The Game 3.0 is back for a second season on Paramount+ and Wendy Raquel Robinson’s Tasha Mack and Hosea Chanchez’s Malik are at it again. The show follows the lives of football players and key players in their lives who make things happen. It first premiered on the CW before it was canceled after three seasons. Thanks to a huge campaign from the fans of
From the very beginning, Malik was a standout football star, with Tasha, as his manager, who struggles to maintain the balance between personal and professional. With Tasha’s dating woes, sexism in the National Football League, and Malik’s immaturity and sometimes unexpected antics– it’s been a rollercoaster. But they always manage to come back to one another.
Robinson and Chanchez spoke to us about why The Game is still relevant after all these years and the complexities of their characters who, despite their ups and downs, fans want to win.
Robinson thinks the show has such longevity because it continues to reinvent itself.
“It’s the relevancy of it. We tackle issues that so many other shows don’t, and we really delve into them. And I think the characters are not only flawed, but I think they’re funny,” she told us. “And I also think that it’s from a very fresh perspective. And even though we explore the football world, we get really deep into the lives of these people, and I think it’s connected with so many different generations. And now I have kids that have grown up watching the show and have identified not only with Tasha, but now they identify with all of the other young ones that are coming in and all of that. So I think we really speak to the community, and it’s that common unity that just keeps the audience coming back. That’s what I’ve noticed.”
Fans of the show have witnessed the personal struggles of football star Malik. And at times, they’ve grown frustrated with his lack of maturity. But this season, Chances says he is on a better path.
“I can happily report that this season, season two, Malik is on track for making us both happy as it pertains to the league and his growth,” he gushed. “I got this role when I was 24, 25 years old. It’s the role of a lifetime because it’s something that I never imagined I’d be able to grow into. And so the reason they say actors shouldn’t judge the character, but the reason I judge Malik was because I’ve been playing him for so long. So in playing it for so long, I’ve grown leaps and bounds from being a 25-year-old young man to a 42-year-old. And so it was my heart’s desire to see the same transitioning from my life for Malik because I felt like he needed a full and well-rounded life because we saw so much with so many other characters over the seasons. He was the one person that, as a fan of the show, I could watch it and say, ‘I want something better for him.’ So I feel like we’re inching toward him having a more fulfilled life in this season and hopefully in seasons to come. So we’re on track.
New episodes drop weekly on Paramount+. Watch the full interview below.
