Everybody loves Dwayne and Whitley. Kadeem Hardison and Jasmine Guy played the most iconic young Black couples of the ’90s on the hit show A Different World. But while everyone may have wanted the young lovers to stay together, not everyone loved how that happened at the end of the show’s run. Kadeem Hardison stopped by Shadow And Act to share how the pivotal wedding scene between Byron, Whitley and Dwyane “unsettled” Hardison in production and how he pleaded with showrunner Debbie Allen for a different ending to the couple’s story.
“I was really kind of unsettled by this whole breaking up of this woman’s marriage–as a man, I didn’t buy it,” Hardison told Shadow And Act of the scene. He shared his pitch for a different ending, which did end up being incorporated into the episode, but ultimately did not deter the writers from that contested scene. “I was agonizing about it all week. It was no good,” he said.
Hardison also shared that Dwayne’s now-famous words, “Please, baby, please!” were an improvised cry for help from leading lady Jasmine Guy when he forgot his lines. “[It was like] a cry for help from one actor to another, like, ‘Yo, I messed up. Help! Girl say your line or we’re gonna have to do this again and again!”
Fortunately for Hardison, Guy did step in with her line and they got the whole scene in one take.
Hardison also went on to share his reactions from his onscreen reunion with Guy on the Disney show KC Undercover. When the idea for Guy to guest star on the show came up he said, “I just thought, ‘oh my god that would be so good!’ Not just for the A Different World crowd. I just loved working with her because she’s so good.”
Finally, he shared what it was like to work with Eddie Murphy on the Wes Craven Blacula flick, A Vampire in Brooklyn. “I had so much fun doing this. This was probably the most fun– I’m Gon Git You Sucka was close. Damon [Wayans] was my comedy guru. But Ed was some kind of Jesus, he was a god. And for him to call me on the phone and say, ‘I’ve seen all the tapes, you’re the only one in town that can do it,’ that was like, ‘Oh shit! Ok!'”
READ MORE:
Reel It Back with Erika Alexander
Reel It Back with Angela Bassett
