Post by llyan on Aug 3, 2017 13:23:14 GMT
NCIS Star Duane Henry on Growing Up Poor, His Special Mom, and Moving to Hollywood
AUGUST 1, 2017 – 10:00 AM – 0 COMMENTS
By PAULETTE COHN @paulette49
NCIS star Duane Henry, who plays MI6 agent Clayton Reeves, couldn’t be more jazzed. With the release of the July/August edition of CBS Watch!, on newsstands now, he is featured on his very first cover ever!
Henry’s cover is one of three NCIS-themed Special Collector’s issues, the other two feature Wilmer Valderrama, who plays Nick Torres, and Sean Murray, who plays Timothy McGee.
Parade got the opportunity to talk one-on-one with the British import about the feature story in the magazine, which covers his early life and career, leading up to the moment he was cast on NCIS.
The cover is great. Your mom must really be proud.
I think so. I think she likes it. It was so much fun. They set it in a pub so they got me to relax. It was subconsciously very relaxing being in the pub and they had the Jamaican/West Indies music playing, so it was a blast. So much fun. It was my first photo shoot as well so it will live with me forever and ever.
In the CBS Watch! story, you talk about growing up poor, saying you had to use your imagination. Did it ever get you in trouble?
I definitely got in trouble. I wasn’t a bully and I wasn’t malicious or purposefully trying to hurt people, I was just very annoying and irritating. I’d walk behind you and blow in your ear or make a face, stuff like that. Anything to get a reaction, but I wouldn’t say I was troublesome, so to speak. But my imagination took me away from a lot of my realities. It was really, really scary for some time growing up where I’m from.
So at age 14, you made this life choice that you were going to go to drama school for two years and then become an actor for 10 years in London before moving to Hollywood. How did you know all this at age 14?
It just made sense. I knew I wouldn’t be ready to go to Hollywood anytime soon, or in my twenties. I just knew I wasn’t ready. I knew I had to feel the burn a little bit and let the rain hit my face. I just had to. I knew the reality of it. I didn’t want it to be like an easy come, easy go kind of thing. I wanted to take my time with it. So, I never rushed.
Obviously, I had certain points of frustration, where I’d catch someone else doing some amazing stuff and I’d be like, “Aw, man, I wish I could help my mom or help people from where I’m from.” But I knew also patience is passion that’s being tamed, so you have to control that. You have to fan the flame or keep it cool, you know? So my main motivation was just to keep it cool and give myself a realistic time frame instead of trying to do something where I ran before I could walk.
Okay, but how did you know at 14 that acting was going to be your career?
Because it came so natural to me, and I’m lazy and I hate to work. I just knew. I swear I knew. That’s probably what separates certain people from other people is the realization of a lot of things early on. I knew if I did something that came naturally to me, it wouldn’t seem like work. I figured I’m fortunate enough to live in the world of pop culture, where acting pays really well, not just financially, but in a lot of areas. I was just grateful to have that eureka moment early on and I just ran with it.
Your mom seems to have been a real driving force in your life and she really encouraged you. What can you tell me about your mom?
She’s a Leo. Bless her. She’s always been a fighter. She’s very outspoken, very proud and she has a lot of integrity. She grew up very fast as well. Obviously, she had me at a dramatically young age, but for the right reasons. She always had the mentality, where you have to fight for what you want but also live good with people, have respect and good manners. So that was a lot of gems and tools that I’ve always carried with me from her.
She’s a little woman, you know? She’s maybe no taller than 5-feet 3-inches, so it’s actually hilarious when she speaks and she’s got this like lioness voice. I’m like, “Mom, you’re really tiny. What are you talking about?” But she’s a very, very special woman, and we’ve got this ridiculously close bond.
I just love blowing her mind. I have always told her since I was young, “Mom, I’m going to blow your mind one day.” And she’s like, “I know, I know.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, really, really, really.” I don’t think she understood what I was talking about, so now when I’ve moved her into another house and car and stuff like that, and life’s a little bit easier for her … she’s still not starting to get it yet. She’s still overwhelmed, but I figure she’ll come around to it.
We’ve got limited time on this planet, so I just try and give those around me what I can. It’s so much fun, man. It really is.
