‘The Upshaws’ Cast On How Netflix Turned Up For The Sitcom

Both in front of the camera and behind the scenes is a powerhouse made of some of the industry’s finest creative comedy talent.

Created by showrunners Regina Hicks and Wanda Sykes, the sitcom stars Mike Epps, Kim Fields, and Sykes as a working-class family in Indianapolis, charting their trials, tribulations, challenges, and breakthroughs.

I caught up with the trio to discuss the ten-episode first season, what makes it work, and how they knew Netflix was all in on the show.
Mike Epps: I’ve tried so many different TV shows, and in this business, pairing up with the right people, pairing up with the right cast, that’s the only way for it to work. My team and I brought this idea to Wanda and Regina, and they loved it right away. It sounded like a throwback. It also sounded new. I think just getting the right nucleus together made me want to do this and with these people.

Wanda Sykes: I think I noticed that in a big way after we edited the first episode. We shot the whole thing in order. I knew the scripts were solid and acting in it, I’m too close to it to in that way to see it, but when we started getting the cut, that was when I saw what other people were seeing and said, ‘Okay, yeah, we have something pretty special here.’ It clicked.
Kim Fields: It is very much lightning in a bottle. The Upshaws is now the third series where you feel it right out of the gate. I had it with The Facts of Life, Living Single, and now this. You definitely feel that we’ve got this thing going, and it’s going to be amazing. Honestly, it has that sense that people can relate to the show. It’s almost like swinging from vine to vine and how you swing to the next moment.

People will relate to that process, and people damn sure will relate to it when you reach out to grab the next one and you fall. We all know what that freefall feels like, and the landing and then picking yourself back up. We knew it was working when we were doing the table reads, and we could feel that people were going to click with it. We’ve got this wonderful writers room who understand what we are doing. We had Wanda right there to be able to say things like, ‘You know what, try this joke here.’ All the ingredients were there.
Fields: You’ve nailed it, my friend. It is that sense of there being diversity in the writers room, generationally speaking, race speaking, gender speaking, and, to me, that’s how you really can capture the essence of storytelling, to be able to have all of these different voices telling the story of this family.
Epps: Wanda and Regina did such a great job doing that. They had different age groups in the writing room, ethnicities, and genders, and by layering it up, it became this incredible gumbo. You had all these people from different walks of life and different insights, and all these experiences. It was really special.

Fields: Everybody’s bringing in their family experiences with marriage and parenting or co-parenting somebody else’s child, their issues and experiences, the idea of having your own business and going back to school and realizing that s**t ain’t working. So much of the show’s success is down to everybody having a different lens to look through, even though we’re all looking at the same family. In addition to that, truly being committed to saying, ‘Let’s see what else we can do. How far can we push this? How far does life push you?’ We lean into that as far we can.

Sykes: I judge the success of a project by whether people want to work with you again. If they say, ‘Hey, we enjoyed this process, we love the product you have delivered. Can we have some more of it?’ then you know it works. It is that simple. They were super excited about the show from its genesis. They know Mike, they know me, and they were like, ‘This could be big.’ They wanted something in this space, so they’ve been very supportive and excited about it. Even at the script stage, they were like, ‘Oh, my God, these are so funny. I can’t wait,’ then they were still as enthusiastic at the tapings. I’m not surprised by their enthusiasm because they turned up and brought their checkbook, too. They’re putting a lot of effort into the press and promotion of the show too. When we went back to finish out the season during the pandemic, that ain’t cheap. It was like having your own CVS on the stage next to us, going in, getting tested, all the precautions. This was a commitment, and they have certainly followed through.

Epps: I think that’s a good point. Netflix gets it. I believe Netflix understands that it takes all of us to do this together. Do you know what I mean? We all bring something special to the table. Having a company like Netflix be open to and understand what we are doing has given us all this great opportunity and not be scared by it.