Yaya DaCosta is sharing what she found so relatable about her Our Kind of People character, Angela Vaughn, a single mother who moves her family to Martha’s Vineyard in hopes of growing her natural hair-care business and reclaiming her family’s name.
“We always like rooting for the underdog,” DaCosta tells ABC Audio of what she thinks will draw fans to watch. “But with her, it’s about seeing something more for yourself. And sometimes not even knowing what exactly it looks like, but just knowing that I deserve more.”
DaCosta says that “it’s that sense of deservingness” and “entitlement that so many…people of color…are just not taught…Whether it’s moving people’s bags aside without asking, and putting it back on the plane.”
DaCosta notes that she recently had that experience in her travels, and says, “[Y]ou become aware that this is something that some people have the privilege of being taught as a young person.”
However, that wasn’t the case for DaCosta’s character. The actress says that Angela’s sense of entitlement had to be learned over time.
“[Her entitlement] comes from a sense of justice. It comes from love for her mother. It comes from a love of hair, love of her daughter, Nikki, wanting to set her up in life and give her more than she’s ever had,” DaCosta explains. “So it comes from a lot of places. But that’s something that is like a study, like where do we find our sense of worthiness? Where do we insist that we belong, and how does that drive help us break these…glass ceilings, or change the narrative that we’ve been given about ourselves?”
Our Kind of People, also starring Nadine Ellis and Morris Chestnut, and airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.
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