We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jemini Powell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jemini thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I knew I always wanted to be a stunt actress/ athlete but it wasn’t exactly a “conventional job” according to my family who preferred me to have a normal job.

But I knew what I wanted so I decided to fully commit. I bought mats off amazon and began training relentlessly in parkour and movement. I would train at my parents house, on their cars — they were not overly excited about this — anywhere I could in order to teach myself all the skills i needed to learn.

I decided to start posting my journey on social media where I started out barely knowing how to backflip to doing crazy flips and twist anywhere i could! There were a lot of rough days, a lot of injures, blood, sweat and tears but eventually my videos started gaining traction and I got noticed by stunt coordinators. This led to me landing my first major stunt role in Black Panther Wakanda Forever and my dreams took off from there.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hey everyone! My name is Jemini Powell and I am a stunt actress and professional parkour athlete. I started doing parkour after I saw a video of it on YouTube and got instantly hooked and I knew that’s what i wanted to do with my life. I have the most fun, insane job! I get to jump and flip off buildings, work in the coolest movie sets with some of the best actors in the business, and I get to travel the world competing in Parkour competitions against the best athletes in the world.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A year into my training, my mother ended up having preeclampsia during her pregnancy which lead to her having facial paralysis, nerve damage and muscle weakness. I ended up having to leave college and move back home to take care of my mother and my baby sister. I was busy all day and really had no time to train anymore — I almost gave up on my dreams of becoming a Stunt Actress and Professional athlete, but I adjusted and pushed though. I would wake up hours before everyone and go train. Since i couldn’t leave the house much i would train in my mom’s backyard, in the house, off the cars — anywhere to keep up with my craft and bettering myself everyday.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I believe finding your niche and trying to stand out is really important to start to begin to build your social media presence. I started out doing parkour and posting videos of my progression but in order to stand out more I would flip and jump off my mom’s and grandparents cars and in the house which really helped me to stand out and start gaining a following! Once I had a decent following, it allowed me to venture out and start doing more content creation because I had followers who would support my videos and want to see more of me and the crazy ideas/ flips i come up with.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jemini_powell
• Facebook: @Jemini Powell
• Youtube: @jeminipowell
• Other: Tik Tok: @jemini_powell

Image Credits

Josh Stringer
Gena Ford
Tony