One Actor’s Odyssey

J. August Richards is tall, good-looking, yet sees himself as a serious dramatic actor--”a character actor,” he says, without sounding the least bit egotistical, “in a leading man’s body.”

A USC graduate who came to the school on scholarship, Richards landed guest parts in such programs as “The Practice,” took acting workshops, met the right people. Nevertheless, he came through the 1999 “casting season,” when actors seek roles in new television series, without landing a regular spot on a prime-time show.

Richards, who happens to be black, auditioned for numerous series that year, including several roles that didn’t specify a black actor. “The pilots I did test for, I was the only black actor testing against white actors, for parts that were written white,” he recalled.

With the networks promising to increase minority representation in front of and behind the cameras, the question lingered: Would the 2000-01 TV season be any different? The Times followed Richards’ odyssey for nearly a year, from last summer through the casting process for the coming season.

The previous year’s experience left Richards’ manager, Janie Mudrick of the Braverman/Bloom Co., puzzled and frustrated. Admittedly biased, she was sure Richards was ready to break out--to become a mainstay on a prime-time series and eventually a star.

Then the headlines hit: “NAACP Will Fight Network TV Lineups,” as The Times put it on July 12, 1999. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume called the fall season--with its dearth of roles for minority performers--a “whitewash.” Networks found themselves on the defensive, issuing statements swearing that they would do better in the future.

Minority actors could only wonder whether this was mere lip service or if programming executives would make good on their pledges. The Hollywood trade papers soon carried regular stories about series being developed featuring black stars, but such announcements are as tangible as a strong wind, causing a momentary stir and just as quickly fading away.

Not surprisingly, Richards approached allowing a reporter to track his progress cautiously--reluctant to use specific names or say anything that could alienate a producer, casting executive or anyone else with the power to influence his career. Indeed, he even declined to divulge his age, which one Internet database puts in his mid-20s. Few things are so fragile, or subjective, as the fate of a still-unknown actor.

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Retracing Richards’ journey begins after the diversity headlines hit. Without a series to occupy him, he takes a part as a foulmouthed alien abductee in “Space,” a play at the Mark Taper Forum. Rehearsals begin in August, and the play opens in October. Mudrick invites casting people from all over to come. The play itself is coolly received, but Richards earns positive mentions from critics and impresses a few of those Mudrick wants to impress.

Richards remains busy with guest work on television series. He goes to San Francisco in December, filming a bad-guy role (he’s enthusiastic about that) on CBS’ Don Johnson series, “Nash Bridges.” An episode of the UPN situation comedy “Moesha” follows in January, as well as a small role in the TNT movie “Washington Slept Here.”

The work keeps coming. A part on the Lifetime series “Any Day Now.” An audition for a high-profile NBC pilot produced by director Steven Spielberg. A guest role on “NYPD Blue.”

Projecting self-confidence, Richards is smooth and blends easily into different social situations--in part a by-product, perhaps, of having grown up as one of two black families in his neighborhood and attending a predominantly white elementary school. His parents immigrated to the U.S. from Panama, and he was born not long after they arrived in Washington, D.C.

Richards says that the previous season had been “a good year” financially. There were parts on “Chicago Hope” and in the NBC miniseries “The Temptations.” He even rather gamely tried out for a proposed Fox series called “Blade Squad,” a futuristic concept about a group of roller-blading young crime-fighters, despite having never been on roller blades before in his life.

Most of the roles, however, were not particularly fulfilling, and Richards and his managers are convinced a series is in order--the requisite step to raise him to another level. “I want the calling card,” Richards says in January.

Contemplating his options, Richards is concerned about tokenism, what he calls “he went thataway” roles--a cowboy sidekick reference, where the character gets a line or two each week, just enough to provide a little background color.

In early 2000 he auditions for three series prototypes, or pilots, as well as a part on “Angel,” an existing WB network program about a 200-year-old vampire who looks 22 and spends his evenings fighting crime. (The WB is part-owned by Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times.)

A few of the pilot producers are interested, as actors and producers sweat out the mating ritual of whom the producers want and which actors are available.

“All actors want to book themselves early on so they can remove themselves from the stress of pilot season,” Richards says.

In February, around the time he’s cast in “Angel,” the Screen Actors Guild issues a study, “The African American Television Report.” Despite a relatively large number of roles for blacks on network television, the survey concludes that they are still largely relegated to situation comedies, which for the most part are racially segregated.

The WB airs several sitcoms with predominantly black casts, but its dramas have been criticized for such segregation, with few minorities to be found on shows such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Dawson’s Creek.” The network has made efforts to address those complaints, such as adding minority characters to its critically acclaimed drama “Felicity,” whose absence of color a year ago (the show is set at a New York college) was also singled out.

