This is something that Ive always wanted to do. Ive always been a storyteller ever since I was a kid. I think that comes from my grandmother, who is from Monroe, Louisiana, and is one of the greatest orators I know. Being a kid from Compton in early 2000s, it wasnt the safest place for little boys to be playing. I spent a lot of time in front of the TV and I was just there, watching Close Encounters, Jaws, Alien and a lot of other sci-fi films. Being immersed in this culture of cinema and just being like, Oh shit, this shits dope. Los Angeles and Hollywood have always been there, but growing up, it never felt like a place for me.

It really didnt seem like an attainable dream until high school when I met my mentor, whos now my manager, Trevor Engelson. He ran my film club at Verbum Dei High School. They had this weekly program, and he brought in industry professionals to talk to us. It was really there where I was like, Oh, shit. You can make a career outta this? Thats crazy. Then I fell in love with it. It became an obsession. I remember printing out the AFIs top 100 films list, and I watched all of them and I decided I had to become the greatest.

After I graduated high school, I had the opportunity to intern at J.J. Abrams production company, Bad Robot. During my first summer, they were doing re-shoots for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Im a big Star Wars kid, and I got a chance to work on set. Im seeing John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Lupita Nyongo working and its my first time on a film set.

But theres this one night in particular thatll stay with me forever. It was like one of these late nights, and this is when I learned that buses stop running at a certain time in LA. So Im stressing, worrying about how Im gonna get home cause I dont have a car. The crew is tired and groggy, and J.J. halts production and hes like, Everybody, lets go to the roof. And we like, What the fuck are we going up to the roof for? There was a meteor shower happening. We all laid here and just watched the stars with each other for a second. So Im sitting here laying next to J.J. Abrams and Harrison Ford and John Boyega and watching shooting stars; thats like some shit you cant make up in LA. At that moment I was like, Oh, this is what Im supposed to be doing. So ever since then Ive been chasing that high.

I went to college at St. Johns in Minnesota, and I was very far removed from Hollywood, but my mentor from high school looked out for me the whole time. I just had a privilege that other people didnt have. Hes like my uncle, basically, who worked in the industry. By the time I graduated, he was like, Kevin and Dan Hageman are looking for an assistant. Would you like to interview for it? And I was like, Yeah, I want to. So I kind of had an in.

My first gig was as a staff writer on Star Trek: Prodigy. At first, I was a showrunners assistant on that, and I did that for a season. The bosses, Kevin and Dan, read a script of mine. They were so eager to read my work because theyre very big on promoting from within the company or within the production. I sent them something and they were like, Oh, this is dope. Keith, this is so good that we think that youre ready for the next level. Through that, I became the youngest staff writer in Star Trek history, which is one of my dopest accomplishments so far.