Cedric the Entertainer, meet Tichina Arnold the Director. In her seventh season as Tina Butler on CBS sitcom The Neighborhood, the acclaimed actress has stepped behind the camera to helm her first multi-cam episode ever. The installment, about squandering inheritance money in Las Vegas, aired in February.

Although she had only directed one short film — in 2022, as part of BET Her Presents: The Waiting Room — she was confident. "I thought I would have a knack for it because I've been in this industry so long," she says, "and I'm kind of bossy, and I know what I want."

Arnold has been developing that knack since she started acting professionally in her teens, in a 1983 TV movie called The Brass Ring. Early fans remember her from the 1986 movie musical Little Shop of Horrors (she sang up a storm as Crystal in the girl-group Greek chorus) and from a recurring role on the daytime drama Ryan's Hope, beginning in 1987.

"People say, 'Oh my God, I've been watching you since I was little!'" she says.

Arnold has also been featured on long-running series including Martin, Everybody Hates Chris and, of course, The Neighborhood.

"It's surreal sometimes," she says of her success. "I was sitting at home one day, I turned on the TV and I was on every channel that I flipped to! I just turned the TV off!"

Still, becoming a director required a push.

"Random friends on other television shows — my fellow thespians — would ask, 'When are you going to direct?'" she says. Her sister, Zenay, who is also her manager and producing partner, began nudging her years ago. "She'd say, 'I see they have other directors coming in. You should direct.' She put my name in the hat way back then."

When Arnold finally did get the gig — an opportunity delayed by Covid and the strikes — she was gung-ho.

"Tichina was very sincere about doing a great job," says Cedric the Entertainer, her Neighborhood costar who has directed three episodes himself. "She had shadowed a few of our main directors, and she was ready to give ideas. We all wanted her to win, and that made it easy."

Did that prep make it easy for Tichina to direct Tichina?

"That was the hardest thing to do," she admits.

The most memorable part of the experience, though, wasn't caught on camera: "I was sitting there looking at the scene I was directing, and I saw someone just walk out onto the set. I was like, 'What the hell?'"

The unannounced visitor turned out to be her old pal Martin Lawrence, whom Cedric had invited.

"I was really proud that she was doing this," Cedric says. "I was thinking about her being on television all these years, acting with some of the best comedians. Martin was her first big show, so I called him up, and he loved the idea. When he came in, he yelled something. It took her so long to figure out it was him, but then she went crazy."

"To have those two guys together on the set was amazing," Arnold says.

Although proud of what she's done — "It's a funny episode!" she says — Arnold downplays her achievement: "I had an edge, because I know all the crew and the cast and our system." And she plans to direct again, saying, "We need more female directors."

She'd like to direct one of her former castmates — Tyler James Williams, who played the lead on Everybody Hates Chris — on his current hit.

"I'd love to jump from doing a multi-cam to directing a single-cam, and I would love to direct Abbott Elementary," she says.

That's an entirely different neighborhood, but Arnold already has a friend there.

The Neighborhood is now streaming on Paramount+.

This article originally appeared in emmy Magazine, issue #2, 2025, under the title "New Direction."