Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaquair Gillette

Hi Jaquair, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

I always had a knack for performing. Growing up I was fascinated with story and expressing ways to tell story through the arts. I really began to fall in love with performing in high school. Performing in my first play, as “Jonah” and writing and performing my first poem, “The Demographics”. The nurturing of my talents occurred in college studying the crafts of acting, writing, and producing. It was also were I found my voice and style as a spoken word poet. Performing in plays and doing my first paid background acting work in a major motion picture. After that I began to navigate the treturous and random world of arts entertainment. I was trying to advance my career but was getting little to nowwhere. I could not get any opportunities as we were entering into a recession and I had no guidance to help me nanowhere. Slipped into a a dark time of depression. It took me finding my old notebook of poems, movie, tv, and film ideas that reminded me who I was and who I wanted to be. Ever since then I began to pursue who I wanted to be. I began to utilize my skills of research and furthering my education with workshops and classes and I began to create my own opportunities and produce my own projects while auditioning and collaborating with other artists on projects.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

No smooth road at all. It has been a beautiful struggle in the hardest pursuit of my life. I battled against the great recession and a personal depression. I was working for New Line Cinema, while auditioning and the studio was bought out by Warner Bros and collapsed the New York division. I had student debt and auditions for film,tv,and theater were hard to come by. I was falling into a depression with everything happening and having to take a low wage job just make ends meet. I felt like I did everything right and had nothing to show for it. The one opportunity I did receive was to be in a part of an independent film. Unfortunately, I was cut out of the film due to a disagreement I had with the filmmaker after the first premiere of the film. The constant rejections around the board were having a depressing effect on me.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?

I like to say I’m a co-creator of stories that show the beauty and truth of humanity and it’s possibilities and I invest in dreams and ideas. I do that as an actor, poet, and producer. I’m known for performing in film and television projects and starring and producing a festival award-winning film named “3rd&4th Chapters “. I am also known for my highly reviewed spoken word poetry project entitled, “Defiance & Desperation”, which is a poetry book, short documentary film, and a digital music album.

What are your plans for the future?

Looking forward to finishing up my latest project entitled, “The American Jungle: The Consequences of Myths” and hitting the film festival circuit with it. Also, I’m looking forward to creating a webseries, another film, and another poetry book under my new imprint.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.iamjaquair.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamjaquair?igsh=MTRmbzNlZnhxOGxyMQ==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/ZYxWz6A1W3hkH1M1/?mibextid=qi2Omg
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@jaquair9455?si=2vpawekdvyoJ6i5s
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10598857/?ref_=ext_shr

Image Credits

Mario Emmanuel, Jaquair Gillette