(CNN)Over the next few months, there will be no shortage of new TV shows vying for viewers’ attention. Hopefully not lost in the chaos of dozens of series premieres? The great batch of fresh new talent poised to have breakout years.
CNN’s Fresh Faces interview series aims to introduce some of those talented newcomers.
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Name: Christopher Jackson, 40
Hometown: Cairo, Illinois
Where you might know him from: George Washington in “Hamilton”
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Now starring in: “Bull,” CBS’s drama inspired by the early career of Dr. Phil McGraw (premieres Sept. 20)
He plays: Chunk Palmer, a stylist who uses his expertise to make sure clients’ fashion choices give them a leg up during trial
Acting hero: Richard Schiff and Denzel Washington
Favorite TV show: “West Wing”
Last show he binge watched: “Breaking Bad”
I start off all of these interviews by asking people about their first job in the industry. So what was your first paying acting gig?
I was an extra on “New York Undercover.” I played a person at a homeless shelter. It was my first time on any kind of set at all and, of course, I brought in this duffle bag full of stuff to try to wear and ended up wearing the thing I came dressed in. [laughs] I was a college kid. I didn’t know anything about being on set. I didn’t know they fed you, I didn’t know there were breaks, I didn’t know how long the day was. I remember it fondly because that was like the dopest show on TV. And to be on the set and to see Lauren Velez and Malik Yoba, I was beyond ecstatic. I knew it was all going to happen for me after that. [Laughs]
So you were a college kid then? How did you get into the acting thing at that point in your life?
Well, I went to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy — I went to the conservatory — for acting. I knew that this was clearly what I wanted to do, but my thrust was in theater. So to be on a TV set was just kind of an extension of that. I think I may have been out of school maybe a couple of weeks. I got [the job] by going to an audition that was listed in Backstage thinking it was for a role, and it was just for background work. It didn’t matter. I was just very excited about the opportunity.
You have done a lot of TV. I feel like that’s something people who know you best through your theater work might not know about you. What about TV work has continued to be appealing to you as you’ve experienced all this success in theater?
Well, theater is kind of my life blood. Not kind of — it is my life blood. It’s informative in a way I think no other medium is because you’re having a very real and immediate connection with an audience and with the material in front of you and you get response in real time. I’m coming to terms with the idea of shooting [a TV show]. We’re about to start our sixth episode and very few people have seen it because we haven’t premiered yet. And so I’m curious as to what my response is going to be watching it. [In theater] you’re an ensemble working in real time, but you’re going to know at the end of the night how it went by the audience’s response.
What makes TV work something you still seek out as a supplement to your theater “life blood,” as you call it?
I never really got into the business thinking that I just wanted to do one thing. You know, I never said, “I want to be a moviestar and that’s it.” I came into the business where Will Smith was pretty much taking over the world — or defending it, if you will. [Laughs] He was showing success on so many different fronts — television, recording, movies. So that was really my prototype in terms of looking at the business and seeing where you fit in. And I’ve studied people like Gordon Parks, a true renaissance men. That’s always been my ideal. To be in a situation where I am in a Broadway show, I am shooting a TV show, I am writing a new album — those are things that are exciting to me.
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