JORDAN K SEAMON
in HBO series
“WE ARE WHO WE ARE”
JORDAN: Hello
LAURA: Hey Jordan! This is Laura Albert… again!
JORDAN: How is it going?
LAURA: Well, there aren’t really fires as much here, so that’s great, you know?
JORDAN: Great!
LAURA: Previously you and I had talked about how blessed you’ve been because, when you identified that you were interested in going into the arts, both your parents supported you as an artist. Can you talk a little bit about that process and how they supported you?
JORDAN: When I was really young, say about close to 6 years old, I was watching TV and I stormed into the kitchen and told my parents that I wanted to be an entertainer.
LAURA: Do you remember what you were watching?
JORDAN: I think I was watching the Olympics – it had no correlation to why I wanted to be an entertainer. At the time we couldn’t afford cable, all we really had access to were sports and general TV, so I believe I was watching the Olympics. But I just stormed into the kitchen and said I wanted to be an entertainer, and they were like “Okay, sure.” And immediately after that, I began performing wherever I could perform, whether it was at their college, where they previously attended and where my mom taught, or at church. I currently live in Atlanta but I was born and raised in Philadelphia.
LAURA: Did you take singing lessons?
JORDAN: For a long time I didn’t, maybe fourth or fifth grade I started taking singing lessons at this little place, a school of music. I took singing lessons and piano lessons as well.
LAURA: You have a beautiful voice, it has so much charisma, you have a sense of melody that seems innate. When did you realize that you could sing?
JORDAN: It was probably a few years before that, I was in the car with my mom and my nana, and my nana was known to be the singer in the family – she used to sing with Kool & The Gang before they were known as Kool & The Gang.
LAURA: Oh my God!
JORDAN: She was the certified singer among the family, and I remember one day we were all in the car and we were listening to the radio, and I started singing along, and my nana said, “Oh you’re actually really good at singing.” Coming from her it meant a lot, because in my eyes she was a star. So, when she said that I was actually good, it meant that I might actually have some talent.
LAURA: And you did a bit of modeling and then theater?
JORDAN: Yes! I did modeling a very, very short period of time, I mostly did theater.
LAURA: How did you get to audition in Hollywood?
JORDAN: It’s a long journey, it wasn’t something I pursued very heavily because I was still in school and doing trillions of other extra-curricular activities. But once I moved to Georgia, and my singing career started slowing down a little bit, I started auditioning for more things. Georgia had just started to become a hub for acting and film. So I did a few auditions. I didn’t book a lot, because I was very small and I had braces as well, and at the time that wasn’t really the look. But I got a few small background roles, where you could barely see my face, and then I finally I auditioned for We Are Who We Are. And the rest is pretty much history.
LAURA: How did that cross your plate? Because that’s pretty big! How did you find out about that audition?
JORDAN: My mom found it actually, she was going online looking at a casting site, looking for potential roles for me, and she found We Are Who We Are. I read the character blurb, and I loved the idea of Caitlin Poythress. I thought it was super cool, and then I auditioned.
LAURA: Did you send in a videotape?
JORDAN: Yes, I sent in about five or six. I sent in the first few from my actual home, and then I got called to come downtown to send a few more, and then after that I got a call from HBO asking me if I would be willing to fly to California to do a chemistry read with Jack Dylan Grazer, and to get the chance to meet Luca Guadagnino and Carmen Cuba who did the casting.
LAURA: That’s like entering a lottery and winning, only it’s your skill and not luck! So you found out when you were at a drive-through?
JORDAN: Yeah, a McDonald’s drive-through. I used to love McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, and I was going to a McDonald’s drive-through because we had just gotten back from Cali and I was celebrating because I thought I’d done a good job. I was driving through and I got a call from my lawyer and he told me that I got the role, and I accidentally screamed at the young lady taking my order.
LAURA: You must be hearing from family and friends and people who maybe are just finding out you are a star in an HBO TV series, what’s that like?
JORDAN: People are very supportive. It feels really good, definitely, to hear people say, “I always knew you were going to be successful” and stuff like that. It’s really nice to hear from people, it makes the entire process ten times better. It’s definitely strange for a lot of people though, because it is such a big role, I guess. It’s a role that is very mature, and for a lot of the people who are seeing the show, they remember a little of young Jordan, it’s not strange but it is different for people to see me play such a mature and complex character. But everyone is super-duper proud of me, which is all I can really ask for.
