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Romance Rewind: Taye Diggs Reminisces Over ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’ & More Swoonworthy Roles
Taye Diggs has embraced romance in his onscreen work since the very beginning of his acting career. The actor and Broadway star made his feature film debut in the 1998 romantic dramedy How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which has gone down in history as a rom-com classic.
“I learned a lot and was very just grateful and excited to be on my way when it came to being in major motion pictures,” Diggs told Swooon as he looked back at his romantic roles through the years in our first-ever Romance Rewind series. “And to have Angela Bassett at the helm, I felt very well supported, very well taken care of.”
In 1999, he starred in The Best Man as Harper Stewart, a role he’s reprised in a sequel and limited series. “I got to mess around with comedy and humor and realized that that was something that that I wanted to continue doing,” the actor noted.
Diggs reunited with The Best Man costar Sanaa Lathan in Brown Sugar, the 2002 friends-to-lovers rom-com. “I felt like I had arrived,” the All American alum said about the film. “When you can do a movie and have some say so and have that familiarity… Those are my favorites: the ensemble romantic comedies. It’s like camp. Luckily, all of those actors are so much fun onscreen and off.”
Brown Sugar was filmed on location in New York City, and Diggs noted that the movie was one of the first to film in the Big Apple after 9/11. “We felt like we were doing something, you know what I mean? Something very important. So that made us enjoy New York all that much more,” he said.
Fast forward 16 years later, and Diggs continues to step into romance-centric projects. One of the most recent examples is Set It Up, the Netflix rom-com he starred in alongside Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch.
Diggs recognized Powell’s recent rise as the king of the rom-com renaissance. The Private Practice star knew in 2018 that Powell was well on his way to superstardom. He said Powell was “always up for trying something new and [had] just a great attitude on set. Both of them [Powell and Deutch] are doing really well.”
His most recent role was in Lifetime’s romantic drama Terry McMillian Presents: Forever with Meagan Good. “That was a movie where I knew it would not be easy. I had to roll up my sleeves and allow myself to really go there emotionally, and it was worth it,” he told Swooon.
Scroll up to see Diggs go through more of his romantic roles over the years, and let us know your favorite role of his in the comments below.
