Pop-Culturalist.com

Justin Cunningham is a dynamic storyteller who has brought multilayered characters to life on the stage and screen. Currently, he’s one of the stars of NBC’s laugh-out-loud comedy Grand Crew.

The must-see new series follows a group of friends who unpack the ups and downs of life and love at their favorite wine bar.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to chat with Justin about Grand Crew, breaking down the taboo around therapy, and what he hopes to explore in future seasons.

PC: How did you discover your passion for the arts and storytelling?
Justin: I grew up on a farm in Arkansas. It was a lot of work growing up. It was me, my older brothers, my dad, and my mom. During the summertime, we would have to cut hay, bale hay, catch cows, and work in our chicken and hog houses. I’ve been working on the farm since I was six or seven.

Throughout all that time, I had to find a way to entertain myself because it was bleak for us. [laughs] So I entertained myself by making my brothers laugh and creating stories in my mind to take me away from the mundaneness of whatever I was doing.

I would be sitting on a tractor for about twelve hours in a hot field. I would slowly lose my mind, so I would have to create stories inside my head to keep myself entertained. That’s where it started.

Being at school was a unique experience. I was one of the only Black kids in the school. I experienced a bit of racism here and there. I had to make people laugh in order to mitigate the ignorance that was around me. I had to develop all these weird skills to lighten the mood. That turned into something.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Justin: Personally, it would be my relationships with some of my professors, both at the University of Arkansas and at Juilliard. I had a great director and professor at the University of Arkansas by the name of Michael Landon. He really believed in me and worked with me personally on a few shows here and there. Then Richard Feldman at the Juilliard School, who was a really great mentor for me while I was at the school and who was there for me during those tough times.

Of course, getting to work with Ava DuVernay on When They See Us. She still to this day reaches out and says hello and checks in on how I’m doing. During that process, I was relatively new. She really took me under her wing and guided me with a lot of care and grace. I really appreciated that.

Also, two great actors: Stephen McKinley Henderson has been a great mentor to me, and John Douglas Thompson, who was a really great theater and film actor as well.

PC: Tell us about Grand Crew, your character, and what drew you to this project.
Justin: Grand Crew is a new comedy with NBC. It’s about a group of friends in Los Angeles. They meet regularly at a wine bar to “wine down” as we like to say.

The show explores the cultural nuances of this group of friends and their work life, their love life, and their relationships and friendships with each other. It features an all-Black cast, which is something that’s not normally done in network television.

I play the character of Wyatt who is the only married man in the group. He lives with a sense of optimism and curiosity. He normally lends that to his friends whenever they find themselves in unique and weird situations.

PC: There’s great chemistry that comes off the screen between you and the entire cast. How are you all able to build that bond?
Justin: We are pretty much friends outside the show. The cast hangs out a lot outside of the show. We would do a whole day of work and then all go out to get drinks or whatnot. We’re all genuine friends outside of that. I’m the only one that’s not really from LA, so I was coming out there to do the project. But mostly everyone there had already known each other and had worked with each other for a while at that point. It felt very welcoming for me to come in and be accepted. It jived like that because everyone is genuine, caring, and really kind people.

PC: This is the longest that you’ve lived with a character. Has anything surprised you about the experience? What’s been the biggest takeaway?
Justin: The biggest takeaway for me is the learning curve of being in the television part of my career. There was a certain anxiety that I had going into it because I’m coming from this theater background where I wanted to be a perfectionist. I had to learn to let that go a bit and be more present in the moment in terms of what’s happening in front of me. Because the process is so different. I had to learn how to open myself a bit more and be a bit more grounded and not so much in my head but more in tune with people who are like-minded and want to basically make people laugh with this show. So coming into it with this very technical, Juilliard-trained mindset, I had to let go a bit and start focusing on being myself.

PC: The series tackles a lot of really timely topics and themes with a comedic twist. Was there one in particular that hit home for you?
Justin: For me, it was therapy. It was the therapy episode where my character Wyatt was trying to get Echo Kellum’s character, Noah, to go to therapy because Noah’s character was having a lot of trouble in the dating scene. He was experiencing these sorts of subconscious ticks. My character suggests that he go to therapy.

That’s a taboo subject in Black culture. There’s a distrust of mental health and health professionals in general because there is a long history of that mistrust and for good reason. But I really enjoyed getting to tackle talking about mental health and showing that it’s okay to break down the stereotype and the taboo surrounding that. We got to explore that in some really fun and goofy ways. It’s really important for people of color to see that and to see that we can represent a subject like that in a lighthearted way. But we also have some really heartfelt, deep moments regarding the topic.

PC: There are so many intricate relationships within the series. Which of Wyatt’s relationships was your favorite to explore in Season 1 and why?
Justin: It was my relationship to my wife, Kristen. I’m not married, but both of my older brothers are. I see their relationships, and they’re very loving relationships. It’s a partnership. You have to do some give and take. There are some things you have to do for your own self-care, for your own happiness, and you can’t put that responsibility on the other person. That’s going to have to be on you, and then you share that together. That was something I was learning as I was playing Wyatt.

There’s an episode where my wife and I have a very competitive hosting event at our house. There is a competitive side of me as well. But it was also about getting to explore what the relationship’s strength is and being able to share that together. We can share these quirks that we have together and learn from them and grow from them. That’s something I was excited to get to do and learn about.

PC: If we’re lucky enough to get a second season, where do you want to see Wyatt’s storyline head?
Justin: It’s hard to say because there are some things in the script that weren’t put in because they’re probably saving them for a second season, if we hopefully get one. But I do want to see the relationship between Wyatt and his wife open up a bit more. I want to dive a little bit deeper into that because we do touch on some of the friction within a seemingly perfect marriage. I want to see what happens when a marriage that is seemingly perfect and that seems great on the outside starts to lose its color and lose its luster a bit. How do people navigate through that? How do they come out content on the other side and still grow through that?

To keep up with Justin, follow him on Instagram. Watch Grand Crew every Tuesday at 8:30/7:30c on NBC.

Photo Credit: Irvin Rivera