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NEW YORK – Daveed Diggs was busy. Too busy. The actor was doing eight shows a week as Jefferson / Lafayette in the "Hamilton" sensation of Broadway and was not answering his emails.
So there was only one thing that his writing partner and his creative soul, Rafael Casal, could do: Move around the country and get into the locker room from Diggs.
"Every night he would be right there at intermission," Diggs laughs now. "He had to move to New York to allow us to maintain a creative level of production."
With the opening this week of "Blindspotting", their first feature film based in Oakland, California, infused with rap, the duo wins buzz for on-screen chemistry that energizes the film . This chemistry, in turn, is fueled by a friendship of nearly two decades and a creative synergy that both men call remarkable.
"As long as I knew him, I never had an idea that I did not lead by him, and that includes character choices in" Hamilton "," Diggs , 36, said recently on tea in New York. "I do not have a ton of things that do not involve it, and even if they do not say it, they imply it. always. "
In Casal, 32, an artist of the word, what is more rare is the versatility of the partnership." You choose your partners in the trenches because they are you improve, "he says." What's unique in our dynamic is that it's a medium-movie, music, drama, television … It's not even a thing unique, because a lot of people go through life and this never happens. "
" Blindspotting ", directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, is a boyfriend movie – both comic and tragic – it's a good one. also acts of one place: Oakland, a city that the Two men cherish it's there, in the Bay Area, that they met at Berkeley High School. They did not become friends right away, because Casal was a freshman and Diggs a senior. "It might as well be a 50-year gap," quipped Casal
Diggs went to Brown University, where he ran and studied drama. At the time of his return, Casal, who had made a name for himself on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam," had opened a recording studio and needed artists
. "I played his music, I loved it, and we just hit it," Casal said. "Since then, all I remember is that he was there."
Almost ten years ago, they started working on "Blindspotting", the story of Collin (Diggs), who has three days of probation incident, and Miles (Casal), his best mercurial friend, unpredictable. Collin witnesses a police shot of an unarmed black man; the two have to sail together the next few days, each in their own way, in a rapidly changing Oakland. The film explores themes of race, economics, gentrification – and friendship.
In 2009, when they started the project, Oscar Grant had just been killed by a San Francisco transit agent. "His face was everywhere," says Diggs. "There were rallies and demonstrations and riots." It became a key element in the first drafts.
The two wondered how their idea was going to fly. "It's a tough sell, a race-political drama comedy that's in verse," says Casal. "But that's the movie we wanted to do."
The project was almost done several times, but it did not do it, for various reasons over the years. Meanwhile, their life has changed.
"At first we were both huddled together on a laptop," says Diggs. "Long back and forth on the I-5 between Oakland and Los Angeles, trying to impress (producers Jess and Keith Calder) and pretend we knew how to write a script."
Casal remembers the nights in Los Angeles "in one of our Try to pretend we were not so poor that we had to sleep in our cars."
It seemed like the movie was going to happen when suddenly "Hamilton" Lin-Manuel Miranda came to Diggs. They thought it would be a quick project for a few months. It turned out to be – well, "Hamilton."
Diggs won a Tony Award 2016, and left the show next month. A bunch of opportunities, including the "black-ish" television, were waiting. In early 2017, Casal was at home watching "Moonlight" win the Oscar. He was so happy. "I texted one of our producers and said," I would have liked to do OUR "Moonlight". And then they said, "What if we did it now? And I was like, I do not know, Diggs is really famous, and very busy. "
But it turned out that Diggs, who has been involved in at least four projects, would have exactly 22 free days that June." You know the script is not ready, n? is not it? "he told Casal, who suggested he move to Los Angeles and grind him up, calling Diggs every night with updates." For me, it sounded like a foolish business, "says Mr. Diggs, but he was in. He adds, "There is no one else I could trust to write raps for me."
The duo says that "Hamilton" does not It was not the reason for the film – in fact, it was interrupting things – but Diggs' growing fame made it a lot easier to sell the movie. "I think my name opens up a few doors now," says the director. actor. "Many more people will see it, which is great."
The film was screened the first day at Sundance.What was most rewarding, say the two hours Emes, it's that people were eager to discuss it next – and discuss. "The best works of art are the ones you talk about and want to talk about," says Diggs. "We would have been disappointed if everyone left with exactly the same feeling."
Both have much more to do. "I think we cherish it," says Casal of the partnership.
"Someone called us platonic life companions," Diggs laughs. "It's a pretty fair description."
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