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If you haven’t seen OWN’s latest drama, David Makes Man, you’re sleeping on a captivating story about a young teenage boy caught between the hardships of Miami inner-city life and the elite magnet school he goes to.

Read: David Makes Man Debuts on One Magic

The show is created by Oscar award-winning playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney and stars 16-year old Akili McDowell, who on top of landing his first leading role, also had the opportunity to meet and work with Oprah Winfrey.

Chatting to Vulture about his experience on the show, McDowell shares his very first encounter with the television producer. “One of my first interviews was with Oprah, and she came to set, and everybody’s like, ‘Oh my, Ms Winfrey is here.’

“And everybody was running around, and I’m super-nervous, but inside I’m shaking,” he tells Vulture.

Upon meeting Ms Winfrey, McDowell explains how he casually greeted her with a: “Hey, how ya doing?” to which she reached out and embraced him with a huge hug, adding that, “… she meets my mom and things like that. And she [smelt] great, by the way.”

McDowell, who says he also met Michael B. Jordan for the very first time after filming the whole season of David Makes Man, was left with some encouraging words from the American actor. “He said, ‘Don’t let this industry change who you are as a person. Still be the kind-hearted, passionate, hard-working young man I’ve seen from the first time I watched your audition type,” he tells Vulture.

Catch David Makes Man every Tuesday at 20:30 on 1 Magic.