We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful James C.B Gray. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with James below.
Alright, James thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
I was Blessed with the opportunity to study with Tina Satin founder of the Open Cage Theater and original acting coach for Denzel Washington.Learning the craft was a wonderful experience,but in the beginning it was tough and it really helped to build my self esteem,my character and my confidence level as well.Once I found my niche I was off to the races!!! I ended up starring in several of Ms. Satin’s off Broadway plays and eventually got on the radar of the legendary Actor and Activist Mr. Ossie Davis who I started studying with at his home in New Rochelle,NY.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I was born into an Amazing family that encouraged us to be creative and to learn more about arts,culture and theater,so I was around people like Phylicia Rashad,Debbie Allen,Lou Myers,Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee growing up and was always encouraged to embrace art’s,culture and theater.I always knew that I was gonna be in the entertainment industry in some copacity.I originally started my journey as a drummer and played for a few bands and then got back to acting.I got my SAG card and started building my IMDB credits and then I started producing as well,which opened up bigger doors for me in the entertainment industry.I made history when I became the youngest black television producer to produce a t.v show on NBC it was a late night talk show called (All night with Joey Reynolds) I went on to produce a few other productions including a documentary about police Brutality,a few short films and right now I’m producing a documentary about “Ice T”
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When I first started going to big auditions I was very excited,most of the other actors were nervous and scared and they didn’t understand how I was happy lol.I always understood that every day was a new opportunity to audition for a role that could change my life…most of the other actors looked at it as another day that could lead to rejection or not getting the role.
One day my boss told me that if I took off one more day for an audition,he was gonna have to let me go…so I said to myself,which is more important…this below minimum wage job or pursuing my acting career 🤔 So the next day I got a call about a major t.v commercial and it was an audition for a leading role👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 so I went down to the audition and my boss called me to tell me I was fired 🤯🤯🤯 so I took a deep breath and said (Thank you God) for showing me what direction I need to take🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 I did the audition and unfortunately I didn’t get the part.But they asked me if I wanted to be a background actor in the commercial…I initially was gonna say no,but since I lost my job,I figured that I needed anything I could get at the time lol…so within the next two weeks i lost my apartment had to put my stuff in storage and move in with my grandmother temporarily.So the commercial shoot day comes around and I get on set,we started filming and then the director calls a ten minute bathroom break…so I’m about to go to the bathroom when my friend tells me not to go,he says that the director is gonna call everyone back in less than five minutes,which he actually did…I was surprised and since I was standing near the director,he immediately picked me first to set up the next scene.So he gave me the gestures he wanted me to do and a few words of dialogue and then he said action 🎬 I did exactly what he told me to do and then he said Cut…he came to me and said,yesss you were perfect and then he told the makeup person wipe my face down because I was a little sweaty lol.At that moment the assistant director gave me a pink slip and told me to hold on to it…We wrapped up the shoot shortly after and everyone was showing me lot’s of love.Now I dreaded going back to my reality of no job,no apartment and my daughters mother was almost nine months pregnant as well…so long story short,my daughter was born a week later and I was so broke,I couldn’t even afford to buy her any balloons or even a stuffed animal.I was just happy that she was a healthy child.So I left the hospital and went to check and see if I had any mail at the apartment I was just evicted from…I get there and I have ten envelopes from a place called (Caps Universal) never heard of this place before,but the first envelope was a check for $8,000.00 the 2nd envelope was a check for $12,000.00 and the 3rd envelope was a check for $12,000.00 I literally fell to my knees in tears because I had literally lost everything trying to pursue my dreams as an actor….I found out that the pink slip that the assistant director gave me was a (Taft Hartley) which is like getting all 3 SAG-AFTRA waivers at once,I had been upgraded from a background actor to a featured principal actor in a major international commercial and I ultimately made over $80,000.00 in residentials and that was the confirmation I needed to know that I was what was best for me and what was meant for me 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I wish that we had this digital technology years ago lol…Now I can email a headshot and resume along with my IMDB profile and more,but back in the days,we use to have to pay alot of money to print out 8×10 black and white head shots and mail them to casting directors and agencies and the process was so slow and agonizing lol…now things are so much different and alot faster.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/jamescbgray?fbclid=PAAaYy5bbCdqz1Fm28vNuKEeqGkNf2tS32dlPh4OamkoErfK8pa3lh-W4grjY