Summary

Marley and Fela’s friendship in Tyler Perry’s Duplicity is tested as dark truths are revealed.

In an interview with Collider, Kat Graham and Meagan Tandy praise Tyler Perry’s film for its riveting and multifaceted storytelling.

Working with Perry empowers actors like Graham and Tandy to trust their work and believe in themselves.

Marley and Fela may seem like best friends in Tyler Perry’s Duplicity, but the deeper writer-director-producer Tyler Perry takes his characters down the path to truth, the further it’s revealed that perhaps they knew very little about one another. Kat Graham and Meagan Tandy, as Marley and Fela, respectively, jumped at the opportunity to play in the sandbox that Mr. Perry has created. While speaking about their new project, I noticed that their chemistry is strong. It’s reminiscent of their time on screen together. Unlike some of the characters in this film, they are purely genuine.
Speaking with Collider, Graham and Tandy discuss how they dove deep into the project, finding the nuances of their characters. One plays a high-powered attorney, and the other plays a sharp newscaster. They both tapped into real inspiration to bring their characters to life. But there was one thing that pulled them into this project: “Tyler Perry.”
‘Duplicitious’ Is How Meagan Tandy and Kat Graham Describe ‘Tyler Perry’s Duplicity’

Together, Tandy and Graham describe their new film as “duplicitous.” But, of course, it was just a joke. “There’s so many words to describe Duplicity. It’s riveting, it’s dramatic, it’s heart-wrenching. It has romance at moments. It really takes you for a ride,” Graham says. “It’s not fair to just put it into one word, because it’s actually so many films in one. It takes so many turns.”
Tandy continued, “As soon as you get some answers, it’s just going to lead to more questions. It literally keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very beginning to the absolute end.” With an ensemble cast that also includes RonReaco Lee and Tyler Lepley, Graham discussed how she felt watching the film. “I felt so invested watching everyone’s arcs and everyone’s characters. And going back and seeing what everyone tick,” she says.
Tyler Perry’s Duplicity tackles that gray area in a world where things are black and white, literally and figuratively. “Everyone wants to look at life as if it was just black and white, but it’s just not true. Not everything’s like that. There’s grey, there’s opaque, there’s the shiny version, there’s the matte version of it. I feel like it’s important in the fact that it forces everyone to understand that it’s not always going to be one thing or the other. Sometimes it’s the middle. It’s life,” Tandy says.
Working With Tyler Perry Was the Draw for Both Actresses

Image via Amazon Prime

For many actors, finding a juicy part is what attracts them to a role. For this pair, it was simple: Tyler Perry. Graham, a first-time collaborator with the esteemed director, says, “You just knew that he was going to make it; he was just going to do his thing with it. I could not wait to work with him.” Tandy follows up with, “He’s really good… that man has so many hats, and it was really awesome to see him wear every single one of them so incredibly well. And at the same time, be able to empower us to have fun, do your thing. He really trusted us in what we chose to do in our performances, which was so great.”
Graham bounced back, exclaiming his “his essence” is what makes him. “He’s such a powerhouse. When he walks into the set, you just feel it. He’s this anointed Holy man who is a walking, living legend. Who is also super-grounded and really cares about his crew and the actors.” Graham noted that Mr. Perry holds himself to high standards, which, in turn, makes them, as actors, hold themselves to higher standards they’re used to. “If you believe in me, then I believe in me a little bit more,” she says.
Working with Mr. Perry is not just an artistic experience but a learning moment. Graham learned that “if you truly believe in yourself, make anything happen with what you’ve got. You just have to keep going.” She noted that the same integrity is part of the characters that he writes. Whether they’re villains or do-gooders, she says, “All the characters have so much conviction in what they do, I think that’s a Tyler Perry thing. He’s literally the king of resilience.”

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Tandy adds, “It was a great reinforcer to trust your work, too. I can definitely be a person [who] questions, ‘I hope I did a good job.’ He really has so much trust upon what we’re doing that it’s like, ‘You know what, I am doing it good.’ It was a great reminder to have that empowerment, but also to be like, ‘You did the work. It was great. It was enough.'”
Meagan Tandy and Kat Graham Share Who Inspired Them

Graham reveals that playing a lawyer like Marley is really exciting for her. The character, who is close to the central inciting event of the film, is seen fighting for justice and searching for answers, allowing Graham to pull out the nuances of a character who is “on the right side of justice, or so we think.” She took inspiration from her cousin, Alphonso David, a civil rights attorney, and one of her best friends, Traci Blackwell, Head of Targeted Scripted at Amazon MGM Studios. Tandy took inspiration from any news station she watched, but fellow cast member Shannon LaNier just so happened to be a newscaster. “It was nice to take from him, get some inspiration about what it is about what I should be doing.” She was also inspired by her life as a beauty queen.
Audiences love a good thriller. They love a mystery as it’s their opportunity to solve the case before it’s revealed on screen. Graham, who will portray Diana Ross in Michael later this year, believes that people love being taken on a ride, especially if you’re a fan of film and TV.
“You think that you know how things are going to end, you think you know how characters are going to develop, and who’s going to end up with who, and what’s going to happen. So, when you get a movie like this, you can’t fathom that you wouldn’t see it coming!”
Tyler Perry’s Duplicity is streaming on Prime Video.