Most remakes of beloved TV shows invite you to pick them apart and tear them to shreds. But Peacock’s Bel-Air—Morgan Cooper’s modern, dramatic take on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—has seen a different fate, establishing a loyal audience and becoming one of the funniest trending topics on Twitter.
In particular, viewers can’t stop talking about Carlton 2.0, played by 23-year-old actor and singer Olly Sholotan. Anyone who watched the original ’90s NBC sitcom remembers Alfonso Ribeiro’s hysterical take on the snobbish yet delightfully dweeby Banks son and, of course, his iconic dance moves. Bel-Air, however, gives Carlton a darker, more antagonistic edge. While the original Carlton was more of a funny foil to his carefree cousin Will (played on the O.G. show by Will Smith and now by Jabari Banks), on the reboot, he exists as more of a threat to Will’s new privileged livelihood and, at one point, his life.
A main conflict on Bel-Air is the tension between the two cousins and the politics they represent within the Black community. Likewise, Carlton’s efforts to fit in with his white, bro-y classmates at his bougie private school have not been well received by viewers. In one episode, he defends his white lacrosse teammates rapping along to the N-word to Will, who’s appropriately shocked. In a later episode, one of those teammates ends up calling the police on Carlton after they get into a fight at a party.
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Sholotan, who admits he engages with the show’s online discourse, takes all the negative reactions to Carlton in stride, joking that the character has always been a “menace” and that he wanted to make Carlton seem more “villainous.” Still, he says reading the new version of the character that Cooper and the show’s producers had written initially gave him pause.
“There was the initial being taken aback,” Sholotan tells The Daily Beast. “Like, what are they doing with this character? But the more you think about what that character is and his background and what he represents in this show, it just kind of made sense to me.”
A graduate of UCLA’s theater and film school, Sholotan moved to the U.S. from Nigeria with his family when he was 10 years old. As an immigrant and a child of immigrants, he identifies with the notions of Black exceptionalism and respectability that Carlton faces on the show.
“There was always this understanding that, ‘OK, I need to be the manifestation of [my parents’] wildest dreams. I need to be more incredible than whatever incredible is,’” he says. “And you know, there’s a lot of pressure I put on myself as a younger kid to be great really quickly. And I think it was only when I learned to let go of that expectation that I was able to really excel and able to soar.”
Watching Carlton navigate his surroundings, you can’t help but feel like the standards of respectability he lives by are partially self-imposed. It’s common for a young, Black person with a limited understanding of what it means to be Black in America—and of all the complexities we’re allowed to have—police themselves and others in such a way.
“I think that that feeling is something that every single Black person has experienced,” Sholotan notes. “Every Black person with aspiration has experienced this idea of someone in your life telling you that you act white or you’re trying to be white.
“Carlton speaks to sort of the fragility of Blackness in a way,” he continues. “You know, is Blackness something that we perform, or is it something that is inherent to us just because of the way we look? I think it’s obviously the latter.”
As much as Carlton’s presence can be grating, he’s given equal opportunities for sympathy. In an early episode, we see him snort white powder that he claims is Xanax but is later alluded to being something unprescribed, and we later find out that he abuses drugs to abate his anxiety. It’s a subject that’s often framed as taboo or rendered nonexistent among older generations within the Black community but has increasingly become more accepted as a reality for Black people.
“From the get-go, I just loved it,” Sholotan says about that particular subplot. “I just think mental health in the Black community is not something that’s discussed a lot. And it’s something that all of us deal with, right? I was just like, this is the perfect conduit because, again, what other way to show the issues of mental health in this kid who is grappling with the idea of Black exceptionalism?”
On top of that, Carlton is dealing with the usual, over-the-top emotions that come with being a hormonal teenage boy, particularly as he watches his cousin cozy up to his ex Lisa Wilkes (Simone Joy). But even Sholotan says he’s not necessarily rooting for Carlton in this love triangle.
“As Olly, the mature, smart person, I don’t think that that coupling is necessarily good for either of them” he says. “I think it was an unfair relationship to Lisa. She had to deal with a lot of calls and emotions. And also, in a way, I think Carlton used that relationship as a crutch rather than sort of dealing with his own stuff. So I think they need to take a break. Maybe they can revisit it later. You never know.”
The fact that Carlton, at the end of the day, is just a kid figuring things out gives his character a built-in level of empathy, despite how obnoxious he can be. Like any decent character arc, Sholotan hints that viewers can look forward to seeing the Banks son growing and developing a better understanding of who he is as the series continues.
“I think that Carlton has a road ahead of him of a lot of growth,” Sholotan teases. “You know, there are definitely some things that he’s learning already. There are definitely some things that he has some time to still learn. So that’s all I'll say.”
