VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: ‘Beauty In Black’ Stars Crystle Stewart & Taylor Palidore Williams Recall Learning Strip & Curse For The Series

Actresses Crystle Stewart and Taylor Polidore Williams shared their most memorable moments on set for the new drama series Beauty in Black in their new uIntrerview.

Set in Atlanta, Beauty in Black follows two strong women from different backgrounds: Kimmie (Williams), a struggling stripper, and Mallory (Stewart), who is running a business. The two share a common thread through a series of rich, powerful men.

Williams shared how she prepared for her character of a stripper. “I did pole-dancing lessons for hours on hours before the actual filming began, you know walking around my house in the shoes, so I wouldn’t break my ankle on set,” she told uInterview founder Erik Meers. “And also, another dynamic of my character Kim is she is being trafficked. So I did some research on people who had been trafficked and people who had been trafficked in a way where they might not have known they were being trafficked – which is actually more prevalent than a lot of people know. So that was really helpful, listening to survivors’ stories.”

When Stewart was asked if she found anything in her preparation training exciting, Stewart enthusiastically replied, “Practicing cursing!”

Williams laughed and affirmed, “She doesn’t!”

Stewart explained, “I’m not a curser…so even my hair and make-up team, they’re like, ‘Crystle you need to put more oomph in the F-word,’…”

Williams joked, “She’s a ‘Gosh-darn-er’!” And Stewart agreed, “I say ‘darn it’ and things like that…I definitely had to show my acting job with this.”

The two actresses reflected on what they expected to remember years later from their time on set.

Stewart recalled, “Mine’s a funny one. It was a scene that I had with a character. I’m supposed to be really seductive towards him and ask him some things, and I couldn’t get the line out. I could not get that line out. It was three o’clock in the morning, I was dying laughing. Fortunately, the camera crew was laughing…I just could not get that line out. After, like, the 15th take, I finally got it out, and they were like, ‘OK, cut. Finally Crystle.’ So it was a fun time; it just shows the love and support that we had from the crew and the cast.”

Williams shared her own moment, “Something that I will remember, there is one scene, it’s high stakes, high energy, and I’m running into a room – you would’ve thought I was being prepared for the Olympics, I was ready to run. I flung open the door, I ran—there was a platform bed. My shin hit it so hard, and they caught it on camera, and everybody screenshot it, and they were laughing at me. I have an indention on my shin to this day. It was horrible! But it was so funny.”

Beauty in Black can be streamed now on Netflix.