Lovie Simone on the Netflix romantics

Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for the “Forever” season finale, which now streams on Netflix.

In the last minutes of ‘Forever’, the new Netflix drama series by Mara Brock Akil, the year and a half-length love story between Keisha Clark (Lovie Simone) and Justin Edwards (Michael Cooper Jr.) comes to a stunning conclusion. With high school firmly in the reversing view, the young lovers are in a darkened street in Los Angeles. While the “Moon River” by Frank Ocean waves over the scene, Justin kissed Keisha’s forehead after touching the Infinity Symbol chain he had given her. She turns around and walks away and looks back briefly. Justin in turn leaves in the opposite direction.

It is a painfully beautiful and painful end of the eight-episode season of ‘Forever’. Inspired by Judy Blume’s groundbreaking novel with the same name, the series shows two black teenagers in the late years 2010 who fall in love, so that their hearts are shattered and retreated from each other, still changed very but permanently.

“I don’t think this is the end,” says Ster Lovie Simone Variety. “I think this is the end of a chapter with this version of them. I don’t want them to separate. I am Team Justin and Keisha.”

After looking at the emotional and beautiful ‘forever’, viewers will undoubtedly agree. From falling apart to reunions, missteps and all the challenges of teenhood, Brock Akil delivers a nuanced and extensive portrait of First Love. “It was nice to work with Mara,” says Simone. “She was very passionate, exciting and present every day. It was extremely reassuring as an actress. It was also reassuring to love her after she had worked with her, because I love ‘girlfriends’, ‘Love is …’ and ‘the game’.”

While “Forever” opens, Keisha and Justin – who went to kindergarten together – reconnect at an New Year’s Eve and hiss an immediate electric chemistry. The intensity between Simone and Cooper elevates the series as one of the best romances that are depicted on television.

“The band and the friendship came naturally,” says Simone about her co-star. “You are with someone almost daily for a few months, and you have similar passions and interests. So it was not difficult. What was not told not to bind. Our characters knew each other in primary school and again connected as high school students. Regina King [who serves as an executive producer on the show]The director of episode 1, wanted us to prepare by not speaking that much. So we had to end in our relationship, and there was a lot of tension and a lot like: “Hey, I want to talk to you, but maybe not now.” ‘

Family obligations and academic expectations make teen romances more difficult. Keisha and Justin’s Union, however, is being put under further pressure by a secret Keisha tries to avoid desperate: her ex-boyfriend, Christian (Xavier Mills), has included her in a sexual act and later shared it with their schoolmates. Although Keisha has transferred schools to escape the study, the weight of hiding the sex tape teases from her mother and the hit to her reputation constantly her and her budding relationship with Justin.

“I tried to have as much grace as possible with Keisha,” Simone reflects. “She is a teenager who experiences all these first things and love and romance all these first things, but she also learns how to do that while she works around the trauma that influences her and her movement. I agreed with Keisha and her decisions because they were part of her journey and her process in her self -consciousness and self -consciousness.”

Keisha’s mother, Shelly (Xosha Roquemore), is a single mother who does everything she can do to give her daughter the opportunities she has never had. Nevertheless, the Trackatleet is eventually forced to get clean over the sex tape. When Justin’s parents learn about the video, his mother, Dawn (a brilliant Karen Pittman), gives the couple an ultimatum. In episode 6, ‘The Honeymoon’, Keisha finally reveals to her stripped and shocked mother why she gave up her exhibition and left her previous school.

“It was fun for me and Xosha,” Simone recalls, reflective on the complicated scene. “I really had to sit with Keisha and take it out, and she had to sit in Shelly. Every other interaction was our binding earlier. We are friends, so we can get along and have chemistry. Working with her was a stream that felt so natural. She is a single mother.

Sex, intimacy and permission are central themes in “Forever”, and Brock Akil shuns the uncertainties, lust and excitement that can come as a result of teenage sex and sexual experiences. “We had an intimacy coordinator on the set, Sasha [Smith]”Says Simone.” Sasha did things differently than I am used to experiencing intimacy coordinators. Sasha, Michael, Mara and I would be alone during rehearsals. We would go through the scene and discuss what we would do and what the innocence and action kept. Although there was a lot of permission on the screen, there was also a lot behind the cameras. It was very comfortable and easy for me to do. ‘

The favorite romantic stories of Simone are the ‘A Witch In Time’ by Constance Sayers and the Lovesaga between Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne in ‘another world’. She eagerly read Blume’s Roman from 1975 in one session before she auditioned for ‘Forever’. Although she has not yet had the opportunity to meet the acclaimed author, Blume’s sons visited the set. “I heard from Mara that she really likes the show,” says Simone. “So I’m glad I could be part of that.”

“Forever” is already praising reviews and Simone has been nominated for a Gotham TV Award for excellent lead performance in a drama series. While the credits are rolling in the last episode, Simone would like to see that the story of Keisha and Justin offers the audience just outside the tests and triumphs of First Love. “I hope they want love,” she says. “But I also want people to love themselves as much as they want to love.”