Today we’d like to introduce you to Juice Wood.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Juice. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born and raised in the best city in the world, City of Champions, Inglewood, California. I am my mother’s daughter, who, if you know her, is the definition of a real OG… She’s a real renaissance woman, so I had a really good everyday example of the strength, perseverance, and unconditional love that a Black Woman had to have to exist in this world. I didn’t really begin to understand all that my mom was giving to me nor did I understand the world around me, until recently. Which is probably why I was drawn to theater, books, and movies so young because they had all these different words and expressions to help me say what I was feeling. When I sensed tension in the house I would call everybody to the living room and recite that Jim Carey monologue from Bruce Almighty when he’s at Niagara Falls because I knew it’d make everybody laugh but I’d also get a chance to say how I was feeling, but safely in somebody else’s words lol.
I’m also the youngest of my siblings and cousins so I learned how to hustle and create opportunities for myself at a high level at a young age. Growing up in the city, we were all entrepreneurs in some way. All we did was create, plot, and scheme and figure out how to make our lives fly and fun – it was natural. I started my first business in my middle school – shoutout WILDERS GANG – selling candy and used the profits at the end of the year to help fund our graduation trip to ESPN Zone. Years later in high school, I used that business experience to create and sustain an eight months financial campaign in order to raise money to attend the National Student Leadership Conference at Fordham University. Then, during my junior year at USC, I used what I learned in high school to Co-Found a multimedia production company, Downbeat Entertainment. Now, I’m learning how to use the sum total of my entrepreneurial experiences to serve and uplift my family, my people, and Inglewood.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Nah, I wouldn’t say smooth but I wouldn’t say coarse. I knew I was queer and also believed in God by the time I was 6, so trying to navigate that and be Black, from Inglewood, and educated at the same time has always been unnecessary but mandatory work.
I grew up in and around different levels of poverty, and disenfranchisement with no tools to process it so I was willingly real angry and close minded for a long time. My biological father walked out on me and my mom when I was 10, but he didn’t leave really, he just left our life. He works for the city so my friends and people I knew from around town would come up to me—weekly—telling me they saw my pops or he reffed their game and it’d be so awkward cause I hadn’t seen him in years. Like most kids, dysfunction and abandonment ate away at me and I had a lot of bad responses to it—a lot of which I’m still dealing with today. Out of all the decisions I’ve made out of pain in my life, the one I’ll never regret, and the one I credit my life and all my success to – is playing basketball for over half my life. I ended up going to a private high school to play basketball and I spent the first two years resenting this opportunity for uprooting me from my city – it felt like punishment even tho it was the exact opposite.
Playing basketball gave me my work ethic, taught me how to handle adversity, and gave me a lifelong sisterhood. Ironically, I got the courage to quit playing basketball and pursue acting full time from my high school basketball coaches Vanessa Nygaard and La’Sheala Dawson, which will always mean so much to me because their belief in me was the only thing keeping me feeling like I could succeed in this new world. I’m really grateful though because bumpy road and all I’ve always had a lot of love and support around me. I’ve had a lot of great mentors in my life and I’m currently in a grad school program at the California Institute of the Arts that is teaching me how to heal and that is pushing me closer to God. So yeah, I’m thankful for the struggles and the lessons.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m an actor, community builder, filmmaker, entrepreneur, dog lover, and taco enthusiast. I specialize in connecting people and helping other artists execute their vision. I’m most proud of my ability to have been in some of the situations I’ve been in and still be here with my soul intact and my morals un-compromised. I’m proud that as an artist and a brand, I can provide experiences for people that will inspire and empower them. I’m proud that I worked hard enough to acquire the tools and the knowledge to help be a leader in my community in honor of the late great King Nipsey Hu$$le.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career so far has been directing and producing a short film, SATURDAY, in my mom’s backyard in DA WOOD, with a star studded all-black cast and crew in front of and behind the camera.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @juicewood_
- Twitter: @juicewood_
Image Credit:
Kya Lou, Craig Schwartz
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