Today we’d like to introduce you to Melody Cooper.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Originally from New York, I grew up in a family of social activist Blerds who went camping and birding. (Yes, the Central Park birder, Christian Cooper, is my brother, and I’m the one who posted that video on Twitter). I was a stage actor and award-winning playwright before I started writing screenplays and moved to LA to write for TV. I was weaned on sci-fi, horror, and protests so I’m a genre writer who focuses on social issues, As a playwright, I write dramas, and traveled to Rwanda on an invitation from CalArts to research my play “Sweet Mercy” about the genocide there. It caught the attention of some LA filmmakers when it was workshopped at NY Stage & Film with Danai Gurira. That got me started on writing for film, which I’d always wanted to do. But theater and family rooted me in NY, and LA seemed so different. Friends told me to move here, but knowing how difficult it can be for a Black artist, I decided that I wouldn’t move to LA until I got a job. Crazy, I know. Then the path kind of opened up. I won the Tangerine Entertainment fellowship at Stowe Story Labs and fellowships at NY Stage and Film and Shudder Labs. I directed two short films.
And then two years ago, I won the grand jury prize at Urbanworld Film Festival for my dramatic thriller feature script “Northern Cross” that focused on immigration. A huge turning point came when I was lucky enough to be selected for a monthlong writer’s residency at La Napoule Arts Foundation in the south of France in a castle right on the Meditteranean. Besides being absolutely amazing, it allowed me to finish “Sundown,” a supernatural TV pilot that ended up getting me into the 2019 HBO Access Writing Fellowship. I was the only one of the eight fellows not based in LA, and I could have Skyped our monthly meetings, but it was important to me to fly out here to be here in person to get to know my amazing fellowship group and LA better. I love NY, but I was straight up wooed by LA with every visit. Before I finished the fellowship, I got repped and got an offer to write on the CW show “Two Sentence Horror Stories.” In December 2019, I moved out here to live my dream of working in the film and TV industry. Right now, I’m a story editor on NBCUniversal’s “Law & Order: SVU.” Before I started on the show, I did a panel with Color of Change for WGAW, where showrunners called for more Black writers in the room, especially on cop shows.
So now, I get to impact those stories. And I’m working with a great room and wonderful showrunner, Warren Leight. I currently live in Atwater Village and LOVE the neighborhood, its vibrancy, walkability, the mix of people, the great shops and restaurants, the best croissant in LA, and all near Griffith Park, where I go hiking with my one-eyed rescue dog, Mina. I’m a nature girl, so you’ll find me at Point Dume or hiking the Santa Monica Mountains and Topanga Canyon. And being in LA meant I was only a drive away from Yosemite and I was able to go stay there when it recently reopened and was uncrowded and spectacular. I also write the comic book OMNI about a Black woman who is a super-intelligent doctor who fights injustice (published by Humanoids, based here in LA). In NY, I was always on marches, so I was glad to join several huge BLM marches here in LA. Staying involved in social justice is life’s blood to me. So it feels like LA is bringing everything together beautifully.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Smooth? Oh, hell no. It might seem like everything fell into place quickly, but it really did take hard work, lots of disappointments, and plenty of personal downs, including divorce. It took time to hone my writing for stage, film, TV, and comic book. Being a Black woman who writes and directs horror, sci-fi and magical realism that’s driven by social issues does not compute for a lot of people. It’s beginning to now, which is great. I’ve always told myself two things that have helped me keep fighting: 1) Do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, whether you like it or not. 2) Never, never, never give up. I have to say, it was surreal to be here in LA just before the pandemic hit New York. The challenges it has brought to all of us personally and professionally are profound. But after the CW room wrapped, I wrote an episode for THE INSIDERS produced by Greg Grunberg for Twitch Channel and we shot the short episode “No Time” following strict protocols. I was able to be on set for my first produced script and worked with my director and cast that included Wayne Brady, Kym Whitley, Sherri Shepherd, and Jack Coleman. So we struggle through.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
My multi-ethnic work dives into the worlds of Afrofuturism, the supernatural across ethnicities and I don’t shy away from controversy. In addition to my other TV and film work, I’m developing a scripted horror podcast called “Looking Glass” with a talented group of women writers. I know nothing about podcasts, but I’m learning! I’ll be one of the writers included in the upcoming graphic novel anthology “Noir is the New Black.” I’m in talks to develop my own sci-fi series, and It looks like next year, I’ll be directing my first feature with Fear Works.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Oh, there are a few key Good Luck moments for me. I won the Jane Chambers Award for a play just when I’d gone through a divorce and had NO money for rent, I cried when I read the email that I’d won and that the award money would cover rent. Getting the HBO Access Fellowship felt like ultra good luck, and I’m still pinching myself. Good/Bad Luck hit when I was accepted for another one of those incredible month long writer residencies, this one at gorgeous Bogliasco, a seaside villa in Italy. But I got offered the CW show and had to tell Bogliasco I couldn’t come. They were very understanding. And it turns out that I would have been there in January in the very part of Italy that was hardest hit by COVID-19. So I say that “Two Sentence Horror Stories” may have saved my life. And I have to add that I had the extraordinary good luck to have two amazing parents, who sadly passed due to illness a couple of years ago, They taught me to be tenacious, rebellious, compassionate, and to know my worth even when others might try to diminish it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.melodyMcooper.com
- Email: [email protected] (my manager Corey Trent Ackerman at The Cartel)
- Instagram: @melodycooperfilm
- Twitter: @MelodyMcooper
- Other: www.Nyxhorror.com
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