Exclusive: Diarra Kilpatrick and Shannon Wallace talk BET+ Hit Series ‘Diarra From Detroit’
Currently playing on BET+ is the original dark comedy series Diarra From Detroit, created by and starring Diarra Kilpatrick.
The cast also includes Bryan Terrell Clark, Claudia Logan, Jon Chaffin, DomiNque Perry, and Shannon Wallace.
Diarra from Detroit follows Diarra Brickland (Kilpatrick) a divorcing schoolteacher who refuses to believe she’s been ghosted by her rebound Tinder date. Her search for the missing man pulls her into a decades-old mystery involving the Detroit underworld. As the case unfolds, her co-workers, friends, and lovers become unlikely allies as she falls down a dangerous rabbit hole.
Morris Chestnut and Phylicia Rashad are among the guest stars with Kash Doll, John Salley, Icewear Vezzo, and Julio Macias. David Zayas, Harry Lennix, Paul Ben-Victor, Kinyumba Mutakabbir, Bechir Sylvain are recurring.
From BET Studios and Khalabo Ink Society, Diarra from Detroit is created by Kilpatrick, who executive produces alongside Miles Orion Feldsott, Kenya Barris for Khalabo Ink Society and Darren Goldberg, Erynn Sampson serves as a producer, overseeing the project for Khalabo Ink Society.
The directing team includes Chioke Nassor, Brennan Shroff, Sadé Clacken Joseph, and America Young. The writing team is composed of Kilpatrick, Feldsott, Mark Ganek, Jacob Copithorne, Doug Hall, Lisa McQuillan, Esa Lewis, Helen Krieger, and Ester Lou.
Very recently at the 2024 SCAD TVFest, Blackfilmandtv.com spoke with Kilpatrick and Wallace regarding the show and their roles.
You put this show together. Where did it come from?
Diarra Kilpatrick: It came from a lot of places inside me to be honest. Very autobiographical and very hidden ways. The first season is an origin story for a PI. I've watched a lot of those kind of old detective shows with my grandmother. And I wanted to put a black woman in the driver's seat in those kind of shows. And I think that sort of inherently flips it on its head, changes the tone of it. And then I think the other place it came from was, frankly, my mother passed right at the end of 2019. And I was really grieving and I wanted to put that somewhere. I think starting this character off, going through a divorce was really therapeutic for me. Because it was really reflecting what I was going through. Even though it's not apples to apples, it's just the idea of a relationship changing. Changing form, changing shape can send a character on such a transformative journey.
Where does Shannon come into play to play Ambien aka Chris?
Diarra Kilpatrick: That's where we get his real name. We looked really hard for this guy. Because she does something really crazy. She goes into really dangerous rooms looking for this cat. And we really wanted it to be somebody who the audience could get behind. The audience wanted her to find love again. And so it was hard to find him. We looked at a lot of guys. Finally he came in, he was reading for a different character. He was in a hat trying to cover himself up. We sent him away with the Chris size. And he came back, I don't know, what, 15, 20 minutes later? He had it after that moment.
What led you to come onto this show? Was it a job? Was it the role?
Shannon Wallace: That's how it starts. That's how it starts is the job. But then I got the script. And it was the mystery around the character. It was the possibility of not knowing where it could go. So for me, I took it as a challenge as an actor to kind of paint this picture as specifically as I can. And we lived with it. I think as the season goes, you learn more about the character and learn more about him. For me as the actor, I was learning on the job as well. Every episode, every script we got, I'm learning more about this guy and kind of coloring in the lines. It was a challenge. I saw that going in.
Dramedy is not easy to write. So when you're putting in these characters and you're putting in moments where it's, from the audience’s perspective, it's a laugh moment. How hard is that to know this scene works?
Diarra Kilpatrick: I remember watching it at Tribeca being like, is this going to work? And being so delighted by the audience's reaction and them laughing at places. Some places you expect them to laugh and some places you don't even expect them to laugh. I'm just trying to honor these characters. These characters would say and do funny things no matter what situation they were in. And to me, that's what makes it funny.
How did you go about getting Morris Chestnut?
Diarra Kilpatrick: Our wonderful casting director for the pilot, Robi Reed, she reached out and handed him the material. He was game. He wants to work and he's still really vibing. He's the best. He said he responded to the script. We hopped on a Zoom. He had to check me out a little bit, make sure I was cool. I passed the test and he accepted the role.
The cast have been together for a good while since this show premiered at Tribeca last June. How long did it take for this ensemble to be tight-knit?
Shannon Wallace: That was quick. Table read, and then we went to dinner that night. Everybody was excited and on the same page. Let's get to work. Let's put this thing on its feet.
Diarra Kilpatrick: The ensemble happened pretty quickly.
When you shot the pilot, was it already greenlit?
Diarra Kilpatrick: I had a script to series deal. So when I turned in the script, they picked up the show. As a writer, how exciting is that, knowing that not everybody gets a script to series deal? It was the best. And it was a big part of the decision to go to BET+. Because BET Studios is where I was developing this. And we were going to take it all over. We were going to take it to all the different buyers. And BET Plus came back and said, if you do it here, we will give you that script to series deal. And for me, I had already made a pilot at Amazon that didn't go. I had already not quite made it through the Showtime gauntlet. So I was like, it felt like the best opportunity for me.
When there's a lot of product on TV, Netflix or just streamers and cable, what's going to get an audience to watch this? You want them to pay attention weekly. So what do you think is going to be the sell for people to watch the show?
Diarra Kilpatrick: To be honest, that's part of the reason why I wanted to write a mystery. I wanted to do something propulsive that every week you're like, oh my goodness, I have to find out what's going to happen next. There's a little bit of nostalgia for that. I grew up, you got an episode one a week. You went to school, you could act out the whole episode and talk about it with your friends. So we hope that that's what people are excited by, are the cliffhangers of each episode. And hopefully finding him. We hope that he's charming enough that people want to know, is she going to find him or not? That's the job, make this guy unforgettable.
Can you talk about highlighting Detroit?
Diarra Kilpatrick: Detroit is a character in the show. And there's New Detroit, because things are changing. There's gentrification, all that stuff. Then there's Old Detroit, in a hood, with all the little pockets that people might not have seen before. We can travel into both. That's one of the things that specifically we thought Diarra Brickley would be a great investigator, because she has access to both worlds. She could be fine in a hood, and she could be fine at a gala. So you'll see all of that.