'Daisy Jones & The Six' stars Sebastian Chacon and Nabiyah Be explain how their characters helped make the show more inclusive than the book

• Amazon's "Daisy Jones & The Six" is adapted from a novel about musicians in the '70s.
• Insider spoke with Sebastian Chacon and Nabiyah Be about inclusive changes to their characters.

Noticeable changes in a book-to-screen adaptation can be tricky to pull off, particularly when the book is a beloved bestseller like "Daisy Jones & The Six."

But for stars Sebastian Chacon and Nabiyah Be, the show provided an opportunity to make the story more inclusive for Latino and queer fans.

"Daisy Jones & The Six" follows a fictional band as they chase fame and fortune, find both, then promptly fall apart. It was largely inspired by the Laurel Canyon era and the '70s rock scene in Los Angeles, which author Taylor Jenkins Reid has described as "dominated by white males."

Chacon plays Warren Rojas, The Six's exuberant drummer with an iconic mustache and a knack for staying drama-free. Be plays the powerful vocalist Simone Jackson, who is introduced as Daisy's best friend and becomes an early disco pioneer.

Chacon and Be opened up to Insider about the on-screen changes made to their characters, and why they were fully on board. (Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.)

In the book, Warren's last name is Rhodes and there's no indication that he's a Latino man. (It is implied that another character is Latina: Camila Dunne, née Martinez, is the inspiration behind The Six's song "Señora.")

But when Chacon was cast, he had a conversation with the showrunners about changing Warren's last name to maintain some of his own heritage.

"I did a lot of research trying to see if there was a white, American band that had a Latin anything. And they don't. There's like, one or two — Slayer in the '80s had a Cuban drummer, New York Dolls had a Colombian drummer," he explained to Insider, referring to David Lombardo and Billy Murcia, respectively.

"But it's not common," he continued. "So I wanted that to be a part of it somehow and I didn't wanna necessarily erase this special thing."

Chacon said he "threw out a bunch of last names" and Rojas is the one that stuck.

He also said he "peppered" his scenes with visual nods to the change: Warren wears merchandise from the Fania All-Stars, a supergroup of salsa musicians formed in the late '60s; he plays the drums with timbale sticks, which are traditionally used for percussion in Latin music, salsa, reggae, and mambo.

"I have some traditional Mexican fabrics and Aztec necklaces and Native American beads," he said of his on-screen style. "I'm like, 'How do I put that in as much as possible without making that his whole story?'"

The changes to Be's character are far less subtle. Reid said Simone is "very loosely based on Donna Summer," a disco star who credited gay clubs with her early success.

"The face of rock 'n' roll was the white man and the face of disco was the Black woman," Be told Insider.

In the book, Simone's sexuality is unknown. Her scenes focus largely on her friendship with Daisy and her solo career in New York, but we know that she eventually gets married and has a daughter named Trina.

In the show, however, Simone's queerness is both explicit and essential to her arc; her move to New York is partially motivated by a queer love interest named Bernie (Ayesha Harris).

"I think it was a great addition because gay people created disco music," Be said. "It was part of the movement, it was part of why the music was so relevant. So making Simone a queer character and having her be the pioneer, the face, and one of the fundamental aspects of this genre coming to life, I thought was super important."

Although Simone is shy when it comes to expressing her sexuality in the open — and suffers a setback when her record label asks her to stay closeted — Be said that part of the story was equally important to include because it's true to life.

"That was happening to Black queer artists still, 'til not that long ago," she said, adding: "A lot of Simone's stories are real."

"Daisy Jones & The Six" is available to stream on Amazon Prime. Follow along with our coverage here.