By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
Sandra’s seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll.
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblin’s gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I’ve had to make myself.
ó “Magic,” by Shel Silverstein from “Where the Sidewalk Ends”
A 2002 graduate of Catawba College, Jasika Nicole has a history of conjuring her own magic, whether it’s on the stage, screen or the pages of a comic about her life.
Jasika (pronounced ja-SEE-ka) was born Jasika Nicole Pruitt in Birmingham, Ala. When she was a kid, there wasn’t always enough money to go around, and she’s never forgotten what that was like (see excerpts from her journal on 2E).
Perhaps those days gave Jasika some of her first serious acting experience.
“Growing up poor in a spectacularly wealthy community causes embarrassment in so many more ways because you always have to explain yourself, to cover it up, to make it better,” Jasika wrote in an online journal.
“There are people to impress and lies to be invented, and doing so was my fulltime job as a child.”
In an attempt to blend in, she recalls peeling off the blue Keds stickers from her friends’ old shoes and gluing them to her no-name sneakers.
Jasika didn’t dwell on what she lacked, though, choosing to put her energy in creative activity. In fourth grade, she played the villain in her class musical, “Shapin’ Up Santa.” She immersed herself in Shel Silverstein books, sometimes spending entire Saturdays writing her own poems and drawing illustrations for them.
She even wrote a few jingles, including one for “Stink No More” deodorant: “You’re going on a date/and you smell great/stink no more/you ain’t gonna stink no more!”She continued to act and sing and “show choir” her way through high school ó and set her sights on college.
She was convinced that the prestigious performing arts program at New York University was her destiny. She sent off an audition tape with her application.
She didn’t get in.
“I cried for like five hours,” Jasika says. “I was devastated.”
She regrouped and landed at Catawba College, where she happily studied theatre, dance, voice and studio art, honing old skills and adding new ones.
Jasika loved Catawba College ó and Catawba College loved Jasika right back.
A few weeks ago, Jasika came back to Catawba for a senior career exploration day, to share the love and talk about what she’s learned.
She talked to Catawba students about life as an actor and thrilled Sarah Drinkard’s South Rowan drama students by doing improv with them.
And of course she had to pose for lots of cell phone pictures and sign autographs.
And why not?
Her television show “Fringe” is hot.
nnn
While she was back in Salisbury, Jasika reveled in getting together with old Catawba classmates like Sarah, Brian Romans and Michelle Fleshman-Cross.
They were all part of what she describes as a close, nurturing college community.
“I was surrounded by so many people who believed in me so much,” she said. “It ended up setting the tone for the rest of my life.”
Retired theatre arts professor Jim Epperson remembers Jasika well ó and was among the many who believed in her. He directed her in several plays, including the musical “China Doll,” in which Jasika played a young Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star.
Jasika stood out, Epperson says, not only because of her great talent but because of her personality, “which just drew you to her.”
Of course, success didn’t happen immediately after she graduated.
She found herself selling babyback ribs in Birmingham for eight months ó but she had a plan.
She rented a 15-foot truck, minus a rear-view mirror, and drove to Baltimore to pick up her friend Amy Stran, also a 2002 Catawba graduate intent on an acting career. (Amy Stran can now be seen as a host on QVC.)
She did the usual struggling actor thing ó working at restaurants to pay the rent, temping, going on auditions.
She managed to find opportunities to shine. Among other productions, she was in the world premiere of “Believe in Me: A Bigfoot Musical,” part of the 2004 New York City Fringe Festival. She got excellent reviews playing the title role in the musical “Chasing Nicolette,” which featured Bronson Pinchot.
Although she loved stage acting, she found herself transitioning into the film and television world.
She landed the role of the sassy Egypt in “Take the Lead,” a 2006 film starring Antonio Banderas about inner-city teens learning to ballroom dance.
She also did some commercials, including ones for Home Depot and Carrabba’s, and appeared on “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.”
Things were happening quickly.
“It was really exciting,” she says. “I felt like all the hard work I’d done was really paying off.”
She’s quick to joke about the things that didn’t work out, like auditioning for a Chapstick commercial and realizing after it was over that her lips were so chapped the skin was flaking off. Or having to show her un-pedicured feet to unimpressed auditioners during a Dr. Scholl’s audition. Or feeling inadequate in a room full of super-model types vying for a Revlon commercial.
She began to shoot some television pilots, which are always a long shot, she says, since only one or two out of 20 will ever make it as a series.
One, filmed in Los Angeles, was called “The Mastersons of Manhattan” and starred Molly Shannon and Natasha Richardson. Although it didn’t get picked up, Jasika was confident she was on the right track, doing quality projects with talented actors.
A few disappointments temporarily knocked the wind out of her sails. She got very close to being cast as a lead in the soon-to-be-released romantic comedy called “Away We Go,” directed by Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski ó who plays Jim on “The Office.” She kept being called back and felt she was close to getting the plum part.
Ultimately, however, the role went to “Saturday Night Live” star Maya Rudolph.
Deeply disappointed, Jasika reminded herself that losing out to someone of Rudolph’s talent , (“phenomenal” and “so funny,” she says) wasn’t the end of the world.
Then came another pilot ó for “Fringe,” a science fiction series created by J.J. Abrams. This time, the pilot was a go ó it was picked up by Fox. Filming for the first season has just wrapped up, and Jasika is getting ready to move to Toronto, Canada, to start filming the next season.
Jasika plays Astrid Farnsworth, a young FBI agent fresh out of Quantico. She’s often in scenes with mad scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) ó who attacked and sedated her in an episode a while back.
Onscreen attacks aside, she has a great working relationship with both Noble and Joshua Jackson, who plays Walter’s son, Peter Bishop. (Jackson was Pacey on “Dawson’s Creek.”)
Being a regular on a big TV series wasn’t the career path Jasika envisioned for herself.
“I thought I was going to be in ‘The Wiz’ as Dorothy, on Broadway,” she says, “not dissecting cadavers.”
But she’s thrilled that things have worked out as they have, and she’s also happy that her character has been beefed up as the season has progressed. (And speaking of beef, you may remember Jasika sharing a “Fringe” scene with a Holstein cow.)
Jasika lives in Brooklyn with her girlfriend, social worker Claire Savage. Along with other openly gay actors including Portia de Rossi and Ellen De Generes, she and Claire were featured in a New York Times story last year: “Out in Hollywood.” Jasika is open about her personal life ó but also thinks it should be irrelevant to her career.
“No one goes around saying, ‘Julia Roberts has a husband! Wow! She likes men!” Jasika says.
When she’s not acting, Jasika has other creative outlets, including designing handbags that feature her original art. She also works on an autobiographical comic, “High Yalla Magic,” which she hopes to get published soon.
Anyone assuming that Jasika is just another pretty actress will quickly reconsider when they see the comic.
Like the woman herself, “High Yalla Magic” is funny and smart and beautiful ó and poignantly honest.
It deals with such things as failed auditions, her younger sister’s autism and the time she got in trouble in pre-school for drawing naked pictures of her mother.
She likes having the kind of control over “High Yalla Magic” that she can’t have as an actor, which requires her to forward someone else’s artistic vision.
“With my comic, I tell the story exactly the way I want to,” she says. You can find “High Yalla Magic” at www.sugarbooty.blogspot.com.
To see some of Jasika’s handbags, go to www.eek-oh.com.
“Fringe” airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. on Fox.