"The large ensemble cast and the fact that it was being shot in New York, combined with a lot of strong positive images as far as African Americans are concerned, really turned me on to The Best Man"
About this Quote
What jumps out is how bluntly desire and representation get braided into craft. Diggs isn’t talking about “prestige” or box-office calculus; he’s describing the jolt of recognition that comes when a project aligns logistics (New York, an ensemble) with an image ecosystem he rarely got offered. “Turned me on” is doing real work here: it’s attraction, yes, but also awakening - the sense that a film can be a social space he wants to inhabit, not just a role he can play.
The context matters: The Best Man arrived at the tail end of the 1990s, when Black film in the mainstream was often forced into narrow lanes - trauma, struggle, comic sidekick, moral lesson. Diggs signals that the movie’s hook wasn’t simply “positive images,” but a lot of them. Plural. Abundance. An ensemble suggests a community where no single character has to stand in for everyone, and where Blackness gets to be varied: ambitious, messy, stylish, romantic, competitive, tender. That breadth is the subtext of “strong.”
New York, too, is code. It’s not just a shooting location; it’s cultural legitimacy, theater-trained energy, a cosmopolitan Black professional class on screen and off. Diggs is naming the off-camera magnetism of a set that feels like a gathering of peers, and the on-camera politics of normalcy - not sanitized, but fully lived. The intent reads clear: he chose the film because it offered a world worth joining, and worth being seen in.
The context matters: The Best Man arrived at the tail end of the 1990s, when Black film in the mainstream was often forced into narrow lanes - trauma, struggle, comic sidekick, moral lesson. Diggs signals that the movie’s hook wasn’t simply “positive images,” but a lot of them. Plural. Abundance. An ensemble suggests a community where no single character has to stand in for everyone, and where Blackness gets to be varied: ambitious, messy, stylish, romantic, competitive, tender. That breadth is the subtext of “strong.”
New York, too, is code. It’s not just a shooting location; it’s cultural legitimacy, theater-trained energy, a cosmopolitan Black professional class on screen and off. Diggs is naming the off-camera magnetism of a set that feels like a gathering of peers, and the on-camera politics of normalcy - not sanitized, but fully lived. The intent reads clear: he chose the film because it offered a world worth joining, and worth being seen in.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|
More Quotes by Taye
Add to List
