‘Definitely a Departure’: RonReaco Lee & Tyler Lepley Reflect on Tyler Perry’s Duplicity
Tyler Perry’s Duplicity has been captivating Prime Video audiences, who have enjoyed the thriller from the prolific creator of Beauty in Black. At the core of the movie is the friendship between determined lawyer Marley Wells and her longtime friend Fela Blackburn, but the biggest plot twist is prompted by two other characters: Marley’s boyfriend Tony Crenshaw and Tony’s friend Kevin Moore. Both of them turn out to be very different from what the audience expects them to be.
CBR spoke to actors Tyler Lepley (who plays Tony) and RonReaco Lee (who portrays Kevin) about their roles in Duplicity. The two stars talked about what attracted them to the project and their characters at the outset, since they were so different. Plus, they also revealed their favorite parts of the movie.
CBR: RonReaco, the last time audience saw you was as Special Agent Mike Brooks in the FBI: International Season 4 premiere. Mike met a tragic end, and now in Tyler Perry’s Duplicity you’re playing a cop. How does this role compare to that one?
RonReaco Lee: It was different. This one was definitely a departure from anything I’d ever done before, and I was glad. I was thankful for it. It was refreshing. As an actor, sometimes we can kind of get typecast, so we’re doing the same thing. Every project is just different versions of the same thing. So when Mr. Perry hit me up about this, it was a no-brainer — and definitely different from FBI: International. Not the same. No similarities, in fact.
Tyler, you had previously starred in Tyler Perry’s TV show The Haves and the Have Nots for eight seasons. Did that experience help you on Duplicity, working with him a second time?
Tyler Lepley: Absolutely… all the way down to the crew as well. There [were] still 10 years in between when I had started The Haves and Have Nots and when we were shooting this, and there was a good maybe 70, 75 percent of the crew that was still the same, too. And I feel like, just like when you see the [Buffalo] Bills gel well, it takes a couple games to get that chemistry.
So any time you have that experience together beforehand, it just helps expedite the whole process. When we show up, we know exactly what we can bring to the table. We know what to expect from each other. It just helps the the ship run that much more efficiently.
Tyler Perry’s Duplicity has plenty of dramatic moments as a bonafide thriller movie. What scenes were your favorite for Kevin and Tony, or just the most interesting for you to play?
Lee: There was a scene at the graveyard with Jimi Stanton [who plays Caleb], and I enjoyed just because it was so eerie, it was so creepy, and we were in an actual cemetery in Atlanta.
There’s a scene that — I think it’s [in] Marley’s house — that, it wasn’t on the schedule. And if I remember correctly, they put it on the schedule for towards the end of the night, and so this is one of those scenes that I didn’t know I was doing that day. But sometimes those are the best scenes, honestly, because your instrument will show up, and so it was a good one. It was [Tyler] and I, and I had shown up at the house. And I really, really, really, really liked that scene. That scene was fun. Really enjoyed it. Those are probably my two favorites.
Lepley: There’s something in the third act, towards the end of the movie… We start seeing some hints that maybe things aren’t what meets the eye with Tony. There’s a specific moment with myself, RonReaco’s character, and Kat [Graham]’s character where the cat really comes out the bag. He says something — I’ll stay vague for spoiler alert purposes, but there’s a moment where his mask comes off. Oh, okay, something else is going on with this dude. That was a lot of fun to play with, because I had to keep it under wraps for for the first two-thirds of the movie.
