It’s not often that a small part in a film leads to the starring role in a spinoff series. Jasmine Cephas Jones was involved from the early stages of the movie Blindspotting, which co-writers and stars Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal developed for some 10 years before the movie premiered at Sundance and was released by Lionsgate in 2018.
The trenchant comedy is a tough love letter to their native Bay Area, about two best friends navigating gentrification, police brutality and a shifting sense of belonging. Cephas Jones, who co-starred with Diggs in the original Broadway company of Hamilton, plays Ashley, the strong-willed girlfriend of Casal’s Miles. “I had a few pivotal scenes that were very, very intense,” Jones says. She filmed for a couple of days and figured her Blindspotting era was over.
Then came the call from Diggs and Casal asking her to lead a TV spinoff, set after the events of the film and re-centered on Ashley’s point of view. The answer was obvious: “Absolutely, I’m not going to say no to this.” Cephas Jones was brought on as a producer with Diggs and Casal, who also serves as showrunner.
“It’s been one of the most beautiful and creatively fulfilling experiences I’ve ever had,” Cephas Jones says of the Starz half-hour comedy, which has been renewed for a second season. The series picks up when Miles is incarcerated on a petty drug charge and Ashley is forced to move in with Miles’ mom, played by Helen Hunt, and his half-sister, played by Jaylen Barron.
Blindspotting expands on the film’s theatrical style, including interludes when Ashley addresses the camera directly in verse, revealing what Cephas Jones calls her character’s most truthful self. “It pushes me so much as an artist every time,” she says of the propulsive monologues, which the theater-trained actor approaches as she would Shakespeare.
Jasmine Cephas Jones
JUANKR/COURTESY OF SUBJECT
“She’s a warrior and a hero,” Cephas Jones says of Ashley, who’s also the mother of a young son. “She represents a lot of women who feel like they have to do everything themselves.” Ashley gradually opens up to accepting help from the community around her as the story takes on thorny social issues like colorism, misogyny and abuses endemic to the prison system and sex work.
“My favorite thing about art, and about this series, is how we can interpret very important subjects but also entertain you and make it funny,” Cephas Jones says. “You want to watch until the end, and then you can walk away and start a discussion. That’s why I do this in the first place.”
Cephas Jones was born in London and raised in Brooklyn with career role models at home; her mother, Kim Lesley, is a jazz singer, and her father is This Is Us actor Ron Cephas Jones. She and her dad made history when both were awarded Primetime Emmys in 2020, Ron for the NBC drama, Jasmine for her role on the shortform Quibi series #Freerayshawn. “It was such a beautiful moment to share with my father, who’s been a huge mentor in my life,” she says. “It felt like, ‘Oh, we’re peers now. And look at this road that we’ve been on together.’ “
Jasmine Cephas Jones and Helen Hunt on Starz’s Blindspotting.
Courtesy of Starz
Ashley’s journey continues with the second season of Blindspotting, which recently wrapped principal production in Oakland and L.A. “We take it to another level,” Cephas Jones says of the heightened storytelling on the way. “The craziness is definitely amped up. You will be entertained, that is for sure.”
She wants to continue playing multifaceted characters she can sink her teeth into — and who are more than secondary players in men’s stories. “Showing all the colors of what a woman can be is important to me,” she says. “We’re not just a prop on a man’s arm. We’re human beings in this world with so many different sides to us.”
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
