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Playboy Undercover: The Almost 40-Year-Old Virgin "I am 38 and I still haven’t had my first kiss yet—which means yes.… I am a virgin too."
It’s fitting that Tiffany Boone, star of Amazon’s Nazi-hunting new series, Hunters, plays a woman who stops at nothing to seek justice for innocent people who’ve been hurt by the system and by villains hiding in plain sight. Her alter ego, Roxy Jones, is a Black Panther and a member of a secret vigilante society in 1977 New York City that bands together to avenge murders committed by Nazis. And 32-year-old Boone feels a similarly relentless need to stand up for what is right as an advocate for women, and to speak up for those who’ve been silenced.
The role was so tailor-made for the actress that she already owned costumes resembling some of Roxy’s ass-kicking looks long before the opportunity even came her way. “I actually have that same Afro,” she tells PLAYBOY. “I just had it at home for fun and wore it for my audition.” Boone felt so connected to the items in Roxy’s closet that she took some of them home with her after shooting wrapped. “There are some outfits that she has that are a little wild,” she laughs. “But I would wear almost everything she wears. They gave me a pair of her bell-bottom jeans that I wear every chance I get.”
Dealing with trauma and confusion through my characters helped me handle my emotions better than I could have otherwise.
Boone’s desire to find elements of herself that audiences are also able to relate to in her characters is not limited to Roxy. It was apparent even on Fox’s The Following in her darker turn as Mandy Lang, a cult member searching for a father figure, and on Showtime’s The Chi as Jerrika Little, the compassionate real estate agent in a gentrifying Chicago.
“It’s a cathartic experience, being able to lose yourself in something and then affect people,” she says. “When people come up to me and go, ‘It was the first time I saw myself on screen,’ I’m like, That’s why I’m on set for 18 hours. That’s why I’m waking up and traveling all over the world and missing my dog—big moments like that.” As if on cue, her dog barks in the background, desperate for some of her attention since she was just away for two months.
To prepare for her role as Roxy, she voraciously read everything she could find on women like her who’ve been fighting the good fight so long that it begins to take a toll on them. She was particularly struck by the stories of people like Elaine Brown, Angela Davis and others who faced all levels of persecution yet carried on.
Roxy must carry that difficult history with her as she retaliates against perpetrators of the Holocaust with her fellow Hunters, often resulting in torturous bloodbaths. “When you’re reminded of the totality of the Holocaust with the flashback scene, you see why their violence can be so heightened,” she says. “Because they have this deep-rooted desire to get justice for these people who’ve been so wronged.”
Still, you see how that pursuit of justice begins to take a toll on Roxy, who’s also a single mother. She’s struggling to balance everything going on in her personal life with a much larger, more persistent issue that makes her question her motivation.
“There’s no way she cannot be worn out fighting for the movement,” Boone says. “She also needs to survive and take care of her daughter. Now she joined the Hunters, and she’s fighting for a cause that isn’t even directly personal to her. She’s grappling with how much she’s willing to sacrifice in order to get justice in this world.”
That’s a question Boone had to confront in her own life recently. In 2018, she removed herself from Showtime’s The Chi, a show she loved, after alleging misconduct by her since-ousted co-star Jason Mitchell. In a remarkably inspiring post on Instagram earlier this month, Boone wrote, “The weight of what I was leaving behind felt like a ton, but the weight of my responsibility to speak up was even heavier.”
This sense of personal obligation to raise her voice, particularly for those less advantaged, goes all the way back to her childhood in Baltimore. Though she would be the first time to tell you “I was a ham from the time I was born,” the consummate performer always knew she had an even greater calling. Raised by a single mother since her father’s murder when she was just 3 years old, Boone recognized the power of performance and its capacity to help others.
Reese and Kerry have inspired me to work towards having my own production company because they’ve done it so well.
“I truly believe that being able to deal with trauma and confusion about death and loss through my characters helped me handle my emotions better than I could have otherwise,” she says. “My ultimate goal is to create a school for kids who come from difficult environments and have art therapy be a part of it. What’s the point of having this platform if you can’t make somebody else’s life better?”
Though she’s always searching for ways to uplift other people, Boone found that she was the one getting some inspiration on the set of her next series, Little Fires Everywhere, co-executive produced by Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon. The eagerly awaited Hulu adaptation of Celeste Ng’s best-selling novel finds the actress playing a younger version of Mia Warren, a conflicted mother played as an adult by Washington.
“It was the first video village I’d ever been where there were only women sitting here,” she says of the area on set where the crew can watch scenes as they’re filmed. “And they’re all really sweet, talented, strong women who worked with such integrity. Reese and Kerry have inspired me to work towards having my own production company because they’ve done it so well.”
It’s been two years since Boone made the difficult decision to bet on herself and leave a hit series, proving that she could secure one meaningful project after the next. She’s now at a place where both her life and work are wonderfully in sync, and she’s filled with as much as encouragement as she’s given to others.
“I’ve been so blessed,” she says, reflecting on friends, family and other people she’s had the pleasure to work with who’ve given her hope and support. “I’ve created a life that I didn’t even know was possible.”
Boone aims to be a beacon of light for others in a world that is only beginning to embrace voices of all genders, ages and races on issues including legal abortion and arts education. “This up-and-coming generation is working for social justice, and it inspires me to want to step up,” she continues. “As much darkness as there is in the world, all it takes is a little bit of light. I truly believe there’s enough light in this world for us to keep overcoming darkness.”