‘Black-ish’ Star Allen Maldonado on His New Short Film App and Jordan Peele-Directed TV Series

He’s not a household name (yet), but 33-year-old Allen Maldonado has built a steady acting career in feature films (The Equalizer, Straight Outta Compton) and, especially, television. Before landing his regular roles on Black-ish—as Anthony Anderson‘s assistant, Curtis—and in the forthcoming Tracy Morgan sitcom from director/executive producer Jordan Peele (Key & Peele, Get Out), Maldonado played rapper Honey Nutz (real name: Zachary) on You’re The Worst. Yet he does much more than act, writing for the STARZ series Survivor’s Remorse and overseeing a foundation (Demo Nerds, an acting and film camp for kids) plus multiple companies, including Get It Done Records (which licenses music for film and TV productions like House of Lies and Ray Donovan), Only Son Productions, and clothing brand Vineyards Phinest.

In addition, he’s a short filmmaker, and starting today, his new mobile app, Everybody Digital, will provide its audience with 50 to 100 licensed, genre-crossing short films (none exceeding 20 minutes in length), as well as original content. Maldonado been working alongside 10 writers in his three-bedroom Los Angeles home to create shorts (which will premiere every other month) and series (such as the spy satire Who the F*ck is Uncle Joe?) exclusively for Everybody Digital users. “We’re gonna establish and create stars,” said Maldonado, whose various projects support 50 employees. “This is going to be the cool place to go.” The app—which Maldonado likens to “the short form version of Netflix“—is free to download and comes with phone/computer access to several shorts films; the full catalogue costs $2.99.

Decider met with Maldonado in Manhattan to discuss why the entertainment industry has long neglected short filmmakers, trading “the hood” for Hollywood, and how nearly dying made him “fearless.”

DECIDER: How did you come up with the idea for Everybody Digital? 

ALLEN MALDONADO: It came from heartbreak. As a short filmmaker I find myself, over and over again, going through the film festival circuit and after 12, 15 months of winning awards, you’re done. There’s no life after film festivals for short films. There’s no platform or distribution. Nowhere it can live, basically. You spend so much time, money, and energy on these films. You want people to see them outside of just the festival circuit. Most people who come to these festivals, you’re preaching to the choir…Where [short films] stand now is you’re basically auditioning to do bigger projects. We’re very happy there’s an Oscar for short films but besides [that] there’s no opportunity for somebody to build a career. 

Tell me about the first short film you made.

It was called Underground Street Flippers [laughs]. It’s hilarious. I wrote it, I was in it. I directed it. It’s about a group: you know the [people who hold] corner sign[s]? We’re an underground league where corner sign twirlers battle for money. There’s a blind flipper, there’s a guy in a chicken suit, there’s another guy (Maldonado) that thinks he is the Tupac of sign-twirling. That was maybe eight, nine years ago. I’ve shot five or six since. 

Were you an actor before you became a filmmaker?

I was. The creator of Black-ish, Kenya Barris, gave me the crazy idea that I can be a showrunner and creator [Barrish wrote the 2015 BET movie The Start Up, which co-starred Maldonado]. I showed him a short film that I did and he was blown away. Especially how much I made it for; he was like, “I have a jacket worth more than this,” [laughs]. I’ve watched him go from an average writer—nobody really knew who he was to when he sold the [Black-ish] pilot—to [Emmy-]nominated. It was eight months from him having a conversation [with me] about the idea [to] walking through his office where there’s 15 desks and 30 employees…Having someone that looked like me, sounded like me, in a position of an executive [was an] inspiration.  My other mentor, Mike O’Malley, the showrunner for Survivor’s Remorse, showed me how to run a show…My writing mentor before these two individuals, kind of the godfather for me is Michael Kane. He wrote All the Right Moves with Tom Cruise, [co-wrote] Southern Comfort, and was a pretty big writer in the 80s to early 90s. At the age of 17 he saw me in an acting class. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, didn’t have much of [any]thing, and I got this 70-year-old white man saying, “Hey, come to my house for the weekend.” I did and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Basically I went through boot camp helping him write scripts and pitching lines and breaking down stories. Those I guess are my big three [laughs].

What was the film you showed Kenya Barris?

One Decision Away. It’s about a young man (Maldonado) who returns from college and is unable to find a job. He’s in a relationship with his girlfriend; they have a six-year-old daughter. He finds out he’s one decision away from ruining his life or fall[ing] into the wrong neighborhood, fall[ing] into old habits. I made it for $1000. It was a passion project, 12 minutes.

Where did you grow up?

Rialto, California. A place called, “The Vineyards.” I’m happy to say it’s a little better now then when I grew up. My basketball coach was scared to drop me off after practice [laughs], it was that kind of neighborhood. There were a lot of people in the hood that felt stuck in a position where they had no other option. The beautiful thing is that they didn’t allow me to sell drugs, they didn’t allow me to gang bang. They protected me from that because they felt there was something special about me [and] I could get out.

What made you decide to go into entertainment?

