- Yeah, let's talk about it!

- 1997.

- Oh, God.

- Good Burger.

- Good year.

- "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the good burger."

- "Can I take your order?"

- Do people like yell that

at you all the time? - All the time.

So, I go to gaming conventions,

and I go to like Comic-Cons and all the stuff like that,

because I'm a gamer, you know what I mean,

and I'm a geek.

So, I mean like, I'm gonna go to Comic-Con anyway.

But, because I do all that,

my newest thing is I'm cosplaying, right, so--

- Ooo!

So, let me tell you,

I just went to my first Comic-Con in a few years.

The first day I went as me,

and I sat at my booth and did what I had to do,

sign my autographs, whatever.

The next day,

I put on my Monique outfit,

from Good Burger, and I cosplayed

as Monique, - Wow!

- And I walked through the crowd and everybody's like,

"Oh my God, that's so good!

"That's so good, spot on!"

- "You look just like her!"

- I know, right, it's crazy; I work really hard.

So, I thought it was badass that I could cosplay as myself,

so I do. - That is fantastic.

I have a new goal in life.

- Yes!

- I wanna be able to cosplay Tracy Clayton.

- Yes! Yes.

- I'm gonna make it work, somehow.

- Make it happen.

- How did this role come about for you,

like how did you hear about it?

- Literally that one was just a regular audition.

It was, my agents were like, "Oh, there's this role.",

and initially when they had me audition,

for some reason it was like a cross in communication,

and my manager had told me something like it was

for like, a Wayans brothers skit or something,

and I was like--

- Well, that's very different.

- Who you tellin'.

So, so I'm like, oh, it's like, a Wayans brother movie,

so this gonna be off the chain!

Right?

So I had one way of playing it in my head,

you know, the script, and then I got there

and it was like "Nickelodeon",

and I said, I might have to revamp all that,

'cause that's not gonna, that's not gonna sit well here.

So, I made some adjustments,

and then booked the role, so.

- Had you...

I don't know what I would have done, I would have went--

- Dude.

Oh my god, no, it was a shock.

I was like, oh yeah I got thi-

Oo, wait a minute.

- A plot twist.

- Okay, put the titty up.

Put 'em up.

- Even though it's just a titty.

- It's just a titty.

- Still gotta put it away.

- Let's put it away.

- Right, right.

Was there a lot of like, breaks in the scene

for laughter and stuff? - We had so much fun.

That was literally the most fun I ever had

on any project, ever,

and like all we did... - Really?

- We were just a bunch of crazy kids,

havin' a good time,

makin' a movie about a burger.

- About a place that loves burgers,

- Yeah.

- That makes burgers.

- Have your kids seen it?

- Oh my God, yeah.

- Do they love it?

- So I have a granddaughter, right,

who's five today.

- Aww, happy birthday baby!

- It's the weirdest thing to even say that.

I don't even know how to fix my mouth to say those words.

She's five today.

She watches that movie constantly.

- Really?

- Constant-, like she took her tablet to the zoo today,

so that she can watch it while she's at the zoo.

- I said it's overkill, baby girl, it's overkill,

and she'd just look at me and say the line,

and I'm like okay, well.

- Did they also see "Moesha"?

- My kids have watched everything.

They watch my stuff; I don't even watch my stuff.

They watch my stuff.

My mom and my kids watch everything.

I get weird sometime

watching my own work.

- Yeah, I feel like--

- It's too critical.

- So like, as you're watching yourself,

you're like ah I should've done this,

I shouldn't have done that.

- Yeah, or I'll be like, damn, she sucks!

(both laugh)

But I definitely will see things, where I'm like,

oh, I could've done, you know, switched that up,

why'd they go with that take, so I don't, I don't watch it.

- Do your kids or anyone in your family ever call you Niecy?

- They will never, no.

- Whoop!

All right.

- No sir, mm mm.

- Well, since we brought "Moesha" up--

- Yes!

- We must discuss it, because

"Moesha", I think is one of the like,

most impactful Black sitcoms--

- Yes, yes.

- Because, like, it addressed and spoke to

a group of people that people weren't really catering to

like young Black girls, you know?

