She detoured into “scary movie girl” turf

Chances are, you won’t be seeing Keshia Knight Pulliam in many “Scream” films. Or in anything that’s very fast or furious.
“I’m not a thriller girl,” she said in a Zoom press conference. “I am not a scary movie girl.”
She’s been a Cosby kid, a Christmas-movie heroine, a Tyler Perry drama queen. But now comes “The Hillsdale Adoption Scam” (its promotional art iks shown here) at 8 p.m. Saturday (March 18) on Lifetime, rerunning at midnight and then at 6 p.m. March 25. It had her running and ducking and eluding bad guys – all filmed carefully.
“I was very pregnant when I was doing this,” Pulliam said. But her character wasn’t, so camera angles were key.
For Pulliam, this has all needed special attention, “being old and pregnant, the way I am.”
She was 37 when she had her daughter. Now she’s 43 and doesn’t use the “morning sickness” phrase. “I was one of the people who had all-day sickness …. Me and the toilet were consistently together.”
But Lifetime was eager for her to do the film; she’s had a consistent following.
That started at 5 as Ruby on “The Cosby Show.” After the eight-year run, she finished high school and graduated from Spelman College, one of the historically Black schools featured on the show.
That’s in Atlanta, which has been a good place for her. She did a Tyler Perry movie “Madea Goes to Jail” and co-stars in Perry’s “House of Payne” comedy, also directing 26 episodes. And it was while making the 2019 movie “Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta” that she met actor Brad James.
Now they’re married and awaiting their first child together. (Pulliam was previously married to retired football player Edgerton Hartwell.) James starred with her in her recent “New Orleans Noel”; family also seems to be nearby.
“My mother is one of the biggest role models,” Pulliam said. “She has taken me everywhere …. She literally travels with me, to this day, so she can watch my daughter.”
Amid this cozy family life, Pulliam tackled the atypical “Hillsdale” role. She plays someone desperate to adopt, who feels she has a short-cut with a pregnant teen-ager, played by Danika Frederick.
“This was my first lead” role, Frederick said. “I didn’t think I was going to get it.”
Soon, she was on-set, wearing fake-pregnancy padding … while the cameras were busy ignoring Pulliam’s real pregnancy. Make-believe can be strange sometimes.