The Neighborhood’s Marcel Spears Shares True Story That Inspired Season 6 Pregnancy

Posted on July 21, 2024 by angelo

Below, Spears talks to TVLine about entering real-life parenthood and what’s in store for Marty and Courtney as they prepare to welcome their first child into the world.

TV line | Take me back to the night of Beyoncé’s show. I saw the Instagram post, but I can only imagine the excitement, the nerves, the adrenaline…
It was really… it was crazy. This pregnancy was super unexpected. When I found out Sarah was pregnant, I was starting a show on Broadway (in New York) called Fat ham. So the whole pregnancy I was in New York and we were trying to figure out how we were going to co-parent our kids, because neither of us had planned on having a child at that point. Now this baby comes along and all of a sudden I go from being a young single guy to being a father (for the first time). Obviously I’m old enough to be a father, but I didn’t envision it happening in the near future. It was a huge learning curve.

In September, this baby is due. At this point, I had read every parenting book I could get my hands on. I was completely immersed in everything related to fathers, babies, childbirth… My girlfriend is a black woman, so I’m also very cautious because black women have a higher mortality rate during pregnancy. This is my first child, I’m panicked, I’m very meticulous about everything… And Beyoncé is coming to town.

Beyoncé is Beyoncé, she’s one of the biggest stars of our time, and it would be offensive for us not to see her in person. We go to the doctor, we talk to the doctors, and they’re like, “You can go to the concert. It’s really good to get Sarah moving.” We’re scheduled for our C-section, we’re a week away from giving birth, everything’s going great. We’re going to this concert to have fun, kind of like a last hurrah before we lock ourselves away and get ready for this baby, and while we’re at the concert, Sarah starts going into labor.

We thought it was Braxton Hicks contractions because she had had them before. It’s normal at this point in pregnancy. So we know what’s going on, we’re trying to keep her comfortable, give her water… I have videos of different contractions where she had to sit up, we had to put her on her side… all that stuff. We finished the show because, again, we don’t know she’s in labor, and we’re not going to miss Beyoncé and (special guest Kendrick) Lamar! Are you kidding me? It’s Beyoncé’s birthday concert! We’re going to finish the show!

As we leave the stadium, there’s a big, long ramp that we have to go up to get out of the stadium. We walk, walk, walk… I think all that walking also helped Nola get to where she wanted to be. We go home and (Sarah) feels a lot of pressure. She’s Trinidadian-Canadian, Caribbean, and in her mind, tea and ginger ale solves everything. So we go home, we go inside and she says, “I’m going to get some tea…” and she has a huge contraction.

We turn around, jump in the car, fly to the hospital, panicked. I drive as carefully as I can. And As fast as we can. We get to the hospital, we check her out, and the doctor says, “Yes, this baby is coming. I’m so glad you’re here.” And then she works all night. It slows down a little bit. Nola takes her time. And then the next day, late morning, early afternoon, Nola is born. So, we didn’t have a baby. on Beyoncé’s birthday — which, honestly, I think would have been too much pressure for that kid.

TV line | Unlike Marcel and Sarah, Marty and Courtney are not romantics in the traditional sense. How is Marty, who grew up in a traditional Family, you have to think about it now that a baby is on the way?
Just like me, Marty comes from a traditional family, and his plan was to have a traditional family: first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby. Since Marty wants a family (his own), he immediately goes into family mode… but his partner (in this movie) is not traditional. She’s not ready to jump into marriage if there’s no love, and they haven’t explored that… so he and Courtney make a pact to be really good parents and figure out the rest as they go.

The neighborhood: What’s in store for season 6

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