LAURA: I’ve written about issues of gender variance, and when it comes up, I don’t let anybody define me. When somebody asks me how I identify, I say, Anyway I want! So when someone tries to say I’m cisgender, I’m like, that’s not for you to decide. It’s wonderful that now we have a landscape where we don’t have to be pinned down, and you can be available to any role and not have to define who or what you are.
JORDAN: For me it’s great. It’s really, really nice, like you said, not to have to focus so much on it. I mean, I’m still trying to figure myself out, I’m still really young. But it’s really nice to get the chance to play a role that is so complex, such as Caitlin, it definitely helped the learning process for me in trying to figure out who I am. And it’s really cool to be able to play a role that is so big, so, in my opinion, monumental. It might not be the biggest thing ever, but I think it talks about something important, which I love.
LAURA: What has been the feedback from other kids? From what I’ve seen on Instagram, people are really excited and grateful.
JORDAN: So far it’s been really, really positive. I have seen a few negative comments but very few. People have been really nice to me, accepting and really supportive of the show, which is great. I get constant DM’s from people to thank me and say that they’re really appreciative of me not only taking on the role but just in general being who I am and just trying to be as supportive person to EVERYONE in general. So it’s really nice. And I really, truly can’t thank people enough for just being nice and accepting and making me feel really welcome within I guess the Hollywood community.
LAURA: We talked before about rapper Kid Cudi who played your dad, and what perfect casting that was. He seems genuinely protective, and you can really feel the connection. What was the best guidance or wisdom that he imparted to you?
JORDAN: I was lucky to get a lot of guidance from him. He said he genuinely does believe I’m a good-hearted person, and he’s really proud of everything that’s coming my way. He told me that I should just never change, and I appreciate it. That made me feel better as a person, but also it’s definitely a good piece of advice that I’m definitely going to keep in my brain.
LAURA: Didn’t he give you some advice about your music, about not giving away your power?
JORDAN: Oh yeah! Like writing my own music and everything, he’s a very strong advocate of creating your own thing and he was really, really impressed that I wrote all my own music. He expressed to me that it’s really good because no one can tell your story like you can. Which I always related to and felt it was in general something that I lived by, but I never thought it was a good thing. It was something that I did. So it felt good hearing it coming from him.
LAURA: About your music, like I was saying, your voice’s emotion is so rich and powerful and charismatic in your new release Identity Crisis, where the references are really diverse and playful. What’s your writing process like? Do you get inspired by a beat? Do you write in collaborate to build your lyrics, or do you come in with lyrics?
JORDAN: I do a little bit of everything. When I first started music, I mainly would just find the beat and then write to it. The album was the first time I had a song already written and collaborated with someone to make the song a reality. I already had the melodies and everything done and the idea in my head, and I was not willing to change any of it at all. So it was the first time I did it, but I can’t say enough how much I enjoyed it and how much more fun it was to have the idea already so embedded in mind and to be able to collab alongside someone to make it even better. It was really cool and I’m definitely, it’s probably something I’m definitely going to do a lot more in the future. But, I did a little bit of everything. I like to mix it up, with whatever I do.
LAURA: Back to We Are Who We Are: Director Luca Guadagnino seems to foster an environment of trust that permits spontaneity and improv. I’m reminded of Gus Van Sant, because we did the film Elephant and I wrote the original script but then he moved to improv. Tell me about your dialogue in We Are Who We Are.
JORDAN: A lot of the character’s dialogue was worked on between our dialogue coach and the actors, because Luca did want it to be very authentic. So a lot of the dialogue was worked on beforehand. Just reading over the lines and trying to figure if this is something a young person would say? If this is how we talk actually? So every day, whenever we had to do a scene, we’d run lines beforehand with the dialogue coach Daniela Merlo. We would just go over the lines, and she made us feel very comfortable with being able to say, “Hey, this isn’t really something that a young person would say, we wouldn’t use this wording, or that just doesn’t sound correct.” Sometimes stuff got lost in translation, so we would just have to change a line so it would make a little more sense.
