Exclusive: P-Valley star calls stripper drama "hugely important"
P-Valley star Elarica Johnson has called the strip club drama "hugely important" to the TV landscape.
The former EastEnders and Harry Potter actress recently chatted exclusively to Digital Spy about joining the STARZPLAY drama series about a strip club in the Dirty Delta section of Mississippi.
Elarica – who plays the club's newest recruit Autumn Night – noted that P-Valley subverts its alluring premise by focusing its story on the female, minority and LGBTQ+ characters working and passing through the club.
"In the time we're in now, it's huge [to have this show on TV]. It is absolutely huge," she explained.
"I know a lot of people are going to have certain opinions of seeing women in a light that they don't think is good because of their previous preconceptions about that world – the stripper world – or even sex work in general. But it's hugely important because everybody's story has to be told."
Elarica credited P-Valley creator and playwright Katori Hall with doing "an amazing job" of researching the real stories of strippers so she could "write truth into these characters from the experiences of women who live in this world".
"So yeah, we are showing Black women strippers, and we are showing Black men as trans or gay," the actress continued. "It's shedding a light on something that is completely true, and these are real, real stories.
"If we can show that to people, and people can watch these similarities in their life – we're not only watching doctors and nurses and teachers, and shying away from this world – we have to put this forward. We have to say, 'Well, this is what some people's lives are like. This is what they do.'
"It's only their job. It doesn't define them. These are real women and men. They go through the same emotions that we go through."
New Girl and See's Peter Chernin, American Horror Story veteran Dante Di Loreto and Being Mary Jane's Patrik-Ian Polk have partnered with Katori Hall in producing the series.
P-Valley airs on STARZPLAY in the UK and Starz in the US from July 12.
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