LisaRaye McCoy is well known for playing the sex sirens in television shows and film. But, as she said on The Real, she’s ready to break out of that mold.
Thanks to her first role as Diamond on The Players Club, McCoy has been chosen for the roles where a sexy woman is needed, according to Atlanta Black Star.
Because of her ease at getting such roles, she said she has had trouble trying out for roles where she doesn't have to present as a sex symbol.
As she told the panel on The Real, “When you do such a role that’s iconic and it deems you as a sex symbol, you feel that you have to be sexy all the time.”
She said she’s partly to blame for being typecast, describing how she played into what made her popular.
"You play up to what you know that helped make you, you know," she said.
“So you tend to kind of stay in those roles, besides them giving me those types of roles–the woman next door, the cheater, this mistress or whatever. It’s like ‘sucked in, pushed out, can’t speak’ kind of roles…It wasn’t until I got older that I got OK with myself, the more that I felt confident about me and the woman that I am, that made me say, ‘I am now interested in this role, in this type of role.’ And so now I’m venturing out.”
McCoy has talked about what it was like playing Diamond and the effect it had on her mental health. As she told Page Six in January, she developed a complex about her identity.
“I had an identity crisis after Players Club because I felt like I had to have the long hair and look like my character Diamond in order to be recognized,” she said. “Players Club put me on the map…it made me a bonafide sex symbol, and when you are a sex symbol people think that you’re sexy all the time, and that stigma follows you. So I am forever Diamond.”
