Every magical society needs a leader. Hogwarts had Dumbledore, and The American Society of Magical Negroes has DeDe. Portrayed by comedian/actress Nicole Byer, DeDe is almost a God-like personality who only graces her employees with her presence when needed.
Though it might seem easy to view yourself as an all powerful deity and just bring that to screen, Nicole has a lot of influences that fueled the attitude that is DeDe. ClutchPoints spoke with Nicole to discuss what went into forming the soul of DeDe and just what DeDe thinks her responsibilities are.
Nicole Byer-American Society of Magical Negroes interview
ClutchPoints: Whether it be a fictional character, or somebody from history, is there a kind of an inspiration for how you wanted to kind of portray this character, like somebody that you kind of hold something from to say, this is kind of what I want to put out there?
Nicole Byer: I didn't look to any one person. I kind of looked at the Patti LaBelle's of the world, the Aretha Franklin's, the Gladys Knight's, how when they speak, you really want to listen and they like really hold court and there's a gravitas to them. So that's what I was really pulling from, which is interesting that I was pulling from singers, but not singing.
But I just wanted her to be larger than life and I wanted her to take up space.
CP: It's funny you say that, “singers but not singing,” because even though I don't correlate the two, for some reason after I left the movie, all that goes through my mind is Tina Turner from Beyond Thunderdome, you know? She's much more ruthless, of course, than [your character] is, but there was something about it [and] I had a feeling there was something behind it.
NB: Yeah, I just wanted to you emulate any strong Black woman I'd ever seen. And I wanted her to like have tall person energy. So I like tilted my head back a little bit. So it kind of looked like she was like looking down on everybody. [chuckles]
I just want her to feel like she thought she was better than everybody. I wanted her to have this confidence that wasn't mean, but it was just like, it is what it is.
CP: That's what's funny — she's not a deity in any kind of way, but there is kind of that feeling, especially when she first lifts herself, it's like, I'm your God, almost. Maybe not that far, but it's got that kind of feeling to it.
NB: Well, I mean, that's one of the lines. It's like, “Do you think we're gods, Aaron?” and that is such a juicy line to get to say out loud. [smiles]
But then I got to put humor in it. Cause my feet naturally did this funny thing, [laughs] and there's a little closeup of it that I was so happy that Kobi got, and we're like, Can we point them down? Can we do that? And then we left it funny.
So it was like powerful, but also funny. It was really just a treat to play.
CP: She obviously has a hand in what goes on, but I don't see her obviously in the field as somebody who's doing work in that sense. So do you have this idea of her behind the scenes, after she's done talking to everybody, back there doing the real red tape stuff that people don't want to do, or she's just kind of just looking over all of it and that's all that matters?
NB: DeDe doesn't do work. [chuckles] I'm so sorry. You think Oprah does work? No! Oprah drives around her estate and has a real nice time and still collects checks from Harpo Entertainment.
That's what DeDe does. DeDe's going on vacation, she's levitating to the Bahamas, she's having a nice time.
CP: In that same breathe, as she's coming out those doors, is she getting herself prepared, or she does she not have to do any of that?
NB: It's funny, because Nicole the actor preps, and I did a prep before. It was like, 3, 2, 1, the doors would open, I would walk. But in my brain, DeDe was coming from something, and it wasn't doors were being opened, she's opening the door without touching the door.
I mean, it sounds silly, but it's like, well, where's this character coming from? Where is she going? She has had her day interrupted, she has to go deal with this and then she's gonna go back and do what she's been doing.
That was like a fun thing to create.
The American Society of Magical Negroes will be released on March 15.
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