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Andre
Royo - Dreaming Possible Dreams
By Ramona Prioleau
And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious
quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my
rest
The Impossible Dream, Lyrics by Joe Darion
Life is about dreams. Once you have one, you gotta
go for it and try to achieve it to the fullest. Otherwise, you'll have
a lifetime of regrets and that life is not worth living.
Andre Royo
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© 2002 RLP Ventures, LLC
Andre
Royo
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Like
many, Andre Royo dreamed of artistic success. What distinguishes Royo
is not that he dreamed in Technicolor, but that he had the mettle to
persevere and wait for the right moment to nudge his foot, then body
through the door of opportunity that eventually opened. But Royo
readily admits that what kept him striving early on was the support of
his friends and family.
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"The
support of my friends, my family, all the guys and women helped me by
believing in me even when I didn't believe in myself," reflects
Royo. The love and support strengthened Royo's resolve as he realized
the obligation that comes with such backing. "I'm not just doing
it for me… I'm doing for my daughter and for my friends who didn't
go after their dreams. So I couldn't give up," Royo states.
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Royo's
characteristic resolve was evident before he began his acting journey.
As a college student in Florida, Royo tired of his humdrum existence
as a coed majoring in marketing and advertising. At 21, he left
school, returned to his New York home, set his sight on loftier goals
and began building a firm financial foundation. Royo had an uncle down
with the union; so he spent a few years working construction and enjoying
the economic security and ample benefits that accompany union
membership. Interestingly, words of wisdom from more senior co-workers
encouraged him to re-evaluate his options.
"A couple of the older guys were telling me not to
get hypnotized by the money because [you'll] wake up 40 years
old, laid off and all you'll know is how to shovel
cement," recalls Royo.
So despite having a measure of financial stability,
Royo started articulating long-range aspirations. However, initially,
he hadn't formulated concrete plans.
"[Years ago], when it came to acting, I
just assumed that people who were on TV were either picked or
discovered," he says. "I used to go to clubs and wait for
[someone] to say 'Let's go to Hollywood,'" Royo ruefully admits.
A friend's invitation to monitor a class at HB
Studios changed all of that. "I sat in a class one day and saw
kids doing scenes and I fell in love. I enrolled there the next
day." Studying with Uta Hagen, Royo immersed himself into the
method and art of performance.
As a youngster, Royo admired the work of several
movie stars. However, after his formal training, he didn't chase the
big screen ideal. His first and long-lasting love is the theater.
"Theater is just instant gratification,"
insists Royo. "Once you step on stage, you feel the energy of the
audience. I've done all types of acting and there's nothing that
replaces stepping on stage and feeling that audience. You can tell
when that energy dies and they're not into it or you can tell when
they're really into it and you start milking it," he muses.
Committed to feeding off the energy of a live
audience, Royo formed a theater company on NYC's Lower East Side with
friends called Room 203. There Royo was content promoting and
performing original sketches and one act plays. But, upon receiving
the good news from his wife that he was to become a proud papa, Royo
shifted gears and began actively pursuing opportunities in film and
television.
To support his long-range plans, Royo kept his union
gig for a while. However, he realized that if he didn't walk away from
the construction safety net, his acting career would stall. So Royo
turned in his hard hat and traveled the path of many actors before him
by donning the traditional waiter's garb.
Royo worked at a variety of nightclubs and
restaurants in New York City, including those on the buppie dining
circuit. Royo longest gig was at the ever-popular Shark Bar for 5
years. Although he ran into folks like Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel
Washington, he wasn't discovered at the Shark Bar for his acting.
"At the Shark Bar, I became somewhat of this
little celebrity - a little weird," Royo confesses. "I got
suspended every other day. I was the worst waiter. If you didn't know
what you wanted to eat, I wasn't coming to your table. Don't ask me
for any recommendations - I used to say go home and cook…But right
before someone would get mad, I'd crack a joke or I'd tell them I
wanted to be an actor," Royo says. Luckily, the Shark Bar
proprietors liked Andre and kept him around despite his antics.
