Diarra Kilpatrick, the writer, created BET’s “Diarra From Detroit” for Diarra, the actor, to portray Diarra, the fictional character who finds herself in the middle of a big mystery she’s driven to solve.
But things weren’t always coming up Diarra, Kilpatrick says by phone, until she met the right people.
“One of the first plays that I did when I first got to L.A. was ‘The Piano Lesson,’” she recalls. “And Julius Tennon [actor-producer and husband of Viola Davis] was cast in that play. Julius lights up a room. He’s very gregarious, and he and I bonded really quickly,” she says.
“He [talked] about his wife so much, and I love a man who just loves his wife. It’s just so endearing. Finally, we had a [cast] party, and [Davis] showed up, and I met her and I’m like, ‘That’s not your wife. That’s my wife!’”
Kilpatrick had indeed been a fan since her youth, having watched Davis on the 2000 CBS series “City of Angels.” “She played a nurse, and I would tape episodes of television when I was a kid. I don’t know, I was weird. I’ve been a Black nerd all my life.”
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Years later, when Kilpatrick was promoting her web series “American Koko,” the in-your-face (and Emmy-nominated ABC digital) comedy about an agency that specializes in rehabbing racists, she included the couple on the email chain. “And they called me back right away. We didn’t have … I don’t even know how many views, but probably less than 1,000.” Yet Davis and Tennon, who produce through their JuVee Productions, were eager to participate. “They were like, ‘This is really funny. This is really good. We want to be a part of this. Let us know how we can help.’ A lot of people do a lot of talking in this town, but whenever [those two] have said, ‘We want to help,’ they always have.”
Before heading to Los Angeles, Kilpatrick had done community theater since childhood, attended prep schools and later graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She and her husband arrived in L.A. just as the 2008 Writers Guild strike was underway and, she says, she learned the “power of the pivot.” Kilpatrick acted in a lot of L.A. community theater and eventually wrote the “Koko” web series. Her goal then was to write and star in something that she could sell.
In doing her own material, she found her comedic voice. But even with good contacts and lucky breaks, negotiating Hollywood can be a struggle. Kilpatrick would go on to star in and produce short-lived series “The Climb” in 2017. Despite a pilot and two episodes, Prime Video did not move ahead with a full season. But Kilpatrick is both philosophical and pragmatic about her earlier efforts.
“I learned so much along the way,” she says, “with my pilot at FX that didn’t go, with my pilot at Showtime, at Amazon. I’ve tried to correct any failure. I do not like making the same mistake twice. So they’ve all been lessons I’ve incorporated into ‘Diarra.’”
The series centers on Diarra Brickland, a teacher who turns amateur sleuth when her Tinder date disappears. Twists and turns follow as Diarra stumbles her way to answers. Which hat does she find most comfortable of the three she wears on the series? “Producing is the necessary evil,” she says about a role in which she received lots of support. But “the writing and the acting comes really naturally. And I did get a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment out of it. I never really want to pick just one.”
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There’s a scene in the fifth episode where Diarra attempts to introduce her friend (DomiNque Perry) at a glamorous, political fundraiser. Tipsy and flailing a champagne glass around in one hand, she alludes to a Detroit stereotype about cheap housing, making a wisecrack about outsiders thinking houses can be bought for $15. The performance is pure entertainment, but for Kilpatrick it’s more of a metaphor for her character, the show and her respect and love for her hometown.
“I wanted to clear that up. I think that people think about Detroit as being tough. And I understand that because a Detroiter will tell you, ‘I’m from Detroit, man,’ and the translation for that usually is ‘Back up.’ We will advertise our toughness, but there’s just so much more that goes into making someone, and part of that is a sense of humor. Part of that is a soft heart, because you can’t be resilient with a hard heart and no sense of humor,” she says.
Although she doesn’t ignore Detroit’s systemic issues, Kilpatrick stresses she wanted a healthy mix of heart and humor in “Diarra.”
“Yes, it’s a tough place. But it’s also the place where people fall in love and get their first kiss. There’s a romanticism to it as well, if you’ve actually grown up, lived and loved there. That’s really what I wanted to capture.”
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