Marcus Scribner on “Black-ish” and Diversity Behind the Lens

It's the day after the black-ish Paley Center panel and Marcus Scribner is calm and collected in our Lower Manhattan office. Dressed in a dark brown suede jacket, teal button-up, slacks, and leather dress shoes the actor arrived with his mother and publicist on a chilly Tuesday morning. It's been a little while since Teen Vogue caught up with the 19-year-old actor and a lot has changed for him.

In the last year he's graduated from high school, discussed college plans, joined the cast of Netflix's She-Ra and The Princess of Power, and got a new dog. Like his sibling co-stars, we've literally seeing him grow up into a thoughtful and self-aware young man.

We caught up with him to talk about the current season of black-ish, role on grown-ish, and what burgeoning career plans he has.

Teen Vogue: What have you learned from your character's arch on black-ish? And have you applied any of that to your real life?

Marcus: There are definitely similarities there. But at the same time, there's a lot of things that I try not to take away from Junior, but I mean, it's kind of hard. You can't blame him. He's 19 years old and he's really trying to figure out his place in the world and what he wants to do with his life. And I feel like all of us are trying to do that at this age. He's definitely a nice representation for a lot of kids out there who don't know what they want to do and are trying to figure it out.

TV: Is there one recent episode of black-ish that you felt was really important to explore?

Marcus: One of my all-time, most impactful episodes for me was our police brutality episode. You could just feel a different type of energy on set and just the way that we all handled, made sure to handle the topic with care. It was also an educating moment for even me, and it kind of gave an avenue for parents to talk to their kids about it, because it's important to talk to young Black youth about it because we're the people who are being affected the most.

TV: Tell us a little bit about She-Ra? Why did the animated role appeal to you?

Marcus: Yeah. She-Ra and The Princess of Power, it's a super dope animation. What I like about Bow is that he's a male lead who's in support of his female leads. The cast is diverse and you look back at the old She-Ra, there was a lot of like — especially for the female characters — they were all the same body type, and just like they would paint a different shade and it would all be the same person.

But I love what Noelle [Stevenson] and her team did with the show and brought it up to the current pace and kind of used it to reflect our modern world. Bow is a kid just like me. I feel like a lot of kids don't get to have that reflected image of themselves, especially in animation. It's not done too often. So we're really proud of that one.

TV: Will we see more of you on grown-ish? Because I love seeing you on grown-ish. There was a character you were ... dating-ish

Marcus: Ish. Ish. Yeah. Very-ish

TV: Strong-ish

Marcus: Yeah. Strong-ish. Very complicated. Yes, maybe. There were more episodes that are recorded and so, we'll see. It shoots on a very different schedule. And they take like 16 hours to film on their days and they're about it. So I respect everybody over at grown-ish because they put in that work. But I go over there and we have like a ton of fun. It's cool to hang around people who are like-minded.

TV: What interests you right now?

Marcus: Right now I definitely like to keep my hands in all the pots. I feel like it's important as a performer to make sure that you're diverse with your catalog and your toolset, because like we got to be able to do everything and create our own lanes. So definitely getting into writing. I've seen a lot of Tracee and Anthony directing on black-ish, so that may be an opportunity there. And definitely interested expanding into the producing space right now.

TV: We like to talk about diversity on screen, but can you speak about the importance of diversity behind the scenes?

Marcus: At PaleyFest Laurence [Fishburne] was talking about how he goes off to his different movies and different sets, and it's largely, it's majority white males. It's nice to come back to black-ish, come back to home base, and see people who look like you — we just have a large array of diverse people. We have Black people, we have brown people, we have Asian people, we just make sure to be as inclusive, the best people for the job. You want to have that diversity, especially in the writer's room, you want to have those unique points of view. You want to be able to pull from everything, because it is a family show and we're speaking to everybody. So we need to have an amalgamation of people.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue