From overachiever to Hollywood pioneer, meet the Columbia native behind ‘The Blackening’

From the first time she sat down in her ninth grade English class, Tracy Oliver made an impression on Doris Honoré.

Oliver was one of five Black students in her gifted and talented English class at Columbia’s Spring Valley High School. Honoré remembers Oliver’s strong writing, dedication and charm, but she most often repeats one phrase about Oliver.

“This is a young lady on the move,” Honoré said.

At 14 and 15, when other students were settling into activities they’d started years ago, Oliver said she wasn’t afraid to try something new, whether it be softball, student government or cheerleading.

“There’s this idea that if you don’t learn something, when you’re younger, then you’ve missed your window,” Oliver said. “I just don’t feel like that.”

As a kid, she had dreams of taking on a career that was “glamorous or outside the box,” but she never imagined herself where she is now, a screenwriter writing widely popular movies and TV shows.

Her TV show “Harlem” has been running since 2021, and her work on the movie “Girls Trip” made her the first Black woman to write a film that grossed over $100 million. She wrote “Barbershop 3” and “Little.” And her newest movie, “The Blackening,” a comedy horror movie that is a play on the trope of the Black character being killed first in horror movies, came out this month.

“I can’t imagine younger Tracy even wrapping her mind around this,” Oliver said.

Growing up, Oliver often watched local productions with her family and participated in music, dance and theater, which she said instilled a lasting interest in the arts. Now, she loves the opportunity to sit in a theater surrounded by people watching something she wrote.

Oliver said she always had an eagerness to stay busy and appreciates that her job gives her the chance to continue to learn and master new things, something she continued to do after leaving Columbia.

After graduating from Spring Valley High School in 2003, Oliver attended Stanford, where she originally wanted to pursue musical theater after her experience with local theater in Columbia.

“I remember I complained to my mom about just never getting the role that I wanted,” Oliver said. “She said, ‘Well, you’re in school. So why don’t you learn how to write and then write stuff for yourself?’ And then I was like, ‘Huh, I guess I could.’”

Oliver has since taken multiple opportunities to try new jobs in the industry and has worked as a writer, director and producer.

She wrote and produced “The Blackening” and saw it as another opportunity to take on a new challenge with the movie’s limited budget and unique genre. While she had written comedies before, Oliver had never worked on a horror film.

“We kind of had to figure out the right balance between horror and comedy, so that was a learning experience in itself because I couldn’t point to one movie that was exactly that,” Oliver said. “I would say that there was a lot of learning.”

The movie is now playing in theaters across the country and is currently rated 87% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the film’s clever handling of horror cliches.

But before she made it in Hollywood, Oliver’s mother, Gwendolyn Oliver, said Tracy was an overachieving student, doing everything from sports to theater to being Spring Valley’s first Black female student body president.

“You didn’t have to raise Tracy, you just had to support her and her endeavors,” Gwendolyn Oliver said. “She always had a strong mind about everything, and she had decided very early on that she was gonna be successful.”

According to Honoré, part of what set Tracy Oliver apart as a writer early on was her commitment to improving her skills and being the best she could be.

“I think her writing was always personal, and not only that, she really went deep,” Honoré said. “You know when you give an assignment, most students do it so they can hurry up, get done with it, turn it in, that’s that. Not her.”

Oliver’s success has helped empower Spring Valley students and people in the Columbia community, Honoré said.

“I was listening to an interview from a reporter from Atlanta, and she said to (Oliver), ‘How did a young lady all the way from South Carolina get to Stanford and Hollywood?’” Honoré said. “Like that was an impossible thing for someone that lives in South Carolina.”

South Carolinians are often undermined and underestimated, according to Honoré.

“It’s just the fact that people tend to devalue the aggressiveness, the optimistic attitude that she has,” Honoré said. “Just young ladies in general, Black or white. Just the potential she has for greatness.”

As a kid, Oliver said she didn’t realize being a screenwriter was an option. She hopes to see more students from Columbia interested in writing and plans to continue actively changing what it means to be “mainstream” in the industry.

“I always felt like an outsider when I was in theater, and I was kind of hoping that people would give me opportunities or ... imagine a world in which I could play a certain part,” Oliver said. “So now I’m like, ‘Well, if I have the power and position to be able to write certain roles that can just expand opportunities, then I want to be able to do that.’”

Oliver often writes about experiences that are relatable to the general public and features characters who are “normal people.” She credits these abilities to her experience growing up in Columbia.

“I think that growing up in the South was a huge asset for me. I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Oliver said. “It’s hilarious when people would be like, ‘Wow, your writing feels just so real and so grounded’ and I’m like, ‘Sure,’ but also because that’s how I grew up. That’s who I am. Yeah, I didn’t know what it meant to have a private plane and all that stuff.”

She still sometimes pictures her family and friends back home as a litmus test for how her work might be received.

“I wouldn’t be able to write something like ‘Girls Trip’ if I just didn’t know normal Black women, like my mom and my friends,” Oliver said. “I think that if I write something that, like, my mom’s church group will enjoy, then I can bank on most of the the Midwest and the South.”

Gwendolyn Oliver and Honoré both plan to watch Tracy Oliver’s newest movie and are looking forward to what she does next.

As for Tracy Oliver, she is still on the move.

“I never liked to just do one thing, and I’m always kind of unpredictable,” Oliver said. “So I think there’s a world in which, you know, maybe I do take a break from writing and dabble back in acting or directing and just try something different.”

“The Blackening” is playing now in theaters across Columbia.

This story was originally published June 26, 2023 at 5:30 AM.

Sydney Dunlap

The State

Sydney Dunlap is a reporter at The State covering general news. She attends the University of South Carolina, where she is the editor-in-chief of the university’s student newspaper, The Daily Gamecock. Her writing and photography have won awards on both the local and national levels.