There’s always been something special about the Big Easy—a city hums with history, culture, and a resilience that runs deep. It’s the perfect backdrop for The Family Business: New Orleans, the latest installment in Carl Weber’s gripping crime drama universe. The show expands on the legacy of the Duncan family, this time centering on Big Shirley Duncan and her fight to protect Midnight Blues, a beloved underground casino and nightclub caught in the crosshairs of dangerous enemies. It’s a world where power, family, and loyalty collide, and at the heart of it all are two formidable women: Lela Rochon Fuqua, who makes her long-awaited return to the screen as Big Shirley, and Yvette Nicole Brown, who brings warmth and grit to the highly-anticipated series.
“There’s a lot of excitement around it,” Rochon explains. “It’s a project that really speaks to the culture, and they’re very excited about a New Orleans version—especially the people that are from NOLA. And I hope there’s some excitement about me going back to work. It’s been a long time.”
Brown, who plays Monique, Big Shirley’s loyal best friend and right-hand woman, found deep meaning in their on-screen sisterhood. “I love that we’re demonstrating how wonderful it is when sisters stand up for sisters,” she tells ESSENCE. “I think that we’re going to need a lot more of that going forward with the climate in the world. So I love that we get to model what it’s like when you’ve got somebody that’s got your back.”
With a star-studded cast and a storyline steeped in both family ties and criminal intrigue, BET+’s The Family Business: New Orleans is set to leave its mark. But beyond the action, it’s the relationships—especially the ones between powerful Black women—that truly make this show stand out. Rochon Fuqua and Brown opened up about their roles, the magic of New Orleans, and why this story is one that needs to be told.
ESSENCE: Can you speak to me about how excited you are about the inaugural season of The Family Business: New Orleans?
Yvette Nicole Brown: I just want to talk about the Waiting To Exhale poster behind Lela’s head. I can’t get over that—do you see those legends behind the legend? I think that this is going to be a wonderful expansion of The Family Business universe. So if you already love Family Business, it’s great. And if you’ve never watched the original Family Business you can pop into New Orleans and see another flavor, another version, and I hope that everyone loves it.
Monique is Big Shirley’s right hand woman and best friend. What do you love most about their dynamic?
Lela Rochon Fuqua: I mean, for me it was very exciting to work with Monique for, I mean, I’m calling her by her character named Yvette, who plays Monique because she’s been in the business, what, 20 years? We’ve never worked together. And she’s hilarious. She’s funny. Her timing’s great, and my character’s a little dark, a little more serious. So it was a challenge to stay in my lane with her, just making me laugh all the time.
But we hope that this particular show has sort of a darker tone. It’s New Orleans, so it’s a different flavor. It’s different from the original Family Business, and I think that we really made it our own.
YNB: I agree.
Lela, earlier you spoke about your return to the industry in some aspects. What about this role resonated the most with you, and what about the role made you want to take on this character?
LR: I think because she’s such a strong character and she’s such a boss, and I think that that was something that I hadn’t done at all, I hadn’t really done anything with a criminal world. And when I read it and Carl Weber sent it to me, I just thought, it just felt like it was written for me.
Earlier, Lela spoke to how you’re so hilarious, and I feel that one of your best attributes is your versatility. How did you approach playing Monique and how did you balance comedy with such intense storytelling?
YNB: It all begins and ends with the people that you’re working with. So I kind of read the room and I find my lane and I snuggle up into it. So my lane was the right hand person to [Monique]. So the reason I try to infuse a little bit of humor is one, it’s a heavy show. There’s things that happen in here that are, like Lela said, a little dark, and that’s the element. This is a mafia show, this is an underworld show, but this is also a family show. And so I wanted to make sure that if it felt a little bit heavy, that I could just a little bit of glimmer of something to make everybody go, “okay, we are going to be safe here, and we are not going to be leaving this episode crying completely.” So it was just trying to just put a little sparkle, a little sprinkle somewhere. And also the people at home watching the show, I tried to be the person that they could take the ride with because they’re entering this world for the first time, too.
How was it experiencing the city of New Orleans, and did filming in that location impact your performance at all?
LR: Well, it was really interesting. We actually shot the show in Los Angeles and in New Orleans. But it was just great to really be in New Orleans, and for me to really feel that casino because the casino was in New Orleans, and to feel that this is my family legacy, this is what I own, it just made me lock in and be a little bit more powerful in the role.
YNB: For me, you can’t step foot in New Orleans without feeling everything about New Orleans. I’m a spiritual person, a person of faith. And so as soon as you get there, you feel the ancestors, you feel that city. And I think when you watch the show, you won’t be able to tell what was shot in New Orleans and what was shot in LA because of how seamlessly it all fits together.
What do you hope that audiences will take from this show?
YNB: The importance of family, the importance of honor. I know it’s a mafia show, but there’s a lot of honor in this family. There’s a lot of honor in Big Shirley, and what’s right is right, what’s wrong is wrong. And it’s really a cautionary tale about the repercussions that you bring on yourself when you’re doing dirty stuff. And so we’re telling it from a different side, but I think the truth of what happens when you don’t have integrity and you don’t watch out for people, that’s real. We see that in this show. So I hope people take away that, but mostly the family dynamic and how it’s important to stick together as a culture and as a community.
LR: I hope they enjoy it because I think it’s a great ride. Carl has done a great job in telling what happens to these people. I hope they fall in love with the characters. And I think that one thing that is true with it is that it’s about generational wealth. It really is about black generational wealth and keeping it in the family and continuing on. And that’s one thing that we haven’t really heard people speak about until this decade, and it’s a big deal. So I hope they learn a lot. I hope that people who aren’t from New Orleans really enjoy what it really represents in all the culture that it brings.
The Family Business: New Orleans features a star-studded cast, to say the least. With such an eclectic group of characters, as an actor, is there anything in particular that you took from this experience?
YNB: Well, first I want to shout out the reason we have this amazing cast—it’s because of Tri Destined Studios and Tri Destined Casting, which is N.D. Brown and Trey Haley. And Carl Weber, they put this amazing cast together. I believe in stealing from the best. So the fact that we have Orlando Jones in this cast and Pooch Hall in this cast, and Brandon T. Jackson in this cast and the amazing Lela Rochon in this cast, I had an embarrassment of riches. Every day I’m like, “oh, that’s how Lela enters a room, okay, let me just put this my hip in it a little more. This is how Brandon leaves a room, or how does Pooch find a way to be funny and scary at the same time?” Same with Orlando Jones. And then you got David Banner who’s killing it in every scene and really is very chilling to watch. So I learned as an actor long ago that when you’re with great people, you steal. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been putting things in my pocket. And I want to shout out to my wonderful new husband who is also in the cast. He’s in four episodes. Starting in episode four, Anthony R. Davis, look out for him.
LR: It was a challenge for me, it was a challenge to be the lead on the show. It was a challenge to be, I mean, I’ve done that before, but a television show is a lot more pressure. It is a lot quicker, it’s a lot faster than a film. But I was excited about the challenge of that. I’d done episodic TV before and I know how hard it is to be in every single scene, every single day. It was great that the people I was working with wanted to be there and they were excited about their characters because I’m telling you, these are some colorful people. And for most of us, it was roles that we had never played before. So I think everybody enjoyed that.