‘Riches’ Star Deborah Ayorinde on Telling ‘Beautiful’ Story of Nina Richards (Exclusive)

The new drama series Riches is now streaming on Prime Video, and the lead actress doesn’t mess around. Deborah Ayorinde plays Nina Richards in Riches and will do what she needs to do in order to have control of his father’s business. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Ayorinde talks about how she and Nina are very similar. 

“I can’t even tell you enough. I think for me, I feel so represented by this character, to be honest,” Ayorinde exclusively told PopCulture. “From the first moment I read the script I saw so much of myself and so much of my own story and I just… Honestly, when I read it and I met with Abby, I literally said to her, ‘I feel like we’ve already known each other,’ because it was so much of my story in this, and so it’s just been such a beautiful pleasure to feel seen by a character that I’m playing, to be honest.” 

Riches tells the story of the Richards family fighting for a successful cosmetics company founded by the patriarch Stephen Richards (Hugh Quarshie) who passed away suddenly. Nina is one of Stephen’s five children, but she and her brother Simon (Emmanuel Imani) have a different mother from Alesha (Adeyinka Akinrinade), Wanda (Nneka Okoye) and Gus (Ola Orebi). The two sets of children are fighting for the company along with Claudia (Sarah Niles), the mother of Alesha, Wanda and Gus.

As viewers find out who will gain control of the company, Ayorinde reveals she would have no issues being the CEO of a big business. “I am very inspired by Nina and her just unapologetically rising to the occasion and taking her seat as CEO, and so for me that is something that I can absolutely see myself doing,” she said. 

Ayorinde, 35, was born in London but grew up in California. Along with starring in Riches, Ayorinde appeared in shows such as Luke Cage, True Detective, The Game, Them, and Truth Be Told. On the movie side, Ayorinde has been featured in Barbershop: The Next Cut, Girls Trip, Harriet, and Fatherhood with Kevin Hart. Earlier this year, Ayorinde was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Performance in a Scripted Series in Them.