You know those moments when you meet someone for the first time and immediately, it feels like you’ve known them forever? That’s exactly what it felt like being able to chat
with the ladies behind the viral, short film, Boyega Brides.
What started out as an idea stemming from an Instagram story showdown— “The Boy is Mine” style—became a creative release among friends as a way to provide joy during a time when it’s desperately needed.
Producer Loy A. Webb (NOS4A2, AMC), stated, “it started out as an inside joke, but also, just doing something in a moment where I didn’t feel like I had any power creatively, and all these ladies hopped onboard to create what it is that you see.”
The film stars Danielle Pinnock (Young Sheldon, CBS) and Bria Samoné Henderson (Mrs. America, Hulu). It’s narrated by Jillian Macklin(voiceover extraordinaire), directed by Kemiyondo Coutinho (Little America, AppleTV+) & co-written by Pinnock, Henderson and Webb.
A Conversation With The Ladies Behind “Boyega Brides”
In this candid conversation, full of laughter and hyping each other up, Loy, Kemi, Bria, Danielle and Jillian break down sisterhood, everything behind their hilarious short film.
From concept and ideation to freestyles and execution. Even that infamous wedding photo, along with how Beyoncé got involved, their reaction to John Boyega finding out and they answer the biggest question of whether or not a sequel is coming.
The Curvy Fashionista: How did you collectively come up with this concept? Why John specifically?
Loy:To give you a background about how the idea came— Kemiyondo, our director is a phenomenal filmmaker, actress and writer. Danielle is a writer and wonderful actress, #HashtagBooked– you should really check them out.
Bria is a wonderful actress and writer. Jill(ian) is a wonderful actress, writer and does voiceover.
I’m a playwright and a television writer and one of the things for me is that I was going through a rough time.
You know how the business can be in terms of projection and stuff like that? I was on a Facetime call with Danielle and Bria and I was telling them this and they patiently listened. Danielle was like ‘well, why don’t you just do something?’
And I was like ‘what do you mean just do something?’
She was like ‘girl we all in the house like create a short film or do something like that.’ And I was like ‘just do it like that?’
She said, “Yeah. Just do something. Whatever you need, we’ll help you. We’re all in this.” Then, I was thinking about the idea that started as an inside joke between me and Bria.
So, I’m a very big John Boyega fan *the ladies giggle* And on IG stories, Bria would post his picture and I would send her a message and screen-record myself telling her to take his picture down and post it. Like we’re not that cool. *laughter ensues*
Hey Alexa, play “Woman To Woman” by Shirley Brown
If you want to know where the idea for Boyega Brides came from, it was an inside joke between one of our stars and co-writers @bria_samone & our producer/co-writer @mslawebb. They would go back & forth on ig stories over @JohnBoyega. This is an example from April. ??? pic.twitter.com/Bwx8yTG25d
— BoyegaBrides (@BoyegaBrides) September 12, 2020
Loy: And then one day, Danielle was like we should all do something with this and we left the idea alone. But in the moment, we were like what to do? That’s how the Boyega Brides thing came to be.
TCF: That’s amazing! That sounds like such a good sisterhood– to have such creative minds to bounce ideas off of. What does sisterhood mean to each of you individually?
*everyone literally exhales*
Bria: Okay question! I’ll start because—
Danielle: Yeah, Bria you start because I gotta think. That was a good a** question.
Bria: She said, ‘great and now a thesis.’ *everyone laughs again* Well, for me, sisterhood means building something. Seeing yourself and having a mirror look at you and see themselves in you.
It’s being able to tell you about yourself when you need to be told about yourself.
Remind you of who you are, but I think when it comes to sisterhood especially amongst Black women, we kind of navigate towards people who we see ourselves in and that’s where I think a beautiful sisterhood and a healthy one can grow.
It’s just about building with other women who are like-minded, who see themselves in you and you’re just always cleaning each other’s mirrors off.
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Danielle: I would have to piggyback on that. I definitely feel like sisterhood— even just when I think about family.
It’s very ensemble-driven. It’s a collaboration and there’s a lot of trust in there. I think about the sisters that I have that are Black women in this industry, and a lot of times we are the bookmarks.
We are overlooked, especially when you’re talking about women of size.
A lot of times as Black women of size, we are the laugh track in a lot of white imaginations. – Danielle Pinnock
Danielle: So, it’s great to work on projects like Boyega Brides because we can reclaim our power, reclaim our comedy, as well as be able to work with each other without having to deal with white ownership.
I think that’s probably the best thing about working with these women in particular. It’s being able to make each other laugh with our jokes, you know? I mean this is like a powerful group right here.