While many restaurant patrons offered Royo words of
encouragement and advice, a few had one-track minds. "When you
tell people in the game that you're an actor; they just look at you
and [say,] 'All right, can I get my chicken?' or 'Good luck with
everything, but I want my catfish fried," Royo jokes.
Nevertheless, Royo's stint at another eatery led to
an opportunity to advance his career - the Acapulco Black Film
Festival. One of the proprietors of the Soul Café knew Jeff Friday,
co-founder of ABFF. That was the lead Royo needed and he put his
hustling skills into high gear. He hounded festival management with
emails, letters and faxes, expressing his desire to volunteer for the
event. Once Royo got a meeting with festival producer, Reggie Scott,
Andre impressed Scott with his eccentric style.
In Acapulco, Royo was smitten with the festival's
dynamic vibe. The access ABFF afforded him was also invaluable.
"Seeing the Hudlin brothers, seeing Bill Duke and being able to
go up to them and say 'this is what I wanna do, give me words of
wisdom,'" were experiences Royo appreciated. "[Celebrities]
were more open at ABFF than meeting them in a restaurant or meeting
them in a club," Royo surmised.
A lasting impression was also the boost the festival
gave to Royo's confidence. He realized that celebrities, while living
comfortably, were no different from him and were just trying to
actualize their dreams. That realization sharpened Royo's focus
towards offering his distinctive voice to the performance dialogue.
Volunteering at the festival for two summers also
yielded incidental dividends for Royo. Working the door at Manhattan's
Cheetah Club during a hot party several summers ago, John Singleton
strolled up to the door with friends in tow and Royo let them into the
exclusive and posh event. Having briefly chatted with Singleton at
ABFF, Royo engaged Singleton in conversation once again and went one
step further to request an audition for Shaft. Singleton took Royo's
information and followed up soon thereafter with a call to Andre's
manager.
Although Royo completed several rounds of auditions
for a supporting role and bit parts, initially, he didn't get an
offer. Weeks later, returning home from an afternoon in the park with
his daughter, he got a message that he'd been offered the part as
Tattoo, replacing another actor. He was to report to the set the next
day. MORE >>>
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© 2000 RLP Ventures, LLC
(l.
to r.) muMs, Andre Royo and Jeff Friday at the OZ
Premiere Party,
June 28, 2000 at Pastis
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After Shaft, Royo was
no longer at "DefCon 1" as casting directors began taking
him seriously and his friends and family easily related to the widely
distributed film. Even with his success in Shaft, Royo continued his
work in the theater and actively pursued indie films. In 2001, Royo
appeared as Fruity Pebblez in Mad Matthewz's Big Bank, Take Little
Bank, which became a film festival fave. Royo followed up with 2002's
G where he portrayed Tre, a smart-mouthed chronicler of the
bling-bling world of hip-hop.
A Great Gatsby-esque
tale of financial success and excess spiced with themes of love lost
and betrayal, G stars Richard T. Jones as the title character and
features a fine ensemble cast. Royo reflects fondly on his G
experience because he appeared in Sky, the Charles Drew Off-Off
Broadway play on which the film is based. In addition, Tre was a role
that didn't require Royo to rat anyone out and he got a chance to work
with Blair Underwood, Jones and Sonja Sohn (who also appears in The
Wire).
Working with Sohn on G seems to have contributed to
the onscreen chemistry that Royo and Sohn exude during scenes from The
Wire, the gritty HBO series that pits cops against robbers and dealers
in a high stakes surveillance game. In The Wire, Royo plays Bubbles,
Detective Shakima Greggs' (Sohn) drug-addicted confidential informant.
Royo's audition for Bubbles came at a time when
Andre was in flux. Still stunned by the events of 9/11, Royo had
lingering feeling of helplessness in light of the World Trade Center
tragedy.
"After 9/11 happened, people in the arts felt
small [and] that we weren't doing anything of importance to help the
community," Royo said. "All these people are risking their
lives and I'm out here trying to make somebody laugh. It just didn't
seem to make sense," he added.
