According to 2013 Ravenna graduate Dontez James, living the Hollywood lifestyle has not been all glitz and glamour. Ever since moving to California to pursue an acting career, James has worked each day and night to finally get a full-time acting role and live out his acting dreams.
“I thought I was just coming out here for a pilot season honestly,” James told The Weekly Villager on April 23. “But In October of 2019 I ended up booking a television show from there, everything I need is in my backyard now, so I decided to stay.”
Since moving to California, James has worked as an extra in some films and has had the opportunity to work with some prominent actors to help shape his career. In addition, he has also authored and published several pieces of fiction that are based on his own life experiences.
James said that during his freshman year at the University of Akron, he was at a crossroads. He was having difficulty deciding on what major to pursue but felt drawn to chasing an acting career. He acknowledged that he did not have a lot of experience acting, having only performed in the one-act, 11-scene production Aladdin, Jr when he was in elementary school.
“I decided to jump out on a leap of faith and became a background extra for about a year-and-a-half and after that I started to get trusted with more roles,” he added.
After leaving school, James worked as a background extra on several films that were shot in Cleveland over a span of two years. Although he did not get very big roles, James made the most of each opportunity and on learned the fly about what it meant to have a successful acting career.
“I stayed home and did the Hollywood projects with my connections, and I just stayed hungry,” he noted. “I showed up to a set early sometimes and I would help everyone behind the scenes set up. Being an extra, I would just help people set up the set and I would stick around afterward and take everything down. I just really treated this thing like it was my college.”
Six months in, he worked as an extra on the movie “Concussion”, starring Will Smith. He said he had a chance to talk with Smith once during filming and gained a lot of helpful advice from the Oscar-Winning Actor.
James soon began to book more prominent roles and appeared in films such as “My Friend Dahmer”, “Surviving Compton”, and “The Last Flag Flying”, starring veteran actors Steve Carrell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne.
According to him, getting a chance to work with such distinguished actors in the “The Last Flag Flying” was an invaluable experience.
“Hearing the word action just made me believe I could go out there and act but sometimes when you are playing a certain role, you start to have to those character’s mannerisms, so I started to bleed over into different characters,” he said. “That was how I learned how necessary it was to break down the script.”
James moved to California in 2019 during the pilot season to attempt to book a full-time role. He soon landed a role on the HBO Max series “Made for Love.”
Although he still had not landed a full-time role, James said he was learning a lot.
While in between projects, James took up writing. He had already written a book when he was in middle school, “We All Do Dumb Things”, and had it published after graduating from Ravenna.
“It was entertainment, but it was also to show young men how naïve we could be when we think opportunities are just handed to us because we just do not think they can be taken away. But our actions have consequences,” he said.
James has continued writing, having published several more books, each one focused on entertainment, but also incorporates the life lessons he has gained. James has another book scheduled to be released next year which is loosely based on his mother’s battle with Lupus.
“She is a very inspirational person but I want to make sure I let people understand who she is and how her mind works and the pain that she has gone through,” he said. “She been through so much and I want to make sure that she gets the flowers she deserves.”
He acknowledged that living in California away from his family has taken a toll, and since he moved away, there have been several deaths in his family, including his father, grandfathers and great grandfathers.
“You honestly never know how much time you have with your folks but it keeps me focused in just making sure I take every day and opportunity to make them proud,” he said.
It has been a long road for James to get to Hollywood and he is still pressing on each day to fulfill his acting dreams.
