In Forever, we see the work of one icon interpreted by another. Executive producer and writer Mara Brock Akil reimagines the coming-of-age novel by young adult literature pioneer Judy Blume, creating a limited series with a contemporary setting and exciting young leads. The eight dreamy episodes are sure to catch the attention and investment of those across generations.

“I can remember very clearly what I was doing at 12: reading this book I wasn’t supposed to be reading,” Brock Akil says about Forever . . . , a lifelong favorite of hers. “I talked about it on the bus, I talked about it in the hallways. I talked about it in the locker room.” 

While the book was originally published in 1975, Brock Akil’s Forever takes place in 2018 Los Angeles, and centers on two Black teenagers, Keisha Clark and Justin Edwards. We meet Keisha, played by Lovie Simone, just as she arrives at a new all-girls private school, seeking a fresh start while hiding the truth about why she had to leave her old school. Still, there’s a life Keisha is determined to have. “She has a string attached from her forehead to her future, and she’s not going to let anybody cut it,” Simone says.

When crafting the character, Brock Akil sought to portray just how high the stakes are for young Black women who are dead set on making their way in the world. “I thought about the Keishas out there who think that they cannot make [even] one mistake,” says Brock Akil. “You got to have the top grades, be the fastest runner, get to one of the best schools in the country.”

When, at a New Year’s Eve kickback, Keisha reconnects with her childhood friend Justin (Michael Cooper Jr.) she finds emotional safety and softness in an unexpected place. “The Keishas are holding their breath; the Keishas need to exhale,” says Brock Akil. “Thank God there’s a Justin.”

Justin, too, is learning to find his own path. A basketball talent who rarely gets to play on his high school team, he’s seeing his parents’ (Wood Harris and Karen Pittman) hopes of a Division I scholarship slip away. Yet, in the privacy of his bedroom, we see that the desire to produce music is tugging at him.

“Justin’s just trying to discover who he is and what he’s passionate about,” Cooper Jr. says. Justin may not have Keisha’s clarity, but he meets her vulnerability with his own. It’s his presence that dissolves some of the loneliness and isolation Keisha had been feeling. “I think that when he loves, he loves hard, which is something beautiful and rare for Black men, especially on TV, to really share our emotions.”

Both Keisha and Justin have come of age witnessing the lives of other Black teens, like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, cut short by structural racism. Keisha and Justin live with inherited caution, but in Forever, we see them pursue freedom anyway because they both are being raised in households where opportunity has been hard-won.

Simone is no stranger to portraying young Black girls carrying the burden of the expectations of others. Simone formally began her acting career out of high school, landing the role of Zora Greenleaf, a teenager moving too fast while grappling with family and relationship turmoil, on OWN’s Greenleaf. This set the stage for her lead role in 2019’s Selah and the Spades, in which she plays Selah Summers, the head of a secret society at an elite boarding school.

Cooper Jr. didn’t start out chasing the screen. Football was his focus, with law and politics in sight. But during his senior year of high school, something shifted. A few roles in school plays and a creative spark he couldn’t ignore led him down the actor’s path. In 2020, he moved to Atlanta to pursue acting full-time, and soon scored roles in  The Inhabitant and On the Come Up, directed by Sanaa Lathan.

Here, Simone and Cooper Jr. talk about bringing Keisha and Justin to life. 

