From "How to Get Away with Murder" to "Inventing Anna" - ABBY AJAYI on Writing Powerful Female Characters

"I think Riches has all the hallmarks of the things I've worked on before in terms of complex, slightly subversive women. At the heart of it, it is negotiating power dynamics. And at the heart of it, there are two very complex and yet vulnerable black women, but I've always loved family drama shows and particularly family businesses, whether it's fictional ones or in real life. I think whether you're talking about the Hiltons, the Kardashians, or the Royal Family, the dynamics of how, where power and money and blood merge is just such a potent and combustible mix that I've always been intrigued by them. I watched them growing up, whether it was Dallas or Dynasty or Six Feet Under, so it was a space which I was really interested in, and wanted to write a black family business show.

Myself and my producers, they knew my interest, and we talked around what would a black British business be, and they were interested in cosmetics, which I thought was a really good start because obviously, that's incredibly visual, but for me, hair was the piece that kind of tied it all together. A hair and cosmetics business because black hair is often so politicized, and it's such a way in which black people are sometimes policed in terms of having dreadlocks, having relaxed hair, whether they wear wigs. So it was a way in which we would have a glamorous visual for a show and an entertaining world that's aspirational, but still have a layer in which we get to tell substantive issues about black beauty, about black ownership, about how the spoils from a very lucrative industry often don't go back into the black community. So that's why I was interested in that. It could be glamorous and fun but also have slightly more in-depth issues to talk about as well."

Abby Ajayi is a British Nigerian writer and director who serves as a show creator, executive producer, and writer on the Amazon Series Riches, which is currently on Amazon Prime and premiers on ITVX in the UK on December 22. She has previously worked on the shows Four Weddings and a Funeral, How to Get Away with Murder, Inventing Anna, The First Lady, and Eastenders. As a result, she had the opportunity to learn under the likes of Shonda Rhimes, Pete Nowalk, and Tracey Wigfield. Abby’s next project is the Onyx Collective on Hulu’s limited series The Plot with Mahershala Ali. She is adapting the eight-episode series from Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel of the same name.

www.imdb.com/name/nm2184926

www.amazon.com/Riches-Season-1/dp/B0B8MTCYVM

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