‘A Different World’ Cast Reunites

It’s been 30 years since Bill Cosby changed the landscape of the Black community and higher education with The Cosby Show spinoff, A Different World. Set at the fictional historically Black university, Hillman in Virginia, the series was centered around the second eldest Cosby kid, Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet), attending college. Bonet left the show after one season, with dancer/choreographer/producer Debbie Allen coming in as an executive director and making the show more true to the HBCU experience with old and new characters. Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Dawn Lewis, Darryl M. Bell, Charnele Brown, Cree Summer, Glynn Turman, Ajai Sanders, Karen Malina White, and others rounded out the legendary cast. And 30 years later, it still has a major impact. The cast recently reunited in honor of the anniversary on Red Table Talk with Allen and dished on its contribution to the culture and dished on some behind-the-scenes secrets. The episode is available to stream on Facebook Watch. 

According to the cast and Allen, there was a lot of contention between the writers and executives and the cast in the early days. “This was a time where there was a separation between the writers and the actors. If they said, ooh, instead of ahh, they had to stop the cameras and do it again,” Allen says. “I worked really hard to break down that barrier between writers and actors.”

Guy, who starred as the bourgeois Whitley Gilbert, spoke of wanting to quit the show after the first season after witnessing how Bonet was mistreated. 

Jada Pinkett Smith, host of RTT, joined the show in Season 6 as Lena James. Luckily, her experience on the show differed from her co-stars. “By the time I got there, it was already a groove happening, because we go to Debbie ‘This is not working, no Debbie, can we do this?’ I felt like I had a voice,” she explained. “So going any place else and not having a voice is like ‘Wait a minute, hold it.’”