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“Fringe” Benefits: A Conversation with Jasika Nicole

Out actress Jasika Nicole, 28, is on the rise with her role as FBI Special Agent Astrid Farnsworth in Fringe, Fox’s hot science-fiction series from Lost creator J.J. Abrams.

Extremely sweet and kinetic, even while uncaffeinated, the multitalented Alabama native spoke to AfterEllen.com about her levitating career, her solid love life and being an openly gay woman of color.

AE: Have things changed noticeably in your life since the show premiered in late August?

Jasika Nicole: I’m really busy and more people stare at me when I am walking down the street, and so now I don’t know if it’s because they’re thinking, “Oh, her shoes are terrible,” or, “Oh, what is she wearing,” or, “Oh, I think I recognize her.” That’s the biggest difference that I’ve noticed.

And I’ve gotten a lot more hits on my website, where I have my own illustrations. I get a lot more people writing and commenting on the comic and saying, “I really appreciate what you’re doing,” which is nice. I just feel like I’m getting more written support.

AE: What drew you to be part of Fringe?

JN: I guess that I’ve always been completely enthralled with horror. I was watching Freddy Krueger movies when I was 5 and 6 years old, which is probably not a good thing, but whatever, that’s what was happening in my life at the time. So I grew up with this tendency to be really into ghosts and spooky things, and experiences that you couldn’t explain, and I was obsessed with Unsolved Mysteries when I was little, and I would watch it every Wednesday night that it came on.

And so from that, I think there’s a really strong connection to that kind of a background – that kind of mysterious bent on television writing – because there isn’t a whole lot of that out there. And I think what else drew me to this right now is because so many of the shows that are on right now aren’t about this sort of thing.

I think a lot of it is about escaping from the reality that we as a country are in right now. But this show is really nice because it offers an alternative to the escape that Sex and the City and shows like Gossip Girl give you.

AE: So rather than an escape, you see Fringe as an alternative to what’s been a dominant theme in programming?

JN: I think so. It’s certainly not completely realistic. The science that we’re talking about, it’s made up. But I think the premise of it is that this is all stuff that very well could happen, could be happening, or could have happened already because it’s all based in science. It’s all based in information that exists in the world that nobody else really knows about, and what happens when that information gets put in the wrong people’s hands, and what does that mean for us as a world, and what does that mean for us as an individual, and as a society. It’s definitely fantastical in what’s its dealing with, but I think there’s a lot of reality rooted into it.

AE: Are you filming now in October?

JN: Yes, we are starting Episode 9, I believe, this week, and of course we got picked up for the back nine episodes. So in January, we will finish our 22-episode season. We’re not even quite halfway through yet, which is really exciting. I can’t wait to find out what else is going to happen!

AE: Where do you film?

JN: We film in Long Island City in Queens, at Silvercup Studios East. It’s very close, which is wonderful. I didn’t have to move away from New York City.

AE: What do you like most about Astrid, your character?

JN: I love that she is smart in all the ways that I am not smart. I am super creative and that’s where I feel like all my talent kind of rests – within drawing, within communicating and using words. That’s where I feel most comfortable. And Astrid very clearly feels comfortable on the complete opposite end. She’s really OK with being in this lab and learning all this stuff from this relatively crazy man who’s teaching this to her, and she’s just soaking it all up.

I don’t know if I would have the same response if I was Astrid and thrown into this lab where there are all these dead bodies and really, really weird and scary things are happening. I guess I just appreciate that she’s brave in that way and she’s smart and she understands all these really wild concepts because I never would.

AE: Can you reveal how your character is going to grow?

JN: She definitely starts to become more involved as the other members of the team become more involved. Instead of it just being very textbook, and then trying to figure these things out separately from what’s happening, they’re all kind of knee-deep in everything that’s going on. So I think you get to see her be a little bit more vulnerable. You get to see Astrid as being a more human character with flaws and with emotions that you didn’t really get to see before. It was slow to build up, but now that it’s happening, it’s really satisfying for me.

AE: What is it like working with Anna Torv [who plays Special Agent Olivia Dunham]?

JN: She’s awesome. I really like the way that our characters are eventually going to connect in the show. I think that she’s really smart and she’s funny, and I love watching her in this show. I think she is so good. And this is a lot of pressure. I would imagine that this would be overwhelming for anybody to do.

You’re in a new country, and you have to speak without your native accent. And then you have to know all of this dialogue and work with all of this scientific lingo. That’s a huge deal and she does it with such grace and such good energy that it’s absolutely mind-blowing to me.

I think she’s just absolutely amazing and I’m so excited to get to work with her.

AE: Now, would your character and hers be connecting in the way that might be of most interest to the AfterEllen.com audience?

JN: No, no. [Laughs.] That won’t be happening. Not that I know of, but of course, there is a Season 2, so who knows? But it’s more like she just looks up to her so much and they actually have a really nice conversation about how Agent Dunham’s character, she gets scared, and she has anxiety, too.

She just doesn’t show it, but she has a little bit of a heart-to-heart with Astrid’s character. It comes out really nicely, I think.

AE: You dance, draw and act. What connects all these activities for you?

JN: Oh my gosh. I wish I knew. It’s just, these are the things that I know how to do, you know? And I don’t think I was ever at a place where I was nervous or anxious about following those paths. I was never good at math. I was never exceptional at science. I made good grades because that was important to me, but you know, half the stuff was kind of going over my head. I was just doing the homework. That’s not where my talent lies. All of what I feel good at, and I feel confident and satisfied with, happens to be in some kind of artistic format. And I was really fortunate to have parents who were completely encouraging and supportive of that. So I guess that’s the main thread.

