ROLE IN HAMILTON: Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson

NEXT UP: Continuing on Black-ish, plus Wonder and Tour de Pharmacy

After playing both friend and foil to Alexander Hamilton — as the French-accented, fast-rapping Marquis de Lafayette in Act 1, then a swaggering Thomas Jefferson in Act 2 — it was perhaps destined that Diggs, 35, would follow that onstage multitasking with several overlapping projects. The Tony winner is returning for more of ABC's Black-ish after first appearing on the show as a guest star last fall, and he'll also be seen alongside Julia Roberts in the feature film Wonder (out Nov. 17) and with Andy Samberg in the upcoming HBO sports-doping mockumentary Tour de Pharmacy. "Working on that set was like nothing else I've ever experienced," he says of his time on Tour. "They never [stopped rolling], and any idea that was funny was fair game." Diggs is also delving into work behind the camera, executive-producing a pilot for ABC about a rapper-turned-mayor. To him, it's akin to his music-making process — where every influence on his life could be a source of inspiration — and he says he enjoys learning the ropes. "Producing has been yet another crash course. I feel like my whole life's been like, 'S---, I've never done that before' — and then pretending that I know what I'm doing. This is another one of those things." As he and other Hamilton alums pursue opportunities outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre, the bonds between those cast members have endured. "Everybody in that cast is a pretty close friend of mine now," says Diggs. "I think those relationships are probably the most important thing that I took with me. That's the real joy of this thing."