Showrunner Elle Johnson Talks ‘Self Made,’ Netflix’s New Madam C.J. Walker Biopic Miniseries [Exclusive Interview]

You have likely heard of uber-wealthy business owners Rockafeller and Carnegie. They are practically synonymous with “rich.” Even though Madam C.J. Walker is far less known, she too is a titan of industry who deserves recognition.

She is the person listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first woman self-made millionaire. She built an empire unlike anything anyone had seen at the time. 

Showrunner Elle Johnson is bringing the black entrepreneur’s story into the spotlight where it belongs with the new miniseries Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker!

The Netflix biopic tells the story of the hair product mogul, born as Sarah Breedlove, as she expands her product, her influence, and her vision with the country.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker showrunner Elle Johnson about the power of hair, the unique vision of the show, and Madam CJ Walker’s legacy of lifting up black women.  

Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker isn’t your ordinary biopic. Johnson shared that, just like Madam CJ’s approach to business, the writers were, “doing a biopic in a different way.” 

From the beginning, when Nicole Jefferson Asher pitched the show to Janine Sherman Barrois and Elle Johnson, they knew they did, “not [want] it to feel like homework.” Instead, they followed Asher’s vision to, “break free of the biopic form in a way and use some different elements as a way to get deeper inside the character,” Johnson explained.

Those unique elements include the show’s use of colorful magical realism and anachronistic music. “They were a way for us to more fully express what Sarah was thinking and feeling — to help the audience better experience it,” Johnson revealed.

She continued, “We also loved [the magical realism and fantasy] because part of Madame CJ that we really wanted to represent, is just how much of a visionary she was. She was a modern woman in many ways and ahead of her time.”

“She was a different kind of thinker, and that, to us, seemed like a really good way to make the audience feel how different she was in terms of her thinking about things,” Johnson concluded glowingly. 

Johnson also intentionally connected the musical choices with Madam C.J.’s personality. “We wanted to use music that was contemporary because she was a contemporary woman. Even for her day, she was ahead of her time,” Johnson said.

Johnson knows a lot about her subject’s relationship with music. “Madam C.J. loved music quite a bit  — she owned a victrola at one point when she had money. Also, when she didn’t have money, she lived in parts of towns that were close to saloons and bars and nightclubs.”

“In St. Louis, there’s a very famous club called Tom Turpin’s, and she lived down the street from that. So, she was aware of ragtime and jazz as it came in. She certainly enjoyed that kind of music, which at the time was considered modern, and I guess a little bit scandalous,” Johnson divulged, revealing her team’s extensive research. 

“We loved the idea that Madam enjoyed modern music in her day, that we could use modern music to kind of exemplify how forward-thinking she was,” Johnson said.

Johnson proudly told us another fascinating musical detail about the miniseries. “We used all-black female artists for our needle drops, which was great. We were so excited when we found the needle drop for Seven Nation Army! We just felt like that was the best way to show how ahead of her time Madam C.J. was.”

The main character of Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, who is played brilliantly by Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer, made her fortune selling hair care products for black women. Hair was very important to Madam C.J. Walker and that greatly influenced the making of the hit biopic.

“We talked about hair all the time, every day, all day,” Johnson revealed. 

“That’s what the story was about, and it was so interesting for us also to really realize the power of black hair.”

Johnson further highlighted that the show aims to portray, “the journey that not only black women as individuals take with their own hair but just as a people and a culture. [It’s] incredible to tell the story of black people in this culture, this country, in terms of the acceptance of our hair and its texture, and how we kind of have to — fight — to be our natural selves.”

“The arc of the hair was a great parallel to Madam C.J.’s story, and to her struggle. We tried to actually give each of the characters have their own hair arc — it changes, over the course of series, so we really needed to show that,” Johnson passionately detailed.

Building a writers’ room with people who shared a passion and understanding of the power of black hair was important to the creators. 

“When we were interviewing writers, that was one of our questions: ‘What’s your relationship to your hair?’” Johnson and her co-showrunner Janine Sherman Barrois asked writers who weren’t of color a slightly different question.

They asked, “Tell us how you feel about black hair. What’s your experience with black hair?” She continued, “And the men who we interviewed [we asked] ‘How do you perceive the women in your life and the relationship with their hair, and how has that affected you?'”

“Hair was an incredibly important part of this story,” she reiterated. 

Hair was just as important in front of the cameras, as well! “We knew that the wigs for this show were going to be important, and they were going to have to be on point, be fantastic'” Johnson elucidated.

She further explained, “We couldn’t drop the ball in terms of how [the wigs] look because they were such an important part of telling the story of Madam C.J. and her evolution as not only hair culturalist but as a woman who had struggled with her own hair and her own beauty.”

“We really wanted to hair to look properly textured.” Johnson offered further insight, “It’s a period piece, and we didn’t want it to look like that kind of overly polished look that some period pieces have.”

