00:00I am so excited we have another great panel for you this evening and I know we all love a good or
00:18great TV show and next up we're looking at Onyx Collections upcoming legal drama Reasonable Doubt
00:27it's from the producers of Little Fires Everywhere Scandal and the co-creator of Insecure
00:34Reasonable Doubt is a sexy legal drama centered on high-power criminal defense attorney in Los
00:41Angeles dealing with past traumas of failing marriage motherhood and a murder case now that
00:48sounds like a great show please join me in welcoming to the stage the creator executive
00:54producer and showrunner Ramla Mohammed Ramla
01:01also the stars Michael Ely and McKinley Freeman
01:08come on
01:12come on out essence family let's give it up
01:19congratulations
01:27Ramla I mean this is groundbreaking scripted for the onyx collection my heart started racing reading about the whole premise of the show tell the audience reasonable doubt where are you taking us here
01:39well it's a very sexy black legal drama starring emiazi corinaldi who is phenomenal a beautiful woman very smart it's about you know being a black woman takes place in Los Angeles
01:54um she's smart she's fierce she's funny she has black friends she's a black husband she has black kids
02:01uh and she's living a blackity black life and she's uh you know we got a little love triangle situation happen with her and these fine gentlemen here
02:09listen well you said it was a sexy legal drama and then you just dropped sexiness over here and then all the women where were y'all five minutes ago when i was up here by myself
02:24oh the sisterhood is so not real until Michael and McKinley come out here let me ask you the onyx collective Ramla this is the first scripted show why is that so important
02:38um well i mean it's basically we're kind of the show that's going to establish their brand they've been amazing partners to us and a lot of black people black women
02:48uh tara duncan who's the head of onyx um believed in the show from the beginning and uh it's just important to have uh people who support you and are excited about the show and it means a lot to me that
02:59they have decided to make this their first scripted show michael tell me about this character
03:07scandal so um why are you blushing michael yeah why are you why are you blushing just get to it michael
03:15it's essence i always always blush look at those eyes who can hear anything look at those eyes but go on
03:23i i play a wonderfully written character uh by the name of damon cook and damon is probably one of the
03:32most complex and interesting characters i've ever played and i'm really grateful to Ramla for writing
03:38someone who um i literally enjoyed playing every single scene every single time and this is like
03:47a character that we've not seen before in this rich detail of his journey yeah i mean he he's he's
03:54definitely you know not somebody i've played before and the dynamic between him and emma yahtzee's
04:01character is it's kind of um what nostalgic yeah is it like that what could have been type of
04:08relationship is it really nostalgic it's really nostalgic i feel a rivalry going on here i don't
04:14know kenley is this your first essence festival it is my first it is your first essence and it'll be his
04:20last it'll be it'll be his last all right mike really ladies and gentlemen thank you michael thank you
04:25how does it feel to be talking about this first of its kind show on the honest collective before
04:30this loyal audience that will be tweeting about it instagramming about it talking about it how does
04:36it feel i mean it feels great i think like michael said ramla created a world that i think a lot of
04:40people are going to gravitate toward there's a lot of characters that hopefully everybody see themselves
04:45in and um yeah i think the i think the cool thing about a show is when you get more people on the
04:50show asking questions like what happened and this and that like that right you're part of the show every
04:54day that's going to be exciting for the audience but it's been amazing and how often do you get a
04:58chance to kind of help define a studio right like everybody wants to be on that flagship show yeah that
05:06helped define the studio and i feel like with onyx collective we get that opportunity right here
05:12and it's ramala's show yeah i mean it's it's it's amazing ramala's running it ramala's running it
05:19ramala runs the whole show she runs the show this is the boss this is the boss
05:24now carrie washington directed the first episode yeah she directed the pilot and she's also an
05:30executive producer and actually i've known carrie i was a writer on scandal and little fires everywhere
05:37and so i've known carrie for a long time and i was just i i basically kind of begged her for a long
05:42time to direct the pilot because she would be so great with the young actors on little fires everywhere
05:47and i was so happy that she decided to do it and she's she's just so great she has such a great
05:52vision for the pilot well here's the deal we've talked so much about the show i think you have a
05:57little something to share yes um we are announcing the date of the show which will be september 27th
06:07september 27th and uh yeah i i think you guys are going to really like it and i hope that
06:14with every episode when it ends you can't wait till the next one we have a little something let's play it
06:19let's play it
06:25you should know at the end of the day i love criminals
06:32reasonable doubt is about this phenomenal lawyer named jack stewart who tackles incredibly
06:41complicated clients and issues i just think emma yahtzee is a star we also have michael ely and sean
06:50patrick thomas so it's really fun to be able to be working with actors that i've known and loved for a
06:56long time we're really proud of the show we're walking through the world as this incredibly powerful
07:03black woman does i want people to feel changed and moved and more in touch with themselves
07:13we just hope you love it
07:19so mckinley i know that you said this is your first essence fest and you'd be sitting here with michael and
07:25they would all come over here to see you so you wore your sheer shirt i did i did i left half the
07:31shirt at home i figured yeah why not you're like no it's not no listen it'd be humid down here i'm not
07:38trying to get i'm not trying to be out here sweating hey michael how y'all doing you've been a part of the
07:44essence family of course your whole career again this show is so special not just because obviously the
07:52creators behind it but the kind of content that it gives us because of what the kind of content
07:59hang on oh we got we're about to shut it down oh listen bottom line is down reasonable doubt
08:06premieres september 27th only on hulu september 27th only on hulu they're about to shut down the
08:15convention i don't know of two a better way to shut it down than with this story these two let's get some
08:22pictures that's what they came for make sure you support we will be watching congratulations
Comments