In Rap Sh!t, you play Chastity “Duke” Killens, a party promoter/pimp who identifies as a stud or a masc lesbian. What initially drew you to the character?
Honestly, Morgan, the character found me. I came across my email, from my team at the time, and I thought that Jonica was Chastity. It took a lot of learning to realize Jonica is not Chastity. I initially did the audition as Jonica. Once I become more established, I’m going to show you my first audition tape. I promise you. [During my audition, my hair] was [in] a little puff and I had a jersey on. I was like, “What, I’m Chastity!” They denied that audition so quick. I didn’t get a call back or anything. And I’m like, “I thought I did great.” But then, shoutout to [casting director] Vicki Thompson and her cast and team. She came back like a month later and we did some things together. I initially contacted them, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Anyway, when they got back to me, they gave me notes. With the notes, I realized that I went into the audition as a tomboy. I went in there as a cute girl with curls. I didn’t truly try to learn Chastity, but aside from that, I didn’t truly try to learn about stud women and masc women. So when I went back with those notes, I tapped more into Chastity and who she was. Chastity reminds me a lot of my friends. I wouldn’t have done it justice had they accepted me with my first audition. It was very important for me to embody who that character was.
You truly brought this character to life. When it came to transforming yourself into Chastity, what did you do to ensure that the role was being played authentically and not just a caricature of a Black dominant lesbian?
That person exists, studs [masc-presenting Black lesbians] are out there, so I chose to go be around who I felt was like Chastity, or friends that identified themselves in that way. There are a lot of actors out there, including masc-presenting actors, and I didn’t want anyone to see the role and be like, “They should have just got such and such to play her.” So, I made sure I did what I needed to do to learn who Chastity was. Issa Rae and Syreeta Singleton, the showrunner, they didn’t know Chastity. They just knew that they wanted this character. But when I asked them, “Hey, what do you want her to do?” They said, “We want to see your choice.” That was beautiful, because I don’t know if I’ll be blessed like that on every set. Some people are like, “No, we want it to be like this.” But Issa allowed that range for me and allowed me to make a lot of choices for this character. I guess I appreciate that actually, because that means she trusted me. I did my homework to figure out what this character’s supposed to look like. I did. I actually really did. I called all my stud, gay friends and was like, “What’s up? Do y’all shave your legs? I got questions!”
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