Cecily Tyson doesn’t let up. After popping up in Tyler Perry’s new Netflix film, A Fall From Grace, premiering Friday, the 95-year-old actress’ new role is in Ava DuVernay’s new romantic drama, Cherish The Day.
The very first trailer for the OWN series, which premieres next month, was released Thursday and is getting us even more excited about a new series we’re sure to tweet about with the hashtag #BlackLove.
Cherish The Day is an anthology drama, starring Underground actor Alano Miller and The Mindy Project actress Xosha Roquemore. Each episode spans one important day in the couple’s lives, with the entire eight-episode season chronicling the Los Angeles residents’ lives over five years.
In the two-minute trailer, we learn even more about the couple, who seem to come from different sides of the tracks. While Miller’s Evan Fisher seems like he’s from an upper middle class family (as his mother judges the neck tattoo Roquemore’s Gently James sports in the trailer), his love interest appears as if she’s from a working class family. Her onscreen father, played by Soul Food star Michael Beach, says to his daughter in the teaser, “You should keep your guard up. They’re different people than us.”
When Gen complains to Tyson’s character about their relationship, the iconic actress gives practice advice we could all use in our own love lives. “That’s what life is all about,” Tyson’s character says before advising to let go “to see what wonderful things happen.”
At the Television Critics Association panel, held Thursday in California, DuVernay said working on Cherish The Day was a welcome break after her heart-wrenching miniseries, When They See Us, which centers on the illegal imprisonment of the Exonerated Five.
“I just needed a break from history and wanted to do something lovely and light,” the award-winning director told the audience, according to IndieWire. “I’m a big sucker for love stories, and growing up I loved West Side Story to Sleepless in Seattle and really craved the Black romantic endeavor, which I saw less of.”
“I really longed to see that kind of Black love story on television,” DuVernay added.
The series, which boasts 18 female department heads and boasts a crew that’s over 50% women, also stars In the Heat of the Night‘s Anne-Marie Johnson and Kellee Stewart.
If the trailer is a taste of what we can expect, we’ll be in front of our TV screens when Cherish the Day premieres over two nights, starting February 11 at 10 p.m. The series will continue on Wednesday, February 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
