I think it's okay to be afraid, but it's not okay to let it rule your life.
— Shalita Grant
A few years after I graduated, I was doing a play in Boston and was asked to audition for Christophe Durang's play, 'Vonya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,' and I got the part. We were performing in Lincoln Center when, during our weekly meeting with producers, they that said they loved our show and wanted to take us to Broadway.
I have a chef come in every day and prepare my meals. There is no way I could do the stunt work, stay up as late as I have to, or be outside in the heat if I'm eating poorly. That means I can't eat craft services!
For most of my career, I've known what it's like to be in the audience and to enjoy what I'm seeing but still have the ambition to say, 'I can do that, I know I can do that. And I want to do that, and I can't wait for that to happen.'
I had to really learn what it meant to be on a set and what the expectations were and what producers are. I had to learn who I'm talking to and what their functions are. I had a couple of gaffes: I would ask a person a question, and it wasn't their job. I had to Google their job description. That was the first big adjustment.
Eat to fuel your body, not to stuff your feelings.
Toward the end of 11th grade, my acting teacher asked me if I was thinking about going to college. I said, 'Yeah, I think so.' He said, 'You should audition to Julliard.' I was like, 'What's that?' I'm accepted to Julliard, and I realize within the first couple of weeks just how lucky I was to be in the program.
I do heavy weight deadlift squats, shoulder presses, push-ups, and I can pull up my own body weight. And I do an ab workout just about every night. It's 200 reps of five different exercises four times right before bed: a plank with hip twists, side bridge dips, a walking mountain climber, bicycles and leg lift.
Musicals are not something I have had vigorous training in. But it's definitely something that I want to do. I don't like to be afraid of anything. I don't want to feel like there's something that I can't do.
I moved right to L.A., and I had a year of active unemployment. I had 50-something auditions for 50-something different projects, testing and doing callbacks, and could not get hired. And then, almost a year to the day of being out in L.A., I booked my first job, and then I started booking something every other month.
I don't have a television in my house. I haven't owned one in years. In truth, it's about mental health for me. It's hard for me to have a television in the house because I'll just stay inside and binge-watch stuff that I don't even want to watch. I've learned when I don't have a TV, it forces me to go outside.
When I was in high school, they opened an arts high school. I didn't read music, and I wasn't a trained dancer, so I was like, 'OK, I guess I'll go into acting.' I asked my mom if she knew any plays for my audition, and the only one she knew was 'A Raisin in the Sun.'
I generally work out every day. If I'm at work, between takes I'll do push-ups and an ab routine. I'm there for anywhere from 10 to 16 hours a day, so sometimes I can't work out at my house. I will do sit-ups on the stairs, I work out in the interrogation room. It gets the blood going, and it keeps you up.
I had a couple of producer sessions where I would walk in the room, and the producer would just look at his phone. That's heartbreaking because it's so disrespectful.
