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Essense Adkins - TV
By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
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Essence Atkins
A Heart Felt Performance
On A Serious Subject
Photo
Courtesy UP Lifting Entertainment
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| L-R: Essence Adkins and Lynn Whitfield |
Being an adopted child and growing up
without knowing your biological parents always makes for emotional drama. It is
a serious subject that many experience but the answers on how to handle meeting
either both or one of the real parents for the first time for a child turned
adult is a moment that either the parent or child is prepared to deal with.
Actress Essence Atkins best known for her roles on The WB’s “Smart Guy” and UPN’s “Half and Half” turns in a heartfelt
performance in the Up Lifting Entertainment network’s TV movie “My Other Mother” where she plays
Candace “Candy” Meyers a successful anchor on a top-rated TV magazine show who
is content with the love of her adopted family. Candy has never even thought
about her biological family until she travels back for her biological dad’s
funeral and meets his family. This leads to meeting her biological mother
played by Lynn Whitfield who has issues. The two of them are left to sort
things out and begin a life that leads to a different path for both.
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| L-R: Essence Adkins and Jasmine Guy |
With
the subject matter of this role being so heavy, how did it affect Atkins
personally in real life especially having to bounce off of Lynn Whitfield who
can really bring it to a role? Atkins runs it down, “This was my third time
working with Lynn so she was a big part of why I said yes. When they told me
she was going to be playing the role of Mary Jo I was like OK where do I sign
up? She’s an immense talent. She’s a great woman and I love spending time with
her as well but watching her craft a character and coming up with everything
and being so detailed it’s such an inspiration and I learned so much from her.
The role its self and playing the role; I mean anytime you step outside of
yourself and into another’s shoes, I hope
you can gain not just the audience watching but for us as artists, gain
that perspective and appreciation for what it is you do have. And yes that fact
that Candy is adopted and she reaches a point in her life where she feels like
she definitely needs some answers. I think that’s universal and it happens at different
points in our lives. They’re not necessarily middle age issues they are like
kind of as we get older we keep looking back and evaluating ourselves and maybe
even maybe having a sense of our mortality we start to want different answers
to different questions that we haven’t yet asked. So I think that’s where Candy
is in this journey.”
This made for TV movie was shot in Atlanta
on a tight schedule in only two weeks. For a 90 page script that’s almost 10
pages a day which is a grueling pace. Is there a psychological difference when
Atkins shoots in different cities such as Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles or
elsewhere because all cities do have different vibes which can affect the
actors? She responds, “No one has ever asked me that before. I feel differently
when I’m in those places so I imagine that it kind of calibrates in some way as
how you carry yourself throughout the city and the space. The people of the
city are different as is the energy and vibe. I’m from New York (Brooklyn) and
even though I’ve lived in California for a long time I still don’t feel like I
move or navigate through the world like a Californian and my husband says that
all the time. He’ll ask why are you walking so fast?”
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2014 Rych McCain Media/Syndication TM
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