Beyond the Gates: SVU’s Tamara Tunie to Lead CBS’ New Daytime Soap Opera; OLTL and B&B Vets Also Cast
Daytime’s first new soap opera in a quarter-century has revealed its first round of casting — and a new title.
CBS announced Thursday that Tamara Tunie (Law & Order: SVU, As the World Turns) will star in Beyond the Gates (fka The Gates). She’ll be joined by fellow soap alums Daphnee Duplaix (aka One Life to Live’s Rachel Gannon) and Karla Mosley (aka The Bold and the Beautiful’s Maya Avant Forrester).
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“Beyond the Gates is set in a leafy Maryland suburb just outside of Washington, D.C., and in one the most affluent African American counties in the United States,” according to the official logline. “Here you’ll find a posh gated community with winding, tree-lined streets and luxurious mansions to call home. At the center of this community are the Duprees, a powerful and prestigious multi-generational family that is the very definition of Black royalty. But behind these pristine walls and lush, manicured gardens are juicy secrets and scandals waiting to be uncovered. And those that live outside these gates are watching closely.
“These are the places where our characters live, love, work and play,” the logline tells us. “Those who have ‘made it’ and those who haven’t are all trying to navigate life — and some with more grace than others.”
Michele Val Jean — whose myriad soap credits include B&B, General Hospital and Santa Barbara, as well as Generations, daytime’s first Black family-focused soap — is the creator, executive producer and showrunner of Beyond the Gates, which was developed by CBS Studios and the NAACP.
Additional EPs include genre vets Robert Guza Jr. (GH, Port Charles, Santa Barbara) and Julie Carruthers (All My Children, GH, Port Charles, Santa Barbara), as well as Sheila Ducksworth (Soul Food), Derrick Johnson, Leon Russell, Kimberly Doebereiner and Anna Saalfeld.
Beyond the Gates — the first new soap since NBC’s Passions launched in 1999 — will premiere in early 2025, following the conclusion of CBS’ The Talk (which ends its 15-season run in December).
TVLine will keep you posted once we have a precise premiere date, so be sure to bookmark this page. In the meantime, scroll down to learn more about the first three actors cast (and the characters they’ll play) in Beyond the Gates.
Tamara Tunie stars as Anita Dupree
Anita Dupree is the matriarch of the family. “A famous singer back in the day, Anita worked hard for her success, and raised two daughters with her now-retired senator husband,” according to the official character breakdown. “But underneath her glamorous and refined exterior is a fierceness she gained from her humble beginnings in Chicago.”
Daphnee Duplaix stars as Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson
Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson is one of Anita’s two daughters. She’s described as “a high-achieving and competitive philanthropist and psychiatrist, and exudes warmth, empathy and compassion. Nicole’s success in life extends to her marriage to her surgeon husband. She has the perfect life… from the outside.”
Karla Mosley stars as Dani Dupree
Dani Dupree is Nicole’s sister — “a former model-turned-momager who gave up her career for love. Dani was the Dupree family wild child. Free-spirited, headstrong and uninhibited, she dropped out of school to pursue a high-flying modeling career and she has always marched to the beat of her own drum.”
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