There was a heavy focus this week on Dru and Diana’s character arcs, as they progressed even further in the next episode, giving viewers the chance to see the story from both of their perspectives.
We caught up with LaToya Tonodeo and Lovell Adams Gray to talk about the ongoing character development of Dru and Diana
Also, a significant change in the Power franchise occurs during the flashback scenes with Monet, Diana, and Dru from the early 2000s. The two are unaware that these scenes will be seen besides on the script, according to Tonodeo and Lovell Adams Gray. This has never happened before in the Power franchise.
“I don’t believe I knew about it prior to filming, but of course we get the scripts ahead of time and we do our table reads and stuff like that, but I don’t think I knew it before then,” said Tonodeo.
“I didn’t know that we were going to do that. It was a very exciting prospect to imagine because we were doing a table read about it and I got to read young Lorenzo at one point and that was mad fun,” said Gray.
In this episode of Power Book II: Ghost, Tonodeo prepared a great deal for her intense scenes with Mary J. Blige. She found the necessary emotions in the script, especially when Tariq holds her at gunpoint. Before filming, Tonodeo ran in place and did jumping jacks to embody the heightened adrenaline required for the scene. Despite knowing her character wouldn’t die, Tonodeo used physical and mental immersion to simulate the sensation of a near-death experience.
“Sometimes if I don’t necessarily feel it, I have to physically do things to make myself prepare myself for those moments,” she said.
Adams Gray described the scene between Dru and Cane in this week’s episode of Power Book II: Ghost, where the two characters discussed Monet and had a fight inside the grocery store. He praised the direction of Monica Raymund, who led the team that day.
According to Adams Gray, Raymund provided the necessary guidance, offering detailed notes and managing the time and space required for redoing scenes. She effectively directed the actors, sometimes advising them to pull back in emotional scenes. Adams Gay emphasized how Raymund encouraged them to trust their instincts, reassuring them that the emotional depth would be conveyed naturally.
“We (Him and Woody McClain) just took our time with it and we really listened to each other and really spoke to each other,” he said. “And if either of us needed to take some space and take some time and just breathe and get into that emotional space, we [gave each] other that space to do so.”