TV Talk: Pittsburgh native Tamara Tunie leads CBS’s ‘Beyond the Gates’

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Nowadays actors cross from one medium to another all the time: Meryl Streep stars in movies, Hulu and HBO series and on Broadway; Harrison Ford returns to Paramount+ this week in the second season of “1923” (Feb. 23) and he’s on movie screens currently in Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World.”

But back in the 1980s, movie stars didn’t do TV. Broadway stars rarely had the opportunity to moonlight on soap operas. And prime time actors saw daytime soaps as a career step back.

Tamara Tunie, a McKeesport native who grew up in Homestead, wasn’t the first actor to have three jobs in three mediums simultaneously, but she was still a rarity during her years on the daytime soap “As the World Turns” (1987-2009).

Tunie, a 1981 Carnegie Mellon University drama grad, returns to her daytime roots this week with the debut of CBS’s “Beyond the Gates” (2-3 p.m. weekdays, KDKA-TV), the first new daytime soap opera since NBC’s “Passions” (1999-2007) and the first soap ever to center on an African-American family. (NBC’s “Generations,” which aired 1989-91, centered on both a Black and a white family.)

Tunie recalled that when she joined “ATWT,” she soon wanted to model her career on “ATWT” co-star Larry Bryggman because he was in the soap, appearing on Broadway and landing roles in movies like “Die Hard With a Vengeance.”

Her craziest multijob memory comes from the period when she starred opposite Denzel Washington in “Julius Caesar” on Broadway.

On a Tuesday night after the stage show’s performance, a car service picked Tunie up at the Belasco Theatre and took her to the set of “Law & Order: SVU” to film with “some poor person who was discovered dead by the river.” She worked there until 3 a.m., got a ride home and slept until 6 a.m. before returning to “ATWT” to rehearse 7 a.m. to noon. Then it was back to the Belasco Theatre to perform in the “Julius Caesar” Wednesday matinee, which she repeated for a third time in 24 hours that night.

“I just use that example to inspire young actors to be professional, to stay on their game, to live up to their word,” Tunie said. “I was able to do (three roles in 24 hours) because my reputation said, ‘If she says she’s gonna be there, she’s gonna be there,’ and fortunately the productions agreed to work with me and make the schedule work. … And I will say, only in New York City I could have done this.”

“Beyond the Gates” complicates Tunie’s ability to appear on Broadway simultaneously because “Gates” films in Atlanta, but she did have breaks built into her shooting schedule, including several weeks in December when Tunie returned to New York to direct a workshop for a proposed new musical about the life of singer/civil rights activist Marian Anderson, a project Tunie committed to before she landed the lead role in “Gates.”

Getting reaccustomed to the fast pace of soaps isn’t a challenge for a veteran like Tunie.

“This was like riding a bike,” she said. “I got on and pedaled away.”

But given that soaps are traditionally filmed in New York or Los Angeles, the speed of soap production has been new for the Atlanta crew working on “Beyond the Gates.”

“We spent quite a bit of time teaching daytime drama to the cast and crew here in Atlanta because it is very different from film and TV,” Tunie said. “When I was doing ‘Law & Order,’ I would get the script and I would have at least a week to learn some multisyllabic, scientific word that needed to come out of my mouth naturally. Whereas with daytime, it’s a speeding train.”

Tunie stars in “Beyond the Gates” as Anita Dupree, the show’s matriarch, opposite Clifton Davis (“Amen”), who plays patriarch Vernon Dupree. Tunie describes Anita, a singer who in her youth was in a girl group called The Articulates, as a glamorous force of nature, a silver fox who is smart, relevant and vital.

“At a certain point, she went solo to pursue a jazz career, and she met her husband when she was with The Articulates at a (civil rights) march in Washington, D.C., in the ‘70s,” Tunie explained. “He was an up-and-coming politician. They married, started a family (that includes two now-adult daughters). She retired from entertaining, focused on the family and helped him build his political career.”

Davis said for his character, now a retired U.S. senator, he took inspiration from a real-life politician.

“(The late U.S. Rep.) John Lewis was, in my view, one of the most important legislators to come down the pipe, particularly since he emerged from the Civil Rights Movement,” Davis said. “I drew actually from my father, and I try to be the man he could have been and try to make the difference that a lot of men, African-American men particularly, don’t always have the opportunity to make. (Some lack) the means and money and struggle for work and all of that stands in the way of some of our fathers being the better fathers.”

Tunie said she takes inspiration for Anita from Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll (who played Dominique Deveraux on the prime-time soap “Dynasty”) and a figure closer to home.

“Anita Dupree is my mother, Evelyn ‘G.G.’ Tunie,” who still lives in Pittsburgh, Tunie said. Her mother took on G.G. as a nickname to substitute for grandma after the birth of her first grandchild in 1980 when a store clerk mistook her grandchild for her child. “It (stands for) either Gorgeous Grandmother or Glamorous Grandmother.”

Tamara Tunie, who was back in Pittsburgh last fall to perform “POTUS, Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” at City Theatre, recalls coming home from school to find her mom watching daytime soaps, particularly “The Secret Storm” and “The Edge of Night.”

“She’s gonna have a new soap to watch,” Tunie said, “and she’s so excited.”

Filming on “Beyond the Gates,” which is set in suburban Washington, D.C., began in November. Tunie worked with the heads of the show’s hair/makeup and wardrobe departments to create the look for her character.

Tunie stopped dying her own hair, opting to embrace a short salt-and-pepper look. But for Anita, she wanted sexy, chic long hair.

“My image is Tina Knowles, Beyonce’s mom,” Tunie said. “Jeresa Featherstone, who is our wardrobe designer, is one of the most talented designers I’ve ever worked with. Her eye is extraordinary, and the way that she costumes each individual character is so very specific.”

Because of Anita’s past as an entertainer, Tunie and Featherstone agreed Anita should have “a certain flair in what she wears.

“We have fittings, and I put something on, and immediately we’ll both go either yes or no,” Tunie said. “We’re on the same page. I love what she finds for Anita (to wear), because there’s always something interesting. It can be a simple tunic, but the tunic has feathers. So it’s really fun, really fun.”

Tunie credits the enjoyment she’s had working on “Gates” to the caliber of cast and crew, particularly her frequent scene partner Davis.

“I had never met Clifton until this past July, when he and I co-chaired the International Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem,” Tunie said. “It was the first time we had ever met, even though, of course, I knew who he was; he’s a legend. We just hit it off.”

Tunie said both actors received overtures about joining “Beyond the Gates” during their six days at the North Carolina festival and they discussed the possibility. In September, both got offers and eventually accepted their roles.

“We’re just having the time of our lives,” Tunie said. “We giggle a lot.”

But Tunie also embraces the historic nature of “Beyond the Gates” as American daytime TV’s first Black soap, arriving in a period when many daytime soaps have been canceled, and one got shunted to streaming (NBC’s “Days of Our Lives” now streams on Peacock exclusively). Tunie cited the presence of a Black executive producer, Sheila Ducksworth, and a Black head writer/showrunner, Michele Val Jean, as additional firsts. And unlike “Generations,” which was a half-hour soap that Val Jean wrote on, “Beyond the Gates” will air for an hour daily.

“Having a Black family that’s affluent in this setting — where it really does exist in this (D.C.-Maryland-Virginia) area (that has) many Black families living in these predominantly Black gated communities right outside of Washington, D.C., with the looming and large influence of Howard University — this just had not been done,” Ducksworth said. “It really took a lot of courage from everybody to say, ‘We are not only missing soaps on daytime TV, but we’re missing a Black soap,’ something that has never been done the way that we’re doing it.”