LAURA: We talked about the close bond between your character Caitlin and Francesca Scorsese’s Britney, how you both went to Venice together.
JORDAN: Yeah, me and Fran met at Italian class, I had no idea who she was… We immediately started Italian, I want to say beginning of July.
LAURA: And when did you start shooting?
JORDAN: About two months later, I think August was when we did the shooting.
LAURA: So, how many hours a day were you taking Italian? You had to do a lot of different kind of training…
JORDAN: I did. I would have to do Italian, like early in the morning and then I had, two days training where I had to learn to shoot a gun, did that with Kid Cudi, and I also had boating training, I did that with him as well, and then by myself I had to do kickboxing and boxing. So I would have Italian class and then immediately go working out either boxing or shooting or boating. I was exhausted because I was doing so much.
LAURA: That is a lot! So, back to Francesca Scorsese: You didn’t know she was Martin Scorsese’s daughter?
JORDAN: Yeah, I had no idea who she was. When I met her, she’s really great, it was really nice to have her as another girl, super sweet, she’s so much fun, and we had a lot of fun together.
LAURA: She just seems really down to earth.
JORDAN: Yeah, she is. She’s really relaxed and really laid back and she’s the life of the party.
LAURA: There didn’t seem to be anxiety about entering into any of the physicality of Francesca’s role, so much of her Britney has a relaxed expression of sexuality. That had to have been helpful for whoever was in a scene with her.
JORDAN: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more!
LAURA: We talked about birthdays, you’re Sagittarius right?
JORDAN: I am Sagittarius.
LAURA: Oh you’re lucky you missed out on Scorpio, take it from me! So what are you going to do for your birthday?
JORDAN: We’re getting closer to the date, but I’m definitely not going anywhere in our current pandemic situation. I think I might be having a friend come down, obviously after quarantining and everything. We’re trying to keep everybody here as safe as possible. I think my mom and dad and I and her maybe, depending on the current climate, are going to go to dinner, and that’s pretty much it. I think my mom will have a few friends just calling to say happy birthday.
LAURA: That sounds really sweet for a birthday plan. How close to the pandemic was it when you guys stopped filming?
JORDAN: I finished filming last year. Some people left early they I would say most people left around November. Jack Dylan Grazer and I still had a lot more to film. So I would say we went until the first of the December – yeah, because I got home and immediately people started decorating for Christmas 2019.
LAURA: So you fully anticipated that they would do the whole HBO type of release?
JORDAN: Yeah, that was what I was told to prepare for, a lot of people were telling me that it was going to be a huge thing and everything was going to be all over the place, and I would be flying everywhere. And immediately, I think January, coronavirus came and everything was just put on pause. COVID slowed everything down so we weren’t able to finish like the looping and everything else that we needed to do. It did definitely slow the process down for me, which I definitely think I needed. I took some time adjusting, because it’s a very different world than what I was accustomed to.
LAURA: I think that it kind of protects you too. I’ve seen a lot of kids just kind of get swallowed up by the press stuff when it becomes an overwhelming whirl. I mean, it’s a lot. Yeah, the HBO parties are fun, they go all out and are really fun, but the press tables and endless interviews can start to feel very mechanical. Do you know how many interviews you’ve done so far?
JORDAN: Oh gosh, no! Too many to count. I swear I kind of feel like I’m going crazy because I’m repeating the same thing over and over again. I feel like I’m boring people. I’m getting very similar questions and I feel like I’m making people tired. But I have to remember that whenever I do a new interview, they’re genuinely asking and they’re genuinely interested.
LAURA: Yes, and sometimes you can find out something you never thought of before, if you’re just truly available. Like I told you before, one of my favorite sayings is: At play in the fields of the Lord. In your creativity, the way you’re able to play, you seem to be exploring various looks and fashion and make up – you’re really able to play in the fields of the Lord. God bless, and have a happy happy birthday!
JORDAN: Thank you, thank you so much.
Interview transcribed by
Fotis Tzanakis
Fashion Editor
Deborah Ferguson
Make up
SiMone Dunlap
Hair
Darnayle Mizrahi
Thank you
Felicia Seamon
HBO
CHLOÉ Paris
Watch the
WE ARE WHO WE ARE
trailer here.
