Olivia Charmaine Is On A Mission To Revolutionise The World With Black Monarch Entertainment

Photo credit: Dominique Oliveto

Like most women in Hollywood you have to create your own space in order to tell the stories you want to see that are not being created or are not being created authentically. 

I sat down with Olivia Charmaine to get The Tea on her new production company Black Monarch Entertainment and the kind of projects she wants to produce.  

MR: I absolutely love The Tea, it’s such a warm and welcoming show! My favourite episode is definitely the one you did with Jidenna. 

OC: Thank you so much for tuning in, Jidenna was such an interesting episode. That was the top of season two and our first episode of the new season. We talked about spirituality, wellness and his inspiration behind his music and art - it was just such an interesting conversation.

MR: So, I have my tea ready, I know on your show The Tea you usually ask your guests what tea they’re drinking so I would love to know what tea you are drinking today?

OC: So, I am drinking a rose hibiscus tea. It's not quite ready yet, but it’s really good for high blood pressure and high cholesterol - it's an antioxidant so it’ll boost your mood and immune system too. 

OC: What are you drinking? 

MR: I’m having a Fennel and Peppermint tea

OC: Oh, delicious,  I love that.

MR: The Tea is so relatable - what inspired you to create it?

OC: Well, there were a few different things that inspired me to create it, but one that I haven't really talked about is the global crisis that we were all in during the pandemic - we’re living in an unprecedented time, in isolation and I wanted to create a space and a community that gives you the opportunity to check in, have a cup of tea and have a moment for wellness and self care. 

It started off as a personal thing and I was actually going to go Live by myself - have a cup of tea and just talk to whoever jumped on but then I had a friend who decided to join my first episode. We talked about everything from wellness, to career advice, and it really gave me the idea to do this every single week. So, I think it feels relatable because it really was spawned from something that I wanted to do to kind of make my days a little bit brighter. 

MR: Yeah, you can definitely tell. Your show is so organic and it doesn’t feel forced in any way or premeditated. Each show is so positive and has really good vibes.  

OC: Yeah, good vibes only!

MR: Who would be your dream guest on The Tea? 

OC: Yes, so I have a few. I know she’s no longer with us, but I would love to have Lucille Ball on - she is one of my north stars in the business. I would love to talk to her about what it was like being the first woman to start her own production company and ask her about who her favourite guest stars on her show were - she worked with so many incredible celebrities from the 40’s and 50’s. 

I would also love to have Amanda Gorman on the show - I haven't really been able to speak to someone from that particular medium yet and she's actually someone who I saw perform live a couple of years ago and started following her then, and she's just someone who I think is so inspiring. 

So yeah, I would say Amanda Gorman or if I could, Lucille Ball.

MR: This year has been hard not just because of the pandemic but because of the racist attacks, police brutality and attack on the trans community - what steps have you taken to stay physically and mentally healthy?

OC: So, I recently moved from a big city to somewhere that's a little bit smaller and I actually had a friend who said something that was so beautiful to me. He said that cities can feel like rushing waters and living in a smaller town can kind of feel like still, cool, calm water - he went on to say that sometimes we need a pond as opposed to a rushing river. So that was a big thing for me, moving somewhere that was surrounded by mountains and fresh air, but outside of that move, I also do yoga regularly - I try to go at least twice a week. It's an opportunity to obviously exercise, which I think is so important, but it's also a form of meditation and I've never really been good at meditating by myself, but I think it’s really critical.

I was also having trouble sleeping and my friend Andre gave me the idea to start journaling - it helped me get a lot of those thoughts out from the day, decompress and just leave it on the page before I went to bed. It’s actually helped a lot and I've been having pleasant dreams and sleeping throughout the night. So I highly recommend journaling as well.

MR: Yeah, I would definitely agree. I think meditating and writing have been two things that have really helped me stay centred throughout all of this. 

MR: What inspired you to create your own production company, Black Monarch Entertainment?

OC: So I was really inspired by the idea of being able to create a space for groups that don't really have a voice, it really is all about representation. I love being able to push cultural conversations and create a social impact. 

Photo credit: Dominique Oliveto

MR: Yeah, I love that! 

I do feel like although there are some production companies that are trying to improve representation on the screen, but, they’re failing at creating authentic representation because it doesn't really trickle down to the writing room, the Producers or the Directors, so they’re not able to tell authentic stories that represent people correctly. And because of that, you get the generic, stereotypical retelling of a story. 

