Safe Room was Boris Kodjoe's First Director Gig. The Stars Say He Killed It.

As part of TV One’s rollout of July movies, the network will air Safe Room on Sunday, July 24th at 9/8c.

Starring Nicole Ari Parker, Nik Sanchez, Drea de Matteo, MacKenzie Austin and Boris Kodjoe, the film tells the story of a teen who accidentally records the horrific murder of a neighbor and his mom gets embroiled in a deadly struggle to protect him from intruders.

Kodjoe also directed the movie, which was a first for him on a feature-length film.

“What a ride,” he wrote in an Instagram post late last year, shortly before Safe Room aired first on Lifetime. “I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to direct my first movie, to work with some of the most talented and hard-working people in the business, and to do it in my wife’s hometown of Baltimore.”

He thanked many people in his personal and professional journey for their help in allowing him to tell the story.

But, the film and television icon and first-time director has also received rave reviews from the movie’s stars, who said he was a natural!

TV One sat down with Nik Sanchez (Ian) and Drea de Matteo (Rocco) in digital-exclusive interviews ahead of Sunday’s premiere. We went all the way inside the movie and asked them to discuss working with Boris and Nicole, preparing for their roles, the hardest scenes to shoot, memories from being on-set memories, and more!

According to Nik, one of his favorite things about working with Kodjoe was how patient he was with him as a new actor.

“I liked watching him get excited about his ideas for different scenes, that was very inspiring” he said. “He knows himself and he’s very proud of himself, which was really cool.”

For Drea, a seasoned actress familiar to fans of The Sopranos and others, Boris was a “king” on the movie’s set. She told TV One that someone would never suspect this was his first time directing a movie, if they didn’t already know.

“He’s so level-headed, so confident, so smart, really majestic,” she said. “As majestic as he looks walking into a room, he puts it out there. I mean, the situation with Boris is you can judge the book by it’s cover because he’s gonna bring it and he did.”