Why Renee Elise Goldsberry loves that perfect twist to Wickie’s backstory on ‘Girls5eva’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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For two seasons, “Girls5eva” fans got little pieces here and there about the upbringing of resident ridiculous diva Wickie Roy née Lesley Wiggens (Renée Elise Goldsberry). But in Season 3, they were fed a whole meal. “It’s every actor’s dream to have a backstory,” Goldsberry tells Gold Derby (watch the exclusive video interview above). “When they’re casting your parents or your love interest, it feels like it’s a good investment in a character. And this one felt so perfect. Because she has a documentary. She’s trying to make a documentary and it felt like at some point, whether it was the real backstory or whether it was some dramatic over-telling of her life, it was going to be worth it. And we got both.”
In the third episode of the season, the group stays with Wickie’s parents Dana (Ron Canada) and Carmen Wiggens (Adriane Lenox) in Clarksville, Md. All this time, Wickie has peddled the story that she came from humble beginnings and bought her mom a house after her fragrance, Thrust, was purchased by Terminix. It’s a juicier narrative for fame purposes. The truth? She was, as she says later, “born upper middle class” (and wishes she hadn’t) and hails from a loving family with warm, supportive parents. This frustrates Wickie because she thinks she had too good of a childhood and that her parents pampered her too much, and that’s why she hasn’t made it big.
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“I love the fact that she has a huge chip on her shoulder even though she grew up really, really well and that she was actually privileged,” Goldsberry says. “And that’s not a surprise to me that she was privileged. I just thought that the privilege in her mind came from a big dream and talent. I wasn’t aware that the privilege in her mind came from absolutely nothing to do with her natural ability and 100 percent what she considers an over-coddling from her parents.”
Wickie not having a hardscrabble childhood (just hard Scrabble — her family is great at it) and merely being annoyed that she had dream parents is a twist that Goldsberry adores as it reminds her of how far representation in media has come since her own childhood. “I really love that I live in a time as an actor where there are so many stories about women of color that we’ve seen so many versions of them, we can really spoof anything. There was a time when I grew up where just seeing any woman of color on television, everybody would scream, ‘Hey!’ And you would have to run down to the television box,” she notes. “Those things were so affirming to my community. And to live in a time where we can really laugh at the idea that this woman has been given so much that she can take it for granted, it doesn’t seem like a common story. It’s not a stereotypical story, but it is a real story. And I’m glad that even in a comedy this silly, we get a chance to see so many images of ourselves.”
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And while Wickie is peeved that her parents weren’t tougher on her, she is not ungrateful for the life she has. She is never mean to her parents, and it’s clear that she loves and appreciates them. “It is wonderful that you can say, ‘So if I’m going to knock this picture over, you have to see me somewhere in the episode put it back up.’ Even in a privileged Black family, there’s only so much bad behavior that’s going to be accepted,” the Tony winner says with a laugh.
Wickie’s character development continues in the fourth episode when she crosses paths with Torque (Loic Mabanza), a singer with whom she once had a PR relationship because his wife was boring. Torque is giving her a “massive ‘Home Alone’ doorknob” — “she’s taken ‘Home Alone’ and done really dirty things with it” — and Wickie considers cheating on her boyfriend, the Lunch Lord (Chad L. Coleman). And who does she call for advice? None other than the Lunch Lord himself because he’s the only person who takes her seriously. She ultimately doesn’t hook up with Torque because of her beau.
“I think that’s why we love [the Lunch Lord] because it’s such an acceptance of her self-involved behavior,” Goldsberry says. They find every opportunity to show just kind of how 100 percent self-absorbed she is, and that’s why when we get moments where she cares, where she actually values the group and recognizes that it’s all of us or none of us, that’s the reason I find it so satisfying. Because she is so desperately in need of evolving. When they keep reminding us how far she’s come and how far she still has to go, it’s satisfying.”
The Lunch Lord tells Wickie that she is a “starter person,” a perfect description for the self-obsessed crooner who is finally learning to be a real human being. By the end of the season, Goldsberry thinks Wickie is in the elementary school stage. “But she’s on the road. Maybe not a third or fourth grader. I think about first or second grade, but she is definitely in school. And she’s dressed for the first day. So she’s trying. She’s got her little lunch and it’s got her name on it. So she’s trying, but she’s not by any means as smart as a fifth grader.”
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