Meagan Good talks to The Contending about playing a cop who falls in love with a veteran in Lifetime’s Terry McMillan Presents Forever.
This Emmy season, you won’t watch a more tragic love story than Lifetime’s Terry McMillan Presents Forever, starring Taye Diggs as a veteran who falls for a cop, played by Meagan Good.
This TV movie marks a reunion between the two, as they worked on UPN’s Kevin Hill together 20 years ago.
“I’ve always loved Taye,” says Good. “He’s just a ball of energy and just so funny. When I did Kevin Hill, I was super excited because I was a fan of the show. Then getting to meet him, he’s so down to earth. To be able to work again after all those years on something so completely special, it’s really beautiful because that’s what this movie’s about. Life happening and sometimes hard life happening.”
Truly.
Of course, Good’s Carlie falls hard for Diggs’ Johnnie, even if their meet-cute when she pulls him over isn’t love at first sight. She knows Johnnie as a hot-shot baseball coach in town.
“He’s the kind of guy Carlie would have hoped would ask her out back in high school but may not have because they were in different phases of life. I think for her, that’s what this was. A full circle moment. But he’s got to work for her because he didn’t notice her before!”
Eventually, she comes around to him. After he keeps trying to get pulled over so he can see her, she leaves him a note in his car.
Good says that this moment holds a lot of intention for her character, especially as a Black woman in power.
“There are lots of double standards. While a guy can do that and it may not be a big deal, for her, it may come off incredibly unprofessional. It’s like in any capacity for almost any job, even the president of the United States, if a woman is emotional, it’s, is it that time of the month? It’s not fair, and it’s not right. Women are the only beings on the planet who can bring life after God. And it’s not because we’re less; it’s because of what’s been given to us that is scary for people.”
What’s scary for Carly is when she realizes she has feelings for Johnnie. Good believes it’s because she sees “the little boy in him” and wants to protect him.
“When you want to do that for a person, you also feel very protected by them. You feel the need to want to protect and nurture at all costs. The scene where I’m seeing him sleep outside, I think that’s when she’s like, OK, I think I love him — I’ve got to protect him, which ultimately, you know, makes him protect me.”
However, Carlie and Johnnie can’t protect each other from everything.
After thinking she’s pregnant, Carlie discovers that it’s actually cancer. She survives, with Johnnie by her side, but on her first day back from work, she is shot in a convenience store robbery. The scene where Johnnie finds her was as heartbreaking to shoot as it is to watch.
“We didn’t have a ton of time to shoot it. It was the end of the night. We were in that zone of, like, we just have to create the time. And that’s what I love about (director) Charles [Murray] is he was like, this is what we’re going to do and this how we’re going to do it. And we really just took that beat and made it what we needed it to be, not just with what happened with me, but then also creating a space for Taye to be able to go there and to experience that. And then, you know, just even for the beat for him in the car with the girls and walking up to it and just all of it, all of it was really hard and heavy. But I think that it had to be that in order for it to be as impactful.”
Watch Terry McMillan Presents Forever on Lifetime.
