Ariana DeBose will be the first to tell you she's been waiting a long time for this. The Tony nominee worked steadily on Broadway in shows like
Hamilton and
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical for almost a decade. But this? A feature film directed by Ryan Murphy? Opposite Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Kerry Washington? This is way different. Because with
The Prom, DeBose is becoming the movie star she wished she could watch growing up.
The musical was an anomaly when it premiered on Broadway in 2018. It's not based on an existing story, like the life of a pop diva or a movie—instead, its premise revolves around Indiana teen Emma, who wants to take her girlfriend to prom. When this "scandal" leads to the event being canceled, four New York stage actors take up the cause in the name of positive PR.
For the Netflix movie adaptation, DeBose plays Emma's closeted girlfriend, Alyssa Greene, who feels like an outsider around her cheer squad peers and controlling mother. "Alyssa is struggling with her identity," DeBose explains. "She wants to stand in her power, but she's also trying to please everyone, and it's very hard to reconcile those two wants." DeBose established a connection to the character the moment she saw Isabelle McCalla originate the role on Broadway—she "represented queer girls so beautifully," DeBose says—and her own audition with Murphy was more a conversation about her experiences as a queer woman than reading lines. "When I auditioned, I thought a lot about how we identify with our communities and how Alyssa would manifest through me," she says. "My lived experiences allowed me to play Alyssa to the fullest degree."
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