Source: US State of Connecticut
When Tony N. King makes up his mind about something, he’s firm in his choice – you might call him a man of action.
“Decision-making sends out this frequency that propels you in the direction you want to go further and faster,” he says. “The more resolute that you are in your decision-making, I think the world conspires around the idea.”
That proved true early last year when King ’23 MFA decided to move from Atlanta, where he eventually settled after grad work at UConn, back to New York City, where he briefly landed after his undergrad and now was looking to return to make a go of it as an actor.
Like dominos, everything fell into place.
He called a friend to get permission to stay in his empty apartment for a month while he found his own. Then, three days before boarding the plane to head north, King booked three voiceover jobs.
“It was serendipitous,” he says of getting that work. “Now I had to get to New York because I needed to be in the studio and that gave me momentum to keep things rolling.”
About two weeks into the move, even before he’d found his own place, King came across an audition notice for a then-growing show he’d never heard of. It was work, so he sent in a self-tape and two days later he was sitting with casting to book the role.
“It was insanely fast,” he says. “Once I was fed up selling luggage in Atlanta, then everything moved into place. It felt like prayers being answered.”
Some might say quite literally.
That then-growing show was the acclaimed Biblical series “The Chosen,” twice rated the No. 1 show on Prime Video this year – and King had just secured a role in Season 5, which was released in theaters in late March before making a streaming debut June 15.
Resolving to Take Another Path
While it isn’t his first big-screen appearance – viewers can find him as an extra standing beside Eddie Murphy in “Coming 2 America” – the role, which carries through into Season 6, means King finally can say he’s earning a living as an actor.
“I had always been somewhat of an artsy, dramatic child,” he says of his upbringing in Charlotte, North Carolina. “I remember getting a karaoke machine and having a singing group in elementary school. But some level of realism smacked me in the face at some point, and I told myself I should probably consider being a doctor or a lawyer.”
He instead settled on studying business at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) and headed to New York after graduation to take a job in corporate finance and investment banking, a quick-lived position as he says he developed “an overwhelming feeling of, ‘I don’t want to die doing this forever,’ and I also didn’t want to leave this world saying, ‘I didn’t try because I was afraid.’”
Once he resolved to quit, King says he headed home to North Carolina in search of a fully funded MFA acting program. The problem was he’d never taken an acting class, not a one, joking that the closest he got to creativity while working in corporate was designing a marketing flyer.
He sought coaching from Andre Minkins at WSSU to prepare for the program URTA – that’s short for University Resident Theatre Association – which lets prospective MFA acting students audition and apply to hundreds of schools with one application. UConn’s dramatic arts department is among those schools, and brought King to Storrs.
To prepare for his MFA, he booked a couple of children’s theater shows, rubbed elbows with Eddie Murphy, and started doing some voiceover work. After UConn came a bit more children’s theater and that job selling luggage in Atlanta, one might say another that caused him to wonder if this was it.
Then, into King’s life came the role of “bird vendor.”
A Bird in the Hand
“That immediately told me that I may be handling birds, because in the script were these doves and pigeons,” he says. “I knew I was going to be passing and holding birds, so an actor prepares.”
King says he found the most idyllic bird shop imaginable in Brooklyn, Pigeons on Broadway, with an owner who not only could catch pigeons midair but agreed to teach King how to master the same.
“Being in ‘Coming 2 America’ and other various projects as an extra, I knew how quickly set moves. You need to be able to go when the director is ready for you, and I didn’t want to be flustered over holding birds,” he says. “And now I can quite literally grab a bird off the street and hold it like it’s a friend.”
As “bird vendor,” King appears several times in episodes 2 and 3 of “The Chosen: Last Supper,” filmed on set in Utah in an area that replicated Jerusalem’s Court of the Gentiles to the nth detail. That’s the courtyard area outside the Jewish temple, where animal dealers sold livestock and birds for sacrifice.
It’s also the location of the “cleansing of the temple” when Jesus tipped over tables and used a whip to drive, as he said, the merchants and moneymakers from his Father’s house. Each season of “The Chosen” covers a specific aspect of Jesus’ life, with Season 5 featuring the Last Supper and events leading up to it.
“When we got on set, everything went super smooth,” King says. “Dallas Jenkins, the director, has a very specific and keen eye for what he wants. He grew this show from a crowdfunded, indie project into this masterpiece. We had a blast on set, and now people all over the world get to see Jesus flip the table over on me.”
That’s a sentence King admits he never thought he’d say – and at the end of filming came words he’d only so far hoped would come.
“In my first contract, it says in so many words that my role ‘may continue.’ So, I had an idea that I could be invited back, but I knew I needed to do well for that to happen. Once I wrapped last season, Dallas came up to me and in his very soothsayer way said, ‘There’s more to come.’ Sure enough, my character has developed into a spoiler for Season 6. Let’s just say, he’s a very pivotal character in the crucifixion,” he says.
Filming for Season 6, at least the scenes that included King, wrapped this month in Italy, and now he’s in Paris celebrating his 30th birthday. Season 6 will depict Jesus’ crucifixion.
‘Grateful to be called to be a part of it’
“What’s beautiful about portraying biblical characters is that you have these stories, although truth to some, that really represent metaphorically the pillars that we lean on: taking on the burdens of someone you never thought you could or would and really lending yourself to a stranger. I feel like we all can reason with that,” King says.
Raised as a member of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Charlotte, King says he’s always been a spiritual person and in tune with faith, but not overtly religious. For the last two years, though, as he’s prepared for the role, he’s versed himself in the Gospel, coming to study the role of the disciples, Jesus’ ministry and miracles, and eventual crucifixion.
“I think the story of the Bible can be diluted and changed and misconstrued, but as long as we have good people retelling these stories with their hearts and sharing these universal truths, I think we’ll all be better off for it,” King says.
In a way, he goes on to say, his character in Season 6 reflects his place today in the world of acting and as a cast member on “The Chosen.”
“We’re both just grateful to be part of something bigger,” he says, adding, “You start to see the beauty and the magnificence that is Jesus and that is the people who he touched, and you’re just grateful that you were called to be a part of it.”