OC: Yeah. It's easy to fall into stereotypes. 

MR: When you first started working in this industry, did you ever imagine you would have your own production company one day?

OC: Um, I definitely didn't start off with the idea of creating a company during the pandemic, but I do remember when applying for NYU and Tisch, as part of my college admittance essay one of the things I wrote about was what it would be like if I had my own production company and what kind of producer I would want to be, I even created an algorithm for that essay as well. That algorithm was based on the Theory of Relativity. I wrote that the morals behind the project when multiplied by the creativity and amplified squared through film or TV basically creates E, the entertainment. So, I've been thinking about these big broad ideas since I was a teenager.

MR: Do you have any exciting projects in the works for the year ahead?

OC: I do! There are several that are in development at the moment that I can't quite talk about yet - that would be me spilling the tea a little bit prematurely, but there is one that has been announced that I can talk about. It's called Dreyana Grooms and it's an independent feature film and it's actually the first feature film that I've ever worked on and that I've ever produced. 

It's based on the true story of a then 16 year old, Dreyana Grooms living in Chicago when she was falsely accused of first degree murder - it's all about her trial and subsequent acquittal. 

That is a project that really hits close to home, especially after all of the civil unrest that happened this time last year in America and around the world with the Black Lives Matter movement. So being able to examine a story that investigates the prison pipeline system, but with a black woman as the lead is something that I'm really excited about working on. 

MR: Yeah, I love that! We need more stories about black women, because I do feel that we're often forgotten or left out of these stories. Stories like this are usually told from a male perspective - so I think this story will resonate with a lot of women.

OC: Yeah, that's the goal. We want it to be an international story as well, so we have a French co-producer, a German co-producer and we're working on getting a sales agency that's international too. We really think that this is a universal story even though it is very specific to the Southside of Chicago.

MR: Yeah, I think if anything, last year sort of highlighted how connected the world is.  

MR: If you could reboot or remake any movie what would it be and why?

OC: I love that question! I had a really hard time thinking of an answer but I would say Kill Bill volume 3 is something that I would love to see made, I love Kill Bill volume 1 and volume 2 so much, I'm a big Tarantino fan. There's something really interesting about that scene when Uma Thurman's character, Beatrix Kiddo, looks at Vernita Green's daughter and says, if you grow up and you're still mad at me, come find me, basically. And to me, I feel like that's what the third movie would be - it’ll be that big standoff between the two. I feel like that'd be an amazing standoff. 

MR: Yeah, that'd be really, really cool and it could be done from the daughters perspective rather than Uma Thurman’s.

OC: Exactly, yes and she’d be this young bad-ass teen or 20 something which I think would be cool. 

MR: Growing up I loved old Hollywood movies and old TV shows like The Mary Tyler Moore show, I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show. What movie or TV show inspired you to get into the industry? 

OC: I think there were a lot, I grew up in front of the television watching every black and white TV show and movie - they all really inspired me, I even remember asking for a Hollywood themed party for my 5th birthday, it was very Hollywood Glamour -  I remember five-year-old me talking about, having a star on the Walk of Fame, it was super cute. So, I've always loved the industry, it's hard to pick just one. 

I also really loved the movie The Wizard of Oz, I used to watch it almost every single day but The Wiz is what truly inspired me, it was the first time I saw a retelling of a story with a predominantly black cast and people of colour. It was so imaginative, visual, visceral and beautiful. It really inspired me to see that you can create or recreate amazing imaginative stories and also have our own version of that story. 

MR: You have worked with some inspiring people like Kerry Washington, what have you learnt from working with them and how have they inspired you?

OC: Well, I love working with people who really speak up and speak out for what they believe in. I think that's so important and someone like Kerry, whether she's in front of, or behind the camera, that's something that she is, is known for, just being a really active and vocal voice for the community and so that's something I love about her. 

I think it’s important to work with people that genuinely care about other people and I have been lucky to work with and for so many people who inspire me. They were creative and had their own ideas but they were also open to new ideas and hearing from different types of potentially underrepresented communities or voices. These are the things I think are really inspiring about people like Kerry and other people that I've worked with, people that genuinely care.

Photo credit: Dominique Oliveto

MR: Could you tell me more about The Butterfly Test that you mentioned in your interview with the Writer's Experience and how it could impact the industry? 

