Wrangling 10 busy sisters in one room is already a herculean task — try planning a production schedule around them. That’s just what the team behind “Secrets & Sisterhood: The Sozahdahs” had to do.
The reality series, which premiered June 7 on Hulu, follows the ten siblings of the Sozahdah family: Shaista, Halimah, Khadija, Rabya, Shakur, Muzlefa, Jamila, Siddiqa, Nooreya and Hamida.
“The Sozahdahs have both a complicated past as well as an often complex present that makes for an abundance of story possibilities. These run the emotional spectrum from super heartfelt to hilarious to heated at times,” says Dane Joseph, Vice President of Unscripted Series for Hulu Originals. “Each of their interactions are rooted in love, but are genuinely unpredictable, which is what makes unscripted content so exciting to work on.”
The sisters have also stirred up some controversy online due to their portrayal of the Islamic faith on the show. There’s a clear divide between the so-called “elders” and their younger “wolf pack” siblings. “The sisters themselves have different belief systems and ways they relate to their culture, but at the end of the day, they still love each other despite their differences,” Joseph says. “It’s great that people recognize that and hopefully it’s a larger discourse that can travel beyond our screens and into our everyday lives.”
Executive producers Erika Bryant, San Heng and Nicole Sorrenti (who also serves as Chief Creative Officer of Half Yard Productions), spoke with Variety to break down the series’ most dramatic storylines and their hopes for a potential second season.
How do you feel about the inevitable Kardashian comparison that comes about when you tell a story about a group of sisters?
Nicole Sorrenti: That was the first problem in my head. They’re category killers. You look at the Kardashians: they’re amazing, they are billion-dollar businesses amongst themselves, everybody loves them and they just kill it. We don’t want to come off as carbon copies. We talked about this from the jump: “If you don’t let us in, and you aren’t authentic, and you don’t share the real story of what’s going on in this family, we are just going to get this comparison because you’re so beautiful.”
We spent a lot of time in development, even in the pre-production, trying to make sure we did little things to set them apart, make sure that we built each sister’s character very fully and that we were organically hitting on layers that you were not going to see in the Kardashians — not because they don’t have layers, but because we have these other organic layers here that are tied into culture, tradition, family and religion.
Erika Bryant: It’s a lifestyle piece, too. I think the Kardashians are larger than life. They’re crazy rich. I know that there’s a comparison, because there are beautiful women and they’re sisters. But these are everyday girls. They’re more relatable at this stage of the game than the Kardashians are at this point in their life.
San Heng: The Kardashians have a name: They were the Kardashians before they had a show. The Sozahdahs, nobody knows who they are. How do we make people fall in love with them? We spent a lot of time thinking about the heart of the show. It was really about their story. And that has always been key for us.
What was the process like to carve out 10 individual storylines and choose what to focus on?
Heng: They’re all actually very distinct. When you grew up with 10 sisters, I think just by nature, they had to find their own way in life to stand out. I remember Jamila telling me, “Sometimes my mom would refer to me as Number Seven.”
Sorrenti: There’s a thousand stories you can tell. But we understood really quickly that the stories that affect the family as a unit and the sisterhood are the stories we have to run with and focus on. Some things were obvious, like when Jamila confided in San that she was pregnant. She let us in. We knew that was going to be key, because that was going to affect everyone. I think that was the operating principle.
Bryant: For me in the field, it was building a trust with the sisters, so they can really look to you for guidance as you craft their story, because it is a collaborative effort. For instance, Shakur getting back with Josh was something that affected the sisterhood, and they all had something to say about it. They all had opinions and disagreements. There were so many other things that were left on the cutting room floor that we could not fit to the show. We probably had enough for 15 episodes, to be honest with you, because there was so much.
What did you know about Hamida’s sexuality before you began filming? Was she hesitant to share that side of herself?
Sorrenti: In pre-production with my dev team, I remember making a joke: “Well, there’s 10 of them. Odds are someone in that group is questioning some things.” I think we did not really know about Hamida until maybe doing the dev tape with Hulu, where she kind of let it out. She was really afraid, I think, to share that. At first, she just kind of blurted it out. I don’t know if she knew the reaction she was gonna get. That dinner scene where she tells people is completely real. She didn’t know she was going to say that.
