Sanaa Lathan Calls Best Man Cast ‘Family’ (Exclusive)

Sanaa Lathan tends to build a bond with her co-stars. But with the casting of The best man And The best man holidaytheir friendships are on another level.

“We’ve all known each other for so long,” says the 52-year-old actress of her co-stars in the 1999 hit and its 2013 sequel: Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Terrence Howard, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau, Monica Calhoun, Melissa De Sousa and Regina Hall.

“I talked to Nia yesterday. I talk to Regina all the time. Taye and I just DMed each other,” Lathan tells PEOPLE. “We don’t hang out all the time, but when we see each other, there’s a sense of family. It definitely feels more than just friendship.”

Lathan played Robyn, the love interest of Diggs’ Harper. The cast plays a group of friends who come back together and must confront long-held secrets and changing relationship dynamics. “The cast has been through so much,” says Lathan – including the unexpected news that a sequel will be released more than a decade after the original.

“Who would have thought?” she says. “With this franchise, we thought, ‘Wow, we’re really going to do this again?'”

The best man holiday The cast was also reunited with writer-director Malcolm D. Lee. Lathan recalls having “so much fun” on the set of the sequel that it may have been hard to stay on track. “I feel bad for Malcolm because we grew up with him too. So we said, ‘Why do you want us to do this? Explain it to me!’ We’re making his life difficult.”

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According to Lathan, it is quite normal for her to talk to her co-stars off-screen. With the actors Aunjanue Ellis-Tayler, Uzo Aduba and others on the set of the new film The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat“It felt like working with family,” she says.

“I’ve known Russell Hornsby for years, I’ve known Mekhi (Phifer) for years,” she adds of her other co-stars. “We just had a lot of fun in the makeup trailer… I think there’s even some stuff on social media where Russell is cranking up music at 7 in the morning and dancing his ass off. It’s like a club in the makeup trailer!”

The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eatfrom writer-director Tina Mabry and co-writer Cee Marcellus, is based on the novel of the same name by Edward Kelsey Moore. It is now streaming on Hulu.