A Quote by Sanaa Lathan
I had never picked up a basketball before. I went through a grueling audition process. It was almost as if I was learning to walk. It would be like teaching somebody to dance ballet for a role.
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I wasn't a dancer learning to play Baby Houseman. I was Baby Houseman learning to play a dancer. I was someone who'd never done any Latin dance. I'd taken jazz classes and ballet growing up in New York, so I had dance in me, and I knew I loved it, but I'd never done a dance audition.
If I had lost a leg, I would tell them, instead of a boy, no one would ever ask me if I was 'over it'. They would ask me how I was doing learning to walk without my leg. I was learning to walk and to breathe and to live without Wade. And what I was learning is that it was never going to be the life I had before.
There was one female role, which was Emily. When I did the audition, I flubbed up. It was my first audition back from Christmas break, and I flubbed up and was devastated. In the audition room, they were like, "Oh, you did great!," but you never really know. So, I left the audition in tears.
I believe this: If an actor wants a role or wants to work with somebody, then you do everything within reason to try to get that role. If they want you to audition, you audition. If they want you to screen-test, you screen-test. If they want you to come and tap-dance in their hallway, you tap-dance in their hallway.
I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.
And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it.
When I go to throw a punch, actually, my intention is to hit somebody. That's just second nature to me. So you have to just rewire yourself. It's not something where you have to sit and subconsciously think about it, but you kind of have to just put yourself in that mode and go with it. Learning the fight scenes, I've never had to learn choreography before, so learning the fight scenes was like learning a dance or something like that. I had a little bit of influence in the fight scenes and I tried to put as much influence there as I could, but I had fun doing it.
Standing up and teaching is grueling, but grueling fun.
I had done another show called 'United States of Cars,' which was a pilot that didn't get picked up. And they said, 'You know, we're doing 'Top Gear,' and would you like to meet the guys?' It was the wild - most wild audition I ever had because I never went to a studio or a producer's office.
So, I think I would say, enjoy the process of learning to dance. The process of our profession, and not its final achievement, is the heart and soul of dance.
I was so lucky that I didn't have to audition. It's just such a grueling process, in itself.
Ballet found me, I guess you could say. I was discovered by a teacher in middle school. I always danced my whole life. I never had any training, never was exposed to seeing dance, but I always had something inside of me. I would love to choreograph and dance around.
Learning that aesthetic as a kid - seeing those photos - made me think that that's what photos are supposed to look like. I never understood snapshots. I was looking at them like, "This is horrible; that's not what a picture is supposed to look like." I was taught by these photos. So when I picked up the camera, though I had never done it before, I kind of already knew what I was doing.
I was given two weeks to walk again, so I hooked up with a trainer, and he... had me walking. I'll never forget that, it was grueling.
Initially, when I'd heard of 'Teen Wolf,' I had never actually sat down to watch the series. But during my audition process, before I had a clue that I would even be considered, I started watching the show to get a feel for it and to see what type of show it was.
Learning is not a product of teaching . kids are born learning. They learn how to walk, how to talk. They're basically little scientists. If we don't stop that process, it will continue.
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