INTERVIEW BY: DINO TAKASHI

New York born Jaden Michael, the star of Netflix’s highly anticipated 2021 limited series Colin in Black and White, executive produced by Colin Kaepernick himself under the great lens of Ava DuVernay, is that courteous kid who never forgets his humble roots. 

He entered the studio with a full smile and set the mood for the shoot. He was excited to wear the clothes handpicked for the photoshoot. “Hi I am Jaden and have I introduced myself to you yet? I’m stoked to get this rolling! Omg these winter clothes are dope, it's like we’re at the Met Gala!” That afternoon ran smoothly. 

Michael was able to seamlessly play and create with the photographer, Osvaldo, that day. He’s like a pro who knows how to play around at work and made the photo session like just one of his basketball practices but still maintains professionalism.

I was supposed to interview Jaden on the day of the shoot but we had to reschedule it. I spoke to him again on one of his press days, three days after he just turned 18. As soon as we started to chat, I greeted him with a belated happy birthday. 

“How is being 18?” I asked.. 

“It feels like I’m 17 and I honestly don’t know yet how it feels yet!” 

He laughed as he rubbed his hair.  Jaden said that he just had a normal day, attended his online classes, did basketball then went home to be greeted by the huge 1-8 silver number balloons that his mom bought as a surprise. 

In this interview, Jaden spoke about bagging the role, what he is excited about for the rest of the year, the causes that he supports, working with Ava DuVernay, Colin Kaepernick and the importance of his voice as a part of the Black Afro American Latinx community.

Hi Jaden, it’s nice to see you again bud and I just learned that you turned 18?

Dino!!!  It's nice to see you too and yeah I turned 18 three days ago and now it’s my day off, otherwise known as press day! 

How did you spend your birthday? 

Nothing extravagant. My friend Greg and I went to see a Yankees game, had birthday dinner at home then went to bed. 

No birthday celebration?

My mom surprised me with these big silver birthday balloons and a birthday cake! 

That’s amazing! So how do you feel now that you’re 18? 

It feels like I am still 17 and I don’t really know how to feel like 18 yet. 

Tell us who Jaden Michael is? 

A brief background for the readers, I am 18 as of three days ago. I am a Libra. I started acting when I was three years old. I would do Toys "R" Us and things of that nature and commercials for Nickelodeon and Disney. I was about eight when I started working on TV and film.

Any significant thing that happened in the past week since we last saw you?  

I've been working on the pilot of this Amazon project called “Shelter” of the "Mickey Bolitar" young adult series by American crime writer Harlan Coben. I’m also excited for the release of Colin in Black and White coming out on October 29.

We are equally excited! Now let's talk about you being a young actor and also being a student. How do you juggle school and acting at the same time and being focused on both? 

I have mental breakdowns like any other kid and I hate online school!  It's gonna be really tough for me to go away to film and just let you know that right now I have missing assignments. And for some reason I chose to take three APs this year and figured out I'm really crazy!  All of which I have not studied for! 

After high school, what is the next plan? 

If you asked me this two years ago I would have said I would like to go to Harvard. I can't put my finger on what I wanna do yet. I want to go to Hampshire University or Oberlin College or Yale but I wanna dedicate myself to my career and I feel like I would perform better if I had more time to read the script and research.  

If you decide to go to college, what program would you apply to for undergrad? 

That's another great question! I always wanted to be a lawyer. I feel like I can play a lawyer on TV now which is probably better. I also wanted to be in the Air Force for a long time and I could probably be in the Air Force and I can probably be in the Air Force on TV now which is less life threatening. Realistically, I probably will be an English major or a Psychology or Philosophy major or something in the liberal arts. 

Let’s now talk about your show Colin in Black and White. Do you play football? 

Never done football in my life.

How did you prepare for the role? 

Touching football for the first time ever in my life.

That’s exciting right? 

That was part of it. I remember for the audition process, we had to tape a video showing my  athleticism. And again, I never touched a football before. My mom knew better than just to record me. It was also at the peak of pandemic and Covid rates and cases in New York City were sky high and we have to figure out not only to go outside safely and record, but also to get out safely with someone we can trust to sort of help me and teach me a little bit. 

