‘Girls Trip’ Tracy Oliver: ‘The studio didn’t know if it would succeed’

Creator/executive producer Tracy Oliver said her new Amazon comedy series “Harlem” likely wouldn’t have been able to happen without the success of her movie “Girls Trip.”

“It was a pretty astronomical change [to my life]. After ‘Girls Trip’ came out. Suddenly I could take out this show and sell it,” Oliver told The Post.

“The [‘Harlem] script was written two years prior to ‘Girls Trip’ and there was no example of a black female friendship [shows or movies] working out like that. So, people were like, ‘I think it’s niche, I don’t think there’s a big audience for it.’ After ‘Girls Trip,’ it became easier to tell people, ‘There’s an audience for this stuff. It doesn’t have to be niche.’”

Tracy Oliver at an event on the red carpet, smiling.
Tracy Oliver.
Getty Images

The 2017 comedy, starring Tiffany Haddish, Queen Latifah, and Jada Pinkett Smith, marked the first time that a film written by an African-American woman grossed over by $100 million at the box office.

“The change has been incredible to watch,” said Oliver, who got her start on “Awkward Black Girl,” Issa Rae’s Web series precursor to “Insecure.”

“I met Ramy [Youssef] on a panel that we did together, and we were celebrating the fact that two niche people get to do something on a mainstream level. It was a cool moment for both of us to have that conversation. Years ago — not even that long ago — ‘Ramy’ and ‘Girls Trip’ would not have existed.”

The four friends of "Harlem" sit around a table in a cafe: Quinn (Grace Byers), left, Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), Tye (Jerrie Johnson), and Camille (Megan Good), right.
The four friends of “Harlem:” Quinn (Grace Byers), left, Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), Tye (Jerrie Johnson), and Camille (Megan Good), right.
Sarah Shatz/Amazon Prime Video

Much like “Girls Trip,” “Harlem” (out Friday, Dec 3) is a half-hour comedy focusing on a group of women navigating their love lives and careers: there’s Camille (Meagan Good), an anthropology professor at Columbia Univerity who’s struggling with her dating life; Tye (Jerrie Johnson), a tech entrepreneur with an LGBTQ+ dating app; Quinn (Grace Byers) who has a fashion design business that she’s struggling with; and flamboyant singer/actress Angie (Shoniqua Shandai). 

Friends Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), left, and Camille (Megan Good), right, stroll down a Harlem street in "Harlem."
Friends Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), left, and Camille (Meagan Good), right, stroll down a Harlem street in “Harlem.”
Sarah Shatz/Amazon

Oliver, who grew up in South Carolina, said that she wove characteristics from herself and her own friends into the “Harlem” characters.  

“No one wants to see a South Carolina-set show,” she said. “Just kidding. I felt like I came of age in New York and Harlem. All of my pivotal life experiences took place in my 20s, and that was me hanging out with friends in New York. There’s no other city like this.”

Of the central characters, she’s most similar to Camille, she said. 

Dr. Elise Pruitt (Whoopi Goldberg), left, with Camille (Megan Good), right, in "Harlem."
Dr. Elise Pruitt (Whoopi Goldberg), left, with Camille (Meagan Good), right, in “Harlem.”
Sarah Shatz/Amazon Studios

“I used to cry at every birthday, because I hated getting older. I had set all these goals when I was a kid that were unrealistic in hindsight — but I thought based on ’90s rom coms that this was going to happen for me,” she said. “And when they weren’t going according to plan, I was freaking out. I can be kind of Type-A like Camille. In the first season, we explore her coming to terms with the fact that her romantic relationships and her career are not going according to plan. At the time that I wrote that script, that’s where I was.

“We did an episode [where] we wanted to challenge this idea that black women always have to be strong and fierce,” she said. “It became a compliment to be a strong black woman, but what that ended up doing was denying us our vulnerability and pain and moments of weakness. We all have them, and that’s okay. But in the process of trying to uplift, it became hard for black women to just be vulnerable. It might be considered controversial, but I’m proud of the messaging [in that episode].”

Friends Tye (Jerrie Johnson), left, Camille (Meagan Good),Quinn (Grace Byers), and Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), right, dine out in "Harlem."
Friends Tye (Jerrie Johnson), left, Camille (Meagan Good),Quinn (Grace Byers), and Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), right, in “Harlem.”
Sarah_Shatz/Amazon

In addition to “Harlem,” Oliver also has a deal with Apple TV+ and is developing a pilot for that platform. She’s also working with Kevin Hart on the action movie “Extreme Job,” and she’s hoping to do a follow up to “Girls Trip.” 

“My understanding is that everybody is on board,” she said. “Last time I talked to Tiffany Haddish, she really wanted to do it and was just trying to figure out the right window. And the studio has to figure out the budget — that’s always the conversation. For the first one, I’ll be honest, none of us really made money off of that. Because the budget was low and the studio didn’t know if it would succeed.”

source: nypost.com