Is ‘The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat’ Based On A True Story

A film adaptation of Edward Kelsey Moore’s 2013 novel, The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, premiered at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival on Aug. 7, and is now available on streaming from Hulu.

The story has already touched viewers, who’ve shared on social media that the tear-jerker isn’t one they’ll forget anytime soon.

The movie follows three best friends who call themselves “The Supremes,” navigating life, love and their longstanding friendship over several decades. It also has deep and personal ties to its creator. Directed by Tina Mabry, the film is led by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Sanaa Lathan and Uzo Aduba.

‘The Supremes’ were inspired by real people

As Decider reports, During a 2013 interview with Mosaic Magazine, Moore said the story’s protagonists were loosely inspired by the women he grew up around in Indiana.

“I didn’t fashion any of the characters in The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat after specific women, but I definitely drew inspiration from the women in my life,” Moore told the outlet then. “I had the good fortune of hearing great female storytellers when I was young, and I’ve never forgotten how exciting it was to hear them talk to each other.”

In a recent interview with RogerEbert.com, Moore added that while he did not frequent an all-you-can-eat diner like the one central to the women’s friendship in the book during his childhood, he did base Earl’s diner on a buffet he would frequent with his family.

“My dad was a preacher, and we would go to the same buffet place after church,” he told the outlet. “You’d see all these other people from our church and other churches. It was just, I don’t know, the second act of church. Certainly, I was evoking that feeling of the place where you go to see all the people you know again. So, yeah, I did go to a place very much like Earl’s.”

Moore’s experience may have also shaped one of his main characters, Clarice, who Aduba portrays in the film. Clarice is a classical pianist in both the novel and film adaptation, and Moore himself has a background in classical music. Before diving into publishing, he played as a cellist in orchestras in Chicago.

The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, Moore’s first novel, which he began writing at 48, according to a New York Times essay, became a New York Times bestseller and spawned a sequel, The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues.