Lamar and James Kinsey have become one of the most relatable sibling duos on TV. Asante Blackk and Peyton Alex Smith say the bond clicked the moment they read together. Baller Alert talked with the two stars of “The Drop: A Snowfall Saga” about playing Lamar and James, the big brother and little brother bond viewers know from their own families. We asked what the brotherhood looks like off camera and how it shows up on screen.
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Peyton started with a joke.
“Can’t stand this guy,” he said. “I’m just getting angry sitting next to him right now.”
Then he got serious.
“This is my dog, man,” Peyton said. “There’s been a lot of mutual respect over the years.”
The two first crossed paths years ago at South by Southwest. Mutual friends Melvin and Dominique Fishback introduced them while Asante had a film screening at the festival, and Peyton already had his eye on him.
“After seeing him in “When They See Us” and then that, I was like, he got some gold,” Peyton said.
They ran into each other again in an LA audition waiting room. Neither of them was there for the roles they ended up playing.
“I wasn’t even going out for James, but I saw him in the waiting room,” Peyton said. “I got a lot of respect for him outside of what he does, just the type of person that he is, for sure.”
Asante said the feeling is mutual, with one condition.
“As long as he respects my spades game, that’s all that we need to really talk about,” he said. “He know what it is. We don’t even gotta go further into it.”
The two traded jokes about a “little spades robbery,” and neither one was conceding.
Asante said those repeat run-ins weren’t an accident.
“You cross paths with certain people in your life for very specific reasons,” he said. “The fact that we kept seeing each other in these rooms where we were around a lot of different artists who were and are extremely committed to their craft was no mistake.”
Peyton had originally auditioned for a different role on the show, and he thought he nailed it.
“Thought I killed it,” he said. “I go to the gym. I get a call, and I guess they were like, oh, we need a real rapper.”
He figured that was the end of it.
“I was like, I guess I’m gonna go home and sleep this off,” Peyton said.
The show brought him back in instead, this time to test as James opposite Asante.
“They ended up bringing him in to test as James, and immediately it just clicked,” Asante said. “It was like we were already brothers.”
Peyton said he had barely any time to prepare for the chemistry read. There were four scenes, and he didn’t know two of them, so he leaned on Asante and the two started riffing off the page.
“Our eyes just locked, and I was like, yo, lock in,” Peyton said. “I don’t know these other two scenes.”
They made it through, and Peyton calls it a blessing.
“It’s like meant to be,” he said. “We just locked in, and it felt like we had known each other forever.”
The “Snowfall“ spinoff premiered September 8 on FX and streams on Hulu. That “known each other forever” chemistry is what fans see every time Lamar and James share a scene.
