Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamison Reeves.
Hi Jamison, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I think it started through sports. I always played sports growing up, through elementary school, high school, and college. When I was young, I played flag football, soccer, and basketball on a team called The Stars in Southern California and then went to high school in Northern California at Concord High, where I played football, basketball, and ran track (I also played flute in the marching band – only guy in the section!) In college at CAL State Hayward, I ran track. So I’ve kind of always felt like I’ve been entertaining people, you know, playing and having people watch you is very similar to entertaining as an actor.
In elementary school, I was cast as Oliver in the musical, and from there, I did nothing else until college, when I was kind of talked into being in the musical Guys and Dolls. I played Brandy Bottle Bates, who has one line and that line is “Come on, quit stalling, roll!” which I didn’t say in my first performance because I froze. The guy playing Sky Masterson said, “If you don’t do your line tonight, we’re going to wait until you do it!” I believed him, so I did my line, and from then on, it’s been fun to be on stage and in, front of people and on camera. After college, I studied at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco, performing Shakespeare. I then moved to Los Angeles and started working at Starbucks, where I met a fellow employee,”Dr. Y,” who had just been hired at Monkey Brothers Casting. he said I should come to work there, so I started working in commercial casting. I worked as a session director for 15 years for almost every casting director in LA., putting everyone in town on tape. I began auditioning during that process and then booked my first commercial in 1999. I joined SAG and have been active ever since.
For the commercial world, I had a unique and specific look, crazy hair and black-rimmed glasses, “the approachable black guy.” I was able to work a lot, which led to a feature article and being on the cover of ADWEEK Magazine. Keenan Thompson from Saturday Night Live did a parody of me as “Corey, The One Black Guy in Every Commercial” which then led to being interviewed on CNN with Don Lemon about stereotypes in Hollywood.
I also started booking guest appearances on television shows and worked on features, the first being Toolbox Murders with Tobe Hooper. One night I got a call from my buddy Eddie Rouse, God rest his soul. He asked if I could fly with him to Miami the next day. No questions asked. I, of course, said yes. I then checked with my wife, who also said yes. We were on a flight the next day. Arriving in Miami, we were introduced to Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck in their hotel room, and we were told that we would be hecklers at the rap concert Joaquin was doing that night in front of hundreds of fans, and it had to be real. Oh it was real, so real we may or may not have been punched and may or may not have thrown punches to get out of the hostile crowd. Hours later, we watched the footage in their room and then jumped back on the plane to LA in less than 24 hours. The craziest part is we couldn’t tell anyone about it until Joaquin’s second interview with Letterman. The movie? I’m Still Here.
During that time, I was also writing and directing my own projects. I wrote, produced, and directed an original play in LA that this year was revived and produced in New York Off, Off-Broadway by Ronin Oliver Productions. I won Best Director at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema for my short film Albert.
I also did a stint as an Uber / Lyft driver, which led me to Joey Wells, Writer, Producer, Comedian, and one of The Plastic Cup Boys. He was a passenger, and he recognized me. We started talking and chatting. He told me he worked for Kevin Hart and that we should get together and work on some stuff. We worked on some projects together and had a couple of deals in development at HartBeat Productions. Then the world shut down.
One thing to remember in this business is you have to be ready to pivot; flexibility is key.
As mentioned above, I have worked in many different capacities in the entertainment world, if you are a curious artist and especially if you are producing your own work you learn to wear a lot of hats. This has also been helpful over the years to stay employed when you need to pivot. I had the great fortune of working with an amazing group of Set Designers and eventually joined Local 44 as a Set Dresser. All the while still acting, writing, pitching, and directing.
Last year I wrote and created a spec spot spoof of Progressive Replay which we released on the day of the 2023 Super Bowl, it had over 3.5 million views in 48 hours. That led to booking a directing job with Arnold WorldWide / Chelsea Studios on an anti-smoking campaign for the CDC.
I don’t know, there’s so many things. I currently have three projects in different stages of development. I teach commercial acting workshops and coach privately. I also am the first person to teach the commercial auditioning process at the Stella Adler Art of Acting Studio. I work occasionally as a Set Dresser on the Jennifer Hudson show. I’m constantly writing, pitching, and creating. I’m shooting another set of spec commercials. It’s fun! I enjoy what I do.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s hard to say if it’s been smooth sailing or a struggle because I ran hurdles in college, and obstacles are part of the race.
Sometimes, those obstacles are working in your favor, and you don’t know it. The reroute may lead you to another project, another person, another opportunity for the moment, and then back to what you had started on, but you have to be ready to pivot.
So, starting at the beginning, my little brother and I got to be in the Jessica Lang King Kong movie as little natives running around in the jungles of Africa. We worked on that as extras for one day and then got fired because we weren’t “dark enough to be black people”. When I booked Oliver (Do you book things when you’re in elementary school doing a play?) I couldn’t go skateboarding because I was very accident-prone. If I got hurt, they didn’t have an understudy.
As an adult when I was starting to book a lot of commercials, my agent at the time suggested that I cut my hair to fit in with what they thought would open me up for even more consideration. I didn’t listen to my gut and I cut my hair and booking slowed down, once I went back to my signature look I started booking again. Then people started to take on my look; I would run into guys at auditions who told me they got fake glasses like mine just for auditioning to look like me. Can you copyright a look?
Unless you are producing your own projects, you’re waiting on other people to either come up with money or attach talent, or resculpt your ideas.
One of the toughest parts of taking an idea from your head to the page to a finished project on screen is having to wait on all the stages of development. The collaboration process is amazing at best and can be soul-crushing if not a great fit. Either way, it can teach you a lot about yourself along the way.
As an idea moves up the levels of development, it’s like running a race where people want to join the team, and they want to contribute to the team, which sometimes can feel like a setback while you’re waiting for all of the runners to agree on which direction to run or what track you’re going to run on.
No matter what you are waiting on to happen or what door you are waiting on to open, keep producing your own work, keep working with people you enjoy working with and have fun along the way.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
It’s hard to say what I’m most proud of because all of the things that I do, from creating to acting to directing to producing, each aspect of that is like a child. And it’s hard to say which one of your children is your favorite. The thing that sets me apart from others is the exact same thing that sets everyone else apart from others. We’re all individuals, we’re all on our own path and hopefully, we come across people with like minds, ideas, and philosophies that will allow us to work on projects to further all of our goals.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
It’s hard to say what childhood memory is my favorite because my childhood was amazing. Two parents, two brothers, and lots of friends. Great times, but having to think about it the one thing that keeps popping into my mind is the time that I was doing the March of Dimes walk. I think I was in 6th grade, and I had planned on walking with a bunch of friends. The day came, and my dad took me to do a walk, and when I got there, none of my friends had shown up; it was just me. My dad said it was okay if I didn’t want to walk by myself because my friends weren’t there, but I decided to stay because I had made a commitment to do this walk and had collected sponsors. So I did the walk. It was an amazing walk. I met great people along the way. I was doing it for a great cause, and when my dad picked me up, he had gone to the store and bought me a football, and he gave me that as a gift for keeping my word and just being able to follow through on my own. I don’t know; I just think he was proud of me, and that’s a moment from my childhood that I remember.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jamisonreeves.wixsite.com/jamisonreeves
- Instagram: Reevesjamison126
- Facebook: Jamison Reeves
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/bDHSlDMkxVs?si=DGhK5z-cAMEQCNei
- Other: https://youtu.be/PTxStfM9e9k?si=UTpcMf5aK5tbKaly
