The Julliard School Drama Division graduate, Jonny-James Kajoba, met with author and ex-ballet dancer Lucy Ashe in Brooklyn, where they talked about his remarkable journey from an eleven-year old boy dreaming of drama school, to an actor in New York City, winning The John Houseman Award for exceptional ability in Classical Theatre.
From advice to young actors at the start of their careers, to stories from his favourite performances, this is a fascinating insight into the joys and challenges of life as an actor.
LA: Can you tell me about what led you to choose New York City and The Julliard School as your place to train?
JJK: When I was eleven years old, I remember how I would run to the computer suite in lunch break with my two other drama friends, and we would look up drama schools. We printed out the requirements to get in to these school and I had a copy of Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ monologue up on my wall. I’d learn all the lines and imagined myself performing in an audition. But the catalyst for me really taking the possibility of a drama career seriously was when I was seventeen years old and performing at The Globe Theatre in London, playing the part of Olivia in Twelfth Night. It wasn’t only the feeling of performing in such an iconic space: it was also my first experience of immersing myself closely in the process of bringing a character to life, working with the director Adam Cross to explore the role in great depth. This role led to interest from an agent in London, who I continue to work with today. It was at this point that I started to consider drama schools, initially UK schools, but I was drawn to the course at Julliard, particularly the school’s artist first approach, the opportunity to be at the heart of so much, on Broadway, in New York City, and so I decided to audition.
LA: What was the audition process?
JJK: I sent in the pre-screen tapes in the December, and then by the end of December I found out that I’d been invited to the in-person auditions in New York. This was my first time in New York, and it was a whirlwind weekend of a very intense audition day. They cut the candidates down throughout the day, until there were only seven of us left by the evening. To say to myself that I’d made it to the end of the day felt great. It was while I was performing in a concert in Madrid that I found out I’d made it the final round of auditions, which ended up taking place via Zoom because of the first Covid lockdown.
LA:Why did you choose Julliard, rather than a UK drama school?
JJK: Julliard’s artist first approach gives the freedom to be one’s self, rather than focusing heavily on technique. Looking back, I think Julliard gave me an opportunity to really meet my authentic self and to develop my artistic process. The training there allowed me to honour the humanity of a playwright, to deeply explore the material I was performing, and to find a method of acting that, for me, feels very spiritual.
LA: What was it like to move to a new country to start drama school during Covid?
JJK: Julliard had regimented approach to bubbles, separating the actors, dancers, and musicians, which was helpful. However, it did mean I didn’t go home or see any of my family from October through to July. But I was lucky in that I felt very taken care of by the school: it is a very small school, only eighteen of us per year in the Drama Division, and we became a close-knit and intimate group. This closeness helped to foster the environment we had where it was safe to fail.
LA: It’s refreshing to hear about your experience of feeling safe of fail. It’s interesting, because in my training at the Royal Ballet School, I did not feel it was safe to fail. Rather, there was an immense pressure to be constantly at your best.
JJK: I think the dancers at Julliard did face a different sort of pressure to the actors. There is a lot of pressure physically, as well as a pressure to get contracts immediately, and to be ready for the industry. For me, it was important that while I was at school, my focus was on artistry and not industry. I didn’t want to be thinking about how to position myself in the industry while trying to learn about my artistry. Our teachers gave us useful advice: how can you position yourself for a theater that doesn’t exist yet? Focusing too intently while at school on branding oneself and trying to predict what directors are going to be looking for in three years, is not going to lead to an authentic or successful career in the long-run.
LA: Has this changed since leaving Julliard?
JJK:Yes, since leaving Julliard, I’ve had to think a lot more about industry. I have an excellent team – an agent and a manager – who help navigate this with me. Networking is important, and getting in the room with the right people, but I have to remind myself to be true to myself as this will lead to more opportunities that are right for me, rather than going for every role that comes across my team’s desk.
LA: How important is it to have a good relationship with your agent and manager?
JJK: It’s essential. A manager will guide the trajectory of your career, understanding the types of projects that are right for you, while an agent is focused on the immediate business side of things. It was important to me that I had a team who had a personable approach, who I felt comfortable with. There is, especially at the start, a lot of internal pressure because you know your agent and manager don’t get paid until you get a job, but you have to remember that they are there for you and for your career progression, not just one job.
LA: Can you tell me about some performance highlights for you?
JJK: The role that taught me the most was playing Gaev in The Cherry Orchard. It was in preparing for this role that I learnt for the first time what it meant to have a deep inner life as a character. Chekov really understood internal human experiences, how random, juicy, intricate they can be. There was so much to mine from this role.
A challenging role for me was playing the duke in Measure for Measure. It was a seismic task, firstly because there is so much text. This role made me really hone my process: I wanted to focus on every word, being specific with every word, rather than letting the audience sit back and think, oh here goes a long speech. We only had five weeks to rehearse, so it was very intense but taught me so much.
I think my crowning role while I was at Julliard was playing Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. For this role, I wanted to chisel out the character very finely, avoiding the caricature that can sometimes lend itself to her character. I truly made her my Lady Bracknell, focusing on research first (such as what does it mean to be a matriarch), and then an intimate process of working out how I could make this character my best friend.
LA: What’s next for you? What type of roles are you exploring?
JJK: I enjoy playing characters who wear everything on their sleeve, who live outside social parameters, but freely and on their own terms. My personal slogan is that ‘outsider is superpower.’ This, I think, comes from my own personal experiences of navigating the duality of feeling both within and without at times. For example, my Ugandan heritage growing up in the UK, being Black in predominantly white spheres, being Black British in America. In my acting and in life, I think I can use my differences as superpower, challenging myself to be brave and authentic to who I am.
I’m interested in playing anti-heroes, exploring how their actions are justified to them, how they are misunderstood. The actors who inspire me the most in this way are Dev Patel, Andrew Garfield, Andrew Scott, Colman Domingo.
LA: What are you working on at the moment?
JJK: I am in a noir comedy short film called ‘Seek No Favor’ coming out in April, produced by Carmen Cuba, one of the biggest casting directors in LA. This was an amazing experience, working with a 50-person production crew and filming on location in Brooklyn. I played a mob boss called Big Baby. I have a few other short films coming out soon, and I’m working with a group called the Young Playwrights Ukraine. We do readings of their plays about their experiences of living life in war.
LA: What advice would you give to young actors?
JJK: I’ll be speaking to myself in this, as much as others. Everything we do and want is fuelled by a combination of faith and fear. Both are made up, but more often than not, we believe in fear more than faith. Try to live on the side of faith. At Julliard, I was one of the first undergraduate international students to come straight from high school, so I was young and inexperienced, but I had a lot of childlike naivety which I think helped me live on the side of faith.
My second piece of advice is to not ease up. Once you’re doing the thing you’ve been dreaming about, double down. Resilience to get through tough times is important, but so is dedication when everything is going well. The saying that nothing worth having in life is easy is so true for an artist: it should be hard; first attempts will not be perfect. Struggling means you’re learning and improving, so have grace with yourself if everything feels awful and stuck – stay the course!
And finally, define what it is that you want. Be specific about what you want to do, rather than just saying, ‘I want to be an actor’, ‘I want to be a director.’ This will help you understand the specific direction of your career, and the steps you need to take to get there.
Jonny-James Kajoba is represented by Brett Goldstein, Innovative Artists and Waring McKenna, and can be found on Instagram at @jonnyjameskajoba