Page 98 - Sharp: The Book For Men SS21

LIKE ANYONE MEETING for the first time over the last year, Daveed Diggs and I meet on Zoom. In an attempt to explain why I might appear poorly socialized, I imme- diately tell him he’s the first person I’ve talked to over the past couple of days. Luckily, Diggs is nice enough to laugh at my awkward confession from his room in Vancouver where he’s shooting Netflix’s Snowpiercer; he just ended his mandatory two-week quarantine — so we’re kind of in the same boat.
Diggs isn’t complaining — even if this is his second round of Canada’s mandatory two-week quarantine. “It’s amazing that, as an industry, we’re able to figure
out ways to do this safely,” he says of the pandemic-related health protocols that have become what we now call the “new normal.” And for Diggs, it is not only the new normal, but the most familiar circumstances under which he worked on his forthcoming Starz television series, Blindspotting.
“I feel very fortunate for
Hamilton, but none of us could have expected that
would happen.”
A spinoff of the highly acclaimed 2018 film of the same name — which he co-wrote, produced, and starred in alongside his long-time friend and creative partner Rafael Casal — Blind- spotting went into production just before the pandemic hit. “We have 250 employees, and every day we’d go to work, I’d be terrified someone was going to get sick,” he says of shooting. “Acting on a COVID production is one thing,” he explains, “but producing your show, being someone who’s in charge of making things happen, is crazy. I have a ton more sympathy for my Snowpiercer producers.”
But being in charge of 250 people, on a show he co-created, with his long-time friend from his hometown of Oakland, is something Diggs can only really describe as being “crazy.” At 32, after spending much of his life making music and performing poetry, he got cast in Hamilton, and the trajectory of his career changed completely. “I feel very fortunate for Hamilton, but none of us could have expected that would happen,” Diggs >
SHIRT, TOP, AND PANTS (ALL PRICE UPON REQUEST) BY DIOR MEN. SNEAKERS (PRICE UPON REQUEST) BY BOSS.
98 BFM / SS21 FEATURES / DAVEED DIGGS HAS ARRIVED