Serayah And Tyler Lepley Talk 'Ruth & Boaz' Characters

The tale of Ruth and Boaz is a beloved story in the Bible. Ruth, a faithful and loyal Moabite woman and widow, captures Boaz attention when he sees her gleaning grain in his field. He is empathetic to her situation and enamored by her loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi. He grows protective over her and Ruth eventually offers her obedience to him.

Devon Franklin teamed up with Tyler Perry to capture the love story in Netflix’s Ruth & Boaz. Putting a modern spin on the religious love story. We caught up with Franklin, Serayah and Tyler Lepley, stars of the romance flicks, who talked about embodying the characters, how to know when you’re really in love and why a film like this one is important today.

“They hold a lot of weight, especially in our community,” said Serayah when discussing the importance of the characters. “So I wanted to make sure I do my best at bringing her to life, but then also there’s like this new age flip to it, obviously, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s present time present day, and I appreciate that about the film as well, and I think that it’s gonna give a new modern twist and and feel to the Ruth and Boaz story.”

For Lepley, it was the opportunity to put his own spin on the religious figures. “We have this story from the past that everybody has come to know, that everybody loves and of course we have to take heed to what the actual story is about, but, on the flip side we get a chance to add our own two cents to it and make it, make it our own. It’s a special opportunity we had.”

Both Serayah and Lepley have public love lives in real life. Serayah recently welcomed her first child with rapper and actor Joey Bada$$. Lepley and his girlfriend Miracle Watts share their lives with fans on social media. When asked how did they know they were in love with their respective partners, Lepley responded, “As a man I’ve felt, lots of things deeply, you know, in, in life, but I’ve I’ve never felt anything as deeply as this or as deep as this, you know, but you know, without, without getting soppy, I think it’s something that you can feel as opposed to, articulate.”

Serayah explained she likes to get the the depth her partner. “I wanna know all the little things about you and I wanna understand what life looks like through your eyes. You know, be able to empathize with you and know your backstory. I think once you start getting into the depth of it, to me, that’s that’s when I feel like I’m in love with a person because I wanna be able to kind of be like your right hand like. Your bestfriend.”

In a separate interview, Franklin opened up about the timing of the film. “It was an organic process. I was studying the Book of Ruth and And you know, a couple of years ago when I was doing a sermon series based in the Book of Ruth and it’s it’s just, you know, she had gone through heartbreak and losing her husband, goes on this journey, you know, with Naomi who was the mother of of her husband. They both were widows and it it ultimately put her on a collision course with destiny and she found love again and I said, wow, that’s so fascinating that she found love without looking for love.”

He added, “I think so often in the culture we’re taught to look for love, and I think the pursuit of love sometimes become becomes evasive and at times frustrating versus being open to love whenever it comes because you’re pursuing a higher purpose and a calling and I just felt like You know, in the culture right now, love to me is something that is so powerful and at times, you know, men and women we talk at each other, we don’t talk with each other and I just really wanted to do a movie that really talked about and demonstrated this is what love looks like this is what you know a modern love looks like and it felt like the story of Ruth and Boaz was the right story to be able to to express that.”

Catch Ruth & Boaz on Netflix, now.