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Simone Jackson and her best friend Daisy make for an amusing odd-couple onDaisy Jones & the Six.
Simone is the rock to Daisys runaway a big sister the neglected Daisys needed all her life.
When Daisy doubts herself, its Simone who forces the novice singer onto the stage.
It takes more than sisterly affection not to begrudge her Simones a saint.
Daisy wants Simone to be there as she races down the aisle with a man shes just met.
To Be, its a threshold moment for Simone.
Simone is such a slight character in the book.
They gave me 200-plus pages of very intellectually meaty disco research to read.
When I first started getting the scripts, I wrote a paper of my observations.
I sent it to Will and he said, Awesome, lets call a writers meeting.
The queerness was great because it did justice to how impactful disco music was for the LGBTQ+IA movement.
It gave Simone more profundity.
Think of women like Nina Simone, who didnt get accepted into the mainstream music scene until much later.
There was a lot of backlash around her.
Simone from the beginning had this ambition of breaking into the mainstream.
By the time we get to that episode, Simone is dominating the New York disco scene.
I needed something to fuel my inner world and my own imagination.
But I discovered so much 70s music.
I was healed a lot by Minnie Ripertons Reasons.
I believe I auditioned with Chaka Khans Aint Nobody.
In fact, I probably like it more than the series version.
It sounds a lot like me.
How did filming those scenes affect you?It was hard.
Im telling a story of a musician navigating the industry, and I am one myself.
I imagined my father trying to be a pioneer trying to bring reggae music to the mainstream.
The hardest part was that Simone had to do a lot of silencing herself.
That was the strategy then.
In my life, Im at a point where I am ready to speak consciously.
Have you experienced misogyny in the music industry?Yes.
I was doing things in the studio and not getting credited for them, but I didnt know that.
I was never credited for it, and hes credited for it.
Years later, shes still having to tell that story.
I grew up onstage.
I was touring from 7 to 11.
It was my first paid job.
I think we have a lot more resources now as women, as Black bodies navigating the world.
Were in a different space psychologically.
It was basically all women and extremely collaborative.
Everything is so cryptic because the fans are so crazy about the stories.
Daisy Jones landed somewhere in the middle of those extremes?Definitely.
It felt like we were a little company.
We got to rehearse in every single space, go through things and do it over and over.
Its something you dont really get on TV.
We got the chance to try how different words felt in our mouths.
The last thing that Simone tells Daisy, she calls her a selfish bitch.
In rehearsals, we went from selfish bitch to selfish cunt to monster and back to selfish bitch.
Im glad we stayed with selfish bitch.
