Amber Stevens West and Bresha Webb didn’t have to dig too deep to connect to their Run The World characters. In fact, for Webb, who plays successful marketing exec Renee, becoming her hilariously confident character was easy: she simply looked in the mirror.
“My manager hit me up and she read the breakdown… and was like, ‘Bresha, this sounds like you: a Chihuahua in heels,'” Webb tells ABC Audio. “I was like, ‘I have a Chihuahua. I’m always in heels and five-two. My middle name is Renee. I am the spicy diva Taurus of all of my friends and so is Renee.’ So I completely identified.”
The same can be said for West who plays Whitney, a successful banker who struggles with being the perfect fiancée.
“She wants everything to always work out,” West says of her character. “And I am also a Libra in real life, and I really just want everyone to always get along… So, I can understand.”
Aside from making viewers laugh every episode, the actors believe that the series serves another important purpose: to show multilayered successful Black women that are happy and unapologetic about their goals.
“There’s a narrative going on in our culture that Black women couldn’t have it all — or that we needed to be perfect in order to have these things,” West explains. “And like Bresha said, ‘These characters are flawed, but also killing it.'”
“They have the life that we all aspire to,” West continues. “Every single one of these characters is living this beautiful life. And I just I just found that so refreshing.”
Webb agrees, adding that she “was blown away” by their vulnerability, complexity, and friendship.
“It was in line with how I am with my friends: uplifting, being true mirrors of each other, [with] truth and love,” she adds.
Run The World premieres Sunday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on Starz.
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