“It didn’t really look like that back then, cause they didn’t have a blow dryer,” she exclaimed.

This led the team to only use tools and implements that were available at the time of Madam C.J.’s life.

Elle Johnson and her writing team immersed themselves in the history of Madam C.J. Walker. What she found was that Madam C.J. Walker was an inspiring icon in more ways that one. 

“She was just ahead of her time. She was Mary Kay before Mary Kay,” Johnson gushed. 

She continued, “For Madam C.J., one of the things that was really important was uplifting other black women. So, she wanted to sell her product, she wanted to get it into black women’s hands because there weren’t products being made for black women. And she also wanted to help black women to transcend the low-level jobs that they were pegged into, to kind of become their own bosses by being saleswomen.”

“She took it a step further. She not only rewarded her sales agents for having a tremendous sale and selling a lot, she would [also] reward them when [they] gave to charity, when they gave back to the community. She would reward them financially for that,” she shared with amazement.

“Madam C.J. Walker is someone who should be spoken about in the same breath as Rockefeller and Carnegie and all these other titans of industry.”

“She didn’t do business as usual; she was able to not make it a zero-sum game,” Johnson explained further. “She was gonna make money, but she wanted her sales agents to make money, and she wanted the community to be better. And that, I think, is an incredible difference between her and other business people. It’s something that I found so inspiring,” Johnson said.

Johnson aimed to emphasize Madam C.J. Walker’s unique business model and mission, but there was another side to her that Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, intentionally portrays. 

“We were also mindful of telling a story about a woman who is a complicated woman. [We wanted] to show a black woman in all of her complexities. So, she has complex relationships not only with her daughter, who kind of lived in her shadow and had to find her own way, but with her husband, who [was] a man of the time period where women were not supposed to out-earn their husband,” Johnson noted.

Johnson shared another complicated relationship her show covers. “[Madam C.J. was] a black woman in the world, navigating the world with other black women who were potential competitors. That’s how we ended up creating the character of Addy Monroe. She’s based on other hair culturalists at the time, and [we wanted] to show the complexities of the relationship between two black women in business who are competing against each other.”

“We realized we don’t get to see that, you know?”

Johnson also wanted to include the context of the time period when Madam C.J. lived, describing her as, “somebody who is dealing with being black in America in a time where we’re trying to figure out what it means, you know? What it means to be free, what it means to run our own businesses and determine our own destiny.”

“We really tried to infuse [those contexts] into the episodes, even though we only had four episodes.”

Another theme that Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, covers is colorism.

When asked about why it was important to include portrayals of colorism, Johnson responded, “So much of what is determined to be beautiful of black women has to do with colorism and comes out of that period. You know, it’s something that’s still prevalent today. I understand that for a lot of people, it’s something that they consider ‘dirty laundry.’ A lot of people don’t like to talk about it. But I feel like it’s something that’s important for us to address and discuss. And indeed, you can not talk about the concept of what is beautiful for black women without discussing colorism.”

Johnson enthusiastically listed off many black women that she would like to lift up, a la Madam C.J. She touted the talents of her director of photography Kira Kelly who she described as “incredible.” She praised her, saying “she’s such an artist, and it’s such a privilege to watch her on set.”

Johnson admitted, “We worked with so many incredible black women behind the scenes. We had an incredible writer’s assistant named Marissa Lee who has gone on to become a staff writer. She’s just an amazing writer. We had amazing executives over at Springhill, which is [Lebron James’s company].  A woman named Nicole Tossou who was an amazing advocate who worked so hard for us in terms of finding us historians, and music, and other talent to bring to the project.”

Johnson continued by lifting up, “DeMane Davis, who was one of our directors for episodes three and four. Another up and coming director Kasi Lemmons, who doesn’t need any lifting up from me cause she’s incredible! But I just have to give a shoutout to her.”

“And all of the women behind the scenes with us at Netflix. It’s an incredible executive team, [including] Tia Williams [and others].”

“I’ve been writing in television for more than twenty years, and this is the first project where I feel like I’ve been surrounded by a sisterhood. That has just been amazing. Everybody came to the project with such passion, and a determination to get it done and to get it done right.” 

“I feel like I’ve never been so supported as I have been on this. They’re amazing,” she sincerely stated.  

Johnson left us with her thoughts on what she is most proud of from her work on Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker. Unsurprisingly, the showrunner emphasizes community and others, rather than her own talents.

“It’s been wonderful to bring [Madam C.J. Walker’s story] to a wider audience and have people appreciate it, not just because it’s an incredibly specific story, but because they can identify with it. They can identify with her struggle and her wanting to do better, and more. And that’s been the most gratifying, seeing that people appreciate her story and that she’s getting her due, finally.”

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Make sure to watch the incredible biopic Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, streaming on Netflix now!

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