In the Blink of an Eye, also starring Rashida Jones and Kate McKinnon, will be available to stream on Hulu on Feb. 27
Speaking with PEOPLE in an exclusive conversation at the premiere of his latest project, sci-fi film In the Blink of an Eye, at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 26, the 44-year-old actor discussed fatherhood.
"It's the best thing I've ever done -- and it's not even close, and I've lived a charmed life since," said Diggs, who welcomed a son in 2024 with his partner, fellow Hamilton on Broadway alum Emmy Raver-Lampman, 37.
He continued, "But I think in terms of how it relates to my work, to me it just felt like an immediate focusing agent."
"Sometimes it's hard to be like, 'Oh, what should I do right now? Or is this a thing I need to take or should I be out here hustling more?' And all of a sudden it was just like, 'If it doesn't make [my son's] life better, it doesn't matter,' " Diggs explained.
The Tony winner, who won Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical in 2016 for his dual role as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton, added at Sundance that his values are "so clear" now.
"So actually in all the ways I thought it would be tough it actually has been really clarifying and amazing," he said.
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Diggs and Raver-Lampman met while working on Hamilton in 2015, started dating a year later and eventually announced the birth of their first child, a son whose name they've kept private, in March 2024.
At the time, Raver-Lampman shared an Instagram post featuring her newborn's tiny feet and a sweet caption about his birth.
"dear baby, you have forever changed us. our hearts are filled with a kind of love we never thought possible," she wrote. "we love you more than you will truly ever know. thank you for choosing us. now please...go the f*ck to sleep. love, mom and dad. ♥️."
At Sundance, Diggs admitted that before his son's birth, he asked In the Blink of an Eye costar Rashida Jones for parenting tips while filming.
"That whole experience for me was right before I had a kid," he told PEOPLE. "She was probably so sick of me. Every time they said, 'Cut,' we'd go back to the chairs and I'd be like, 'So I need more tips. Tell me what am I going to do? How do you be an artist and have a baby?' "
Diggs and Jones, 49, play present-day anthropologist students who begin dating in In the Blink of an Eye, a sci-film movie about "three storylines, spanning thousands of years, [that] intersect and reflect on hope, connection, and the circle of life," according to the film's description.
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