Loy is truly a phenom— a gifted playwright. “By the light; by it!” (others chimed in on the obvious inside joke) Since I’ve met Bria, I’ve been calling her Emmy. I mean Mrs. America is Emmy-nominated, right now. Jillian is a fierce voiceover actor, writer, comedian extraordinaire and Kemiyondo, [is award-winning and has] Little America on AppleTV.
So, working with these women in this way has been truly an honor. And it’s been great to have some ownership over our own laughter and to provide others with joy during this time.
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TCF: Right! I love that.
Kemi: Hey friends! Sorry I got intimidated by how cute everyone was looking.
All of us burst into laughter.
Bria: Kemi, you’re gorgeous. Hush up.
Kemi: Imma show my face! For me, sisterhood, you know I think about just family, period. Back home they believe each child is born, [the family] figures out what’s missing in a group and then they become the thing that’s missing in a family.
And I think that sort of, kind of happens when you have a sisterhood. It’s that you start to learn each other’s strengths and you start to learn each other’s weaknesses and fill the blanks. It is a little bit of a dance sometimes especially if it’s a sisterhood that’s creating.
You learn ‘oh she’s good with the improv. She’s good with this. She’s good with that.’ and I think it is truly having to focus on yall’s strengths and holding each other up ‘cause you know where the other person needs more help.
For me, as someone who doesn’t have an actual sister, I found that my whole career I can point to a Black woman that caused everything. Literally, I’m not even joking.
My first writing job was because the Black assistant saw a film and then sent it to her boss. Literally, everything I have is because of Black women, including life. So, I just— I love Black women. I love telling stories about Black women.
I love working with Black women and I think that feeds into that sisterhood vibe.
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Jillian: It’s interesting like what Kemi was saying. Every facet of my life I can see how a Black woman was like ‘hey, go! Hey, I have you.’
Invisible or not, they were always there and it’s the same thing when you’re creating. It’s so precious, right? You’re like this is my baby. You don’t want a stranger to hold your baby.
So, sister to sister, it’s like ‘I got you.’ Being able to hold each other down, especially during this time ‘cause it’s been crazy. Everyday we wake up in Groundhog Day, but we literally are loving on each other and said let’s do something fun.
Loy: They answered everything! The only thing that I would add is that I see sisterhood as a circle and when we all step to the side, the circle gets bigger. That’s what I love about just working on this project.
And finding these women, in general, is that like the circle of this project and our sisterhood got bigger. Because we all stepped to the side and what Kemi said, “finding each other’s strengths” and things like that, it just made the project everything that it was.
TCF: I have goosebumps. Whew, I love us! Okay, back to the film. Was this done in one take? Or did it take a couple rehearsals because I don’t know how y’all kept a straight face during certain scenes.
Kemi: No. So what we did, we did a read-through rehearsal, to kinda figure out like what outline we wanted lock in. And once we locked in that outline, we did one more rehearsal.
But I was very passionate about not over-rehearsing, especially when I saw how good [Danielle and Bria] are with each other.
I felt confident because even in the read-through, they were cracking me up, like I was crying. I thought, ‘well if they’re doing this on a read-through, they can do this when we shoot.’
Not that I think they could ever run out of juice, but I just felt like— you know, improv people are so great that they’ll always want to create something new and so I didn’t wanna miss out.
We got comfortable with the Zoom of it all ‘cause I think that’s a new aspect. Then, when we did that, we came back and did 3 takes, but when I tell you, with the footage, there’s enough material for this to be like a 25 minute film.
TCF: That’s another question I had. Will there be a sequel? With there be another MANifestation?
Loy: If it comes, you’ll know. So many people want so many other parts, but we’ll see. I don’t know if you heard at the end of the short, there’s like a song. An original “Boyega” song.
Can you tell her how that came about, Kemi? There might be something coming out with that.
TCF: *raises eyebrow*
Kemi: I work with a bunch of music artists from Uganda [where I’m from] and so I have a platform there. For my own work, I always use Ugandan artists because I feel like you should put your own people on.
When this [film] happened, we were talking about songs, I told Loy, ‘oh I can get someone to create a song; that’s not even a problem. Like yeah we’ll create our own song.’
So, there’s that part where Danielle is like “Boyega, Boyega, Boyega.” I literally sent [Lagum] that clip and was like ‘yo can you make a song?’ He was like ‘got it.’
I sent it to Loy and Loy is like ‘I’ve been bumping this all day; this a bop!’ I text him and was like you should make this into a full song.