AE: Who are your artistic heroes?

JN: You know, I am always so inspired by musicians. They just blow my mind because I don’t understand how it all connects together. I love Sufjan Stevens. I love the Talking Heads. I always feel like if I was able to make music, that’s the kind of music that I would want to make.

I like projects that people work on, but there hasn’t ever been any one person that I can think of that I always followed and said, “Oh, this is what I want to be.”

Maybe Tina Fey – because she’s such a Renaissance woman. She has her hand in so many different things, and I think that is really incredible. I guess I just admire her. What she does is such a big deal to so many people in that she’s able to write, and she’s able to perform, and she’s able to produce, and she’s able to come up with an idea in her head, and then, a short time later, she’s moving forward with that process. And that is really, really motivating.

Because I think it’s really easy for people to have immense talent and then not know what to do with it or where to go from there with it. I feel a lot of times we are own worst enemy in that we hold ourselves back, or we get lazy or we procrastinate and nothing moves forward. And here’s a woman who has done huge things in this business in a relatively short period of time.

AE: Did you give great consideration to the thought of being out in your industry?

JN: I will be totally honest with you and say that there really wasn’t a decision that I made. I didn’t feel like there was an alternative. I was completely unwilling to lie about who I was, or to

try and hide who I was with. That was never something that I would even consider doing.

It wasn’t until I started getting bigger parts and being seen for more stuff when we [she and manager John Essay] had to actually have a conversation about it, which I totally didn’t want to have. And of course, my manager is looking at it from a business side of things and saying, “I absolutely support you and I support who you are, but I would like to have a conversation about what lengths you’re willing to have your personal life dictate your professional life if it comes to that point.”

And I absolutely understood where he was coming from, and in another place it was really frustrating. But I’ve got to say, we only had to have that conversation once, about two months ago. And I was pretty straightforward with him, and I think he absolutely understood where I was coming from and was supportive of that. But he needed us to have that conversation to make sure we were on the same page.

AE: Have you ever had any fears or felt any regrets about your decision?

JN: I really haven’t, and I guess it’s because I haven’t felt any adverse effects come from it. I’ve only been getting more people reading my blog and more people writing and saying, “Hey, I see what you’re doing and I really appreciate this,” or, “I have a cousin who is queer,” or, “I am a lesbian,” or, “I’ve been with my partner for this many years and it’s nice to see you being proud of who you are.”

It’s not that there is a dearth of out people in the world. It’s just that there aren’t a lot of us in this specific industry. That’s the tricky part, because this is the entertainment industry. This is what so many people pay attention to.

I guess you have to make the decision, “Do I want to be the token person in this community, or do I want to hide it to keep my personal life private because everybody deserves to have the right to privacy?”

It’s just such a weird, complicated little mess in my head, but everything I always come back to is that I am not ashamed of who I am and who I’m with, so there is no reason for anybody else to be feeling that way, either.

AE: Does race factor into your experience of being out?

JN: It does, and it’s so hard to know specifically where that comes from. But it’s very different. Just walking down the street, and being with my girlfriend [Claire Savage, 28, a social worker who works with LGBTQ youth], sometimes we hold hands, sometimes we don’t. It kind of depends on the neighborhood that we’re in.

But the people who ever have anything to say, they generally tend to be people who are part of the black community. It’s such a hard thing to have that be the case. It’s like you’re a minority within a minority within a minority. At times it feels like you’re at the very, very, very bottom of the list. That doesn’t feel good to anybody. I’m still trying to discover what that means and what that’s like and why that is so threatening to people. I don’t know where it comes from.

AE: What kinds of reactions specifically do you face?

JN: Mostly, it’s nasty remarks. There’s been one or two times where Claire and I were worried about what was going to happen. There was an incident near her work once in the Bronx, and we were anxious for a good two weeks afterward. It was horrible; we were so nervous for her to go to work because, what if this guy sees her and tries to pull something with her? Is anybody going to come out and help her? What can I do to defend her in the way I would want? I’m 5-foot-2.

It’s just part of being who you are and being honest about it and being unashamed. And even with the crappy things that we’ve been through in regards to having people be completely unaccepting, I think that the price of being in love with somebody and knowing that you care about them and they care about you in the same way, and being really happy, honestly, that’s worth the bad parts of it. That’s just how it is. Love is not an easy thing to find, and when you actually find it, everything else becomes kind of secondary.

AE: What is happening now with your illustrations?

JN: The comic that I have is called High Yella Magic. There was actually some interest about a year ago with a major publishing company, and I had a meeting with them and it went well. It ended up being a project that was probably not the smartest for them to work on. I met with another woman, who wanted to commercialize the comic as best that she could and capitalize on it.

I remember her saying specifically, “Is this going to be a story about a biracial girl growing up in Birmingham in the South, or is this going to be about somebody who identifies as queer?”

Of course, this being my first foray into the literary world, I was completely taken aback by that, because it’s just my story. It’s just what I’ve experienced and that’s the story that I want to tell and that’s the story I enjoy telling. I’m really comfortable with just processing and creating as it comes out of me and putting it up online just to share it with people who are interested.

For right now, I’m not interested in going out and trying to turn it into a book unless it’s exactly what I want it to be.

Fringe airs Tuesday nights on Fox ? visit the show’s official website, and JasikaNicole.com.

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