We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jermaine White-Reid a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jermaine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?

Before things really started taking off for me I actually got denied from a lot of modeling agencies. Including my Mother Agency Docherty Talent Agency.

Jermaine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Yes, my mother agency is called Docherty Talent Agency, based in Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A mother agency is the term used for the first talent agency that signed you if you are signed to multiple agencies in different markets.

I met them through my wife, who at the time was my girlfriend. She knew I had been looking for a legitimate agency to represent me. The only problem was that living in Northeast Ohio, you run into so many scam artists who prey on people with goals and dreams similar to mine. So, she did some extremely thorough research and found a couple of legitimate agencies that were holding open calls. She put it together in a binder with a few of my pictures from back then (2015) and gifted it to me for my 25th birthday, in what was and still is to this day the best gift that anyone has ever given me.

I then proceeded to go through the list of agencies and called them up to inquire when their open calls would be and what I needed to bring to the open calls. One of the agencies was called The Talent Group. I remember one of my friends from high school’s mom being signed to the agency, as we saw her on television a lot growing up, and I thought to myself, “Yeah, this is it.” The open call was the last Tuesday of the month. When I showed up, I went through the process with about seven other people. At the end of the individual interviews, they got us in a room and said they would be in touch in about two weeks. If we didn’t hear back from them, they weren’t interested because either you weren’t marketable, or they already had someone on the roster that looked like you. Fast forward, they didn’t like me, so it was on to the next agency, Docherty.

With Docherty being in the heart of downtown Cleveland, it made me feel like I was at a New Dork agency. I thought to myself, “This is home”. I went through the process with maybe 10 people. I received an email two weeks later, and they also told me that, unfortunately, they were not interested in signing me. At this point, I was starting to feel as though maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I remember telling my girlfriend the somber news. I read the email to her, and she said, “Wait… Did they say that you can reapply in six months?” I said yes, and I intended on doing so. While I was extremely frustrated at the time, I was not discouraged. I don’t know why, but I felt drawn to this agency like God Himself was saying, “Reapply, but this time consult me about it in prayer.” So that’s exactly what I did. I remember that prayer in November. My wife and I, who was now my fiancée at the time, came together and prayed what I believe is our most powerful and memorable prayer that we have ever prayed. It was a prayer regarding my purpose, and the moment we joined hands, it was already done.

The next morning, I went in for an open call at Docherty Talent Agency, and the whole interaction just felt… different. My demeanor was poised, calm, and confident. I felt at ease, like the answer had already been given, and this was just a formality. Two weeks later, I received an email from Docherty stating that they were interested and wanted to see more pictures. I was ecstatic. I shared the news with my fiancée, my mother, and pretty much anyone who was willing to listen. Around the same time, I received an email offering me a job at a logistics company, making pretty decent money with the opportunity to make so much more. So, there I stood at a crossroads between two career paths that couldn’t be more different from each other. One offering financial security, while the other filled a lifelong dream. I’m convinced that sometimes God will test you to see how serious you are about what it is you pray for. The answer for me was a no-brainer. I chose my purpose, then proceeded to put in the work. All I needed was a week to get my abs tight and looking photo-ready, as I had already been working on them, anticipating a response from Docherty.

It was November 15, 2015. I was more pumped and motivated than ever before, and in my workout that night, I pushed myself beyond my own limits. It was a particularly warm night for November, and the gym was extremely cool that day. Unfortunately for me, As someone who is living with sickle cell anemia that was the perfect recipe for a sickle cell crisis. It was the worst one I had ever had. I was placed into a medically induced coma because while my body was trying to fight off a sickle cell crisis, it was also tasked with the duty of fighting pneumonia, which is common amongst sickle cell patients. All I could think was, “Just my luck.” I wasn’t even surprised because they say the devil fights you hardest when you’re on the verge of a breakthrough. Two weeks passed, and I finally left the hospital. Thanksgiving had come and gone, and I was feeling less than thankful because during that two-week session, I had developed a bed sore on my ear because my nurses were not turning me while I was in the coma. My ear then developed a keloid, and I was feeling less and less like a model. I thought to myself, “I can’t see them wanting to sign me now.” However, I persevered. I sent them an email detailing everything that had happened and explained that I needed some time to go through rehab, and if it was OK with them, I would still like to submit the pictures they requested after the holiday season. They were more than understanding. That’s when I knew that my journey was just beginning.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Never discredit how much work a professional puts into to a craft to make you think that what they do is “easy”.

My first time acting was as a featured background in a Kay Jeweler’s commercial. Featured means that the director has handpicked selected you to actually appear within that commercial spot. Now to the degree of visibility that’s up to the editing room.

I remember being on set for the very first time and seeing the first team actors walk in and run the scene and making everything just look so…Easy. I thought to myself “how do I get to that point to where I’m in front of the camera”?

Followed up with my agency and they told me first I needed to start taking classes to get some acting chops under me so, I did.

I’m coming up on my 7th year of studying acting and auditioning and I now have a whole new respect for the Denzels, Will Smith’s Shia Lebeof’s etc that make acting just look so… easy because sheesh is not I however have learned to enjoy and embraced the challenge.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I know how cliche this may sound but, my goal is always just to be 1% better than I was yesterday.
Will Smith said it best when he gave the example of building a wall. He said “You don’t set out to build a wall. What you do is you try to lay each brick as neatly as possible brick by brick then one day you’ll look up and find that you’ve built a wall.”

Absolutely , I have lofty goals and aspirations for myself within the realm of Acting and Modeling . However I know that the only way I can see myself ever achieving any of them is to keep consciously and intentionally making small efforts on a daily basis.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Jermaine WhiteReid
• Facebook: Jermaine WhiteReid

Image Credits

@stillxduval @tron_images