Heng: I told her, “You don’t have to say anything.” But I think she fell on the sword because they were grilling Jamila so hard. She was trying to get everybody off of Jamila.
Bryant: We understood the stakes of this. This wasn’t your average story. This is a someone who considers herself a practicing Muslim, living her life as modern woman in L.A. and having a very traditional family. It was not easy for her to share that, just like it wasn’t easy for Jamila to share being pregnant.
Jamila’s pregnancy reveal was a huge bombshell for the family. When did she first tell you?
Heng: With Jamila, her pregnancy was not initially part of development. She called two days before the shoot, and said, “I have to tell you something.” Of course, my first question is, “Do you want to be a part of this? And do you want this to be a part of your story?” She thought about it and was like, “If I’m going to do this, I have to embrace everything.” As hard as it was for her, she was open to talking about it. She wasn’t ready to tell the family — she was ready to tell one sister. And she was ready to tell the other two sisters that she lived with. And that was where we said we could meet her. And that was as far as we got. Until, obviously, things developed further.
Bryant: Secrets kind of make you feel confined. And when you let them out, it kind of also gives you the sense of freedom. I think it was a cathartic experience for a lot of the sisters like Jamila and Hamida.
Sorrenti: The key here was that our team, these amazing women, understood the stakes of everything that we were talking about. It’s a family, but also bigger, because you’re talking about a culture and a religion and a tradition. So we had to really understand that when we were filming and try not to over-produce. It’s brave for them — really brave, when you think about it.
There’s been some controversy over the series, specifically from members of the Muslim American community who say the sisters do not represent their values. What’s your response to those criticisms?
Sorrenti: This is something that the three of us spent a lot of time considering. I think the core principle that we got behind was that no culture, religion, ethnicity or race is a monolith. A Saudi Muslim is different from an Afghan Muslim is different from an American Muslim. Eeven within this family, we had a spectrum of conservativism: burkinis and bikinis, if you will.
We’re not telling the entire Muslim experience here. We are not representing Islam. We’re representing this family of women that love each other, and that’s just part of their life. Along with Hulu, we had a cultural consultant who got to help us make sure we were representing certain things factually correctly.
Bryant: It was about asking questions. I was learning about this culture. I’m not a Muslim woman. I wanted to be as respectful as possible. As Nicole says, it’s showing the different types of Muslim. I think it’s liberating for the viewer to see, “Oh, you can be conservative or you can be liberal. You don’t have to be this one way. I can do that and God still loves me. Maybe have a little CBD, do a little micro-dosing, and maybe I’ll be okay.”
Heng: I’m happy people are talking about it. Ultimately, I feel like it’s been more positive than negative. And I’m grateful for that. It’s getting people questioning. I’ve seen the comments educating other people about the culture and the faith. I think that that’s great, because people don’t talk about it. If they had to see a reality show about it, to get them to talk about a different faith, I think that’s great. That’s the purpose of representation.
You may not agree, and that’s okay. You may not think they’re what a Muslim should be. But it’s a conversation starter. They are more than just their culture and their faith. They are refugees. That’s something we wanted to hit on, and we hope to hit on more if there are more seasons: the trauma of what they went through as refugees losing their father.
Speaking of a potential second season, what other stories would you hope to tell if given more time with the sisters? I’d love to see more of the elders.
Heng: We’ve been hearing a lot of that! Personally, just seeing them be sisters, because they are so fun. You cannot help but want to be one of their sisters and hang out with them because they are as crazy and as dramatic as they can get. Theycannot help but be themselves and it’s infectious.
Bryant: I would love to see more of their work life. These are working women! They’re not just sitting pretty and collecting checks. These women are out there hustling, and they work hard. And more of the sisterhood and more of mom! Gul is amazing, and she’s such a beautiful spirit. I think what we did explore in this show that other shows maybe don’t always touch upon is the kind of respect and reverence they have for their mom and the fear they have with their mom.
Sorrenti: I want to see them trying to do more stuff together like cooking. That’s where I think the elders come in. More of the elders, more cooking, more silly stuff. Also, they’ve had businesses together before, they’ll have businesses together again, and even hearing about the businesses that have not continued in the past and what maybe is coming into the future — no one should ever go into business with their family! We all know this! Maybe it’ll be a huge success, but we all want to see it. I’m dying to see what these girls do together and how they take what they’ve got right now and build.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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