‘She Taught Love’ star and screenwriter shares inspiration for the film

She Taught Love is making its way to Hulu Friday and chronicles a story of Black love, complicated by a character’s battle with mortality.

To be more specific, Frank Cooper, an actor who has gone through life drinking booze, using blow and sleeping with women, meets and falls in love with Mali Waters (Arsema Thomas), a sports agent who straightens him out a bit. While relationship struggles arise, their biggest obstacle is making the most of their time knowing Mali is facing death.

Darrell Britt-Gibson plays Frank, but is also the screenwriter of She Taught Love. He says the film was actually inspired by a real-life experience.

“An ex of mine, her sister had breast cancer. And … I didn’t really know how to act around her because I had had this idea that … I needed to change who I was,” he tells ABC Audio. “And I remember her saying to me, ‘I need you … to be yourself because everybody else is acting different around me.'” Darrell had also imagined her sister would be weak and fragile after her diagnosis, only to find her with a big smile.

“I was like, ‘Hollywood has been lying to us sort of about the depiction of people who are dealing with this sickness,'” he said, adding he also noticed Hollywood’s obsession with displaying weak women. The movie came about because of his desire to give an accurate image of an ill person’s life and to film strong Black women.

It also shows his character, a Black man, being vulnerable, which was an intentional decision.

Darrell explained, “I think being able to show that in this film was so important because … more people need to be able to … have that freedom of expression because suppression of your emotions will just lead to … everything bad.”