Emilio Madrid; Getty Images; Karla Mosley
Tamara Tunie, Daphne Duplaix and Karla Mosley have signed on to Beyond The Gates.
Beyond the Gates — previously known as The Gates — has announced its first wave of casting as the new soap from the CBS Studios / NAACP Venture inches closer to its debut, which is slated for early next year.
Casting Coups
Tamara Tunie will star as Anita Dupree, matriarch of the core Dupree family. Per a press release, “A famous singer back in the day, Anita worked hard for her success, and raised two daughters with her now-retired senator husband. But underneath her glamorous and refined exterior is a fierceness she gained from her humble beginnings in Chicago.”
Tunie is well-known to soap fans for her long run on As The World Turns, where she played the role of Jessica Griffin McKechnie Harris, a lawyer and one-time Oakdale district attorney, from 1987-95 and again from 2000-07. A native of Pennsylvania, she graduated from the prestigious Carnegie-Mellon University and now serves on its Board of Trustees. In 1981, she made her Broadway debut — alongside the legendary Lena Horne, no less — in Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. On prime-time, she is best known for originating the role of medical examiner Dr. Melinda Warner for an incredible 23 seasons on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and she has also recurred on shows such as Blue Bloods, The Good Wife and Elementary. She has appeared in movies, as well, including Wall Street, City Hall, The Devil’s Advocate and Eve’s Bayou.
Karla Mosley is set to star as Dani Dupree, described as “Anita’s daughter, and a former model turned momager who gave up her career for love. Dani was the Dupree family wild child. Free-spirited, headstrong and uninhibited, she dropped out of school to pursue a high-flying modeling career and she has always marched to the beat of her own drum.”
Mosley began her daytime career with the role of Christina Moore Boudreau on Guiding Light, which she played from 2008-09. She then moved to Bold and Beautiful, where she played the groundbreaking transgender role of Maya Avant Forrester from 2013-19. She has also appeared in Gossip Girl, Hart of Dixie, Deadly Cheer Mom and Burn After Reading. A New York native, she received her undergraduate degree from New York University.
Also joining the cast is Daphnee Duplaix, who will play Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson, Anita’s daughter and Dani’s sister. Per the press release, “Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson is a high-achieving and competitive philanthropist and psychiatrist, and exudes warmth, empathy and compassion. Nicole’s success in life extends to her marriage to her surgeon husband. She has the perfect life … from the outside.”
The New York City-born Duplaix also has deep soap roots. From 2004-08, she starred on Passions as Valerie Davis, and from 2009-10, she played Rachel Gannon on One Life To Live. Her diverse prime-time credits include episodes of Dharma & Greg, CSI and The Mindy Project.
The 411
Beyond the Gates, the CBS press release elaborates, “is set in a leafy Maryland suburb just outside of Washington D.C., and in one the most affluent African American counties in the United States. Here you’ll find a posh gated community with winding tree-lined streets and luxurious mansions to call home. At the center of this community are the Duprees, a powerful and prestigious multi-generational family that is the very definition of Black royalty. But behind these pristine walls and lush, manicured gardens are juicy secrets and scandals waiting to be uncovered. And those that live outside these gates are watching closely. These are the places where our characters live, love, work and play. Those who have ‘made it’ and those who haven’t are all trying to navigate life … and some with more grace than others.”
Produced by the CBS/NAACP Venture, led by Sheila Ducksworth, in partnership with P&G Studios, a division of Procter & Gamble, Beyond the Gates will make history as the first-ever one-hour Black daytime soap opera. It is also the first new daytime soap opera to premiere since 1999, when Passions hit the airwaves.
The show was created by Michele Val Jean, who also serves as executive producer and showrunner alongside executive producers Sheila Ducksworth, Robert Guza Jr., Julie Carruthers, Leon Russell, Derrick Johnson, Kimberly Doebereiner and Anna Saalfeld. Guza, Jr. was formerly the head writer of General Hospital and co-head writer of Loving, a script writer for Melrose Place and a member of the writing team of Santa Barbara, in addition to co-creating and head-writing Sunset Beach. Carruthers was formerly the EP of Port Charles and All My Children and was also a producer on General Hospital and Santa Barbara.
