Showrunner Dayna Lynne North Talks Collaborating with Malcolm D. Lee on ‘The Best Man’ Series | EUR Video Exclusive

*“The Best Man” is back one last time!

The franchise that fans hold dear to their hearts has reunited original cast members Regina Hall, Melissa De Sousa, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Harold Perrineau, Terrence Howard, Taye Diggs, and Morris Chestnut one last time to close out the characters and their stories.

As the franchise takes its final bow, this time as an 8-part, hour-long series dubbed “The Best Man: The Final Chapters,” creator Malcolm D. Lee tapped Dayna Lynne North as Showrunner for the Peacock series.

North, known for work on projects such as “Lincoln Heights,” “Insecure,” and “Single Ladies” revealed that Lee reached out to her via email to work on this latest installment in “The Best Man” franchise. 

READ MORE: Writer & Director Malcolm D. Lee on ‘The Best Man: The Final Chapters’: ‘I Wanted To Continue That Story’ | EUR Video Exclusive

“He reached out to me,” North said. “Literally in that classic way. Once you get to a certain point in your career- my email I think is just out there in the ether. So at one point I just got an email. It was literally like, ‘Hey, you want to have a meeting? I was like, ‘What’s it about? Oh okay sure.’ We started chatting about it and he was like, ‘have you seen The Best Man, films? I was like ‘no I’ve never heard of it-of course I’ve seen, you know.’ I then went on to tell him what a huge fan I have been.”

Like a lot of moments in life, things come full circle and that’s exactly what happens in the series.

Fans of the franchise know that in the first “The Best Man,” Harper Steward [played by Diggs] causes a whirlwind of drama with his book “Unfinished Business.” That same book is back to stir up more trouble as a movie company wants to buy the rights and turn it into a feature film, which was North’s idea.

“You know, “Unfinished Business,” is kind of like where it all started,” North said. “So when I was thinking about an organic way to connect the past to the recent — because this really isn’t a reboot. This era of The Best Man, it’s like a where are they now? It’s catching us up. In thinking about what would be an organic way to connect then to now; and “Unfinished Business,” and Harper writing this messy book about his friends, is what started it all. So it just felt natural that if we were going to pick up and bring this franchise into the now, it felt right- there’s always that messy friend in a group of friends. If felt right that Harper and “Unfinished Business” should continue to be a source of mess and when you have a popular book, what tends to happen to it? So turning the book into a movie — it’s like stirring up drama again.”

North has been a long-time fan of “The Best Man” franchise, dating back to college, and now she has her own group of friends similar to “The Best Man” crew.

“I have my own “Best Man” crew from college,” North said. “We’re still friends to this day. I went to see the films with them. We were wearing our knockoff versions of all of their high fashion. Malcolm and I- our creative voices meshed really easily because I very much related to the black suburbia, being an artsy black nerd.”

North said she never imagined that would day she would be part of the franchise.

“Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined it. It’s kind of like being a fan of something. It’s like you’re sitting up in the stands and you’re asked to like come down onto the field and join your favorite players in the game. It’s like, ‘Okay! Sure!’”

Check out my full interview via the clip below and tune in to “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” now streaming on Peacock.

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