Tyler Lepley And Serayah Bring 'Ruth & Boaz' To Atlanta Ahead Of Netflix Debut
Netflix hosted a special screening of Ruth & Boaz Tuesday night at Regal Atlantic Station in Atlanta, followed by a post-screening Q&A moderated by Kandi Burruss.
Stars Serayah and Tyler Lepley were joined by producer DeVon Franklin and supporting cast members Jermaine Dupri, Lecrae, Nijah Brenea, Walnette Santiago, James Thomas Lee and Gabby Jackson.
Other attendees include Joey Bada$$, Da Brat, Montell Jordan, Eva Marcille, along with Terri J. Vaughn of Tyler Perry’s Miss Governor, Tyler Perry’s Beauty In Black star Taylor Polidore Williams.
Serayah shared during the Q and A what attracted her to the script.
“Give it up for Black love. DeVon Franklin, Tyler Perry, Netflix. Yes,” she said. “And the story was such a good read, and I felt like the characters were very honest and grounded, but also so wholesome. And I was really excited to play a wholesome character.”
Lepley concurred with her sentiments. “Just the idea of what Black love really is,” he said. “When you look around, it’s almost like love is starting to feel exhausting. It feels very surface-level. It feels very transactional and almost like it’s conditional. People only step into it if they’re taking something away from it.”
Adding, “What we did on the set in terms of putting our own spin on the classic tale that came from the Book of Ruth … it is a blessing for us to be able to speak for us in terms of our culture and what Black love is. This is just a refreshing story to let you know that if you step into a relationship and you actually serve the relationship and you serve God and your purpose, you’d be surprised what you come out of it with.”
Franklin who co-produced the film with Perry had these thoughts, “There was another idea that we were thinking we were going to do, and we went into negotiating that particular project, and it fell through,” he said. “And literally, I’m sitting at home thinking like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ And around this time, I’d been doing a sermon series on what it means to be single. And I started studying the Book of Ruth, and it was like, wow, this is so interesting. Ruth never went looking for love. She had made a commitment to be of service. And then love was given as a reward.”
He also discussed his Netflix partnership and what audiences can exspect from future projects, “This is the first of many movies that are coming. And so it was very important to go back to the Word and to do something very unique,” he said. “This is a historic opportunity to modernize a Bible story, one of the greatest love stories in the Bible story, and to do it with us. It had never been done.”
Ruth & Boaz is out this friday.
All pictures below are courtesy Netlix