I graduated high school when I was 16. My mom was like, “You have a year to figure out [what you’re going to do], and then you need to find a job.” So one day I’m hanging out with the fellas. They [were] rolling dice, we were drinking, doing everything that we weren’t supposed to be doing. All of the sudden I see this lady, she’s walking down the alley, and she looks exhausted. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Everyone around me just sort of disappeared and as this lady got closer, it was my mother. It broke my heart. That day is when I said I need to do something to help provide for my family. I stopped hanging out with a lot of people. I started reading more, I started focusing on acting and really understanding that if this is what I want to do, I’ve got to go at it with all my might. Started venturing out to LA, about 60 miles away. I would take two trains and ride a bike [chuckles]. There was no question about when I made the decision to become an actor. [My mom] raised me and my two older sisters by herself [his father died of cancer when he was young]. That’s my superhero. 

Were you met with any resistance from the people you’d grown up with in Rialto?

There were a lot of older gentlemen that were in the neighborhood pushing me in the right direction. But my peers at the time didn’t get it. They thought it was something personal: I didn’t want to hang out with [them]. I found myself having to stay in the house because I didn’t want to get in fights because people didn’t like my decision. I would come home from work, go straight to the house because I didn’t have any protection. It was definitely tough in the first year or so, and then we finally moved out and went to a better place.

What Everybody Digital originals are you really excited about?

We have a great series called Ana Mead. It’s about a couple of computer designers who made a robot that is lifelike, and they’re trying to secretly implement her in society. She ends up working for a customer service line. She finds herself wandering off into Downtown LA and then she joins a gang, accidentally. So it’s a pretty funny show. We have a film that I wrote called The Hollywood Way. It’s definitely a risky topic. It’s about a famous photographer who drugs his models, and then meets his match where one of the models turns the table on him. He once was the predator and now he’s the prey. Peter McKinsey from Black-ish, he’s starring in it, so I’m very, very happy for that one. We have another one called Signs of Love. It’s about an ex war vet who is having difficulty dealing with his new handicap where he’s losing his hearing. His frustration and his inability to, I guess, bow down to his handicap—and reluctancy to use his hearing devices—gets him in a lot of trouble, to the point where he almost loses his daughter. It’s a beautiful story.

Congratulations on your new TBS series with Tracy Morgan. When does shooting start?

In May; it’s coming out this fall. Tracy plays a character named Trey, who has been in prison for the past 15, 12 years. [Up]on being released on good behavior, he discovers that his ex-girlfriend had his twins, [who] he had no knowledge of. And now she’s married to a white man [laughs]. He’s dealing with a new Brooklyn, he’s dealing with a new world. 

Plus he’s got to figure out how to get a job with a record.

Exactly! And I’m Cousin Bobby, who is a small-time hustler, kind of like the idiot savant [laughs], the loveable guy that doesn’t have all the tools in his shed, but he works with what he has. He’s working out different scams everyday. So I help [Trey] get re-engaged in society. It’s going to be a fun show. When we went through the auditioning process, I walked in the room and Tracy was there and our chemistry was just natural, like we knew each other for years.

Is he back at 100 percent?

Yeah! I wasn’t there too long, but from what I witnessed, Tracy’s back, baby [laughs]. You know what’s interesting? Me and Tracy can relate on a deeper level. He had a near-fatal car accident and so did I.

Oh no! 

When I was 21, I was hit by a drunk driver going 65 miles per hour, and I was walking. I flew in the air, landed on my face, my right leg was broke, my spine was curved, and I had stitches. I almost lost my bottom lip. We’re both definitely survivors. I personally haven’t had a conversation with him about his situation, but that’s something that we share.

Did the driver who hit you go to jail?

He had a slap on the wrist. I’m always joking around that I’m Wolverine ‘cause I heal ridiculously fast. By the time we went to court, I was healed. It would have helped my case if I’d have came in a wheelchair. He got probation for like three or four years. 

Do you remember the accident?

I don’t remember being hit. I’m blessed and I probably couldn’t even have a car pass me if I could remember that. I just remember I said bye to a friend of mine in the car, and I was walking back to the sidewalk, and next thing I knew I woke up on the ground, looking up like, Why is everybody crying and screaming around me? I tried to get up and everybody was like, “Ooh, no, no, no, no.” I was on The Young & The Restless at the time. When I get [to the hospital], I get my stitches and they did surgery on my face. It had to be about 80 [stitches]. My whole mouth, my face, everything was swollen. They roll me up and I’m in a room with a ton of other patients, 10 or 15 people. I’m trying to talk to the nurses and they’re older. [One] had to be in her 60s. She was mean. She was like, “No, you can’t use the phone.” I’m like, “I just want to call my mom. My mom doesn’t know about this.” I think maybe 10 minutes later, news broke: Young & The Restless actor gets hit. Newspapers start calling in. All my nurses got younger: I had 20-year-old Latin, beautiful nurses [laughs] attending to me. The phone was right next to my bed, I’m over there getting a massage, I was like, Yo, this is bullshit. A few minutes ago I was just another brother here. But the surgeons did an amazing job ‘cause I didn’t need like any plastic surgery. And—my testimony to God—after the last stitch fell out of my mouth, I [auditioned for and] booked three TV shows in one week [Judging Amy, The Shield, and Las Vegas]. Like, that still hasn’t happened again [laughs], but that was just confirmation I was doing the right thing.

Interview has been condensed and edited.