DeBose is the queen of ‘The Prom’
Ariana DeBose sees the potential for director Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix movie musical “The Prom” (streaming now) and its message of inclusion to change the world. What it definitely will do, however, is introduce the Tony Award-nominated actress to a massive new audience.
“Never in a million years did I think I was going to work on a feature film with Ryan Murphy, let alone have the honor of telling a story about a young queer brown girl,” says DeBose, who herself identifies as queer. “It’s a testament to the fact that the big movie-musical happy ending is possible.”
The North Carolina native and AfroLatina performer stars as Alyssa Greene, the closeted girlfriend of openly lesbian Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman). When prom is canceled because Emma wants to take a same-sex date, a group of struggling Broadway types (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells) travel to smalltown Indiana to stick up for Emma (and maybe save their careers).
DeBose, 29, competed on “So You Think You Can Dance” and found success on Broadway, where she was in the original cast of “Hamilton” and was nominated for a Tony for her performance as Disco Donna in “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.” Screen musicals are where you’ll soon find her: She plays Anita in Steven Spielberg’s new “West Side Story” (in theaters Dec. 10, 2021) and stars in Apple TV+’s upcoming comedy series “Schmigadoon,” a parody of “Brigadoon.”
Here are five things “Prom” obsessives need to know about DeBose:
She was psyched about having Kerry Washington as her movie mom
In “The Prom,” DeBose liked exploring the anxieties of a young girl “in the throes of trying to define sexual identity” as well as the relationship between Alyssa and her very conservative moth
er (Washington). Debose saw it as “a golden opportunity to have this conversation about what it looks like to see a Black family deal with a coming-out story. The reality is when one person comes out in a family, everyone has to come out.”
DeBose had a pretty smooth coming-out convo with her own mom
Similar to Alyssa’s in ”The Prom,” her own coming-out story to her mother “just sort of happened,” DeBose says. “When the truth needs to come out, it’s just like a word vomit: You can’t hold it in anymore.” And DeBose’s mom was very OK with it: “I was 11 years old. I was like, ‘Mom, I think I could like boys and girls. I just really like humans.’ And she said, ‘OK. Cool.’ That was it. And I realized how lucky I am to have had that experience, because that is not the norm.”
One famous ‘West Side Story’ co-star made her nervous
DeBose had plenty of reasons to sweat making Spielberg’s 1950s-set revamp: For one thing, they filmed Anita’s iconic song-and-dance number “America” in New York City during a heat wave. “We danced our butts off,” she reports. But she also had the original Anita from the 1961 movie, Rita Moreno, on the set. Moreno has a role on screen and off, as an executive producer. “She’s incredibly important to the Latinx community,” DeBose says. “It’s because of women like her that I have the ability to create my own path.”
Her ‘Hamilton’ character has blown a whole bunch of new minds on Disney+
DeBose appeared in “Hamilton” as “The Bullet,” a secret character in the ensemble who represents death coming for Alexander Hamilton, and says she’s “honored and heartened” her role has found new life via the filmed version streaming on Disney+. “I never really expected anybody to notice what I was doing,” DeBose says, laughing.
DeBose is getting funky during COVID-19 lockdown
Not even a pandemic can stop her dance training. Virtual classes “help keep me sane (and) moving because I don’t necessarily feel comfortable enough to go to a gym,” DeBose says. “It’s actually been really nice to be able to try new things and fail at it in the confines of my own home instead of in front of a class full of people.” She’s digging choreographer Brian Friedman’s hiphop classes: “That’s my current endeavor, to be more funky.”