You went to drama college. Did you have to audition for that? Did you win a scholarship?
In England, after what we call secondary school, we go to college straight after that and you just enroll. You let them know what your special areas are and you sit down at end of school with a tutor and they ask you what you want to do with your life. I always remember telling them I just wanted to do acting.
There was a few acting colleges where I grew up in Birmingham, but I thought, “Let me get out and go somewhere outside where I can just have a fresh perspective on life,” so I chose to go to Dudley College, which is just outside of Birmingham.
So I decided to get out and a couple of friends, who are still very close to me today, came with me. You go up there, you have a look around, and you get a feel for it. As I said, I figured I just wanted to act. I didn’t realize there was a lot more that came with it, like the theory side, the lighting, the dance, the voice technique, there was so much I wasn’t prepared for. I just wanted to act. So my first year, I didn’t really take it as seriously as I should’ve because I was just struck to be in a new environment. It was all new to me. I was like, “This is incredible.”
So I was just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed my first year. Then in the second year, one or two of my teachers sat me down because they’d seen I did this Hamlet speech: “O, that this too solid flesh would melt.” I did it in front of an audience, and they were like, “This kid, he’s got something here.” I just remember them saying, “You’ve got something, so instead of messing around and trying to make everyone laugh and be silly, why don’t you channel that?” And I was like, “You reckon I could really do something if I kept my head down?” And one of my teachers looked at me and said, “Hell, yes. If you keep your head down, I promise you, you’ll win an Oscar one day.” I was like, “Oh, whatever.”
So my second year, I just started to take it a lot more serious. Every scene or script I had, I had to knock it out of the park and have a different level of respect for it. Then, from there, I moved to London at 17.
So after you did your time in London, you finally get out to Hollywood and your first big job, you’re playing a Brit and not having to develop your American accent. Was that a concern to you or were you relieved that you were able to speak in your normal voice?
Well, it was a little bit of frustration back and forth because when I first got here, obviously, I took a year out from acting and concentrated on getting my accent down and the logistics of the States. And then after about a year, I booked a pilot called Paradise Pictures, which was set in the ‘40s. I played a young jazz musician named Aldo Boyd, who was from the South. So that was the first part I booked out here. I beat out a lot of American kids for it.
It never got picked up, but it was an incredible experience. They gave me a saxophone for a while and I picked up the basics of that. I learned so much just being around a period piece for my first gig in the States.
And then I got a recurring role in the pilot for Cruel Intentions and that was British. I was like, “Oh, a British part, this isn’t too bad. I’ll see how it goes, but I still want to keep the American going.” And then I went up for a lot of American shows and nothing stuck for a while.
Then NCIS came and it was a MI6 British officer and I just thought, “Oh, my gosh, this is insane,” but it wasn’t so much the accent. I just really gravitated toward the character as soon as I saw the description. I realized, obviously, what I was up against for the show. I was like, “This is what I want,” because it just felt normal at the time, so it didn’t really matter what the accent was. I just loved the character, who just happened to be British. So that’s how that happened.
So you mention you’re a MI6 liaison. Might you be around more this season now that Jennifer Esposito’s character is gone? Will they have a little bit more room for your character?
It’s not so much room and number, it’s just about the character and what the stories are trying to portray. Obviously, it’s got to make sense. You can’t underestimate the intelligence of the audience, and the audience knows I’m an international agent and I won’t always be involved in domestic cases. Therefore, I won’t be in every episode.
So do you have a better sense of who Clayton is this season?
Yes, he’s a little bit less vulnerable coming into a new surrounding, new family, new friends. And, obviously, he still has this uncertainty. It’s in his DNA. Because he grew up fostered and shipped around a lot when he was young, he always has that iceberg feeling. But he is amongst family and a lot of people who are similar to him. Like Gibbs (Mark Harmon), obviously, he’s a lone wolf, so he relates and finds a lot of himself in that. I feel that he’ll be a lot more comfortable this year. He just wants to get some work done and jump out of a few windows, you know.