It was great watching my family and community come together to help me.  My uncle Israel and my uncle Cris came out and my Uncle Fidel helped me out with basketball. They would walk around - “Oh! He’s auditioning to be Colin Kaepernick! Don't you see the resemblance?”  And I’m just like “Please be quiet, don’t talk about it!” And they were like “Yeah we’re gonna help him learn football.” Everyone from the community would come around and be like “no you gotta do it like this so they can see, throw the basketball like that.” That’s part of the research- learning sports, watching sports, catching up on 18+ years of sports history that I missed out on. And beyond that, I also did some research on Colin and his voice.I thought his voice and his cadence is really integral to his personality. When you think about Colin, sometimes, if you've heard him speak, you think about the way he speaks and his cadence, and his tone; I wanted to emulate that in the show so I thought that would be good because the story is about Colin finding his voice through the microaggression that he experiences. What if physically he goes through being a normal kid with a normal voice or indistinct voice and then slowly finding his tone and cadence through the story. From episode one to episode six he goes from not having a distinct voice to a more Colin-esque tone and speech. And then I fasted for a month before shooting.

How long were the hours of fasting? 

Instead of eating three meals, I would probably eat one or one and a half. I just tried to thin out more than I already was. My weight definitely dropped considerably. I did that to look thinner and smaller and once we started shooting I started eating more so I can gain a little bit more weight or eat normally at least. I started lifting weights and also through basketball and baseball training started to grow a little bit more and I think that made me feel and look bigger and more like an actual football player. 

How long was the audition process? 

I think I got my first audition in July and then there were a few callbacks in August and then in September there was a test so I flew out  to California and I had an audition with Ava DuVernay and Colin Kaepernick. I had a conversation with him and then I had a workout so that they could see in person my athleticism, to see it wasn’t just on this video. That was the process - three months of auditioning and I got the role in October 2020. 

How did Colin brief you about the role? How does he expect you to play his character? 

I had worked on a project prior to Colin where I was an adopted child. Through research on that project, I had met some adopted friends and asked them about their experience of  the adoption system in America and their take on the adoption system.  Something I learned was that it was very complicated. I  have friends who considered their adoptive parents as their only parents and they wouldn't see themselves with anyone else. I have other friends who recognize that “it isn’t my mom, my real mom is somewhere else and I’m separated from them.” And even cases that “I’d rather be with my mom than my adoptive mom or father. ” My main question to Colin was “what is your true relationship with your parents? Do you ever wish you had a better relationship with your biological parents?  What is your relationship with your adoptive parents off screen? He told me that it is really important to love his adoptive parents. He appreciates the way they cultivated him, the morals and ideas that they raised him with. I believe he even told me that he doesn't think he would be in the same place where he is now if it weren’t for them. He idolizes his parents. That was definitely one of the things I want to keep about Colin, that even with their faults, through their mistakes, he still loves them and I don’t want to lose that connection and relationship. 

Thanks for sharing that! Looking back and comparing yourself and the character that you're playing, are there any similarities or any parallels between your lives? 

I would say that there's definitely a similarity of people of color being raised in a white world and coming to the realization of  certain injustices that you see around you. When I was Colin’s age in the story, I was also beginning to see different kinds of treatment  and how people would look at me based on who I was around with. I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood in New York City. One of my best friends was Argentinian and the other one was from the Netherlands. In  that way, I was pretty well rounded. I had different people around me but once I left that safe haven of that melting pot of different cultures and sort of grew up and pushed into a different situation where I could see the big contrast between my Dominican culture, my Latin culture, my black culture and my dad’s side of the family and then seeing sort of white culture in the film industry and then  New York City and Florida in a  similar way to Colin, I started to see maybe I prefer this side of life. I prefer seeing my people and I prefer being around my people and I prefer having conversations about my culture. At the same time I started to see microaggressions and racial injustices. 

Colin Kaepernick is a known football quarterback and an activist, is there any cause that’s close to your heart? 

Black Lives Matter. I’ve been an ambassador of UNICEF for a long time. The Water Project is another one that is really important to me and my family is filled with veterans and active military personnel and so out of respect for them,  I’ve always donated to the Wounded Warrior project and other veteran minded causes. 

I am happy to hear that you support several causes! And What are you looking forward to for the rest of 2021? 

SLEEP! 

Fair enough You're a very busy young actor! So what's the best part of being an actor? 

Not sleeping! Research! I love learning and I always love reading. I've always loved meeting new people and I've always loved mimicking their voices and their personality and their mannerisms. Acting  gives me a platform to do it at a morally acceptable level. Acting is just one of those rare careers where you can walk up to someone and start asking them questions in order to mimic them. Acting is probably right for me. I love creating characters! 

This is the last question and we always ask this at A Book Of. If you were a book, whether it's made up or already existing, what would you be and why? 

There's a great book called Dissonance where the main characters can move through time and memories and through sound. If I had that ability, I would be pretty set for life because I love music and I love sound and I've always been enamored by the idea of relativity and time. If I was in a book, I would be the main character from Erica O’Rourke’s novel Dissonance. 

Thank you Jaden!