Ariana DeBose Talks ‘Kraven The Hunter’, ‘Two And Only’ & Refusing To “Fit In A Box” — Deadline Disruptors
18.05.2022 - 19:29
/ deadline.com
“There is indeed a place for us,” Ariana DeBose said on the Oscar stage back in March. As the first Afro Latina and the first openly queer woman of color to win, she addressed her acceptance speech—for her role of Anita in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story—to those who have ever questioned their identity and find themselves in “the gray spaces”. In the audience that night the 90-year-old Rita Moreno was in tears. Having played Anita 60 years earlier, she had been the first Latina ever to win an acting Oscar.
And now DeBose carries that torch forward. A woman who set aside her fears and told Spielberg “no” to reading at the first West Side Story audition because she hadn’t had adequate time to prepare, she was Tony-nominated for her role in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, lauded for her work on the original cast of Hamilton, and spent a decade on stage before making her name on screen. In Ryan Murphy’s The Prom, she played a closeted cheerleader, drawing on her own experience of dancing with a girl at her prom back home in North Carolina. And afterward, she and co-star Jo Ellen Pellman set up the Unruly Hearts Initiative to support LGBTQ+ youth.
Her upcoming project Two and Only is set to provide yet another fresh take. She’ll executive produce and star in the film, written by Latina and LGBTQ+ writer Jen Rivas-DeLoose with DeBose in mind for the lead.
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For right now, DeBose is in London shooting her role of Calypso in Marvel’s Kraven the Hunter.
In a conversation via Zoom, she describes how the women in her childhood helped lay the foundation for her unflinching authenticity and her pursuit of projects that leave underrepresented audiences feeling truly seen.
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