Born and raised in South Central, Los Angeles, London Brown is a comedian and trained actor. He starred on the hit HBO series “Ballers”, opposite Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Previously, he was one of the stars on “The Hustle” for Fuse Network ,which was created and produced by Prentice Penny. He recently was recognize by LA’s Best and received an award for his career and his involvement with the youth in the inner city community. Also won Best Actor for his role in A.S.I.A. A at the Overcome Festival and Best International Comedian at the Black Comedy Awards in the UK. London will be back on screen with Power Book 3 starting July 18th 2021!
Tijana: Hi guys. I’m here with London, brown comedian and actor. Welcome London to Pop Style TV. Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. Appreciate it. Okay. So it looks like you’ve been busy. Uh, you have quite a few things coming up in July, but I wanted to first talk to you about the beginning of your career.
Tijana: What came first comedy acting? How did you sort of start?
London Brown: Um, but I started out doing, you know, just grade school plays, you know, and that sort of thing. And that led me to. Doing Easter blades per church and, um, into high school. And then that’s when I, that’s, when I really started to take it really started to consider actually doing this, uh, as a career.
Um, that happened when I was maybe like, I think I can recall maybe like 15, 16, where I was like, yo, this is something I want to do. So, um, so it’s, it’s been a right. It’s kind of worked out.
Tijana: Well, what would you say was your big, first big break?
London Brown: So let’s start at, I remember I forgot it was like one show in particular.
And I remember I just got a lot of laughs and I thought, I say, yo, this is, I like this feeling of being able to perceive the energy from the audience. Um, very instantly. And, um, so that was that. We didn’t, as far as the break are, probably would have to say. And I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve gotten the break yet.
Tijana: I don’t know when you first got your part in the ballers, um, how was the process, did you, did you know you’re getting it or you were surprised?
London Brown: I was at the time I was working with the choreographer and, um, I was just really drained. I was, I was actually at my mother’s house. Land on the floor and my brother’s room, I get a call this and a friend of mine said, you know, have you seen, have you auditioned for biology?
I was like, man, I don’t know anything about it. He says, wait, looking for you. I said, okay. So he gave my information and um, that process took about two months of just auditioning and auditioning, going back and get the notes and so forth. So when they called, um, initially that character’s only supposed to do maybe a couple of weeks.
Um, and then after the audition, they decided to, you know, um, allow the character to be one of the stars of the show. And I stayed on all five seasons
Tijana: Somewhere that you mentioned that that time was the best time of your life, but at the same time, it was the worst time of your life because you lost my brother.
London Brown: So, and this was, um, now we’re going into the second season and that was an interesting space because. I was, I was right. I was doing, I was right in the middle of doing the thing that I left to do. Um, so the dichotomy between those two feelings was, was, uh, wasn’t experienced in fact, I didn’t even cry or really grieve about that situation until two.
Well, after the fact, um, actually there was one scene in the episode, I think episode two of season. There was a paintball scene, a paintball gun scene. And, um, I cry. I remember I cried a little bit under the mask because I guess, you know, no one could see me under that mask. So I remember if you just in between the scenes and then just still shooting the same, it was just a, it was a rough space.
I don’t know. I, you know, all of these things just kind of help. Build up my character for the other, you know, things that are probably waiting me.
Tijana: How was the past year for you? Um, it seems that you’ve been working during a pandemic, uh, because you have a PowerBook three coming out.
London Brown: Um, so fast you have been, it’s been a blessing for me. I’ve been able to work during the pandemic, so I don’t complain. Um, and as far as probably three, I think people want to be really excited about it. It’s totally different from the other ones you don’t get back. You don’t even have to watch the previous powers to understand what’s going on with this one.
This can be a person that’s in a power and you’ll be able to follow along because it’s the pre-fill, um, it’s exciting. It’s touching it’s good family stories that dialogue the script and the costumes because we go back. Our series takes place in 91, 19 91, and it’s outside the naked Queens. And so it’s just a nice throwback for everyone they’re gone.
If you were living during that era, then you’re going to be able to appreciate that, that vintage, uh, the, the benches look up the whole thing between the cars, the costume, the hairstyles, and even the. But if you’re not from the air, you’ll still be able to appreciate it because there’s nothing on TV. Like we kind of sat a little all over Brooklyn, uh, everywhere in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx was all over New York.
And so, um, just being there and atmosphere definitely helps us as actors, uh, tap in and connect because I have done projects where I remember I had to shoot something in a. But it was based in New York. And so it’s just a different, there’s a different texture in New York city. Uh, you can tell from the, the buildings and the grit that that’s, that’s, that creates, um, the Bible of New York.
Tijana: What’s next for you? What are you working on in the future? What are you hoping to work on in the future? And, uh, are you making. Planning to try out something new, like a new genre or
London Brown: So it’d be nice to get back, really get back in the club scene. When I go back to New York this time, because last time I was, everything was set down.
I couldn’t do it, but this time it’d be, it’d be good to jump back in the flow of that and, uh, plus all new material and that sort of thing. And, um, there’s always some things cooking. You know, so I, you know, I’m sure we’ll probably come back and do another interview about some of that stuff. But in the meantime, we’re just trying to stay very focused.
And now that the work is done of season one, um, we’re just kind of excited to see how it all fits together. Because my friends asked me, you know, they said, Hey, what happens? What happens? What’s going on in the episode? We don’t really know because we shoot out. So it’s new to us. Like everyone else.
Tijana: Thank you London so much. And I can’t wait to see a PowerBook three .
Interview by: Tijana Ibrahimovic
Edited. by: Lidia Miriam Goldberg
Cover photo courtesy from https://www.theqgentleman.com/