When the script landed on their desk

Brock Akil was seeking actors who had chemistry not just with each other, but with the characters themselves; who understood the conversation between who you are, who you’re becoming, and who you want to be. “Justin is not me, and I really wanted to challenge myself and step into something that isn’t me,” says Cooper Jr. “There was something that Mara wrote that I thought was so beautiful that I think we all struggle with, which was, ‘He has one foot in confidence and the other foot in insecurity.’ ”

Both Simone and Cooper Jr. were drawn to what the series was trying to say about vulnerability and what it means to stand at the edge of yourself. “You get to see why Keisha has her guard up, but then you also get to see that she’s brave enough to still want to be in something so vulnerable and honest,” says Simone. “I was talking to Michael, and he was like, ‘Justin, he word vomits.’ That was received well on Keisha’s side. She was like, ‘OK, you’re vulnerable, you’re honest. I’m used to people putting up all these guards and walls.’ It made it easier for her to fall into it, like, ‘OK, I really want this for us.’ ” 

On playing Justin

Justin is coming to terms with being neurodivergent, and figuring out what that means for a future that may not include a traditional education, at least not in the way that his parents imagined. “We don’t see a lot of sensitive Black men on-screen, but we’re all humans, and we all have emotions,” says Cooper Jr. “I’m glad that it was explored so beautifully in this way  … we aren’t [synonymous with] toxic masculinity. The trope was dead in the show, and that’s what I really resonated with.” 

Cooper Jr. had to do some research to prepare to play a senior in high school: “I visited a private school in Atlanta to [be a fly on the wall and observe teenagers] and when I tell you there are so many Justins. I would sit and talk with them. And they’re not represented,” the actor says. “All we see [represented] are these hard guys, with these ripped bodies, and we want to see someone who’s real.”

On playing Keisha

Keisha’s sense of safety is shattered when Forever begins, but still, she moves forward. You can see it in how she moves through life secure in her plan to run track at Howard, and even in how she changes schools without a clear map, just a sense that she has to. It’s in the way she shields her mom from unhappy truths about her experiences, knowing what her family sacrificed for her to have more. “In the first couple auditions, I definitely played [Keisha] a little mean, because I just felt she was the type of girl that was not playing about herself,” says Simone. “But then after [talking to] Mara, I’m like, ‘OK, where does that softness come from?’ Well, because she feels so suppressed, she would be a bit on the softer side.”  It was all about finding Keisha’s balance. “[Mara] did tell me that Keisha’s going through this traumatizing experience, and it makes her a little jumpy, but it doesn’t make her cold; she still very much has feelings. She wants to be in this with Justin, but she’s also going through this.”

Chemistry lessons

The connection between Keisha and Justin wasn’t over-rehearsed. “We got comfortable with each other on just a personal friendship level. Our audition process was interesting: The first chemistry read, I think we grabbed food together. Then the second time we were eating Wendy’s and going over lines,” says Cooper Jr. “We got to connect on that level as Michael and Lovie. There wasn’t a specific plan to the awkwardness, we just brought those things to our characters, and it just happened.” 

Simone and Cooper Jr. gave their characters space to feel like they were truly meeting for the first time, letting the awkwardness and quiet tension of early scenes grow into an intimacy that felt lived-in. “We just let that be awkward and messy, and first time-y as much as possible, because that interaction isn’t reserved to just teenagers. It happens with us all, especially the socially awkward,” says Simone. “That was a nice little process of just like, ‘OK, we didn’t know each other,’ but then by the end of the season it’s like, ‘Oh my God, get away from me, bro.’ ”

On what Forever taught Simone and Cooper Jr. about love

Brock Akil describes first love as a rite of passage — the moment you step outside the safety of parental love and make a choice rooted in who you are becoming. “It made me see love in a bit more of a vulnerable light. The way these characters communicate is so advanced,” says Simone. “Even as a teenager, I didn’t really believe in love. It was nice to have a little bit of my faith restored in young love through this show.”

Forever shows how love, even young love, can be clarifying. For Cooper Jr., it also offered a chance to reflect on the expansiveness of love. “It really taught me the importance of self-love. The show starts off immediately jumping into a relationship, and we see how it plays out. Justin put his heart out there for it,” says Cooper Jr. “Understanding that self-love is the best love before stepping into any situation, whether it be love of a career, family, or friends, the foundation is self-love. You have to love yourself and know yourself in order to love anyone else or create space for someone else.”

Forever is now streaming on Netflix.