Heeding the advice of colleagues who encouraged him
to take one role at a time and make the most of the opportunity
presented to him, Royo diligently prepared for his audition as the
witty, frenetic heroin-addict. In addition to studying Al Pacino's
performance in Panic in Needle Park and Richard Pryor's Piano Man in
Lady Sings the Blues, Royo visited drug outreach programs on
Manhattan's Lower East Side and talked to recovering addicts.
"[By] talking to junkies, [I was] trying to
find a specific through line that all junkies have or go through and
there wasn't any," he said. "The drug affects everybody in
there own different way," Royo learned.
Undeterred, Royo set about assuring that his
audition would be credible. To get a sense of an addict's withdrawal
syndrome, Royo kicked his television, junk food and Coca Cola habits
for two weeks. Without hesitation, Royo admits to consuming about four
2-liter bottles of cola a day and the thought of drinking water to
satisfy his thirst repulses him.
Referring to H20 as bottled saliva,
he confesses, "When I was thirsty, I wanted Coca Cola. I used to
get that can and start sweating, [thinking] 'I'm just gonna go buy one
right now; it's just an audition.' But, I didn't do it."
Arriving for his audition, Royo walked in with the
edge of a kat jonesing for a jolt of carbonated corn syrup. Even
meeting
with David Simon, Clark Johnson and Robert Colesberry didn't faze Royo.
"I started ad-libbing and just talking frantic
and put my little spin on Bubbles," Royo says. "They called
me up the next day and said 'we love you, we think you're great for
the part, everything is wonderful, we definitely might use you, but we
gotta go to LA first and check out what's out there,'" Royo
remembers with a sigh.
Familiar with the post-audition waiting game, Royo
reveals that the wait after The Wire audition wasn't nearly as
difficult as it used to be. "I went on with my life, went on
taking care of my daughter, going to other auditions and damn near
forgot about it," he said. Going cold turkey from Coca Cola
obviously worked because Royo was offered the role even after the
producers made their obligatory star search on the west coast.
To Bubbles, Royo brings a sensibility and depth
that goes beyond the surface portrayal of a funny junkie. Royo's
Bubbles is multidimensional - at times poignant, earnest, strategic
and, of course, humorous. It's important to Royo to avoid cliché in
his portrayal. He is well aware that Bubbles must show a realistic
humanity so as to avoid disparaging the life that is reflected
onscreen. Sensitive to concerns that Bubbles could add to the heap of
stereotypical images about Blacks, Royo felt comfortable before taking
the role that The Wire's creators were more interested in fleshing out
a complex character, rather than putting forth a caricature.
"This is very painful addiction that people
are dealing with so [the creators and I] didn't want to belittle their
pain," he said. "We discussed [wanting] to make sure this
character has layers and this character is able to break through the
similarities that junkies and drug-dealers have," Royo
acknowledges.
Appearing on a critically acclaimed HBO series
hasn't dulled Royo's desire for theater work. Although time is an
issue, Royo is blessed to have friends and collaborators with a
similar theatrical passion. "I'm around creative people like my
friend muMs and we'll write. We'll do one acts. We'll do
monologues," he says.
The pair has performed at New York's Joe's Pub, an
intimate performance space run by The Public Theater. Joe's Pub's flexible staging format enables Royo to
produce shows "Little Rascals-style," which doesn't
allow for extensive rehearsing. Despite that, the experience of doing
so is worth it.
"[Performing] sharpens your instincts. It
sharpens your ability to work with the audience and your improv
skills,"
he states. "It makes you stay on your toes because that audience
will tell you right then and there whether they felt you or not. You
gotta love that. That's my rush," he adds.
Recently, Royo directed muMs at the Downtown Urban
Theater Festival in the production "In the Last Car…" which muMs wrote.
What's next for Royo? Jokingly, Royo summarizes, "Let's just do a
recap, Tattoo, Bubbles, Fruity Pebblez...I'm just waiting to play a
character like John or Trevor."
No worries, with Royo's talent
and determination, those opportunities are sure to come.
M
June 2003
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