NCIS returns for its 15th season on on Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
parade.com/591182/paulettecohn/ncis-star-duane-henry-on-growing-up-poor-his-special-mom-and-moving-to-hollywood/
AUGUST 1, 2017 – 10:00 AM – 0 COMMENTS
By PAULETTE COHN @paulette49
NCIS star Duane Henry, who plays MI6 agent Clayton Reeves, couldn’t be more jazzed. With the release of the July/August edition of CBS Watch!, on newsstands now, he is featured on his very first cover ever!
Henry’s cover is one of three NCIS-themed Special Collector’s issues, the other two feature Wilmer Valderrama, who plays Nick Torres, and Sean Murray, who plays Timothy McGee.
Parade got the opportunity to talk one-on-one with the British import about the feature story in the magazine, which covers his early life and career, leading up to the moment he was cast on NCIS.
The cover is great. Your mom must really be proud.
I think so. I think she likes it. It was so much fun. They set it in a pub so they got me to relax. It was subconsciously very relaxing being in the pub and they had the Jamaican/West Indies music playing, so it was a blast. So much fun. It was my first photo shoot as well so it will live with me forever and ever.
In the CBS Watch! story, you talk about growing up poor, saying you had to use your imagination. Did it ever get you in trouble?
I definitely got in trouble. I wasn’t a bully and I wasn’t malicious or purposefully trying to hurt people, I was just very annoying and irritating. I’d walk behind you and blow in your ear or make a face, stuff like that. Anything to get a reaction, but I wouldn’t say I was troublesome, so to speak. But my imagination took me away from a lot of my realities. It was really, really scary for some time growing up where I’m from.
So at age 14, you made this life choice that you were going to go to drama school for two years and then become an actor for 10 years in London before moving to Hollywood. How did you know all this at age 14?
It just made sense. I knew I wouldn’t be ready to go to Hollywood anytime soon, or in my twenties. I just knew I wasn’t ready. I knew I had to feel the burn a little bit and let the rain hit my face. I just had to. I knew the reality of it. I didn’t want it to be like an easy come, easy go kind of thing. I wanted to take my time with it. So, I never rushed.
Obviously, I had certain points of frustration, where I’d catch someone else doing some amazing stuff and I’d be like, “Aw, man, I wish I could help my mom or help people from where I’m from.” But I knew also patience is passion that’s being tamed, so you have to control that. You have to fan the flame or keep it cool, you know? So my main motivation was just to keep it cool and give myself a realistic time frame instead of trying to do something where I ran before I could walk.
Okay, but how did you know at 14 that acting was going to be your career?
Because it came so natural to me, and I’m lazy and I hate to work. I just knew. I swear I knew. That’s probably what separates certain people from other people is the realization of a lot of things early on. I knew if I did something that came naturally to me, it wouldn’t seem like work. I figured I’m fortunate enough to live in the world of pop culture, where acting pays really well, not just financially, but in a lot of areas. I was just grateful to have that eureka moment early on and I just ran with it.
Your mom seems to have been a real driving force in your life and she really encouraged you. What can you tell me about your mom?
She’s a Leo. Bless her. She’s always been a fighter. She’s very outspoken, very proud and she has a lot of integrity. She grew up very fast as well. Obviously, she had me at a dramatically young age, but for the right reasons. She always had the mentality, where you have to fight for what you want but also live good with people, have respect and good manners. So that was a lot of gems and tools that I’ve always carried with me from her.
She’s a little woman, you know? She’s maybe no taller than 5-feet 3-inches, so it’s actually hilarious when she speaks and she’s got this like lioness voice. I’m like, “Mom, you’re really tiny. What are you talking about?” But she’s a very, very special woman, and we’ve got this ridiculously close bond.
I just love blowing her mind. I have always told her since I was young, “Mom, I’m going to blow your mind one day.” And she’s like, “I know, I know.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, really, really, really.” I don’t think she understood what I was talking about, so now when I’ve moved her into another house and car and stuff like that, and life’s a little bit easier for her … she’s still not starting to get it yet. She’s still overwhelmed, but I figure she’ll come around to it.
We’ve got limited time on this planet, so I just try and give those around me what I can. It’s so much fun, man. It really is.
