Daveed Diggs has lived a thousand lives through his work—whether it’s playing a French bureaucrat on stage or a crab who lives with his mermaid friend under the sea. For ’Canes who have been fans of Diggs for years, they finally got to hear from him at Thursday’s “What Matters to U” (WMTU) discussion hosted by the University of Miami’s Student Government agency.
Having found the courage to pursue his creative passions in theater at Brown University, Diggs was excited to speak to college students about the time in his life that soon became a turning point for his career.
“I didn’t really mean to choose theater as my major, my college was one of those places where you can take whatever, and a lot of people want to create a major when they go there,” Diggs said in an interview with University Communications. “So that's what I thought I was doing—I was teaching a lot at the time, so I was going to do this arts education thing. But then, I looked around and had finished all of the theater major concentration.”
At the start of the event, moderated by B.F.A. musical theater senior Keenan Lyons and assistant professor Jessica Bashline, the crowd roared with anticipation, with even a few students cheering “Lafayette!” given the actor’s portrayal of French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
During the discussion with ’Canes, Diggs discussed his insights into everything from college to poetry, acting, and teaching.
Having grown up in Oakland, California, Diggs had been part of the local art scene, whether it was learning about slam poetry, visiting his local record shop to get the albums of his favorite rappers, or being a part of experimental theater.
He recounted the moment a college counselor in his high school told him Brown might have been the best option for him—notably because they had no core requirements and gave him the freedom to explore what he wanted to study.
“What that allowed me to do is be out in the world teaching and working with kids,” Diggs explained. “And then, I could also be on campus doing a lot of different productions and writing my own stuff.”
He had gone to Providence, Rhode Island to visit the school the spring before his freshman year, something he joked was a “trap” because the recruiters showed him the campus outside of the cold winters that usually take place.
Diggs, who used to run track and field in college, even made a note to the audience that coming to the U for competitions was the highlight of his college experience, specifically because of the warm weather.
Having also notably taken on roles in projects such as “black-ish,” Diggs is known for being a pillar of Black representation in the media, even using his platform at times to advocate for change.
Having had early experience as a substitute teacher before his acting career skyrocketed, he often went back to schools to teach poetry and English to middle-schoolers in the Bay Area.
“My whole thing was trying to start wherever they were,” Diggs explained. “Then on my first day of class, I would go in and ask everybody what they were listening to, in terms of music. Normally I was listening to everything at the time, so I would probably know it, but the stuff I didn't know, I would go home to study and then I would start developing my lessons based on that. The great thing about performance poetry back when I used to do that was it comes out of the community that is taking place. So, I have to know more about the community and then be like, ‘What are the sort of practical skills that can help us with this? How do you tell the story?’”
Diggs also provided his unique perspective and experiences in other aspects of his life—for instance, recently becoming a father.
“I’ve played a father before in roles, and now I wish I could void all of that,” Diggs said. “I played one father figure in ‘Trolls,’ and I had a line that said something like ‘When you have kids, they change everything,’ and I had just said it so casually. Now I realize there’s so much joy and fear in a statement like that.”
In wrapping up the WMTU conversation, Diggs said that for students looking to pursue any sort of creative passion, they should make use of the resources and spaces available to them now while in college.
“The thing about college is that you have all these resources available to you, all this free space,” he said. “My favorite thing to remind university students about is that you have to take advantage of the space and the resources here. Anything. If there's a building here that you can use for something, you should use it. Space is really, really expensive once you leave school, and I find that those are actually the things I didn't take enough advantage of when I was in college. Whether you're studying your creative passion or you're just doing it on the side, the buildings are the same, the research is the same, and students have access to almost everything, regardless of what your major is.”
The Q&A portion followed, with students asking everything from what the funniest thing to happen during the “Hamilton” run on Broadway was to what Diggs thinks is his biggest strength as a storyteller.
And then, he leaned into the most anticipated moment of the evening, throwing up the U to show his love for the audience full of ’Canes.
