-Mm, that is not fair.
She got here after me.
Most of us are lifers.
Been here a long time.
-Don't forget your headband.
-Nobody's gonna come for us now. We're too old.
-And don't dawdle. -Or too Black.
-You're a native of Baltimore, is that correct?
-My whole life, yeah. -Yeah, uh-huh.
And tell me about growing up in Baltimore,
'cause you went to the performing arts high school.
Did you always want to be an actress?
Or how did you even get the bug?
-Yeah, when I was in elementary school, my teacher --
I had, like, behavioral dysfunction.
And she would just
give me things to do -- -You too?
-You know, many people.
And she would just give me things to do
to sort of, like, busy me.
She would, like, send me to different people's offices
and she'd be like, "Ask for this,
but do it like this," you know?
And then she told my mother maybe she should, like,
get me involved in TWIGS,
because, you know, BSA has the TWIGS program.
So, the Baltimore School for the Arts
has an after-school program for kids from like,
I don't know, third grade to eighth grade
when you might start at the high school.
And I think at that point, I was like 11, maybe?
No, I think I was like 10 or so. -Okay.
-And my mother got me involved in that.
And then I was doing TWIGS
and it sort of became like this thing of, like,
"Well, if you don't behave, you can't go."
So I started getting myself together, I guess, after that.
And it just kind of stuck all the way up.
And not until I was like 16, I think, did it dawn on me
that I could do it, you know, for real.
BSA is such a diverse community of students.
It's a charter school. It's downtown.
You got kids that are going there for free
who live in the city, and then you have kids
that are paying to be there from other places.
-Mm-hmm. -And I was sort of mad at myself
because when it came time to graduation,
it was like I felt like I had tricked myself into believing
that I could have what everybody else could have around me --
the ability, like the funds to, like,
fund what they wanted to do,
to, like, go to these places and go to school.
And I wasn't a terrible student at all.
I was an average student.
I wouldn't even lie to you and say that I was,
like, you know, valedictorian or whatever,
but I was a good student.
And, but I couldn't afford
the balance of the schools that I got into.
I couldn't afford to pay the other end of it.
So I needed to go to community college instead.
And getting to community college, the first year
I was in community college,
I couldn't get any financial aid.
My family came together and, like, put money to, like,
pay for a couple of classes, so I took like two classes.
But then when I didn't have any more money for classes,
I was going back to, like, try to find
where I could get more money to, like, stay in school.
And that's when I met Nana, Nana Jesse.
And I went in and he, like, asked me about myself.
He, like, asked me, like,
what I wanted to do, like, who I wanted to be.
And I think at that point in time --
because acting was something
that I did in high school, right?
Like, I don't think anybody fully expected me to,
like, continue to pursue it in the way that I did.
So when people would be like, "Oh, what do you want to be?"
and I'd be like, "An actor," and they'd be like, "Aww!"
Like, "Ohh," you know. Like, "Sweet."
But he didn't minimize it in that way.
Like, I told him what I wanted, and he, like, dreamed with me
about everything that, like, it could be.
And then he, like, brought it down to, like, layman's terms
and was like, "Well, let's come up with a plan
to get you to where you want to be."
And that's what we did.
And I think throughout that process, he did --
he, like, got me into this program
that I was too late to be a part of anyway,
called the Granville T Woods Program.
And essentially, they pay for all of your classes.
He planned with me and was like, "Alright, try these things."
You know, like I auditioned for Juilliard like twice.
I was like, I was working three jobs
and I was saving my money.
-Where did you -- Wait a minute, wait a minute.
I'm a reporter. This is what I do.
I get details. -Yes.
-Where did you work?
-I worked at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, I worked
at the Boys & Girls Club -- -Doing what?
I was an usher. -Okay.
-I worked coat check. I checked coats.
-Oh, you were at coat check, okay.
Okay, alright.
-And I worked at the Boys & Girls Club.
I worked the night shift at Amazon.
I worked at a movie theater.
I was working.
And like, in between time,
like because I wanted training so bad --
Like, my friends, I had a lot of friends
who were in, like, great programs
at like NYU and UArts.
And I would call them
and I would ask them what they were reading
and I would order their books off Amazon and read them myself.
And, like, that's sort of where I started learning about,
like, the technical parts
before I really started to learn about it.
I met Jonathan Majors, who was a student at Yale at the time.
And he came up to me and he was like,
"I just feel like you really good at this."
Like, I don't -- He was like, "I just feel it.
Like, I just know.
Like, you sit here all quiet like you got a secret weapon."
And I was like -- I didn't know him, you know.
He was like, "You should apply to Yale."
And I told him, I was like, "Well, I mean,
I don't have a degree," 'cause it's a graduate program.
He was like, "You don't need it.
You just gotta be good."
-Shaibel isn't the only one who kept after you all these years.
I know how you lost to Benny Watts in Vegas
and then beat him in Ohio.
I read the papers.
Even on a group trip into town,
I spent my ice cream money on the damn chess magazine
had your ugly face on it.
For a time, I was all you had.
And for a time, you was all I had.
-So, I told myself I would apply to Yale and go to Yale,
or I would drop out and figure it out.
And I got into Yale, and that was that.
So, like, at the end of your time at Yale,
the capstone for the actors is this showcase where, like,
you are put in front of agents and managers.
You know, and then you have meetings.
I met my manager, Monica,
like at the beginning of my third year.
The first thing -- "Queen's Gambit"
was the first thing they sent me out on.
I had gone to their office,
and Jonathan, one of my agents, was like --
'cause I was going to move to LA, like, right after showcase.
And he was like, "No, you're going to book something.
You won't even make it to LA."
And I was like, "Wow, he is really confident in me."
Like, "Wow, I'm not that confident, but thank you."
-Hey, what's your name, girl? -Beth.
-Jolene.
Your mama and daddy dead?
What's the last thing they said to you before they died?
-You know, everybody feels very --
it's very mixed, you know, how people feel about Jolene.
And I've thought about it a lot, you know.
And I feel -- I feel two ways about it.
One, I feel blessed to be able to come out of school
and have a job and to have done my best work
and be confident in the work that I've done.
And I think the thing about Jolene that is --
I think what happens is, I feel like my job
was to make her as full and as human as possible.
Jolene is a supporting character,
and I'm so glad that people love Jolene
in such a way that they're like,
"We want more of her, we want to see more of her."
Jolene is a supporting character.
And it's -- you know, it's complicated
because we do need more stories
where, you know, people who look like me aren't just supporting,
but this was not that story.
And, you know, I just hope that we continue to lean
into writing more stories for people that look like me.
Like, you love Jolene.
You love my work as Jolene.
Even if you don't like Jolene and you like my work as Jolene,
get me to something that you think is worthy, you know?
I think Jolene -- I think Jolene is a beautiful woman.
And that is how I did my best to portray her,
as a beautiful woman, as a full woman with a life
and heart who grew up in a place
where she was at the bottom of the totem pole
and grew up and wanted to change that.
And I am inspired by who Jolene is even though
we don't get to see all the parts of Jolene onscreen.
My job is to give the full life even in the snippets,
and that's what I set out to do.