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Richards was reared in the small Maryland suburb of Bladensburg, and his family now lives in Miami and Michigan. He was passionate about movies--hooked, he says, from the moment he saw “King Kong” as a child.

Even in January, he is confident his efforts, his endurance, will pay off. “I know I’m going to end up where I want to be, either now or later,” he says.

Eriq La Salle, a star of NBC’s top-rated medical drama “ER,” is among those Richards considers a mentor. Richards took an acting workshop run by La Salle and Michael Beach, who appears on another NBC drama, “Third Watch.”

According to Richards, he learned more from his months training under La Salle and Beach than all his time in college. His tutors pushed him, hoping to bring out his potential.

“We came down as hard as we could on him, in a very honest way,” La Salle recalls. “He was ready to go to another level of truth. Overnight, after he had the courage to go there, his work went from a 2 to a 10. . . . If you realize ‘I’m not really getting anywhere in this gear,’ maybe you need to reexamine some things.”

Richards films the three “Angel” episodes through March, playing Gunn, a young crusader leading a band of street kids against the vampires who populate the show’s fictional word. The episodes are to be broadcast in May, and if all goes well, Richards will be brought back as a regular cast member.

“I really like that I’m stepping into something fresh. That’s a very powerful feeling,” Richards says after filming the episodes, still uncertain if he will be asked to return.

WB executives remember Richards from the previous year. He had auditioned for two pilots but failed to land either role. (One show made it onto the WB’s lineup, while the other fizzled in development.)

“We had seen him before, but in casting, it’s just got to be the right combination,” says Kathleen Letterie, the WB executive vice president who oversees casting. “It’s having a role that’s going to do justice to the actor.”

David Greenwalt, one of “Angel’s” executive producers, says the show was looking for a character who would contrast with the three leads and that Richards’ audition “just lit up the room.”

As for the question of diversity (those returning stars are white), Greenwalt calls the notion of casting specifically based on race “nonsense.” Finding a minority, he says, was “a good bonus, not a must-have. . . . Our job is to find the best actor for the part.”

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Though the producers hoped from the beginning to add him to the cast, Greenwalt says the decision was made to wait until after the episodes are broadcast. Their option on his services runs through the middle of June.

“It’s what we think when we see him on the screen,” Greenwalt says. “What we saw in the [audition] room--is it translating?”

Gunn makes his first “Angel” appearance on May 9, and Richards flies back to Miami to watch the debut with his family. “I’ve never gotten to watch anything I’ve been in with them,” he says.

Melissa Ransom, his older sister, lives in Michigan and can’t attend the gathering. But she has always felt her brother would live out his dreams.

“Everyone in our family encouraged it,” Ransom says. “We were a little concerned [when he first moved out to Los Angeles] . . . but he’s really starting to make it now.”

“Angel” has already been renewed for a second season, and the WB announces its revised prime-time schedule for the coming season on May 16, the day his second episode is televised. Response to Gunn on the program’s Internet fan sites is favorable.

Mudrick is hearing that all looks good in terms of Richards being kept as a regular, but the process drags on--arcane jockeying, apparently, between the network and production company over who will cover the costs. Mudrick remains optimistic but edgy.

Richards is accustomed to sweating out auditions, and though all the signs are positive he knows better than to assume anything is final until definitively so. He has taken up painting as a form of relaxation--”abstract stuff,” he says. “Very bad. Awful. But it’s nice to have something where I can afford to fail.”

On June 15, the last day of his option, the studio and network officially close his deal. A press release acknowledging that J. August Richards will join the “Angel” cast hits the Hollywood trades a few weeks later.

Production starts July 20. In between, Richards begins to get a taste of how his life may change, including his first interviews with fan publications. It’s a relatively new experience, and he remains a little wary, not wanting to say anything to offend anyone.

After the disappointments of 1999, Richards is about to become a prime-time series regular, perhaps one day a star. He celebrates by taking a trip to Las Vegas (“I lost”) and then enrolls in an acting class. “Eriq taught me if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse,” he says.

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Still close with a group of friends from college--some actors, others working in media-related jobs--Richards understands the long odds he has faced getting this far.

Did the push for greater racial diversity in prime-time television help make a difference or at least alter those odds? Surveying the revised network lineups reveals some progress. More people of color--and African Americans in particular--are featured in new series. Most programs are at least partially integrated, with new series starring minorities on five of the six networks.

Yet those close to Richards say, no, politics was not responsible--that he would have “made it” in any event.

“I kept telling him, ‘It’s just a matter of time, man, before you get something, because the same thing happened to me,’ ” says La Salle. “Sooner or later, you know he’s the kind of guy that’s going to hit a home run.”

“I just think he was ready at this point,” Mudrick says. “But people were trying harder.”