Lena Waithe & Susan Fales-Hill Take Viewers Inside BET’s ‘Twenties’ (VIDEO)

Lena Waithe’s Twenties is a first for BET.

The eight-episode series follows the adventures of a queer black girl, Hattie (Jonica “JoJo” T. Gibbs) and her two best friends, Marie (Christina Elmore) and Nia (Gabrielle Graham) as they chase their dreams and live life in their twenties. And TV Insider has an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at making the series and the characters.

“Susan Fales-Hill is the reason why I am a television writer,” Waithe (The Chi, Boomerang) reveals. “She’s one of those people where you may not know the name, but you have been so impacted by her work. For me, I’m a person that really respects those that come before me and I’m very aware that I am standing where I am because of them, and she’s one of those people.”

Fales-Hill, who acts as showrunner, was drawn to the show because “it was not about women trying to get a date on a Saturday night,” she explains. “As a professional woman, as the mother of a daughter, women are about more than that, and these women lead with their dreams. It’s very much a show about women trying to fulfill their dreams in a city that is the factory of dreams and what does that look like?” 

BET

Watch the featurette above to meet the characters and get the scoop on some of the guest stars. 

Guest stars include Jenifer Lewis, Sean “Big Sean” Anderson, Rick Fox, Vanessa Williams, Seth Green, Iman Shumpert, Kym Whitley, Chuey Martinez, Marsha Thomason, and Nazanin Mandi.

Twenties, Series Premiere, Wednesday, March 4, BET