Taye Diggs: Diggs Town

Taye Diggs ran buck naked in a theater without requiring stage direction for it.

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Most actors celebrate their triumphs by popping bottles of Dom Perignon. When Taye Diggs landed his role opposite Angela Bassett in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, he dropped trou in front of his fellow cast members and did a stark naked run up and down the aisles of the Nederlander Theater, where he was starring as one of the original cast members of the Tony-winning musical Rent.

The thing is, Diggs does this sort of thing with far less provocation--and in front of strangers, too. "I like getting reactions out of people," he understates. "When my girlfriend and I order Chinese food and the delivery cat comes to the door, I'll go into the next room for my wallet, then come back with my boxer shorts around my ankles and a totally straight look on my face. One guy took off down the hall after seeing me."

Given these habits, it's fortunate Diggs is a trim, good-looking guy. His appearance also helped when it came to being cast in Stella, his first feature film. In the movie, the 26-year-old Syracuse University-educated Diggs plays a 20-year-old Montego Bay waiter who falls for the 20-years-older, more sophisticated Angela Bassett, and wins her over. While shooting Stella in Jamaica, Diggs took cues from the locals to build his character's tropical charm. "Everyone there is sexy," he claims. "It's in the way they walk, the way their hips swing. There's no chance that I could come close to the cool, sly, sexy, smooth way that Jamaicans have about them." As for the actual romantic sparks in front of the camera, Diggs takes the journeyman's view. "Every five minutes you have to reset and put on more makeup. I've had some very hot, romantic moments in my life, but this wasn't one of them."

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Michael Kaplan