(gentle music)
- You know, if you ask my mother, she is convinced
that the motivation was watching Hannah Montana
and I love Miley, but I don't believe
that that is the reason why.
I feel like when I thought about acting,
the only thing that I really thought about
at the time was theater and Broadway,
film and TV honestly didn't sort of come
into my view until college.
I am Dominique Thorne and this is On the Rise.
(gentle upbeat music)
I went to a Greek Orthodox Middle School in Brooklyn,
shout out to A. Fantis parochial school
of Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral.
Our second language there was Greek
and I think I realized I had a talent
for acting when I had my first Greek speaking role.
I played Kýpros which was the island of Cyprus
for the Orchidéa play.
(speaking foreign language)
Little rough, but it's alright.
I think that was the first time
that I really felt some like power on the stage.
You know, some onus like, oh this is mine to shepherd.
The age at which I first started playing around
with the idea of claiming actor
as my title was probably around high school age.
That's when I first started acting seriously
or learning the many techniques.
The first role that I ever had was Puck
from a Midsummer Night's Dream.
My freshman year of high school
at the Professional Performing Arts School.
That is a role that is so dear to my heart.
That was the true like moment or I guess like birth
onto the stage, and it was such a physically involved role.
Puck, as we know, is sort of
like the little mystical creature lurking throughout.
So I was like, I would appear at the back of the stage
and then run down like the side hallway to the back,
across the back of the stage
and go upstairs to make my next entrance at the other side.
And then I'd appear in the back on the top
of like the theater seats and like sort of crawl over people
and get to the front and jump on top of the proscenium.
Like, it was such like what a way to enter.
That's probably my favorite role to this day too, actually.
I think a part of the reason why I committed
to being an actor is because there was so much emotion going
on in here that I didn't have the words for.
And it wasn't until I started acting
and especially until I started performing
and learning Shakespeare truly that I learned that,
oh, there are most certainly words for every thought
and feeling that I have going on in here.
And I think from that moment I've been very particular
about the words that I choose to express myself.
One thing that my teacher says
that I sort of have always taken with me is
that you're giving people the opportunity to be changed.
And I think that from that moment I was able to get involved
with theater and also films that have been very thoughtful
in the messaging that they want to give to people.
But it was doing Shakespeare that taught me
that giving people a rest from the stresses of life,
giving people the opportunity to enter into something
that is so different from everyday life is also a gift
and is also powerful.
Learning that, creating that, like training my voice
and my body and my mind to learn these lines
and do that thing felt like the first time
that I think I felt alive.
Whatever it is I'm meant to do in life, I am, I'm awake now.
Like what is my next mission?
Playing Riri Williams I think is the opening
of a door in the universe.
I think that it's allowing for a whole other like,
untapped side of Marvel to sort of run through with force
and the fact that she's being introduced in Wakanda
which has been such a like a home going,
I think for a lot of people,
to see Wakanda represented on screen,
but also just folks in general sort of like,
oh, that dude kind of looks like me.
She kind of looks like me,
like these superheroes are from places
that are familiar to me.
Or at least that's how I felt learning about Riri
and especially getting to tap into her and play her.
So I think that Riri is the first step
of many into a new world.
Stepping onto the set of Wakanda Forever,
probably one of the deepest full circle experiences
I've had the pleasure of feeling to date.
Seeing that iconic panther statue,
to working with Angela Bassett
and also to be directed by Ryan Coogler,
whose film Fruitvale Station was the first film I saw
that showed me for the first time
that film has the exact same power and potential
that I believed and believe that theater has.
So to be there in the room,
on the set of a Marvel show,
playing a Marvel hero felt like I was doing something right
and that maybe, just maybe I should continue
to trust the Lord above and see where this takes me.
So receiving the role of Riri Williams
in Black Panther : Wakanda Forever
also came packaged with the opportunity
to play her in her own titular show
about Ironheart the character itself after Wakanda Forever.
And so I am currently what, one week away from wrapping
that show, which is insane to think about.
So yeah, man, let's all strap in, shall we?
Okay.
The biggest high of my career thus far is really
an amalgamation of different moments.
Playing Riri Williams in Wakanda Forever has given me
sort of a perspective I definitely did not expect to have.
Being in Wakanda Forever within a cast
that I think by nature meant that I had to be as supportive
as possible in terms of supporting the story,
in terms of supporting my castmates,
in terms of supporting my fellow actors
who are in the process of mourning,
came with the knowledge that at some point I will then
be the one who will most likely need support
from others as the title character.
And I think that playing Ironheart in Ironheart has meant
that I've had to show up just sort of beyond the ways
that I was able to show up in spaces prior to.
It was collaboration in a way that I've never experienced
to date because I had never been in that position before.
I'd never been number one on the call sheet before.
That experience only exists because of my time
in shows like Beale Street and Judas
where I was able to witness people
that I look at as titans in this industry do that for me.
To even consider this moment as a high,
I have to consider those as well.
My role model and inspiration is also a two part answer.
I think the first part has to be my parents,
my mom, my dad and my grandma.
Three immigrants that came to America
and from the jump showed me as a child what it is
and what it means and what it looks like
to create the life that you envision for yourself
while also realizing that you are not
in control and ultimately submitting the reigns
to God and letting him do what he gotta do.
On the other side of that,
I'd have to say the late great AJ Crimson.
This is the first person that I met
that really showed me how to carry myself,
once in the spaces that I had dreamt of being in.
(silent screaming)
It wasn't until meeting and working with him
that I had the desire to make somebody else proud.
So much of my pursuit of being able to call myself an actor,
was a solitary journey.
I love the hustle and the skill and the mindset
and the reverence for God that my parents
and my family sort of naturally imbued into me,
but figuring out how to navigate this world was something
that they couldn't help me with.
And the first person to really help me was AJ Crimson.
(silently) Yeah!
So those are my role models for sure.
If I was not an actress, I would probably
be doing something related to my degree
which is in human development,
specifically in social and personality development.
I was super into the human bonding aspects of that field.
So I think I would probably have continued to do research
in that field that would probably
be where I got comfortable.
When I was younger, Tiger Beat magazine would come out
and they'd have like all the celebrity crush sections.
And as much as I loved me some Tiger Beat,
I always wanted to rebel against a celebrity crush.
Like I don't have no celebrity crush,
but I did have like a celebrity role model.
And it started with watching that same boy
that used to play up on Degrassi,
Mr. Aubrey Drake Graham.
Seeing him on the Degrassi reruns that would show
and then follow that up years later in 2015
when he like dropped this album and was on GQ covers.
And I was like, wait, if he's doing this, I could do this.
And he kind of became my blueprint
for like the way that you carry yourself
between spaces and applying the right kind
of finesse for where you are in life.
I don't know if I'm like fully aware
of what exactly the platform is
that I have or what that looks like, but I do think
that I'm very excited to see what new opportunities come up,
to continue to do what I guess is sort of my mission.
About giving people this opportunity to like feel something
or to learn something, or to be changed in some way.
My dream scenario of my life in five years,
I'd probably be traveling the world honestly
and continuing to see the world the way
that I want to see it.
And to take my family along with me
and to continue to give them different opportunities
to see the world.
And prayerfully, in five years
I will also have played some characters
that are starkly different,
that no one could imagine I would've stepped into
after playing Riri Williams or Judy Harmon.
I hope that I get to do something super fun
and genre blending and gory and action packed.
I hope I get to keep playing
with the full gamut of emotions that lies ahead of me.
(gentle music)