Anthony Anderson Credits Success of 'Black-ish' to Its Authenticity

— -- Anthony Anderson knows exactly why viewers keep coming back to ABC's hit show, "Black-ish."

Anderson, who plays Andre "Dre" Johnson, said his Emmy-nominated show offers a real take on family life from a not-so-often-told perspective. It's a perspective that he and show creator, Kenya Barris, share.

"You know that everything that you're seeing on air for the last two seasons have come from our lives, especially the first season," Anderson told ABC Radio. "We sat down and had a dinner meeting when we first met and just talked about our families. We sat down to talk about creating a television show, but business went out the window after five minutes and we realized we had so much in common."

For Anderson, his connection with Barris helped to bring the popular comedy series to life. As "first generation successful," they rose from California's inner cities to enjoy a "privileged lifestyle" with their families in affluent communities. He attributes the show's success and appeal to those shared experiences.

"The things that you see are just authentic and I think that's what resonates with the people. Because it's not about your writers in the room just sitting around trying to come up with these cockamamie stories," he said. "These are actual stories that have happened in our lives."

During his recent appearance on "Good Morning America," Anderson revealed that everything he does now, he does for his mother.

"A lot of people don’t know this, but my mother was a single parent and she wanted to be an actress and she put her dreams of being an actor on hold to raise an actor,” Anderson, 46, explained on "GMA" Tuesday. "So everything that I do now, I do for her and I try to include her in because this is the dream that she wanted to live, and she never got a chance to have that dream realized. So now I take her wherever I go and she’s a part of it."

"Black-ish" returns for season 3 tonight at 9:30 p.m. on ABC.