Daveed Diggs Talks Oh Father, ‘Raise Him Up’, and the Crazy Promise He Made Joining The Boys
The Blindspotting star also dives into his other projects and teases whether he would return to Hamilton.
Finding time during a year that could charitably be described as demanding, Daveed Diggs dropped by the Awards Tour podcast to chat with Rotten Tomatoes Awards Editor Jacqueline Coley about his incredible Emmy-nominated year. While on tour with his band Clipping, the actor, writer, and producer discussed his work on the fifth and final season of the Prime Video hit series The Boys. He also shared how he created and performed the Emmy-nominated original song “Raise Him Up” as the unforgettable Oh Father, and why joining an Eric Kripke series meant preparing and eagerly agreeing to say yes to any outlandish request.
The Blindspotting star also dove into his other recent projects, including Gregg Araki’s absurdist comedy I Want Your Sex, and revealed what he has been developing with longtime writing collaborator Rafael Casal. Plus, he teases whether he would ever return to Hamilton as Lafayette after watching Leslie Odom Jr. reprise his role as Aaron Burr.
Read on for a brief preview of our chat with Daveed Diggs, and we’ll see you on the next stop on the Awards Tour.
Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: I love how your two Primetime Emmy nominations are for your work on television, but they’re also backed by your history as a writer and musician. I’d love to hear what you think, and when did they pitch this?
Daveed Diggs: I didn’t know we were going to do a song, so I had no idea this was going to be possible. When I found out, I was really happy, because I think Chris killed this song. It’s so good. And putting it together the whole time was so much fun. From a process perspective, it was everything I could have wanted — super inclusive, an incredibly fun recording session, really wonderful shooting. All of the pieces were exactly what I would be looking for. So when those kinds of things get recognized, it makes me very happy, because that’s just not always the case. It was real cool.
RT: When did they first ask you to do it?
DD: We were definitely shooting. I think maybe we had finished episode one, or maybe we were working on 502 or something. And Kripke reached out to me, kind of sheepishly, like, “I’m sure you get this a lot, and you can say no, but here’s this idea.” And he was right. I’m asked this all the time, and I do always say no.
But one of the things I had decided when I took this role, because I really like the show, and I think the writers are so smart, one of the decisions I’d already made for myself was that I’m coming into the fifth season of a really successful, established show, and they know how they do things. I didn’t want to come in and throw wrenches in that. I decided the most joyful way for me to work on this was to just come in and do the thing they’re asking me to do, and have faith that they know what they’re doing—because obviously they do—and just put my whole ass into it.
So I’d already decided that whatever they asked, I was going to do it. Because if you’re going to do The Boys, you want to do the crazy. So I wasn’t thrown by the exploding ball gag in the mouth, or being in an S&M relationship with the vice president. All of those things made total sense for a pastor on The Boys. But it was a bit of a curveball when they asked me to do the song. And I said, “I’m already going to say yes, but give me 24 hours so I can do my due diligence and make sure I won’t regret this,” which I don’t think I will.
Then literally the next morning I was like, “Yeah, I’m going to do it.” I was always going to do it. I just needed to reinforce that for myself. And I’m so happy we did. It was so much fun.
The Boys is available to stream on Prime Video.