- I'm so proud of that show.

- Everything we did was so groundbreaking,

and I didn't realize it until I became an adult,

you know what I mean,

'cause when we were doing it it just felt like--

- Makin' a show

- This is what we're doin', makin' a show.

To hear, like, the younger kids talk about it,

I'm like,

wow, yeah we did talk about that.

Oo, we did touch on that.

- Y'all were tacklin' issues!

- The Mexican and the Black, racial thing,

we did touch on that!

Oh my god, like!

So it was crazy, 'cause we really touched on things

that were happening in our neighborhoods,

you know what I mean,

and nobody else was doing that,

so yeah it was pretty amazing.

- Nobody else was doin' that.

I heard that you didn't have to audition for it?

Is that true? - I did not.

So--

- What a flex, first of all.

You know, go ahead flex, you know, do it!

- So no, I had done this other show called "South Central".

- I loved "South Central"!

- "South Central" was so good.

- It was so good!

- Fun fact,

did you know that was J. Lo's very first acting role?

- I did not.

Oh my gosh!

- So yeah, we did the show,

and the same producers from that show

are the ones that worked on "Moesha",

so that's why Lamont was there too.

And so, yeah, like, I was workin' on this other show

called "My So-Called Life",

and I just, I had like one more day and I was gonna wrap,

and I got a call from the producers,

and they were like, "Hey Shar, so listen.

"We're in production on this show,

"we shot a couple days,

"but the actress that we have

"isn't really workin' out,

"so we were wondering if you could come in

"and jump into this.

"We've only got like two days left.

"Can you, can you handle it?"

I was like, psh, done with this today,

sure I'll be there tomorrow.

- I'll swing by and save your little show!

- You know what I mean.

I'll save it. - I can do that.

(both laughing)

- I'm getting that on a t-shirt.

That's amazing. - Yes! It'll be great.

- But yeah, so then I just, I showed up,

and luckily just fit right in.

- Yeah, the rest is history.

- Yeah!

- You and Brandy had such amazing best friend chemistry--

- Bran is my girl, man!

Like that's--

- Had you met her before?

- Yeah; I sing, occasionally,

and Bran was always singing,

so we would cross paths a lot in that world.

We were both really good friends with Immature--

- Immature!

- We would always do stuff together as singers,

and blah blah blah blah blah,

so yeah, I'd known her before that,

but I didn't get to know her

until we did the show. - Until the show, yeah.

How did you go about

developing the character of Niecy,

like how much of Niecy was Shar--

- A lot, a lot.

I just, you know I kinda just,

I wanted her to be real.

I wanted her to be

that one chick that nobody ever gets to see.

You know what I mean?

Like, we had Brandy who was the straight,

you know, super educated,

you know, I'm gonna be the good girl.

Then, we had Countess doing the Kim character

which was like the off-the-cuff, crazy,

be gettin' in all the mischief friend.

I was like, well what about that chick

that holds them together?

- Right!

What about the glue?

- I wanna be the glue,

so I became the glue.

Plus, I'm a Virgo, so I'm like natural glue.

- Oh, is that what that means.

- So, I just kind of, just look it up--

- A little birdy told me is that

- Niecy was just supposed to be there for the first season?

- Honey, she was just supposed to be there

for the first episode.

Her name wasn't even Niecy.

Her name was Gail.

- Wow!

- I'm happy they changed that,

'cause I didn't feel like a Gail.

- Gail is like a, it's definitely a--

- It's not a Niecy, ya know.

- [Both] It's not a Niecy.

- So, wow, not even for the first season,

but just for the first show. - First episode.

Just for the pilot,

that's what it was supposed to be,

and then...

- Walk me through this.

- They were just like,

every week, there was a new script on my front door.

It was weird.

- I don't know if you would've been able

to tell me anything after that.

- Oh, no no no.

My mom would have made sure.

She was like don't, hm?

- You still better get your dishes done.

- Yeah my mom didn't...

Wait, have you heard a story about that?

- No, why, you got one?

- Oh my god!

- Tell me!

- So, I had to have been like six or seven, right,

and I remember my mom and I had been filming all day, okay.