Tobias Truvillion Dishes On ‘Empire’
If you’ve been watching “Empire” season 2 then Tobias Truvillion is a familiar face.
On today’s episode of “Don’t Be Scared” the actor known for roles in “One Life To Live” and “Hitch” breaks down the character development behind his role as D-Major, the down-low music exec that’s Jamal’s love interest.
Truvillion recently sat down with Danni and Jah to breakdown how the landed role and to sound off on Wednesday’s dramatic finale.
On how he landed the role:
“I had been running around doing films here in Atlanta and in D.C. and running around doing the stuff I do with the youth and I was sitting in the house like ‘damn I’m still broke! This is killing me right now.’ So I said I’m gonna go to the gym and work it off because I didn’t want to sing the blues.
I come out the gym and I got a phone call saying ‘hey we like your work and we want you to think about this role that we have.’ One minute I was like ‘damn what’s going on’ and the next minute I’m being offered a role on a hit television show. Never give up, your breakthrough’s just around the corner.”
On being a straight man portraying a down-low man:
[They told me] This guy is on the down-low, how do you feel about it? They wanted to know I felt about it. I talked to my wife and my team and after talking to them I was like ‘yeah, I’m gonna go do this work.[…] People that know me who are close to me or have been following my career they know my pedigree. Those people see me and they’re like ‘Tob, another notch on the belt..this is what he’s supposed to be doing.
At the same time I’m being introduced to a whole new audience who might know my face and not know my name and there’s a whole group of people who’ve never seen me at all. The response who don’t know me or did follow me is a lot of respect. It’s been a range of respect, a range of ‘oh my god get this outta my face.’ We’re stirring up conversation here, I wanna do work that people wanna talk about and want to do stories that are pushing the envelope.
On criticism he’s gotten over playing D-Major:
“I do a lot of work with the youth, one of the main things that’s so important to me is that—for me to even do a role like this, when I’m working with the kids I tell them that anything’s possible. Taking on a role and acting and being on Empire is wonderful but that’s what really drives me, bringing up the people with you.
I might have to play character like D-Major but it’s easy when I have that little young man who doesn’t have a father or a positive heterosexual male to look up to or talk to. It’s important that people know that people judge and have stuff to say but some of the work that you don’t see is the give-back and how I pay it forward. You got all that stuff to say, go mentor a young man or young woman and then come see me.”
Listen to Tobias Truvillion on “Don’t Be Scared” below.
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