying to be present for their daughter are some of those things we’ve never really seen in an animated series before. Finding the tone of this show was the hardest part just because it could have gone a lot of different ways.”
Cherry’s short film Hair Love was able to find a tone that led to the film’s success. Not only did the film spawn its own series in Young Love, but Hair Love has continued as a children’s book as well. Illustrated by Vashti Harrison, Hair Love was named as a New York Times Bestseller.
“Hair Love has a picture book that’s sold a lot of copies and is fairly beloved and also obviously the short film got a lot of love. We didn’t want to do a show that was going to basically ignore them or try to alienate them. We really wanted it to be a family-friendly experience, but we also wanted to get into the adult world. What it’s like working in the music industry and just all the craziness that happens there.”
Connecting Young Love to topics that matter was very important to Cherry. He wanted a show that was more than just something that was simply funny or flashy. He wanted a show that spoke to what he was about. As a proponent for The CROWN Act, Cherry’s passion for social issues helps drive Young Love’s narrative.
“The CROWN Act stands for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. It’s a law that is crazy that it has to exist. There are a lot of people like myself who have longer hair. They have locks or have braids or just the various black hairstyles that we like to wear. Basically we’re told that we can’t wear our hair coming to this particular job or you can’t wear it going to this particular school, and it’s just really unfortunate.”
Cherry says that using his art as a vehicle to bring attention to important issues is what makes all of his hard work pay off.
“The CROWN act came up around the time when the short film was getting made. The best art is when you’re able to tie a real life to it. To get that support. And so it was an honor to be able to win an Oscar. To bring more awareness to it on that Oscar stage so the fight continues.”
Keeping An Eye On The Past And Future
Beyond The CROWN act, Cherry hopes that Young Love and other shows that highlight diversity shed light on inclusiveness. He notes the recent trend of celebrating people from all walks of life and hopes that it can inspire the future generation of animators.
“I think every year it just gets a little bit better. Like me in Chicago, not knowing that you could work a job in the film industry. I think a lot of people do artwork and draw in class and do graffiti. They don’t even know that you can get paid to be an animator or character designer in animation. I think it’s just really all about awareness. Every new project that features diversity from Turning Red to Into The Spider-Verse is just gonna make more people aware that this is a medium that exists. And beyond that, if they stay for the credits, they’ll see all the amazing jobs that are there. I think the more people see shows like these that represent them, they’ll be able to know that they can hopefully one day get a job working and create their own stuff too.”
Cherry certainly has his eye on what the future has in store. That doesn’t mean that he’s forgotten the past that helped shape who he’s become.
“It always goes back to your upbringing. My parents were very much like Steven and Angela. They worked super hard. My mom was a legal secretary and my dad worked in a factory. It was just one of those things where you see how hard they’re working to try to help support you and your dreams. I always keep them in mind when it comes to creating new work. I just want to do things that are relatable and grounded and things that hopefully make them proud.”
With an Oscar win already under his belt and a new show about to drop, Matthew A. Cherry has earned the right to stop and take a moment to admire his achievements. But he’s not likely to take a play off any time soon.
Young Love will be available to stream on September 21 on Max.
