>> In growing up, I didn't act.
I didn't know that that was what I even wanted to do.
I got to Temple University, and all of a sudden I decided
to be a theater major for, like, a very immature reason.
Because I thought it was going to be easy, and I was, like, this will be easy.
Let's [inaudible].
And from the moment I stepped on stage, it was, like, it was magic.
Like, some, it just clicked.
It was like this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
I'm supposed to do this.
And so from that moment, it's just, there's just been no looking back.
There's been no looking back, and then the challenge is, I guess the biggest challenge
in being an actor is building and sustaining a career as an actor.
Like I said, I have been extremely, extremely blessed and fortunate.
I've been able to support myself as an actor for all of these years.
I think I fall, like, ten percent of all actors who are, like,
actually acting to support themselves.
So I've been really fortunate, but I think that is the biggest challenge is finding work.
There's so many actors, and finding work and being able to not have to wait tables and do all
that kind of stuff is really difficult to do, and there's a lot of disappointment.
There's a lot of letdown.
There's a lot of, you hear no a lot.
If I go on ten auditions in a month, I'm lucky if I book one.
The highlight that I would choose is doing, is having a chance to be in this play
in Baltimore Center's, at Baltimore Center Stage
in Baltimore called "Crumbs From the Table of Joy".
It's, like, my favorite play in the entire world.
My first professional gig was in Philly at a theater called Venture Theater,
that's no longer around, and I got a chance to play the younger sister, but the older sister,
who's 17, is the lead, and so I was an adult, but thank God I can still play a kid on stage
because I wanted that role so badly.
I, like, drove down to Baltimore before my agent even submitted me because I was,
like, I need to get in this show.
So I drove down to Baltimore, and I got that part, and it was amazing.
One of my favorite plays.
I'm hoping to play the aunt in some production some years
from now when I'm, like, fifty years old.
I'm hoping to play the aunt.
So then I could have played all of the women's roles available to me in that play.
Jermaine in "Precious", Jermaine was such a departure from who I am
or who I feel I am even though I do believe that we have everything inside
of us to be whoever we want to be.
But it was such a departure from who I generally am that I went to this school, Hendrick Martin,
for gay/lesbian/transgender teens and stuff, and I hung out there.
I went to their balls.
I hung out in high schools.
I did a lot of research into the 80's and all that kind of stuff, the welfare system.
I did a lot of research into being transgender, into, read a lot of really good books, you know,
what happens to the body when women start shooting testosterone.
Like just all kinds of things.
I did all kinds of research to decide along with what Sapphire had written who Jermaine is.