I’m certainly one of those people who periodically will make herself wean from TV for some reason or another; I’m thinking I might have to wait until after the season finale of OWN Network’s ‘Queen Sugar’, though.
At the Q&A panel with the entire Queen Sugar cast minus two, we got to steal a few minutes with the youngest actor on the panel, Nicholas Ashe as he talks about his new platform that the show has afforded him, his role on the series, inspiring the next generation of young actors, and more.
Playing Micah West, teenaged son to eldest Bordelon sibling Charley Bordelon West (played by Dawn-Lyen Gardner) and Davis West (Timon Kyle Durrett); Micah’s life becomes a public mess with a huge rape scandal following his famous basketball player dad, threatening the sanctity of his parents ‘picture-perfect’ marriage; and the loss of his beloved grandfather in the midst of it all. He and his mom find themselves moving from California to Louisiana to join the remaining Bordelon’s in saving their family farm, trudging into a whole new set of tension and tragedy.
Since premiering in September, Queen Sugar has quickly, almost instantaneously become a television favorite.
Creator, Ava Duvernay certainly taps into unmarked territory, as far as TV is concerned, with the characters and the exceptional storytelling throughout the episodes of this series. As if I wasn’t already a fan, she impresses me more and more.
And Nicholas Ashe was singing her praises as well during our sit down.
Tell us about working with Ava; how that has been for you?
NA: Ava is… It’s insane that somebody with her platform, one she is so like political, obviously, being political and conscious with your platform; but she is also so sensitive to every facet of Queen Sugar. Meaning like, to every small or not even, any need, what the production assistant needs, to what Oprah is demanding, to what the network needs; she literally can combat all of that.
It’s like playing tennis with twelve other people, and hitting every ball back, and harder every time.
It’s insane. And she has taught me so much; I’m so glad to have this opportunity to be around people that enable me and teach me everyday. But most, what I have taken away from this the most, is to be proud of everything that I achieve. And what that translates to me is, if I’m helping my little cousin getting ready for prom, and I’m fixing the suit, ‘Nick did that’, you know what I mean. If I’m doing Queen Sugar…that’s the best work I could do in 2016 and I’m proud of that; and I own up to that.
On a more heritage level, just to make sure that everything that I’m doing, some how, someway celebrates my blackness, and who I am, my individuality. She has made sure that there is a piece of Ava in everything that she does. When you look at Selma, and then you watch Queen Sugar; and have you seen 13th on Netflix? That’s a whole other thing, but again, there is a piece of her in everything that she does. And in the career that I’m hoping to garner, that you can say that, ‘oh, that’s Nick’; there’s a piece of him in that; he added to the tapestry.
Can you speak on how your role maybe relates to your life?
NA: I think, where Micah and Nick intercept is that he is so receptive to everything and finds the lesson in everything, and I think that I am that way as well. I kind of, had to be, I didn’t go to college; I was homeschooled from a long time, was working from when I was younger. So the lesson had to come from doing, from seeing, from watching, from listening. It was never, ‘okay, let me really draw the line for you’. So he has some inferences; he has to connect the dots for himself. And I think that I’m similar in that way.
It’s so right that we are all in similar places to our characters. Besides Blue, me being one of the younger cast members on the show, I am still learning; I’m still deciding what clothes I want to wear to be cool; what adjectives and nouns I want to use to describe who I think I am. So that entering manhood, there is no destination, everything is a journey; that continualness; that evolution that is mirrored in me, mirrored in Micah.
Tell us about the evolution of Micah leading up to the end of the season?
NA: I’m going to be very vague, obviously. But as corny as it sounds, take this for what you will; Micah finds his voice. I’m three years removed from high school; five year’s from his age. I think that Micah begins to find his voice, and not in the way that’s like ‘oh yeah; he speaks up for himself’, but he decides what he won’t tolerate.
Often times, between zero and seventeen, you are kind of dragged around; what you do for the day is determined by what your parent’s are doing. How long school is; what your after school programs are. But now because he is in this sort of in between of like, he’s not really in school because he had to go back to Louisiana to handle that drama. He is finally deciding what he wants to do, who he wants to be. And that’s a really pivotal moment in a young mans life, especially a young black mans life, to be allowed that freedom; to see the things that he does and does not vibe with. And then, to have the strength on top of that to call it out and say, ‘oh, I don’t like that, I don’t vibe with that’.
I think that it forces him to become a much more politically conscious version of himself. I will say that Ava is very interested in using Micah as a platform to voice the Black Lives Matter movement. But again, being patient with it, and not making it preachy or, ‘this is our gimmick, this is going to be the team character’; but literally letting you see the roots, and the necessity for him to discover that movement and be aligned with it.
Like I said, to play tennis and knock everything back. For Micah, he never picked up a racket or anything like that before; so for him to hear stripper, prostitute, all of those things, it kind of shatters this bubble that he was living in. He’s existed in privilege and for that to not only be poked at but completely popped, the ground to drop beneath him; that’s when you discover who you really are.
So what’s happening next?
NA: What happens next for Queen Sugar, I don’t know; but we are all excited for it, ready to jump back into the arena and tell stories that matter.
For me, I spent the summer running a scholarship program for young people. When I was in high school, like I said, I was homeschooled for a long time, and then I went to actual high school, and coming off the mantra of knowing that ‘my dreams are valid’, I was like, ‘yes, college is important, college is necessary in 90% of the case’; it just wasn’t an immediate step for me.
Although I one day want to go to college, it just didn’t feel immediate. So, as a result, they stripped me of all of my scholarships; they said, ‘you’re not going to school, so we are taking everything away’. And I just decided that I wanted to make my own scholarships for young actors, dancers.
The way we did that was: we put a show together this summer, of actors, dancers, singers, poets in my town. Put on an hour show that I directed, charged admission, and all of that money goes towards the scholarship.
So this was the second year that we’ve done it, but coming from Queen Sugar, I was just more conscious about it and it became much more political. And that was just me looking at my high school structure, and making something great out of it like a scholarship.
Queen Sugar has afforded me to a platform to look at the structure of society and of things much bigger than the four years of high school. I’m looking at a system. That has allowed me to write my own things, invent my own characters; I’m looking to direct. I’m looking to be sensitive, responsible, political, compassionate and conscious with the platform that Queen Sugar has allowed me, in whatever capacity; and to be proud of that.
I don’t know what’s more impressive, his acting skills on the drama-series or just him overall; I say both.
With three more weeks left of the season, I will definitely be watching Wednesday nights at 10PM on OWN.
