Star of ‘Black-ish’ relies on own life for show fodder

Get Anthony Anderson going, and the voluble star of “Blackish” will keep on going.

The actor, also a coexecutive producer on the ABC series, earned a third consecutive Emmy nomination for his work as patriarch Dre Johnson.

Anderson, 47, talked recently about how “Black-ish” — whose fourth season will premiere Oct. 3 — finds a balance between serious, topical issues and laugh-out-loud-funny family moments.

I wanted to talk first about Dre’s evolution because I’m proud of Dre.

Has there been? Please share with me.

He is starting to think of others before he thinks of himself, sometimes.

Oh, well, I have you fooled. Dre has you fooled.

For me, the real pivotal thing was when Zoey (Yara Shahidi) went to look at schools, and you and Bow were just like, “Oh, God, our baby is going away.” But, eventually, you came to your senses, which Dre often does, but I feel like he comes to his senses sooner and with more enlightenment this season.

With that particular episode, he had to ... be sensible and sensitive to, you know, his baby, his firstborn, his best friend leaving the nest, and him not wanting her to fly far away from that nest.

I love that, over the course of the show, you and series creator Kenya Barris have drawn from your real lives. Do you have to run those actual experiences past your family before you write them into the show?

No, I don’t. And the reason I don’t ... is because my children, their private school is paid for because of our show.

So they don’t get to complain?

They don’t get to complain at all. I mean, they live a life of privilege because of “Black-ish.” But there was one thing that I had to go out and explain and apologize for my son, and it was the sextalk episode where Bow walks in on Junior pleasuring himself. And, you know, since the show is based on my family and Kenya’s family, when my son went to school, he was ridiculed a bit, poked fun at a bit because of that. They’re like, “Oh, man, your mom caught you?” Well, then I had to go on and confess that it wasn’t actually my son who was caught; it was me who was caught at my son’s age. And so I just put it on him on the show.

Like a good father would.

My mom walked in on me and I thought that would be an interesting story to tell from the kid’s perspective, so I put it on Andre Jr.

You guys have been able to walk a line between things that are absurd and wacky and even fantasy-type sequences with some really grave stuff, which, of course, Norman Lear was doing back in the 1970s. Is that something that has to be tinkered with, or does it come as naturally as the wackier elements?

It comes natural. We don’t have to tinker with much. No matter how wacky or how absurd we get with some of these stories and some of these fantasies, it’s all grounded by the actors we have, you know — especially in Laurence Fishburne and Jenifer Lewis. And, you know, Kenya is a huge fan, as myself, of Norman Lear. Those are the shows that we grew up watching — “All in the Family,” “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons” — they were poignant and had a point of view and had something to say, whether you agreed with it or not.