“‘Harlem Shuffle,’ ‘Crook Manifesto,’ ‘Underground Railroad,’ ‘Nickel Boys’: I feel like I did not understand or see myself in fiction until I read him.”
So far this year, Jay Ellis has played a basketball coach in the Netflix comedy “Running Point” and a record-setting M.V.P. in the action movie “Freaky Tales.”
This summer, he’s swapping free throws for freestyles as he steps into the role of a hip-hop star in the Off Broadway play “Duke & Roya,” at the Lucille Lortel Theater. The drama finds him stumbling into a cross-cultural romance with life-threatening consequences.
“At first glance,” he said, “there’s no reason why you think these two people would ever hit it off.”
He added: “We’re in a world where everyone yells, no one listens. Everybody really just wants connection, to be seen, to be understood, and I just loved the idea that these two characters do.”
Ellis, 43, temporarily relocated his family of four to New York from their home in Los Angeles. One particular aspect of the local culture suits him well.
“I absolutely love pizza,” he said, name-dropping his latest find, Fini. “My daughter took a bite and was like, ‘Why don’t we have pizza like this in L.A., Daddy?’”
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Source: Television - nytimes.com
