I Run This is a weekly interview series that highlights Black women and femmes who do dope shit in entertainment and culture while creating visibility, access and empowerment for those who look like them. Read my Brandee Evans interview here .
Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins has an inviting energy about her. Its a warm aura that both soothes and activates you. Without uttering anything, its as if shes saying, I see you.
She sits on the Zoom screen before me at the same desk she records her podcast, Trials to Triumphs, in her home office in Los Angeles. On the wall behind her is a sole portrait, showing her as Joelle Brooks, her character in Dear White People. It feels representative of not only what shes built but also of where shes going.
The Gaithersburg, Maryland, native has conquered a lot in her career so far. Shes created and starred in the Black&Sexy TV web series Hello Cupid, which provided a rare look on how colorism and desirability politics play out for Black women in the dating scene. She stole our hearts in Dear White People, playing an underdog college student who reflects so many young Black girls stories. And most recently shes giving us laughs as Talia in NBCs Grand Crew.
Featherson-Jenkins is still climbing. Shes not where she thought shed be at this point in life, but she knows shes exactly where she needs to be. She calls this a transitional season.
Earlier this year, the actor launched Trials to Triumphs. She came up with the idea in 2019 after her manager, Mike Smith, suggested she would thrive in the space. Having Dear White People creator Justin Simien as a guest on her pilot episode, Featherson-Jenkins tried to find a home for the podcast, but no one really knew what to do with it. Then COVID-19 hit.
She believed all was lost with the podcast until she linked up with Corinne Gillard, a senior producer at OWN whom she connected with after one of her regular Instagram Live conversations during quarantine. At the time, OWN was putting together a strategy to expand its slate of podcasts. With the original format Featherson-Jenkins intended, Trials to Triumphs went on to find a home at OWN as the networks first official original podcast created from the ground up.
Now on a weekly basis you can find Featherson-Jenkins sitting alongside a guest who paints the beauty and pain of walking in the path destined for them. So far her guests have included Kelly Rowland, Danielle Brooks, Amber P. Riley and her husband, Darroll Jenkins Jr. Though people may mainly know her for acting, she refuses to get boxed in. The conversations feel very on par with the journey Featherson-Jenkins is on right now.
Acting is really my first love, but its some things that even acting cant do, Featherson-Jenkins said. Theres still the buffer of a character, which I love and that serves as a different type of inspiration, but theres something so profound about just me and my guest being that and thats it. Theres no script, theres no lights, camera, action. Its just authenticity. And Im just, honestly, Im just really, really proud of myself.
Featherson-Jenkins discusses getting vulnerable on her new podcast, creating the content that she wants to see and the season of growth shes in right now.
So I first saw you on The Number and then Hello Cupid, which was one of my favorite web series to watch in college. I gravitated toward your style of acting. I remember thinking that you were special. If you could just teleport us back there, where were you mentally and where did you see your career going in those Black&Sexy TV days?
Oh, my goodness. Thats such a good question. Thank you for saying that about my style of acting. Im such a fan of actors. I love TV. I watch so much television up until 2 oclock every night. So it just feels good to know that somebody sees me as being very unique and having my own path, my own lane.
When Lena Waithe and I created Hello Cupid, we created it because I didnt see myself on TV. At the time, I was like probably 24-ish and had been in L.A. for two, three years. This is like pre-Scandal. This is pre-How to Get Away With Murder. This is after, obviously, the golden wave of television for Black folks in the 90s and the early 2000s.
There was this lull period, and I didnt see young Black women in their 20s living their best, or just going through all of the things that I knew I was going through. And Lena didnt see that either, being a writer and wanting to write and create content. Black&Sexy was a place that was holding space for artists like us at that time, and really, we created the show out of necessity. I wanted to work, she wanted to work, and we came up with something. I was hungry, and I was determined for people to know we exist and we are worthy of having our stories celebrated, and were interesting and were dope. Were not a monolith. And I feel like thats what you got from Robin and Whitney on Hello Cupid.
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