In a recent interview, grown-ish actor Trevor Jackson opened but about the struggles of being Black in Hollywood.

As a part of Essence’s The Black Effect, Jackson said that he feels his Blackness “daily” in the industry and detailed a time when he was told after an audition that he didn’t get a role because they already had one Black person in a lead role.

He said, “I remember a specific audition I went in for and I read and the casting director loved me. She called my manager… [and] I’m not saying her name, because she said, ‘I’m not even supposed to do this, but I was in the room and they all said Trevor was the best actor out of everyone, but they had already cast a Black lead and they didn’t want more than one Black lead in the movie.’ Things like that happen all the time.”

The actor also said, “I feel, unfortunately, the roles that often are offered to me or that [I’m] going for can be more times than not, one-note. It’s gotta be an athlete or it’s gotta be a musician. I think we deserve other stories. When I was younger and auditioning,  I remember Caucasian kids that would get six, seven, eight auditions a week. And I’d just have one a week.”

“I feel like the world has definitely opened its eyes to understanding there is no color on creativity and heart. When you are creating something, as long as it comes from a real place, it reaches magnitudes. The doors are definitely opening,” he added.

 

Jackson recently appeared in  Superfly and Jordan Peele’s Weird City. 

 

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Photo: Amy Nussman/Getty Images