Steven Chew
An Artist in Motion
by Raven Moran
Within a few minutes of meeting Steven Chew, one can sense that he is someone who listens before he speaks. When asked where he’s from, he half-jokes, “I prefer when other people tell me about myself.” There’s a reserved openness there, a comfort in letting the work speak for him.
Steven was born and raised in Washington, DC. He grew up writing short stories and poetry, long before television or screenwriting entered his life. “I didn’t know anything about TV or TV writing until I got to college,” he tells me. What he did know was that he wanted to create. Philadelphia called to him not just as a city, but as a sound. Jill Scott. The Roots. Musiq Soulchild. Neo-soul pulsed through the streets while Steven imagined a future inside that creative boom. He attended Temple University, earning a bachelor’s degree in communications, while immersing himself in theatre and educational performance spaces. Creativity wasn’t a side interest; it was foundational.
“I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, so I’m a really hardworking person, and that’s truly helped me in this industry.”
He reflects on how different the city feels now: more gentrified, less raw than the DC he knew growing up. Southeast DC, he laughs, “was rough.” But it sharpened him–teaching nuance, persistence, and how to read between the lines in rooms not built for him. “I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, so I’m a really hardworking person, and that’s truly helped me in this industry.”
Steven’s path doesn’t move in a straight line. After college, he interned in LA through Temple’s program, working at casting agencies before realizing the machinery behind the camera wasn’t where he wanted to stay. He moved to New York City and spent eight years there, earning a master’s degree from NYU in educational theatre while beginning his career in unscripted television. Grad school fused what had always lived side-by-side for him: creative writing and production.
Eventually, the logistics of survival caught up. “It was harder to pursue a career in TV writing during the years I lived in New York,” he admits. Production work pulled him west, and in 2014 he relocated to Los Angeles where he continues to build. Steven quickly realized that this wasn’t the same as authorship. “That wasn’t really the route to screenwriting,” he says, laughing. The pivot came when Complex opened its LA division and hired him as a producer. For four years, he helped shape culture from inside the machine: Red Bull followed. Alongside it all, he developed his own work—web series, short films, and pilots submitted to festivals.
Even the pandemic didn’t slow him down. That duality—corporate production by day, personal storytelling by night—runs through his work. His latest short film, Orion’s Quest, feels like the most distilled version of Steven yet. “It’s more tied to my everyday life,” he tells me. “Dating and queer Blackness. My everyday experience.” The film uses sci-fi as a lens, following an alien studying love on Earth, with Black gay men as the final group he encounters. Orion’s Quest premiered at NewFest in New York and later screened at the Micheaux Film Festival in Los Angeles, grounding speculative storytelling in emotional truth.
“I love revealing Black stories in a unique way. I want to focus more on Afro-surrealism and showcasing our stories in ways that haven’t been shown before.”
Another project, Give the Drummer Some, has lived with him for years. Set in DC, it follows an all-female go-go band formed by a student at Duke Ellington School of the Arts and her friends as they navigate misogyny in the city’s underground music scene. “Trying to balance life as an artist is a huge struggle,” he admits. “You kind of have to build within chaos.” What drives him is clear: “I love revealing Black stories in a unique way. I want to focus more on Afro-surrealism and showcasing our stories in ways that haven’t been shown before.”
Right after our conversation, he’s heading to Joshua Tree for a writer’s retreat, his first. “A lot of my inspiration comes from a change in my environment,” he says. It feels fitting. Steven is an artist in motion, shaped by cities, sound, solitude, and spirit. When asked what keeps him motivated, his answer turns inward. “I’m a very spiritual person,” he says. “As artists, especially in Hollywood, we’re always seeking to become someone or something that we’re not.” He pauses. “But it’s about your becoming. It’s about juggling how the world is going to view you and, in turn, finding out your rawest form. That’s where the real art begins.”
Words by Raven Moran
Photos provided by Steven Chew
