Latest news with #TayeDiggs
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Taye Diggs Can't Resist a Good Rom-Com
Taye Diggs got his big break when he played the landlord Benny in the original Broadway cast of 'Rent,' back in 1996, and he credits the stage for creating, as he put it, 'who I am and why I am who I am.' Problem is, live performance had been taking a back seat in his life. 'Once one is lucky enough to cross over to film and TV, it's easy to get kind of stuck and become an audience member when it comes to theater, and then fear starts to set in,' Diggs said. 'I found myself in the audience wondering how these actors onstage memorized all their lines. That's when I started to get scared.' Not scared enough to turn down the opportunity to step into 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical,' though — Diggs is currently in rehearsals for the show, in which he'll play the scheming, wealthy Duke of Monroth starting Tuesday and through Sept. 28. Diggs's presence on New York stages has been sporadic in the decades since 'Rent.' One reason is that he has been living in Los Angeles; the other is why he's in California. His screen career took off a couple of years after 'Rent,' when he helped Angela Bassett track down her mojo in his film debut, 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back.' This led to lead roles in the beloved rom-coms 'Brown Sugar' and 'The Best Man.' Diggs has also been a steady presence on television, with lengthy runs on 'Private Practice' and 'All American.' But now he's putting his summer to good use by returning to Broadway, his first appearance there since a stint in 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' in 2015. It helped that he's a fan of 'Moulin Rouge,' having seen the show, he said, about 10 times. And the Duke is a juicy character. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Taye Diggs says 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back' love interest Angela Bassett 'wasn't impressed' by him in 'Rent'
Angela Bassett didn't groove with her future costar's performance in his most acclaimed project. Taye Diggs, who played the actress' Jamaican lover in 1998's How Stella Got Her Groove Back, said that the What's Love Got to Do With It actress was not particularly enthused by his turn as the sellout landlord in Rent on Broadway. "Angela Bassett went and came to see Rent and she wasn't impressed," Diggs told Keke Palmer on her podcast Baby, This is Keke Palmer. "She wasn't impressed." The Best Man actor said that his agent told him about Bassett's indifference to his performance in the musical and chalked it up to his character being the least important of the principal cast members. "Rent was that show where everybody was like, 'Okay, well, come see these kids in Rent,'" he recalled. "And they were like, 'Okay, well, we have this young man who's auditioning.' 'How can I see him?' Okay, come see the show Rent. And I had the smallest role in Rent of the main characters. So I was like, 'Okay, this isn't going to be. I'm not going to get any jump off of this. I'll just ride it out as hard as I can. And then the next thing, that'll be my jump off. And luckily, that's what it was, Angela Bassett in How Stella Got Her Groove [Back]." Instead, Diggs said that Bassett was more enthused by his performance on Guiding Light. "She saw the soap opera and I was playing this character on Guiding Light called Sugar Hill," he explained. "And she saw a little bit of sexiness in Sugar Hill and then she was like, 'Okay, bring him in.'" How Stella Got Got Her Groove Back marked Diggs' film debut, and he felt that he had hit his first post-Rent career milestone unfairly late. "For a while, you know, I really wasn't really enjoying where I was [in my career]," he explained. "I was expecting to get How Stella Got Her [Groove Back]. I was expecting it. Like, it came too late for me." Diggs explained that at the time, he thought he deserved breakout success at the same level as his Rent costars — if not even bigger stardom. "Idina [Menzel], she had got a record deal, Jesse Martin had got a TV show," he said, laughing. "I was the last one to hit. So I was like, 'Damn, y'all!' I'm like, in my head I was like, 'I'm more talented than all y'all! I'm the last — what's going on?'" He continued, "Finally, I got How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and I was like, 'Okay, now we at the party. Let's go,'" he said. However, Diggs admitted that he wouldn't have been satisfied if Stella marked the peak of his movie career."I was like, 'Okay, well, what's next? What's next?'" he recalled. "Because at the time it was, I was like, 'Okay, I wanna be the next Will Smith.' Because I was looking in. You know what I mean? I was like, 'I want that.' Because he's just Black enough where he can be Black, but not threatening to the white people — he could cross over.'" Though he never quite matched the global superstardom of Smith, Diggs still enjoyed a successful film career, appearing in movies like Brown Sugar, Equilibrium, Chicago, The Wood, Go, and the film adaptation of Rent. Listen to the full conversation between Diggs and Palmer above. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
Time of India
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Taye Diggs to star in Indie romantic drama 'Another Man's Wife'
