Nia Long on Working With Eddie Murphy in ‘You People,’ Clarifies “Blackfamous” Comments

Nia Long stopped by The Daily Show, guest-hosted by Wanda Sykes, on Wednesday, to talk about her two current projects You People and Missing.

The actress stars opposite Eddie Murphy in Netflix’s You People, which follows a new couple and their drastically different families, “who find themselves examining modern love and family dynamics amidst clashing cultures, societal expectations and generational differences,” according to the streamer.

“He was wonderful,” Long said of working alongside Murphy. “And I was so excited to finally be old enough to play his wife because, for years, it was like, ‘Oh, no, you’re too young.’ You know? And now, the men always get the younger women, so here we are.”

She also opened up about her movie, Missing, which follows June (Storm Reid) as she searches for her mom (Long), who disappeared while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend.

“What’s great about the film is everything is shot by some sort of technical device,” she explained. “It’s either an iPhone, a Ring cam, a secret phone that’s like planted on set somewhere, so every rule that I’ve learned about film and television, I had to throw out the window because there were no overs. There were no cuts. It was just shoot, and don’t ask questions ’cause if you ask questions, you will be more confused. So I just had to trust the process.”

Long recently made headlines for an interview with Buzzfeed in which she said terms like “Black movies” and “Blackfamous” “only hold us back.” Toward the end of the segment, Sykes asked the You People actress, “You wanna clear that shit up?”

“What I mean by that is, if we continue to practice this idea of separatism, we continue to divide,” Long explained. “And I will always and forever hold my fist up because I understand the experience, but I also believe that the more we understand about one another, and the more accepting we are of one another, this thing called art should be representative of all of us.”