If there is one iconic scene (so far) from Power Book II: Ghost is the moment in which Diana Tejada (LaToya Tonodeo) read all of the Tejadas for filfth at dinner in Season 2 Episode 8, “Drug Related.”
Read our September cover story with the cast of Power Book II: Ghost here.
During Blavity/Shadow and Act’s recent cover story shoot for the final season of the show, the cast opened up about shooting that scene and spoke about its impact.
“I knew it was going to be crazy at the table read,” said Michael Rainey Jr., who plays Tariq.
“From reading it, we knew,” said Tonodeo. “But chemistry on [that] day…we split it up into two days and Courtney [A. Kemp] was there, Shanna [Stein] was the director for that episode, and she would come and whisper little things in our ear and we were just ad-libbing. There was a part where he [Lovell Adams-Grey, who plays Dru] kicked me under the table and I was like, ‘Can we cuss on here?’ When I was like, “Shut the f**k up!’ and I went off on him because he kicked me, it was real. He kicked me under the table, [like] trying to tell Diana to chill out, and I’m like, ‘No, don’t tell me to chill out.’ They let us ad-lib, it was so much fun. The chemistry was crazy.”
From the moment her first read the pages, Rainey knew that this would be moment in the show that would go down in Power lore.
He said, “I ain’t gonna to lie, at the table read…in that moment, I’m just watching the whole family just do their thing and I’m like, ‘Yo, this is about to be a staple scene in this season. I know for sure people are going to be talking about this for mad long.’ And that’s exactly what they made it. They made it a staple in that season for sure. I knew off-rip. I was like, ‘Damn, this is about to be lit.'”
Watch the full cover story interview above.
