Your character actually delves into this wellness
well rounded woman
because you show that you're going to therapy
and I've never seen a black woman do that on television
because that's being vulnerable
I'm Jamaican too Jamaicans we don't talk about our feelings.
So this is basically a miracle because
it's like they decide they can only have so many
brown girls in one thing
I feel like now
- Theres a limit
Theres a limit
Like now it's a little more open
but I remember the very first thing I ever worked on
was this indie adaptation of a play
and it was like I remember thinking as a child
if they cast this chocolate woman they're going to cast me.
-Mm hmm -and I remember thinking that
But do you not still think that way?
I have to kind of sweep that thought under the rug
whenever you get an audition for something
you know someone else is attached to it and then you say...
well she looks like me and so ok this is going to go to someone else.
It depends because sometimes I've been surprised
like with Twilight Zone casting me
and Jessica Williams I was like oh...
I’ve never seen that before.
- Right - I've never seen that before, ever.
And especially of the same kind of tone.
Like sometimes I'll go in for projects
and I’m like oh I know that I'm the black role
but I know that I'm light skin so I know that
there's going to be darker skinned women that come in
that would actually be better suited for the show
but if it's like a middle America show
I know I'm gonna get cast because I'm as black as they can go right.
I mean that I'll take that a step further and say
sometimes I'll get audition material and decide to myself
that I shouldn't even go in because I am not
the kind of blackness that they're looking for.
We gotta stop doing that to ourselves
But I mean but you know what that all it's so funny
when you I can pinpoint when that started
and that was with my first manager who had...
A black Actress who was already a movie star and another
one whose star was rising very quickly
first conversations was about how difficult
a time he was going to have kind of placing me
or finding me work, a white man.
so it was something someone actually said to you
yes.
and I had never thought about that before ever in my life.
You know you think about your own identity
but I never thought about...
Me being raised in Harlem in Manhattan in a bubble
in a very liberal school and not having had to face those questions
but I never thought about how Someone else
someone else was going to place you choose my identity right.
-choose my identity.
Right?
No not at all.
I mean I was like playing Prospero in high school
like I had the most naive, beautifully naive
understanding...
and like in some ways and a lot of ways it served me
because I never had a ceiling for myself.
You know but it is definitely like a culture shock
when you like I graduated from school
and then I was like oh ya'll wouldn't cast me as that?
oh I play this old man?
I think I was the opposite I grew up in a predominantly
white neighborhood
and then I made a fast switch to a city school
and it was a performing arts high school in Pittsburgh
and shut up Pittsburgh and. And then it was the opposite.
It was like a predominantly black just eclectic group
and diverse group of kids
And in my white school I was one of three black people.
and my brother was one of those three as well
but we counted as half, so there were two black people
and then there was me and my brother
and that was from middle school to high school
and then when I aged out in middle school
I went to the inner city school and it was the opposite
like black kids wouldn't accept me or girls really
and white girls wouldn't accept me.
so I was kind of like in this weird in-between
and I didn't know who I was
I didn't know what my identity was
do you feel like that transferred into the industry?
I think it did because originally starting
out with music for my career I went right into R&B
because I wanted to accept and I wanted to drench my
in black culture and I wanted to be around
really powerful strong black women
but then in the industry everybody kept saying
straighten your hair don't wear it curly don't do anything
natural and then I was going in for auditions
and I literally wouldn't pass the paper bag test
So it was like all of this kind of like back and forth
that I didn't really know who I was and I never
felt like I fit in and nobody ever really accepted me
so I had to fight to find myself where myself was ok
in being myself and then be able to sell it
because people just tell you we're telling you
you I don't know what to do with you but just you know
you're just confusing
what I think it boils down to
to and it's so crazy is you know we can have
a long conversation about hair right
but I don't have the beautiful crown of curls
that most mixed actresses are
you know people decide that oh you're mixed actress
you're not Latina. You're not a Hawaiian God knows
you know whatever because we look at
people and we decide who they are based
on their hair this is insane
And when you're young starting in this industry
people tell you you know who you are.
And so they probably told you like oh you can
go in like you're not Ilfinesh
who your actual heritage and your ethnic background is
you're probably Native American
-you could play this or you could play that
also in 2008 or whatever
ethnically ambiguous was
-was poppin
I mean like it didn't get me work
-I was like I'm going to have to be Dominican
-I was like my eyes are hazel though
-I claimed back .05 percent of Cherokee
it was those hazel eyes I was like I'm so interested
and fascinated to meet this girl
-where did she come from?
-what is she, where is she?
-I think like when I started out
I didn't go to a University for it because I'm half
Jamaican and in my culture
you got to school to become a doctor or a nurse or a teacher
and so I did as many indie films as I could
because I felt like maybe I could do all of these
indie films and it didn't matter
whether a short film like a student film anything
pay no pay just to get footage showing
that I could play this and I could play that
and I thought that I could use that in order to
once I start going out for official work
like SAG work
then I'll be able to use that as a reel to get in
but you were a hard though you were ahead of the curve
because you were creating characters where you've just made
it for yourself and now that's kind of like where
where we are in a place now
If we can't find...
thank God
If we can't find the placements as ourselves
as black women then we just we create it
so you were already doing that before you even started so...
right but I wish that I would have done stuff with actual quality
lighting was terrible
it's the same thing I have a trillion shorts
and that was like far more...
-that you got paid with a sandwich
-yeah I got paid with a sandwich
but it was far more advantageous for me
you know I mean especially in this medium then...
I mean I enjoyed my four years of school but those
but those shorts were like...
-that was when you had your training
you know were super important
but I had this experience
there was one agency I met with in 2012
and they were like looking at my photo and they're
like looking at my reel which was full
of like working class you know I mean
like characters and they were like we don't
really know what to do with you
It's often times like a lot of the reps
that we kind of go to are the agents
that we meet to
often times they're not black
-yeah
And so they don't really understand us.
I remember after I did precious there were people who really
their reps who actually thought that I was
plucked off of the street
that I was some...
they're people who don't want to meet with me because they thought
that I was Jamaican that I didn't speak English
and I was like Patois is English
in Jamaica they speak English and so
which thank you I appreciate that you know
but it's also not understanding our culture
and not understanding
I think especially to be black and also to be
Caribbean to not even understand that
and like right now I still get that
- yeah of course
I don't have an agent right now
and so I even still get that like
oh what is she?
what do you mean what am I?
There's a fear in it though I think that that's
kind of the predominant base out of everything
It's the same thing for your story for your story
for your story for your story
we don't know what to do with you
I don't know this look
-fear comes from not understanding
that's exactly right
It's lack of knowledge is just ignorance
so the more that we can educate people through platforms
like our show and show people the diversity in the different
shades and what it looks like
and who we are when it is not one shade of black it really isn't
there's like other things and other things weaved
inside of it with diversity and personality and heritage
and everything in between