Matthew Law’s Fight For Black Mental Health

A conversation with Matthew Law ’15

Matthew Law ’15 is an actor, director, and producer. He currently stars in a lead role as Det. Isaiah Stiles in the new Netflix series “Nemesis,” and he’s a major cast member in the ABC series “Abbott Elementary.” Several years ago, Law created “TRUE: An Immersive Experience,” a multimedia, interactive production about mental health issues in the Black community. Here he talks about that issue, and his new show. Law earned a bachelor’s degree from the LMU School of Film and Television. He was interviewed by Editor Joseph Wakelee-Lynch.

You’ve said that a phone call in the middle of the night from a friend in crisis led you to develop TRUE. Why that response, and not a mental health foundation or service agency?

My purpose in life is that of a storyteller. This is what I’m on Earth to do. I thought that if I could have a positive, engendering active impact, it would be through story. TRUE’s purpose is to open hearts through this exploration of universal themes that all of our populations are suffering, though Black people are overrepresented. With TRUE, my hope is that at the end we actually connect communities with organizations, professional clinicians, advocates for mental health — a comprehensive network. I think there is a quilted fabric and network of what it means for us to take care of each other. 

Mental health struggles are still stigmatized. Families deal with it, hopefully, but it’s often kept quiet, under wraps. TRUE seems based on the idea that a community is important, maybe crucial, in dealing with mental health struggles. What led you to see this in a community context?

We’re not insulated as families from the effects of our community, and vice versa. Community is just another word for family: You fight, you bicker, you have problems. But 90% of life we share: We share issues, troubles, love. Yes, Black adults experience mental health crises at nearly twice the rate of white adults. Yes, there are sociological, economic, and political implications in the gap in services and the fact of overrepresentations which have to do with systems of white supremacy and racism. However, these are downstream effects. I still believe in an upstream, hopeful solution that I hope to make a contribution to.

Mental health is often a world dominated by policies, programs, governments, scientific research. Your avenue into the mental health issue starts with art. Why is that?

The storytelling, the art, is one part of the whole. It’s how we learn about right and wrong and how we care for one another. I think that all great stories are Trojan horses. To be preached at or have a didactic nature or pound the pulpit is not the purpose. My small purpose was to invite people on a journey, one that we are too afraid of or because we see there’s a gap in care between us and help. 

As we speak, you can’t reveal much about “Nemesis,” the new Netflix series. But, we do know that “Nemesis” is set and filmed in L.A., where you now live. Although you’re not the writer of the show, does your prominent role as lead make you feel an extra sense of responsibility about how L.A. residents are portrayed?

Yes is the answer. I didn’t write or create “Nemesis,” but I’m very proud that we made this in Los Angeles with Los Angeles crews. And we shot it on location, not in soundstages: We’re in downtown, Griffith Park, East L.A., in the hood, in the hills. You have to aim for that. At the beginning when we read the pilot, Courtney Kemp, the show’s co-creator, said “I know that a lot of us here are from L.A. or have roots in L.A. So, if you have better ideas about how we can represent L.A., tell me.” So, I feel proud of the intentionality and the actuality of what we’ve ended up with. It’s a beautiful representation. As someone who has been here for 14 years, and also my grandpa came here from Mobile, Alabama, during the Great Migration, I love this city. I love that we did everything we could to give love to it, because it loved us.