Diarra Kilpatrick is making her mark on TV with a new dark comedy crime series Diarra From Detroit, and the celebrated actress and writer is still wrapping her head around everything she’s accomplished with her new project.
Kilpatrick walked the purple carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of her new BET+ series on Wednesday, and she spoke with ET’s Denny Directo about bringing her new series to fruition — and casting Morris Chestnut as her ex — a role that called for some intimacy.
“Absolutely. Ladies, that’s how it’s done,” Kilpatrick joked. “They actually paid me to kiss Morris Chestnut. Is that ludicrous or no?”
In Diarra From Detroit, Kilpatrick stars as the titular Diarra — a school teacher in the midst of a divorce, looking for a rebound date on Tinder. When a man she feels she had a connection with after a first date goes missing, she feels there’s more to it than being ghosted.
Diarra begins to investigate the disappearance, and gets dragged into the dangerous Detroit underworld, all while navigating her split from her ex, played by Chestnut.
“He’s such a sweetie, and he’s been behind the show so much,” Kilpatrick said of Chestnut. “He’s just the best.”
Kilpatrick also had a great deal of love and praise for her co-executive producer, Kenya Barris, who helped get the show off the ground.
“As a black woman, to have your voice amplified by one of the very best, he makes everything funnier,” she said of Barris. “He’s been a blessing.”
As for her mystery-driven new series, Kilpatrick addressed her inspiration, and recalled how she got the idea from her time as a child, watching old mystery shows on TV with her grandma.
“Sitting up as a little girl next to my grandmother while she watched Murder, She Wrote and Columbo. Those were white shows, but her commentary on them made them Black shows,” Kilpatrick recalled. “And I thought it was time for that.”
“It was time to see Jessica Fletcher with a little more edge. Running around the hood solving some crimes,” said Kilpatrick, referring to Angela Lansbury’s iconic sleuth from Murder, She Wrote. “So I really wanted to put a Black woman in the driver seat of a story like that. I’ve been reading Nancy Drew books my whole life, you know? And I never seen anybody in box braids do anything like that.”
