From her dance roots to leading roles, the actress shares how discipline, purpose, and community shape everything she does.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00So I wanted to actually stay on the character of Erica.
00:04She's known as savvy and strong-willed. I wanted to ask you, how did you prepare
00:07to step into the role and did you pull any inspiration from any real life figures at all?
00:12Absolutely. In leading up to the first audition, I went back to watch the original show,
00:21which I had never seen at that point. And I wanted to watch the first episode to understand the tone,
00:27to understand the world. I accidentally binged the whole first season when I should have been
00:33studying for the audition. But I did watch everything and I was very inspired by the women
00:43in the original, specifically Pearson, played by Gina Torres. I really loved her strength
00:49that she had and in her dominance. And I just felt like she was a powerhouse.
00:55And although Erica is different from her, there's a lot of inspiration I did pull from Pearson.
01:02But I had to put a pin in it. I'm going to come back to it because I didn't want it to be like
01:08I was copying something. Because exactly what you're saying is I also left room for me to add
01:15to it and to fill in colors as Lex and life experiences and women in my life that have
01:22inspired me to fill the shoes of Erica Rollins. Another person is my mom, who was a paralegal for
01:30the majority of her life and now still is running a law firm where I'm from in Baltimore, Maryland.
01:36And she also happens to be a very fabulous lady. So pulling a little bit from her,
01:42mixed with things that I found relatable to Erica, just as Lex and the things that she was fighting
01:49for herself and trying to prove her worth to other people around her. I think that is something
01:55we all can relate to. And so just taking the time to be truthful to what was on the page and
02:02lean into that. And I really believe that Erica is really an amalgamation of all these wonderful,
02:09powerful women in my life.