Words by Carol Wright | Photos by Ari Michelson
We got to chat with J. Alex Brinson about All Rise, his time at Juilliard, and his advice for aspiring actors.
You had dyslexia growing up and your mother encouraged you to follow your passion to perform regardless. Did your dyslexia ever make you hesitant to pursue acting?
I was super fortunate in that, my mom wasn’t adamant about me performing, she was really adamant about me reading. She was like, ‘man you’re gonna get these ABCs if I have to throw them in your brain’ and I just couldn’t get them. So I went to one local school and then I went to another, Friends school and that still wasn’t the support that I needed and then I found a school in the suburbs of Philadelphia called the Benchmark school and it was a class of like 10 kids, two teachers and literally the methodology that they used helped us get it. That was the beginning of my performing career because they were really adamant about school musicals and then they also did this middle school musical and that’s where it kind of started because my teacher Ms. Erickson cast me as Tom Sawyer and she kind of saw the spark in my eyes and it started fostering that. What happened is, it was very frustrating as a kid feeling like you couldn’t read and everybody was doing reading time and you feel like there’s something wrong with you. So it was empowering for me to find something that I was good at and I think that a lot of young artists come to the work because of that. It’ s like ‘oh I’m a good dancer. Oh, I’m a good singer. Oh, I can do this well whereby I’m not excelling in another area of my life.’
What skills did you learn at Juilliard that you apply to your career today?
Juilliard is so comprehensive and you don’t realize, at least I didn’t realize that until I got out, but it’s so many different approaches to acting and you can build a character in so many different ways and you can do the craft of acting in so many different ways. Juilliard is awesome because they give you a toolbox and you can pick and choose. They showed me how to use neutral masks, how to use animal masks, how to use character masks to build a character, they taught me how to use energy to channel a character, they taught me how to utilize voice and speech and text and prose and understanding prose and how it works and punctuation and breath. They taught us technically about moving as the character and a physical approach to building the character. I mean it’s unbelievable really when I look back and think about all the tools that they supplied me with. It’s really phenomenal.
I think specifically on All Rise the tool that I use the most is definitely the breathing, the relaxation, and the voice and the speech. With television acting, it’s so small and in your mouth that you can’t really fluff it with a bunch of energy. You have to really be specific about what you’re saying, where the stretch is, what words. The thought has to be clear in order for it to be authentic and realistic and believable. So I think I use the voice and the speech work the most.
What about All Rise stood out to you and made you want to be involved?
For me when I read the material for the first time. I just saw a young man that was excited about hustling; for his family and for his community. I saw a young man that had an exchange with the law and the judicial system and it changed him. And I was very interested in understanding why it changed him and how it changed him. Why he was driven the way he was driven because it’s similar to me. I’m always evaluating why I do what I do, why I want to do what I want to do. I’m really fascinated by the psychology of it and I think he’s dynamic, he’s interesting, he’s layered and it really got me excited.
Can you see yourself in your character Luke?
Yes and no. He is potentially a younger version of me which is cool. I’m not gonna say that young people don’t think as much as older people. I’m not gonna make that blanket kind of statement but there’s a young energy. When you’re in your mid-20s it’s a different energy than when you’re in your mid-30s. So it’s fun to explore the energy of a young man and what he sees, what excites him, what he likes to do in his free time. It’s very different so it’s fun.
Your character had a pivotal storyline when he is a victim of racial profiling and gets arrested. While you were filming that episode and once you were done filming was it difficult to get out of that headspace?
That’s a great question. Jumping back to Juilliard for a second I was very fortunate at that school to learn different ways to clear the character out so it’s a two-part answer. Yes, it takes time to allow those emotions to dissipate out of your body and that energy but at the same time, I do have a process in which I use. Which is a healthy process rather than a negative process.
In recent years you’ve been doing a lot of television work. Do you see yourself going back to your theatre roots in the near future?
Oh absolutely. The episode that we’re shooting right now is with Scott Ellis who is a renowned theatre Director from New York and it has just been so inspiring working with him and getting excited about the stage. It’s actually funny that you ask me that because I’ve been thinking a lot about the stage.
Outside of acting you and your wife Sarah have a production company. How do you go about choosing projects to work on?
So everything is kind of based on our mission statement which is inspiring the next generation to embrace their individuality and sharing it with the world. So everything kind of falls under the guise of that. We started our company eight years ago and we started with a book called “Acting for Dancers” and then we started developing a different educational product but one specifically was a dance workshop and it just started expanding from there and as our students needed more it pulled more out of us. So now we’re at a place where we want to do more for them and so doing more for them is more projects, more opportunities and exploring ourselves as artists so that we can then give them more.
What advice do you have for aspiring actors?
I think what you need to do if you want your work to translate. I think you need to become an artist and drop the acting. That would be my advice, that’s what has worked so far in my life. When I was an actor it never worked for me but as soon as I became an artist then I started working “as an actor”. So that’s what I would say to a young actor. Don’t be an actor, be an artist.