In Hamilton, Daveed Diggs played the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. He was part of the original cast, winner of the Tony, the cast that took Broadway by storm and once again changed the history of musical theatre in the United States. The incredible success of the play about the history of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton also changed the lives of everybody in the cast, including Diggs.
One of those changes was Diggs’ trip to Miami. The 35 year-old artist came to South Florida to promote the incredible movie Wonder, his first experience acting in a film.
The movie, starred Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson and the luminous Jacob Tremblay, is based on the book Wonder written by Colombian-American RJ Palacio (Raquel Jaramillo).
WONDER tells the inspiring and heartwarming story of August Pullman. Born with facial differences that, up until now, have prevented him from going to a mainstream school, Auggie becomes the most unlikely of heroes when he enters the fifth grade. As his family, his new classmates, and the larger community all struggle to find their compassion and acceptance, Auggie’s extraordinary journey will unite them all and prove you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.
Diggs plays Auggie teacher Mr. Brown, a former Wall Street executive who gave everything up to be a teacher. He is the teller of the moral of the story. The keeper of the main message #ChooseKind. His monthly precepts gently guides the soul of the audience. “You are not alone,” Mr. Brown tells Auggie after he suspects of some serious bullying.
It seems the perfect role for Diggs, who looks to be still getting used to all the things Hamilton brought into his life. He obviously enjoys the door it has opened, the people he has gotten to collaborate with, the new projects. The possibilities. The attention seems constraining somehow. “I do what I was doing before, just many more people see it now,” he told me when I asked him about his life before and after Hamilton.
I’m definitely a better person after watching Wonder, and Diggs is too. It’s impossible not to aim for more after entering RJ Palacio’s world. See my interview with Diggs and go see the movie. You will be changed too.
