The black-ish series finale aired earlier this year after eight seasons, but the Kenya Barris project’s legacy lives on through its Freeform spin-off grown-ish, which is now in its fifth season.
For five seasons, fans have followed along as Zoey Johnson, played by Yara Shahidi, made a place for herself in the world as a college student at California University studying fashion. In the course of the show, we’ve seen Zoey make a fair share of mistakes, fall in and out of love, and find a career she’s proud of, all while building a community amongst her group of supportive, hilarious, and loyal friends. The crew graduated and started branching out into their own paths in the Season 4 finale, and it was later announced that a majority of them—including Francia Raisa, Luka Sabbat, Emily Arlook, and Chloe and Halle Bailey—wouldn’t be returning to the show as season regulars.
Instead, this new season will focus on a new batch of students at Cal U, including Zoey’s little brother Andre Johnson Jr. (mostly known as Junior), played by Marcus Scribner, who after taking a long gap “year” is on a mission to get his college degree at his big sister’s alma mater. Scribner has appeared on the spin-off in various episodes and he fit right in with the OG cast while maintaining the same brother-sister chemistry he had with Shahidi on black-ish. His time at the school will be a little different than hers, though, and as much as he wants to avoid the typical college lifestyle he gets roped right in, and fans should expect to see Scribner in raunchier, more adult scenarios they haven’t seen from him yet.
The new cast members, who include Justine Skye and Slick Woods, will be under the stewardship of some of the original cast including Trevor Jackson, who plays Aaron, and Diggy Simmons, who plays Doug. The show has entered new territory as Zoey begins her life as a professional while her brother experiences the college life she got to experience for four seasons, which Shahidi says is the reason why the show was never meant to be just about college.
Complex caught up with Yara Shahidi and Marcus Scribner to talk about ushering the show into a new era, embracing their new cast members, and growing up alongside their characters.
We’ve all been able to see you both grow in the show and in your careers. How are you feeling about this new season?
Yara Shahidi: It’s really exciting. I feel like one thing that we talked about from the beginning of the show is the reason why it’s grown-ish and not college-ish is that we try and just follow real life and so the fact that we get to continue this journey after the initial crew graduated is really special.
Marcus, we saw Junior visiting Cal U a few times and you always brought a lot of humor to the show. What do you hope that you bring to this new season now that he’s in college, too?
Marcus Scribner: There’s definitely new experiences. Like Yara was saying, we follow life, and every person has their own individual experiences. While Junior and Zoey share a lot of characteristics, Junior is definitely approaching college with a different attitude. He’s trying to get in, get out, and get his degree and then kind of gets washed away by the college lifestyle. And of course, in traditional grown-ish style there are so many relationships and crazy situations that he involves himself in and we just get to see him kind of descend into madness a little bit and just have a really exciting, raunchy season. This is definitely a turn for Junior as well, in that front, even our opening episode starts with a banger [Laughs.]
Are we ready to see you grow up? We’ve seen you since you were so much younger on black-ish. Is it weird to now be portraying these adult scenarios?
MS: It’s honestly really exciting for me. Our writers have always been crazy about allowing our characters to breathe and grow and to create their own destinies and futures. Unlike a lot of other comedic shows, black-ish never locked our characters into place so Junior has been on that trajectory for a minute now and grown-ish is just taking it to the next level. And of course, joining some of the older cast members like Trevor [Jackson] and Diggy [Simmons] and Yara, and getting advice from them, so Junior is definitely in good hands. It was a fun learning curve and just something new and exciting.
Yara, you mentioned the OG cast. How are you feeling about taking on the new season without them?
YS: Honestly, it’s such a gift that we were able to spend four seasons together and of course, in a dream world we would have a cast of 30 people and just keeps growing and growing like an ameba. And I’m glad that in this season you still see them incorporated because they are family, and they really helped establish a really special blueprint to the show through each character.
And with that being said, it has been fun and interesting from a character perspective to figure out who Zoey is in relationship to a new set of people. We had such a particular dynamic that I think it allows every character to remain true to who we’ve grown to love while also shaking into a new energy, because it’s such a different environment.
In this new season, we really see Zoey grow into a full-blown adult, which is kind of similar to where you are in your personal life. How does that feel?
YS: Zoey was always a year ahead of me but because of the pandemic it has gotten eerie because now we’re living in the same exact timeline, we’re the exact same age, which has never happened in the nine years I’ve played her. So it has been interesting because where before she used to kind of project or predict my future, right now I feel like we’re co-creating what we’re going through. I’ve felt like I’ve grown so much, not just from college but just from these young adult years, in which I’m establishing what it means the be an adult for myself.
And I felt like for Zoey this season, it was so important that it was really tangible the fact that she has grown from all her missteps. And it’s not going to be perfect, she’s still going to be Zoey. But I feel like she’s earned the growth. She has gone through so many ups and downs. I think there are certain times when she doesn’t get credit for her bounce-back abilities. So it’s fun to come in and be really intentional about trying to figure out who she is as an adult.
For you, Marcus. What have you learned from Yara leading this show and what have you taken from her now that you’re getting such a bigger role as Junior in grown-ish?
MS: Yara has always been a grinder. She really goes hard in the paint and grown-ish has brought that out of me and it’s been fun getting to sit there and put in the work and take a leadership position. I think also letting your opinions be known, very vocal, both of us, trying to establish what we want for our characters. It’s great to have a collaborative effort. Obviously, we’ve been playing these characters for nine years at this point, so we definitely know how they think and what they would do in specific situations and actually having that input heard and put into action is beautiful.
It’s crazy going from such an experienced cast like black-ish, where you have Laurence Fishburne, Anthony Anderson, and Jennifer Lewis, people who are legends and have done it forever and then going into a cast with people who are your age. I have definitely taken a lot of things I’ve learned from those leaders on that set as well and infused them into the work we do over on the other stage, on the other side of the lot.
grown-ish airs on Freeform on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and hits on Hulu on Thursdays.
