Diarra Kilpatrick, the writer, created BET’s “Diarra From Detroit” for Diarra, the actor, to portray Diarra, the fictional character who finds herself in the middle of a big mystery she’s driven to solve. But things weren’t always coming up Diarra, Kilpatrick says by phone, until she met the right people. “One of the first plays that I did when I first got to L.
A. was ‘The Piano Lesson,’” she recalls. “And Julius Tennon [actor-producer and husband of Viola Davis] was cast in that play.
Julius lights up a room. He’s very gregarious, and he and I bonded really quickly,” she says. “He [talked] about his wife so much, and I love a man who just loves his wife.
It’s just so endearing. Finally, we had a [cast] party, and [Davis] showed up, and I met her and I’m like, ‘That’s not your wife. That’s my wife!’” Kilpatrick had indeed been a fan since her youth, having watched Davis on the 2000 CBS series “City of Angels.
” “She played a nurse, and I would tape episodes of television when I was a kid. I don’t know, I was weird. I’ve been a Black nerd all my life.
” Years later, when Kilpatrick was promoting her web series “American Koko,” the in-your-face (and Emmy-nominated ABC digital) comedy about an agency that specializes in rehabbing racists, she included the couple on the email chain. “And they called me back right away. We didn’t have .
.. I don’t even know how many views, but probably less than 1,000.
” Yet Davis and Ten.