OC: Yeah, I'd love to talk to you a little bit about the Butterfly Test, but first I'm going to tell you about the inspiration behind it. So there's something called the Bechdel Test which is an algorithm that analyses the representation of women versus men in a work of fiction, I realised that there was no real test that was qualitatively and quantitatively analysing that data for diversity and inclusion. 

So, essentially the Butterfly Test looks at the ratio of representation behind a film or a TV project, and then what the impact of that project was - there are different categories with different metrics looking at the team behind a project. For example, a project that would score really high in the Butterfly Tests would be Black Panther. When you look at the Producers, Director, the writers, the costumers, music design and sound design - almost everyone who worked on that project was black. 

You also have to look at the box office draw, how much money it made, the cultural impact and the relevance of that project. So projects that would score low on the Butterfly Test would not resonate as much because there would be deficiencies in any number of these categories - the Butterfly Test really is all about authenticity.

MR: Representation is so important but it needs to be done correctly - we see it all the time where POC or members of the LGBTQIA+ community are included in stories that don’t really resonate with the audience because it isn’t done authentically. How will your production company ensure stories like this stay authentic?

OC: It's all about partnership for me, especially as a newer producer, I've worked on the buying side of the business for many years, but it's my first foray on the selling side, so it's really important for me to have a lot of strong partners that represent these other voices. For instance I had two white male producers approach me last year about potentially coming on board a feature film as an Executive Producer, and it was supposed to be a horror film that was about an Indian burial site gone awry. I had some concerns right away and basically asked them whether they had any writers, producers or actors of indigenous descent or any Indigenous partners on the project - they said that they didn’t and that they hadn't even considered it.

They hadn't even thought about it. 

I have gone to this film festival in Los Angeles every year for the past few years called Skin Fest and it's from and for the Indigenous community in Hollywood. I really learned a lot about that community and how it's underrepresented, but still blossoming and flourishing in Hollywood. 

Whenever you look at a test like the UCLA Writers' Room Test or the Annenberg Study that comes out every year in Hollywood, the Indigenous community is always less than 1% in terms of inclusion. 

So I didn't join that project, if they weren’t even considering including indigenous people this is not a project that I would touch with a 10 foot pole. If I had fallen in love with that script they would have had to ensure they brought in people who could speak on behalf of that community before I even considered signing on to their project. 

Photo credit: Dominique Oliveto

MR: Yeah, that happens all the time. You would often find the Indian burial ground troupe in most movies from the 70’s. I think 

it would have been better for them to delve into it further and find out the different Indigenous mythologies behind it rather than following outdated storytelling tropes. I think the public could have handled a more interesting and in depth story. 

OC: Yeah, that's the kind of project where I was like, that's an easy pass for me. 

MR: During the course of your career, what have been some of the ups and downs that you have encountered?

OC: One of the downs that I encountered was really early on in my career. I was probably 21 or 22, fresh out of college, working on one of my dream jobs at the time but I wasn't taking care of myself physically, emotionally and mentally, I hit a physical roadblock - I actually had to end up being hospitalised for a week. I realised that I was just over exerting and overextending myself, especially as a black woman. That really is what started my journey towards self care and why I'm such a huge advocate for mental health and therapy. I had to kind of understand and kind of take a step back and regroup and, take care of myself physically, emotionally and spiritually, really ground myself in order to continue forward in this business. 

A real career high for me was when I created this Feminist group called Feminist Fridays that essentially was all about creating a sense of community for all the women and women identifying people in the industry. 

I created it specifically for this corporate company I was working at and we did everything from having tea parties, to self-defense classes, to screenings and fundraisers. It was a really robust group and I actually interviewed activists, Brittany Packnett Cunningham. I really loved working there but specifically creating that women's organisation which was really meaningful and it’s something that I'd want to do at a future job again.
MR: Name three things you can’t do without?

OC: One is definitely tea - surprise, surprise! I actually have a tea cabinet with probably a hundred types of tea. Number two, I would say is bubble baths, especially in the past year, I have taken more bubble baths this year than I think I have taken my entire life - I have bubbles, crystals, candles, a book, it's a whole thing. 

MR: It’s an event!

OC: Yeah, it is and at least once a week. 

OC: And thirdly I would say my dog, I have a dog named Desi and I've had him for about five years - he's such a sweetheart. He's an emotional support animal, but he is also a member of the family. So, I would say Desi and of course he's named after Desi Arnaz.
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You can follow Olivia here.