Today we’d like to introduce you to Kaci Hamilton.
Hi Kaci, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I always wanted to be an actor and performer. But it took me 20 years to make it happen.
Growing up in Jamaica, I never saw anyone that looked or sounded like me on TV, so I honestly didn’t think it was possible. I mean, there was Sheryl Lee Ralph, but she could sing, and I most definitely could not. I didn’t know about accent coaches or acting school. And while I come from a huge, supportive family – I’m the penultimate of six – there are three lawyers, a nurse, a doctor, an HR professional, and a future financier. There wasn’t exactly a plethora of artists.
By the time I went to college, I was seriously contemplating a career as a diplomat. I was obsessed with travel, something my parents had fostered by sending me on academic exchanges to Colombia and Belgium. It was the only job I could think of that would allow me to travel as much as I wanted. Did I mention that the college I was attending was in Alaska? Halfway through freshman year, right before I had to declare a major, I took a writing class, and something just clicked. I had been a lifelong reader but never felt smart enough to build those worlds. Yet, suddenly I could understand the puzzle. I loved agonizing over the perfect word while writing, finding it, and then seeing the picture come into focus. I also never felt like a diplomat. I felt like an artist and being a writer felt like an artistic endeavour that a black girl from Jamaica could actually pursue. It didn’t matter that I booked my first acting role in Alaska when the local theatre needed a black woman from the Caribbean to play Tituba in “The Crucible”. Or that during those nights on stage, my body was consumed by a glorious fire and I had never felt more alive before or since.
Fast forward five years and I’ve gotten an MFA in poetry and am working in Florida at my dream job: web editor of a travel magazine. I’m jet-setting all over the Caribbean, all expenses paid. But at the same time, I’m also secretly writing a treatment for a travel show. Deep down, even though I had made a whole life as a writer, I still wanted to be on stage.
A year after I started, the magazine folded (it wasn’t me, I swear!). That was when I decided to go to acting school. I didn’t want to wake up at 60 not having tried. That was eight years ago. I’m now a member of SAG, I’ve worked alongside acclaimed actors like Dave Bautista and Denis O’Hare and booked several national commercials. I also started my own sleep podcast, “Jamaican Me Sleepy”, narrating classic bedtime stories and fairy tales in that sweet Jamaican accent of mine. And I’m working on a TV pilot about those college years in Alaska. 10-year-old me would be blown away right now. You mean my parents were right, I really could be anything I wanted?
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When the travel magazine folded, it happened overnight. And it was devastating. I had been living the high life. I was a masters-educated writer feasting on private dinners in the Bahamas, getting massages in Punta Cana, sailing in luxury to Bermuda and St, Barths. But the publishers couldn’t figure out how to usher 25 years of publishing history into the digital age. One day I walked into work ready to update my 22-month digital publication plan, only to be leaving with my things in a box by lunch.
I spent months in my apartment unable to find another job as a writer. I was genuinely heartbroken, which came with a healthy side of insomnia. I had dedicated my life to writing, but I felt abandoned by it. I ended up falling back on my old side hustle, waitressing, at a restaurant in the Amway Center in Orlando. That’s when I started thinking about reinvention.
I took the last of my money, rented a 16-foot moving truck, and drove the over-1000 mile journey back to New York. I didn’t have enough money to book hotel rooms so I slept in the back of the truck. When I drove across the George Washington Bridge, my bank account had -$90.
After my conservatory training, I spent years in New York as a non-union actor, going on auditions in Times Square, waiting all day, hoping someone wouldn’t show up so I could be seen. Sometimes I would wait all day and then I couldn’t even leave my headshot, so I would have literally waited all day for nothing. Things started to look up when I moved to LA. Within a year, I booked my first national commercial. It just happened to shoot in February 2020. And you know the rest. Like everyone else, I was on the on-ramp, then traffic ground to a halt. But also like everyone else, I learned during the pandemic that the path forward is to create. I started writing, I started developing my podcast. I’ve started forging my own path. Which feels far better than waiting to be seen.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My podcast, “Jamaican Me Sleepy”, is one of my proudest achievements to date because it’s something I created from scratch, and I produced every single aspect of it. I had always wanted to do something in radio. Anyone who has met me comments on how melodic my accent is and how distinct and soothing my voice is. I loved the podcast format, but I knew it had to be something I could produce in a vacuum. No guests, no topics. That left narration, and when more and more people would tell me they could fall asleep to my voice, a light bulb went off. Sleep meditations had helped me. Maybe I could combine my love of storytelling and good sleep and help someone else.
I spent a year working out all the details: designing my home studio, coming up with the concept, finalizing the name (which might be the best idea I’ve ever had), designing the artwork, finding the stories, researching background audio. It’s made me feel so empowered to make something that’s all mine.
Each story is set to low-frequency white or pink noise – an added sleep aid – with me narrating childhood favourites like “Humpty Dumpty” and “The Three Little Pigs”. It’s available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the major podcast platforms and every month I release a new season of four new episodes. My goal is to branch out from classic fairy tales to contemporary children’s stories, particularly from BIPOC and emerging writers.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
I want to have a body of work. I want to write and make films and lend my voice and likeness to projects and collaborate with fellow creatives. And it’s not about fame or accolades. I’m an artist and that’s the legacy that I want to leave behind, that of a creator, someone who made art and left behind beauty in the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kacihamilton.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thesweetbacon
- Other: https://jamaicanmesleepy.buzzsprout.com/
Image Credits
Kyle Bahl Nile Scott
