Whitley and Dwayne weren’t Hillman’s only love story: Inside the Bythewoods’ ‘A Different World’ romance

Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood went from young writers and friends to one of Hollywood’s filmmaking couples.

Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne weren’t the only love story blossoming at Hillman College.

Years before Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood became an acclaimed filmmaking couple, they were two young writers getting their first professional break in the writers’ room of “A Different World.” As they helped craft stories for one of Black television’s most beloved couples, a romance of their own was quietly taking shape behind the scenes.

“We were still like the newbie writers in the show, so we just supported each other and pitched ideas to each other before we pitched it to anyone else and really started as friends,” Reggie Rock Bythewood told theGrio at the premiere of Netflix’s new “A Different World” series at Morehouse College on Monday. 

Eventually, friendship became something more. But when the two writers started dating, they decided their co-workers didn’t need to know.

“When we started dating, we had to keep it a secret,” Bythewood recalled. “We just didn’t want anybody to know.”

Despite their attempt at discretion, their secret turned out to be not much of a secret.

“Years later, when we told people, they said, ‘We knew all along,’” he added.

“No secrets in the writers’ room,” Prince-Bythewood joked. 

More than three decades later, the couple has built a marriage, a family and two formidable careers in Hollywood. Prince-Bythewood has directed films including “Love & Basketball,” “Beyond the Lights,” “The Old Guard” and “The Woman King,” while Bythewood’s credits include “Biker Boyz,” “Shots Fired” and “Swagger.” The couple has also frequently collaborated professionally.

But “A Different World” remains part of their origin story, both professionally and personally.

That made returning to Hillman as executive producers of Netflix’s new iteration of the beloved series especially meaningful.

“It is a full-circle moment to have been the writers who… It was also both of our first professional gigs,” Prince-Bythewood told theGrio. “We knew the impact that the show had when we were on there.”

When Debbie Allen reached out about returning to the world that helped launch their careers, Prince-Bythewood said the answer was pretty simple.

“You don’t say no to Debbie,” she said. 

The new “A Different World,” created and run by Felicia Pride, returns to Hillman College with a new class of students and plenty of familiar faces.

At the center is Deborah Wayne, played by Maleah Joi Moon, the youngest daughter of Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne. Described as a free spirit who is still figuring out her path, Deborah arrives at her parents’ alma mater alongside a new group of students played by Alijah Kai, Cornell Young IV, Jordan Aaron Hall, Kennedi Reece, and Chibuikem Uche. Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Cree Summer and Darryl M. Bell are among the original cast members returning to the world of Hillman. 

Pride serves as creator, showrunner, writer, and executive producer, while Allen is an executive producer and directed the premiere episode. Tom Werner, the Bythewoods, and Mandy Summers also executive produce. 

For the Bythewoods, the show’s story has another almost uncanny parallel to their own lives. Just as Dwayne and Whitley are sending their youngest daughter into the HBCU experience, the couple is doing the same.

Their youngest son is currently attending Morehouse College.

“It also feels like there’s a legacy of ‘A Different World,’ but it’s also our personal legacy,” Bythewood said. “We started our careers here. We started our relationship in this writers’ room. And now our youngest son goes to Morehouse.” 

Prince-Bythewood said seeing her son immersed in an HBCU environment has made the experience particularly special.

“The fact that our son is here in this world where he is not the only, but a part of all, is really special to us,” she said. 

Bythewood pointed to the education and affirmation that HBCUs provide as particularly meaningful.

“We’re in a time where they’re banning our books. They’re silencing our voices,” he said. “And to be in a space and environment where they say these voices are important, and more than that, your voice is important. We love that.” 

That sense of purpose also helped convince the busy filmmakers to make room for “A Different World” again.

Prince-Bythewood said the current cultural climate makes a series centered on Black students, Black history and the HBCU experience feel particularly timely.

“The things that are happening in the world right now, the way that our voices, our history is trying to be erased, it’s an opportunity to speak on that, to put Black intellect, Black joy, Black love into the world,” she told theGrio. 

Black love, of course, was a defining element of the original series, particularly through Dwayne and Whitley.

At Monday’s premiere, theGrio asked attendees to name their favorite characters and episodes from the original “A Different World,” and Dwayne and Whitley were popular picks. The couple’s unforgettable wedding storyline, which culminated in Dwayne interrupting Whitley’s wedding to Byron Douglas and pleading with her to marry him instead, was also among the memorable moments cited by guests.

For Prince-Bythewood, getting the chance to write for characters she had once watched on television was remarkable in itself.

“The thing I always think about it being my first job, that I got to go from watching Dwayne and Whitley to writing Dwayne and Whitley,” she said. 

Her husband agreed.

“It was really special and magical to write for Dwayne and Whitley,” Bythewood said, “both of them together and their relationship.” 

On Monday night, those intertwined legacies came together on the campus of Morehouse College, where Netflix celebrated the new series at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel as the kickoff to the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival.

The evening began in true HBCU fashion, with a performance from Morehouse’s “House of Funk” marching band, Mahogany N Motion dance team and members of Divine Nine fraternities and sororities before guests screened the first two episodes.

For Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood the night represented a return to the place where so much of their lives began.They entered the world of “A Different World” as young writers helping tell Dwayne and Whitley’s love story. They left it having begun one of their own. Now, with their son beginning his HBCU journey at Morehouse and Deborah Wayne beginning hers at Hillman, the Bythewoods are helping make sure a new generation gets its own “Different World,” too.