Then Bria is like well if he needs a feature— I’m like oh you want a feature, forreal? She’s like yeah, I want a feature! Then Danielle and Jill were in, too. Jill is already the backup dancer on the Zoom, so I just all connected Lagum with them.
Bria: We all emailed you like clips of our versions—
Kemi: And [fun fact] the whole song was made on a phone including [his part] because his laptop died.
Loy: It’s gonna be a riot when it comes out!
View this post on InstagramOriginal ‘Boyega’ song by Ugandan Rapper and Producer Lagum The Rapper. IG: @lagumtherapper
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TCF: I know she said it in the short, but when the song played, I hollered! Definitely need that on my playlist. So, how did you feel when John reacted to it? Were you surprised or did you see it coming?
*the ladies giggle intensely while reminiscing*
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) September 7, 2020
Bria: We were like we want to bring laughter to the people, but we really want John to see this as well, right?
Loy: Tell her about the prayer circle the night before.
Bria: We did a whole prayer circle. Like we really went in. We tapped into our ancestry like ‘God, we have the power of Black women. We’re gonna pray this thing through.’
And the next day, we posted it at 7AM on all of our platforms like we were ready for a press release. Then you know we’re getting all the notifications and we’re like ‘when is John gonna see it?’
And I think Loy, did you tag his sister?
Loy: Yeah and Danielle too. Cause the thing is, I had accidentally posted super, super early and I wasn’t expecting anyone to see it. Danielle saw it. She talking ‘bout how she’s the first person who officially posted it.
Danielle: Listen, I was pulling a writing all-nighter and I saw my little notification come up at like 3 o’clock in the morning. Loy posted it and I’m like ‘Game time! It’s TIME!’
So I posted it on the Boyega Brides page and on a comedy page that I run with my dear friend, LaNisa Frederick called #HashtagBooked.
I said I’m just gonna wait to do it on Twitter until everybody does it at 7, but then all these night owls and our New York followers and our UK followers on #HashtagBooked were like ‘what it this? This is hilarious. What is Boyega Brides?’
So, it started getting this kind of trickle effect. So then once we all posted it, it just blew up. It was insanity!
Loy: So what happened first, was John’s sister saw it and she commented and then Jill—
Jillian: ‘Cause I was like if she saw it—
Loy: Shoutout to Grace Boyega!
Jillian: It was grace, literally and figuratively. I was like, she’s gonna walk down the hall and be like look at this. ‘Cause I’m sure she’s screening stuff because he was getting [all this] press.
Now, it’s like oh something funny. I’m like it’s only a matter of time.
Because Danielle had pulled an all-nighter, she was knocked out. Loy was knocked out. So I’m chilling. I’m on the East Coast; they’re on the West Coast and Bria calls me and is like “YO! YO!”
Bria: I had no words.
Jillian: I’m like ‘what are you talking about? what’s happening’ I don’t have notifications turned on. I don’t have time for all that. Bria’s like “YO YO YO wake up!” I’m like ‘what? I’m already awake.’
She was [frantic] like “Loy, wake up! Everybody wake up!” She was like “John! John! JOHN!” I don’t know what’s going on.
Bria: Cause when I saw him retweet it, I was like— *visibly shook* Cause you know you just have to just double look at the tweet to see whose name is on that thang?
I was like Loy, the prayer! I called Jill and then we tried to phone Loy in and I sent the TD Jakes thing that was like “Wake up! Wake up!” Like Girl, wake up!! I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.
Loy: That had happened by like 12 noon and Danielle was the last one to find out about it. Kemi had sent me a message that said “what you wanted came true.”
Cause that was like the only thing.
I don’t care about nothing else. I just hope that he sees it, but what took us out— the biggest thing was yes, he reposted the video, but somebody had retweeted the photoshopped photo of him and Danielle and they were like “you look so happy” and he was like “thank you!”
Thank you ? https://t.co/9SXygyTQRj
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) September 7, 2020
*everyone bursts into laughter*
Danielle: That ‘thank you’ took me out.
TCF: My gosh! I was gonna ask you about that wedding photo! Who was behind that? That had me hollering!
Danielle: That would be literally, my real husband, Jack Wallace, who is my Photoshop back pocket. He’s a hilarious guy, a professional accent coach in the industry, but he’s really good at Photoshop.
I remember Kemi was like “can you just ask Jack for some random things?” And I was like “Got you!”
So I showed them the photoshop in the rehearsal and then in the performance, when we were filming it, I was like Jack, add Bria to it and so she’ll get thrown—
Bria: That was in real time. I was stuck!
