Why Did Louis C.K. Choose to Make His Ex-Wife African-American on His Show?

According to Louie C.K., “When I was drawing from my own life, I didn’t want to have the story be about an ex-husband and ex-wife—that relationship wasn’t what I wanted to write about. I arrived at a version of it for this character that I thought was good, this woman who’s well put-together and an added pressure to his life. And the actress (Susan Kelechi Watson) was so good. A lot of the stuff that we do on the show, I’m not sure I’m going to do it until I see who’s playing it. It’s part of having the freedom without a network where you have to run all the scripts and casting by people. I wrote the script with her in it and I had the casting people go look for someone, and I told them open it way up and just bring anybody. And I really liked what this woman did, so I decided to stick with the character.”