Actor and singer Taye Diggs, who is known for his romantic films including 'The Best Man', 'Brown Sugar' and 'The Wood', is returning to the genre with the indie feature 'Another Man's Wife,' reported Variety. Actor and singer Taye Diggs , who is known for his romantic films including 'The Best Man', 'Brown Sugar' and 'The Wood', is returning to the genre with the Indie feature 'Another Man's Wife,' reported Variety. Diggs stars opposite Sydney Mitchell, known for 'Black Mafia Family', 'First Wives Club' and Moritz J. Williams. Diggs plays Brendan, a millionaire who makes a shocking offer to a married couple in crisis, Maya (Mitchell) and Shawn (Williams), who are financially devastated and caring for a terminally ill parent. As the film's logline explains, "What begins as an act of survival spirals into a high-stakes emotional reckoning about trust, love and the ultimate cost of sacrifice," according to Variety. 'Another Man's Wife' is directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Viere NiBlack-Gray from a screenplay by Briana Cole. The project, which recently wrapped filming in Atlanta, is executive produced by Doug Schwab of Maverick Entertainment and J. Carter of Freeli Films. Diggs, whose stage and screen credits also include 'All-American', 'Private Practice', 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back' and the original cast of Broadway's 'Rent', most recently starred in Lifetime's 'Terry McMillan Presents: Forever'. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 境界のないゲームを発見する BuzzDaily Winners ゲームをプレイ Undo Last month, Lifetime acquired a second McMillan movie, "His, Hers & Ours," also starring Diggs, as part of an ongoing franchise collaboration with the New York Times bestselling author. Later this summer, Diggs returns to Broadway to join the cast of "Moulin Rouge!", reported Variety.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paul Giamatti, Stephen Graham, Cooper Koch, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actor interviews
Over the past two months of Emmy campaigning, Gold Derby has spoken with several contenders in all categories. Now with voting underway ahead of the July 15 unveiling of the nominees, we have compiled seven interviews for stars vying for Best Limited/Movie Actor, including: Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story), Taye Diggs (Terry McMillan Presents Forever), Jacob Elordi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), Paul Giamatti (Black Mirror), Stephen Graham (Adolescence), Brian Tyree Henry (Dope Thief), and Cooper Koch (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story). Read on for highlights from each interviews and links to watch our full video Q&As. More from Gold Derby 'The Penguin' star Colin Farrell would be the latest Batman villain to win a major award 'The Bear' Season 4: 'A big improvement' or 'aimless and boring'? Critics dish on the latest course For the Netflix series, Chavez plays Lyle Menendez — a figure whose life has been well-documented in books, interviews, and court footage. 'I read every book that I could get my hands on. I watched every single documentary,' he says. While courtroom footage offered valuable insights into Lyle's behavior during the brothers' dramatic trial, Chavez notes that it required some interpretation for the scenes outside of court. 'The way that people behave when they're on trial for their lives is very different than they behave when they're just out in the world. I had to sift through a lot of primary and secondary research so that I could make solid educated guesses about who he was outside of the courtroom.' Watch our complete interview with Nicholas Alexander Chavez. Diggs plays Johnnie, a military veteran who falls head over heels for a local policewoman named Carlie (Meagan Good), on the Lifetime TV movie. He calls this film "one of the most emotional and tumultuous stories" he's been a part of. Johnnie grapples with Carlie's illness, recovery, and shocking death during a convenience store robbery. "I like to have fun," he says. "I enjoyed doing this film, but I'm not a sadist or a masochist. I don't like to inflict pain and I don't like to feel it. As freeing as it was, I did not enjoy the emotional scenes because I was able to draw on my own emotional experiences. Whenever you have to bring up stuff that isn't pleasant, it's never fun, but it was useful. I'm grateful for that. I was able to pull from my life experience." Watch our complete interview with Taye Diggs. For the Prime Video series, Elordi takes on the harrowing role as World War II prisoner of war Lt. Col. Dorrigo Evans. He says, "We had a six-week prisoner bootcamp basically. We were watched over by nutritionists and trainers. There's something that happens when you are hungry. All the extra things that you have in your day-to-day life that you worry about, they all sort of start to strip away. All you can think about are the men that are in front of you and if they're going to be okay and where your next meal is coming from. Something happens in the weight loss process that brings on the immediacy of the camps. All those boys, 20 something young men put their lives on hold for months and shredded their weight for it. I'm incredibly proud of all of them." Watch our complete video interview with Jacob Elordi. Emmy-winning actor Giamatti stars as a lonely man who confronts a past love by literally stepping into old photographs to recall his late girlfriend's face on the Netflix anthology series. He says, "A lot of it's in the writing already. I could see it in the writing and so there's a way in which it's almost like it's a temperature chart. It was really clear where he goes up or down, and he gets upset or doesn't. That was a tricky line. I'm sure there's people who walk away from this thinking the guy is a real jerk. I didn't think he was a jerk. The levels of him being maybe unpleasant at times, that was tricky. But if it's well-written, that's helping you a lot. And the directors were really terrific and were really good at helping modulate it sometimes." Watch our complete video interview with Paul Giamatti. For the gripping Netflix drama, Graham plays the father of a teenage boy accused of the murder of a classmate. The project has brought to the forefront tough yet much-needed conversations about online bullying, toxic masculinity, and incel culture. The co-creator, co-writer, and leading actor says, 'It was made with love, it was made with truth, honesty, respect, all of those things,' says Graham. 