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Daphnée Duplaix is taking in the emotions of a dream fulfilled.
The Passions alum, 48, stars as Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson on CBS' new soap opera Beyond the Gates, the first hour-long soap opera led by a Black cast, and the second Black daytime soap in 35 years (following Generations, which ran from 1989 to 1991).
The series focuses on the Dupree family and their lives of affluence, served with a side of messy scandals. The main quartet — patriarch Vernon (Clifton Davis), matriarch Anita (Tamara Tunie), and their daughters Dani (Karla Mosley) and Nicole (Duplaix) — head the most influential and upscale family in Fairmont Crest, a leafy Washington, D.C., suburb and one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country.
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Ahead of the show's Monday, Feb. 24 premiere, Duplaix exclusively told PEOPLE about the wave of emotions she experienced as the "unprecedented" impact of the series hit her.
"Overwhelmed, overjoyed, over-excited," she says.
Duplaix couldn't hold back tears after seeing herself and her costars on the Beyond the Gates poster live in Times Square.
"I had a moment in Times Square yesterday with the billboard, and I started crying," she says. "I feel so proud to be a part of this show, what we're doing for the culture, what we're doing for the industry as far as soaps are concerned. I keep saying we aren't reinventing the wheel, we're elevating it."
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Duplaix hopes that although Beyond the Gates is "the first" of its kind, it won't be "the last."
"This genre should have a resurgence. And what the show is going to stand for for the African-American community, it's powerful."
Like some of her costars (Tunie starred on As the World Turns and Mosley on The Bold and the Beautiful), Duplaix isn't a newcomer to the soap-opera genre. However, Duplaix, who portrayed Valerie Davis on Passions from 2004–2008 and Rachel Gannon on One Life to Live, tells PEOPLE her Beyond the Gates experience is undeniably unique.
"On One Life to Live, I was a secondary character, so I really didn't work as much, and I wasn't seen as much," she says. "It was a wonderful experience and having been an ABC soap fan pretty much my entire life, it was awesome. You know, doing scenes with people I watched for 30-plus years and admired as an actor."
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"But this, I mean, it's a whole different level," she adds, noting how the network and its collaborator, the NAACP, are "championing so hard for this show."
"It's unprecedented," Duplaix continues. "We say it all the time. We have commercials in the middle of football games and for the Grammy Awards. I was like, this is unreal. It's nothing like I've seen before. It's a wonderful ride."
She says the more seasoned costars are "making sure the young actors" understand that "this is not normal. Not for soaps anyway."
As for what fans can expect from Nicole this season, Duplaix describes her as "seemingly perfect, empathetic" and a "grounding force" for the Duprees. She "wears her heart on her sleeve but doesn't take no mess."
She teases that Nicole and Tunie's Anita are quite the dynamic duo, summing it up with a subtle warning: "You don't mess with [Nicole], and you surely don't mess with the Dupree sisters."
And if you ask Duplaix, each cast member can hold their own when delivering a pearl-clutching performance.
"You're going to fall in love with everyone, or you're going to love to hate them," she continues. "It's going to be exciting, all the twists and turns. Everything you'd expect from a soap: the messiness, the sexiness, all of those things. It's fresh and it's current. It's relevant as far as the topics we're discussing, but it's real life. It's rooted in real life."
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She's optimistic that an affluent Black family being represented on daytime television five days a week will help "normalize" the notion of "Black excellence."
"We know it's never been done. When Generations was around, that was a 30-minute show. There was an African-American family and a Caucasian family, but they didn't dive deep into those stories," Duplaix explains. "And it was short-lived."
"I'm proud that, just like us, we all started watching soaps when we were young. Our little Brown and Black girls and boys are gonna watch with their grandmas, with their aunties, with their mamas, and see themselves in this beautiful light. And for those younger generations to be like 'I can do that. She did that, I can do that. She looks fabulous, I can do that. I want to be a therapist, I can do that.' "
Beyond the Gates airs weekdays at 2 p.m. ET on CBS.Entertainment Plaza - TV, Movies, Sports, Music, Soaps
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