You went to drama college. Did you have to audition for that? Did you win a scholarship?
In England, after what we call secondary school, we go to college straight after that and you just enroll. You let them know what your special areas are and you sit down at end of school with a tutor and they ask you what you want to do with your life. I always remember telling them I just wanted to do acting.
There was a few acting colleges where I grew up in Birmingham, but I thought, “Let me get out and go somewhere outside where I can just have a fresh perspective on life,” so I chose to go to Dudley College, which is just outside of Birmingham.
So I decided to get out and a couple of friends, who are still very close to me today, came with me. You go up there, you have a look around, and you get a feel for it. As I said, I figured I just wanted to act. I didn’t realize there was a lot more that came with it, like the theory side, the lighting, the dance, the voice technique, there was so much I wasn’t prepared for. I just wanted to act. So my first year, I didn’t really take it as seriously as I should’ve because I was just struck to be in a new environment. It was all new to me. I was like, “This is incredible.”
So I was just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed my first year. Then in the second year, one or two of my teachers sat me down because they’d seen I did this Hamlet speech: “O, that this too solid flesh would melt.” I did it in front of an audience, and they were like, “This kid, he’s got something here.” I just remember them saying, “You’ve got something, so instead of messing around and trying to make everyone laugh and be silly, why don’t you channel that?” And I was like, “You reckon I could really do something if I kept my head down?” And one of my teachers looked at me and said, “Hell, yes. If you keep your head down, I promise you, you’ll win an Oscar one day.” I was like, “Oh, whatever.”
So my second year, I just started to take it a lot more serious. Every scene or script I had, I had to knock it out of the park and have a different level of respect for it. Then, from there, I moved to London at 17.
So after you did your time in London, you finally get out to Hollywood and your first big job, you’re playing a Brit and not having to develop your American accent. Was that a concern to you or were you relieved that you were able to speak in your normal voice?
Well, it was a little bit of frustration back and forth because when I first got here, obviously, I took a year out from acting and concentrated on getting my accent down and the logistics of the States. And then after about a year, I booked a pilot called Paradise Pictures, which was set in the ‘40s. I played a young jazz musician named Aldo Boyd, who was from the South. So that was the first part I booked out here. I beat out a lot of American kids for it.
It never got picked up, but it was an incredible experience. They gave me a saxophone for a while and I picked up the basics of that. I learned so much just being around a period piece for my first gig in the States.
And then I got a recurring role in the pilot for Cruel Intentions and that was British. I was like, “Oh, a British part, this isn’t too bad. I’ll see how it goes, but I still want to keep the American going.” And then I went up for a lot of American shows and nothing stuck for a while.
Then NCIS came and it was a MI6 British officer and I just thought, “Oh, my gosh, this is insane,” but it wasn’t so much the accent. I just really gravitated toward the character as soon as I saw the description. I realized, obviously, what I was up against for the show. I was like, “This is what I want,” because it just felt normal at the time, so it didn’t really matter what the accent was. I just loved the character, who just happened to be British. So that’s how that happened.
So you mention you’re a MI6 liaison. Might you be around more this season now that Jennifer Esposito’s character is gone? Will they have a little bit more room for your character?
It’s not so much room and number, it’s just about the character and what the stories are trying to portray. Obviously, it’s got to make sense. You can’t underestimate the intelligence of the audience, and the audience knows I’m an international agent and I won’t always be involved in domestic cases. Therefore, I won’t be in every episode.
So do you have a better sense of who Clayton is this season?
Yes, he’s a little bit less vulnerable coming into a new surrounding, new family, new friends. And, obviously, he still has this uncertainty. It’s in his DNA. Because he grew up fostered and shipped around a lot when he was young, he always has that iceberg feeling. But he is amongst family and a lot of people who are similar to him. Like Gibbs (Mark Harmon), obviously, he’s a lone wolf, so he relates and finds a lot of himself in that. I feel that he’ll be a lot more comfortable this year. He just wants to get some work done and jump out of a few windows, you know.
NCIS returns for its 15th season on on Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
parade.com/591182/paulettecohn/ncis-star-duane-henry-on-growing-up-poor-his-special-mom-and-moving-to-hollywood/