Scenes from My Life by Michael K. Williams & Jon Sternfeld

Author:Michael K. Williams & Jon Sternfeld [Williams, Michael K. & Sternfeld, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2022-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

ART + LIFE

Around the same time of those first films, I started to take acting seriously as a craft, worked to immerse myself in it the way I had with dance. I grinded and hustled, beat that pavement, landed a few film and TV auditions, found my way into the Off-Broadway theater community. I met talented and hungry and passionate people working it where the lights shone less brightly. Their kindness and grace made room for me even before I knew what I was doing.

It began unexpectedly. One evening I was walking back to the D train in the East Village from a day of background work on NYPD Blue. I was wiped out, carrying my bag of clothes (you brought your own) through rush-hour foot traffic, a little aimless, looking to unwind. I remember thinking, Man, if I had just a blunt right now, all would be good.

Then a voice from within the faceless crowd: “Hey, Mike, what’s up?”

I looked over at a stairwell and saw a light-skinned gentleman around my age, the smell of reefer wafting over from him and his friend.

“Remember me?” he asked, gesturing to himself. “Ray Thomas. I was in that play with Earl. Remember?” I couldn’t place him but maybe faked like I had. “Come join us,” he said, which sounded fine with me.

Ray remembered me from a play reading I did with a modeling friend of mine named Earl Nash. Earl was the full package, a Bronx kid who was cocky, athletic, and talented. In our modeling days, he was already looking on to bigger things. I asked Earl once about what kind of modeling campaign he was looking to land, and he said, “Modeling? This isn’t even my forte. I’m an actor.” Forte? I thought. What’s this guy talking about? But I didn’t say anything at the time. I could see that Earl was an ambitious dude and he dreamed big. I liked being around people like that.

Earl once asked me to come to his apartment to run lines with him for an audition he had. I read my part—straight off the page—but when he started speaking, his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else, from someone else. He became another person right there in the room. When the scene was over, I had my jaw on the floor.

“Yo,” I said, “what the fuck did you just do?! What’d you just do?” It shook me; I had never seen anyone do that before. I remember thinking: I want to learn how to do that. It was straight magic.

So Ray remembered me through Earl. Ray had this high-pitched, calm, smooth voice, glasses, manicured Afro. I’d call his style hood conservative. Over that blunt we got to talking and he told me about his coming up from Philly to work with La MaMa, an experimental theater run by legend Ellen Stewart. We were actually sitting right outside of the place—Ray had just finished for the day—and his energy and enthusiasm about working there shone through.

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