‘Beyond the Gates’ Shakes Up Daytime Television With Passionate Same Sex Love Scene

Two young Black women sharing an intimate night of passion is not the typical soap opera sex scene. For Beyond the Gates executive producer Sheila Ducksworth, the storyline between Chelsea Hamilton (RhonniRose Mantilla) and her current love interest Dr. Madison Montgomery (Kenjah McNeil) on the CBS daytime series that launched this year is no click-bait ploy or Pride Month pandering. Instead, she says it’s emblematic of the soap’s DNA.

“It was really important that we have true representation on the show, and that’s across all lines,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter. For Ducksworth that includes sexuality, but also goes beyond it.

That’s a bold move considering how unlikely the show’s mere existence is. With less than a handful of broadcast network soaps still airing, Beyond the Gates is the first new soap since Passions premiered in 1999. It is also the first-ever soap revolving completely around Black characters. The short-lived Generations that premiered back in 1989 only featured a Black family.

Developed through a unique content partnership between CBS Studios and the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, that Ducksworth spearheads and produced in partnership with P&G Studios, a division of longtime soap sponsor Procter & Gamble, Beyond the Gates, created by soap veteran Michele Val Jean, is set in an affluent D.C. suburb in Maryland and revolves around the Dupree family headed by civil rights hero and former senator Vernon (Clifton Davis) and his wife Anita (Tamara Tunie), a former singer who is an EGOT. The hit soap has been renewed for a second season.

Their family tree includes their two daughters, Dani Dupree Hamilton (Karla Mosley), a former model, and Nicole Dupree Richardson (Daphnée Duplaix), a psychiatrist; their romantic partners, children, friends and associates. Dani’s daughter Chelsea Hamilton, portrayed by Mantilla, is a successful recently retired model, a top influencer and an aspiring handbag designer whose sexuality became a topic of high interest over the last month.

It didn’t begin that way, Mantilla tells The Hollywood Reporter. “When the casting call first came out, I knew that she was a model. I knew she was young, closer to my age. I’m 25 so she’s 23, Gen Z, an influencer and very into social media,” she explains. “I knew that she was trying to find her own way and figure out her own path. The subject of her queerness didn’t really come in until I met in person with [executive producers] Julie [Hanan Carruthers] and Sheila [Ducksworth]. And I was just so game for it.”

Mantilla admits to welcoming the character arc for both philosophical and personal reasons. “I think art should be a reflection of the current times. And personally, I’m figuring out my queerness as well. So it’s really been a fun journey to tell Chelsea’s story,” she shares.

Reflecting the times is mandatory for Beyond the Gates, Ducksworth believes. “We’re the first [soap] of the millennium, so we’re looking at things from a very contemporary point of view, and we really embrace that.”

Chelsea has so many qualities the St. Louis native enjoys. “She’s very bold in her approach. She goes after what she wants,” Mantilla explains. “I feel female characters rarely get [that opportunity] and have to be the prey and not the hunter.”

Still, her intimate scene with McNeil, who portrays Dr. Montgomery, was nerve-wrecking. “It was my first on-screen intimacy scene, so I was kind of terrified,” the St. Louis native admits. “The importance of this [storyline] kind of helped me get over my fear. We haven’t seen this in daytime before, and it’s not just sex, but making love and having a connection.”

The crew also felt the importance of the moment she shares. “The cameramen were super respectful, and on set was very quiet just so it felt like something deeper.”

Shaking up viewers’ perspectives is intentional. “People are not put in any boxes whatsoever,” Ducksworth says of Beyond the Gates’ many characters. “Some folks who are watching may have a view of ‘that’s not what a typical Black person is or does. That’s not what a typical Latinx person is or does. That’s not what a typical white person might do or be.’ We’re looking to really flush out these characters beyond something that feels one-dimensional because nobody is one-dimensional.”

Just like her older cousin Martin (Brandon Claybon), who is a congressman with a husband and two teenagers, Chelsea isn’t frozen in her sexuality. In addition to pursuing new heights professionally and working hard not to tarnish the Dupree family name while still maintaining her freedom, Chelsea’s also a young woman dealing with the emotional fallout of her prominent father divorcing her mother to marry her older sister’s one-time bestie who may be having her little brother or sister.

As a social media influencer and former model, Chelsea also has a carefree side that Mantilla enjoys. “I feel like a Barbie or, honestly, more like a Bratz doll because Chelsea is just so funky and she wears pieces I’ve never seen,” she shares.

“Chelsea and I have different styles, but it’s been so fun. And not just with the wardrobe, but also with hair and makeup. We’re always talking and trying to collaborate,” she says of the glam squad, “and see how far we can really go, and what trends we can set.”

How Beyond the Gates is handling Chelsea’s relationship with Madison outside of their intimate connection is also refreshing. Chelsea and Madison are more than a hook-up, with the writers characterizing their fast and easy chemistry as love at first sight. Sexuality played no role in Chelsea’s introduction of Madison to her grandfather Vernon Dupree (Davis), a former senator who comes from a completely different generation. Instead, he, like the audience, questioned the speed of their relationship. 

“It’s important to show these stories because maybe someone who’s trying to figure out their queerness can see Chelsea and Madison and be inspired to live out loud or to make that jump into committing to someone that they’ve been eyeing for a while,” Mantilla says.

Beyond the Gates airs weekdays at 2:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT on CBS, streaming live on Paramount+ and available On Demand.