'It was made with a lot of care and compassion. But for it to have the impact and for it to resonate the way it has it's overwhelming.' Watch our complete video interview with Stephen Graham. For the Apple TV+ series, Henry plays Ray Driscoll, a con artist who, along with his lifelong friend Manny Carvalho (Wagner Moura), robs from drug dealers by posing as DEA agents. He calls the project a "love story between these two friends who are more than friends. I don't even think the word 'friend' is appropriate. They've been through so much together. It's very easy to see series where it's a Black and Brown man paired together — violence, drugs, all the yahooey — but you never really get to the core of who they are. But these two men are afraid and vulnerable, and there is grief, there is regret." Watch our complete video interview with Brian Tyree Henry. This season of the Netflix series centers on the 1989 parricides of José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty Menendez (Chloë Sevigny) by their sons, Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (Koch). He says, "Our first scene that we shot as a family was in the first episode where Kitty rips the toupee off Lyle's head. It was such a great scene to start with because it really encapsulated the family dynamics. It was always loud. Dad is arguing, Lyle isn't agreeing, Kitty is smoking or drinking — not paying attention — and Erik is so quiet and just listening. It was a good starting point to create what the family was like." Watch our complete video interview with Cooper Koch. Best of Gold Derby Lee Jung-jae, Adam Scott, Noah Wyle, and the best of our Emmy Drama Actor interviews Kathy Bates, Minha Kim, Elisabeth Moss, and the best of our Emmy Drama Actress interviews Everything to know about 'The Pitt' Season 2 Click here to read the full article.
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘All American' Renewed For A Final Eighth Season At The CW
All American — 'Don\'t Hate the Player' — Image Number: ALA712a_0098r — Pictured (L-R): Bre-Z as ... More Coop and Gilbert Glenn Brown as Coach Bobby Shepard — Photo: Troy Harvey/The CW — © 2025 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Despite abandoning the majority of original scripted programming since segueing into a platform for acquired international product, The CW has remained faithful to its critically acclaimed All American. The network will give the coming-of-age sports drama a proper sendoff with a renewal for an eighth - and final season - in 2026. Thirteen concluding episodes have been ordered. Debuting on October 10, 2018 and inspired by the life of professional football player Spencer Paysinger, All American initially revolved around teen Spencer James (Daniel Ezra), a then rising star football player whose dream was to make it to the NFL after he is recruited by coach Billy Baker (Taye Diggs) to play for his high school team in Beverly Hills. BEVERLY HILLS, CA - AUGUST 06: (L-R) Actors Monet Mazur, Taye Diggs, Daniel Ezra, Cody Christian, ... More Michael Evans Behling, Bre-Z, Karimah Westbrook, Greta Onieogou, and Samantha Logan of CW's 'All American' pose for a portrait during the 2018 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 6, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by) "All American is one of the greatest CW shows of all time and we are honored to bring it back for one final season to give fans a chance to say a meaningful goodbye to these inspiring characters and this incredible world,' said Brad Schwartz, President of The CW in a statement. 'The series took bold new steps in season seven, adding exciting new characters to the ones we already love, and viewers truly embraced it all. From the first episode of Season 7 to the last, viewership grew 71% among adults 18-49 and 55% among those age 25-54. We cannot wait to see the emotion, heart, and magic that Nkechi Okoro Carroll and the entire cast and creative team deliver in giving this story the proper ending it deserves.' In that seventh season, Daniel Ezra, Samantha Logan, Cody Christian, Karimah Westbrook, Monet Mazur and Chelsea Tavares all exited All American as series regulars and the storyline shifted to the next generation of football players at South Crenshaw and Beverly High. Osy Ikhile and Nathaniel Logan McIntyre joined the main cast respectively as Cassius Jeremy, Beverly High's new football coach, and Kingston Jeremy, Cassius' son, while Antonio J. Bell and Alexis Chikaeze were promoted to series regulars . 'Since the moment All American kicked off, the audience fell in love with these characters and their heartfelt stories," said Channing Dungey, Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros. "Season seven provided a rare opportunity to keep this world for the fans while introducing new characters alongside some beloved favorites. I couldn't be more thrilled to see this story continue for an eighth and final season. I know Nkechi and our very talented team of writers and executive producers will deliver something unforgettable.' All American is produced by Berlanti Productions, with Nkechi Okoro Carroll serving as executive producer and showrunner. Warner Bros. Television is the studio.