Kemi: And that’s what took us all out!
Bria: People were like that picture, how?! I saw that the same time as y’all. That was my genuine reaction.
Danielle: She had that little bouquet! *cackles*
TCF: That was classic! THE FREESTYLES?! Who was the genius behind those? It went from Boyega to Beyoncé real quick!
All: Improv!
TCF: *jaw drop*
Danielle: They were freestyles in real time.
Bria: I was like God give me the spirit of rhyming.
TCF: ALL of them?!
All: Yup!
Loy: I am a dramatic writer, so comedy is something new for me. It was a process of me learning what is the structure of comedy and making it work. So, when Kemi came on board as the director, we worked through several ideas that she helped me narrow down to a general basis of what can they go [read from the script] and what can they improv?
The freestyle that was all Bria and Danielle coming straight from the top of the dome in that moment. The Beyoncé thing was written, but they then took it and went back and forth with it. That was all them.
Kemi: It’s the fun of it. You structure it and you’re giving them prompts. One of the prompts was to outdo each other. No matter what the other person says, outdo them.
I think that’s where that rap thing came from because I think when you tell yourself you have to outdo someone, normal words aren’t gonna do it at some point.
It started off with a rap and then it was a song and even with the Beyoncé thing, it was written like we’re not gonna fight over John Boyega—
Loy: because Black is King.
Kemi: Then the prompt was to outdo each other with Beyoncé lyrics and see who’s the biggest Beyonce fan. They’re just geniuses. I don’t know how else to say it.
TCF: I love that! I love that so much and I think it was Loy who had said that because she’s a dramatic writer, someone had doubted her skills when it came to comedy. Elaborate.
Loy: They didn’t necessarily doubt— so, a lot of my plays are about social issues. My play, The Light is about— I wrote that before the #MeToo movement, but it’s a lot about that.
My play, The Shadow is about the NFL kneeling situation and I was telling an associate about this when the first idea was just ruminating. We were just tryna get it together and she laughed at me. She was basically like ‘why would you waste your talent on something so stupid?’
It really sent me in a flux and I was talking to them, [asking if] I am watering down my talent. I told Kemi, ‘maybe we should add more about John and protests because that’s really why we chose John.’
First of all, like I said, I’m a big fan in general, but what we really respect and admire about John is him being vocal and not backing down about just Black lives, but about Black women. Because so often, Black women are left out of the conversation when we talk about Black lives and Black lives being killed.
That’s a very big issue for most of us and we are Black women, so to see and hear somebody like John to use his platform to say ‘hey yes, as Black men we are getting killed, but I wanna speak to you Black men also and say we need to look out for our Black women too.’
That was something very, very powerful.
View this post on Instagram“If you don’t like the hand that fate’s dealt you with, fight for a new one.” Naruto
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Loy: At that moment, if people weren’t a fan of him before, that really garnered him more support, especially from Black women. So Kemi said, “we don’t need to do all that extra stuff.
People know why they love John. It’s all over the internet. He’s trending like every week, so trust the joy of that.”
That’s when I sat back like, I do need to trust the joy that we have created in this moment because that’s just as valuable as a social issue drama. We have all this pain, but Black joy is not saying we’re not thinking about the pain; it’s like okay but we deserve joy in this moment too and we refuse to let anyone rob us of that.
So, that was something I had to work through and these ladies definitely helped me to realize that. Like yes, something serious like a social issue drama is very important to the culture, but something such as Black joy is necessary too in the midst of all the pain that’s going on.
TCF: Whew, YES! This fulfillment of Black female sisterhood is everything.
Kemi: One more thing! I just wanna say that I’ve never seen any producer or writer like Loy who pushes people the way she does.
It’s very easy to be like ‘this is my project,’ but when you asked about sisterhood, when Loy posts she’s always tryna push someone else.
I think that’s the core of sisterhood, even just like with Lagum, she always wants to arrive together! She’s not someone who wants to arrive alone and I think that that to me has been the most special part of this project.
Bria: Wait, can I add something too? A lot of times in this industry, there are so many different avenues and sometimes, some parts get overlooked. So, I do wanna shout out Jill ‘cause for 1. She is a professional voiceover actress along with being an actress too, on screen and on stage, but I also just wanna shoutout her voiceover work on this as well.
TCF: I mean she had me ready to meditate!
Bria: You know?! You get it!
Kemi: We want the app! We all want that app.
Danielle: Truly!
Jillian: We could be here all day shouting each other out. Literally this is what it turns into it. It turns into a love fest and it’s the best part about it. We are the best hype women for each other.