On Thursday, February 20, 2025, The Paley Museum at the Paley Center for Media in New York City held a red carpet premiere for Beyond the Gates, the first new network daytime drama in 25 years (since Passions), the first new soap opera to debut on CBS since 1987 (The Bold and the Beautiful), the first new show for Procter & Gamble Productions, the company that put the “soap” in “soap opera” since As the World Turns went off the air in 2010, and the first time the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has stepped up as a co-presenter. Tea was spilled! And I was lucky enough to be front and center to hear it all.
At the Beginning With You
Executive Producer Sheila Ducksworth reminisced about being 10 years old and watching General Hospital in its heyday (which made me suspect we were exactly the same age). Amidst all the Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) drama, she most looked forward to seeing the character of Claudia (Bianca Ferguson), who was the only woman of color on the canvas.
Ducksworth resolved then and there that one day, she would create a soap opera in which the Black characters weren’t just “the best friend.” For a while, she thought Generations had beaten her to it. But that show was only a half-hour and featured a mixed cast. Ducksworth wanted her soap to be an hour long and primarily African-American. It only took her 45 years to make her visions a reality.
Tamara Tunie, on the other hand, grew up a “math and science kid.” She assumed she would be a doctor of some kind, even though she had loved to perform since the age of three when she first got “hooked on the applause” it inspired and sang in her school’s choir.
It was a high-school teacher who suggested she try out for the musical theater program at Carnegie Mellon. “I lived fifteen minutes away from the school,” Tunie said, “And I didn’t know it existed!” So she got into her parents’ station wagon — “Actually, it was a hearse, since I grew up in a funeral home.” — and drove to the audition. She was accepted and, upon graduation, moved straight to New York to pursue her dreams.
MORE: Here’s what you should know about BTG Tamara Tunie.
Daphnée Duplaix kicked off her professional career as a model. Her single, working mother “pinched her pennies” to send Duplaix to modeling school, which she reached by taking a “homemade bus” jitney in Florida. Duplaix admitted to a rocky relationship with her mom but stressed, “If you blame your parents for the bad, you have to blame them for the good, too.” No matter how little money they had, her mom always did her best to make it possible for her daughter to follow her dreams.
READ MORE: Here’s what you should know about BTG Daphnée Duplaix.
How Did You Get To Be Here?
Duplaix’s first daytime role was as Valerie on Passions. One day, she was shocked to receive a script where Valerie suddenly pulls off her mask to reveal she’d been a man — a different character named Vincent viewers had been watching for months — all along. She assumes that will be the craziest scene she will ever play. Her next part was as yet another recast for Rachel Gannon on One Life To Live. Rachel was much less insane than Valerie/Vincent, but Duplaix admitted being a recast was stressful. “You don’t want to be just one of many or, God forbid, the last!” Originating the role of Nicole on BTG is also stressful but in a different way. “I hope to still be playing this woman 10 years from now!”
For Tunie, who’d appeared on primetime shows like Law & Order: SVU and 24, as well as movies like Devil’s Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves, it was specifically the role of Anita on BTG that brought her back to daytime. “I believe in physics,” Tunie swore. “Energy creates energy.” This past summer, her heart broke when a project she’d “poured my blood, sweat, and tears” into kicked her to the curb. She was devastated. But, if it had gone forward, then she wouldn’t have been available to accept the offer from Beyond the Gates. (According to Ducksworth, none of the other casting could happen until they’d signed Tunie. Even though they’d auditioned Duplaix weeks earlier and knew she was their first and only choice for the character of Nicole — then called Crystal — they kept her on hold for weeks. Duplaix sighed that, every Friday, she would call her agent and wonder why they weren’t hiring her. What had she done wrong?)
Tunie spilled that Anita may seem put together in the first episode, but this self-made woman, former girl group singer, civil rights activist and, as her daughter playfully teases “Miss EGOT,” has a deep, dark secret, and when it comes out, it’s going to be so good — and so messy! Ducksworth chimed in that she was reading scripts six months ahead of Tunie, and the secret was even better than the actress knew!
Tunie added that when she played Jessica on ATWT, because she was “the only one,” she “had to be good. Just good. Good all the time.” Anita is allowed to have a lot more layers, and now that there are multiple other African-American characters on the canvas, a Black woman can be a villain, as well!
Duplaix agreed. As a mom, it’s so important for her that her children will have a show to watch with plenty of people who look like them.
Future Imperfect
Also walking the red carpet was Kimberly Doebereiner, the show’s Executive Producer from Procter & Gamble. I admit it. I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask her, “If Beyond the Gates does well, does that mean we could get As the World Turns back? We could get Guiding Light back? We could get Another World back?”
Doebereiner merely smiled modestly and told me, “Those were some great shows.”
So that sounds like a “don’t hold your breath” to me. But I did ask! Soap Hub is here for you. Be sure to tune into Beyond the Gates on Monday, February 24 at 2 PM ET (1 PM PT) to watch this new soap opera from day one.
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