Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with 4400’s Cory Jeacoma

Rising star Cory Jeacoma has brought his talents from the stage to the screen. In 2019, he famously made his Broadway debut in Beautiful — The Carole King Musical. He showed the world all the love in his heart by bringing the iconic Gerry Goffin to life at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. Since then, he’s made his way to the small screen in projects like Power Book II: Ghost.

This fall, he’s had audiences talking about his portrayal of the controversial Logan Kaminski in the CW’s 4400. The must-see sci-fi drama tells the story of 4400 overlooked and marginalized people who vanish without a trace over the last hundred years. They return in an instant, not having aged a day and with no memory of what happened to them.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to catch up with Cory to chat about his journey from Broadway to Hollywood, 4400, and the fans’ reactions to his character.

PC: Since the last time we spoke, you’ve made that transition from the stage to the screen. What has that journey been like for you?
Cory: It’s been awesome. There’s been a whole pandemic in between. [laughs] But it’s really, really cool getting to explore a different style of acting.

With stage, you have the audience, which provides this instant gratification and appreciation for what you’re doing. With TV, the hardest thing for me has been filming all these episodes and having to sit on them.

We’re airing an episode, which is about my character’s arc. We’ve been sitting on this episode for a few months now. We filmed it two or three months ago. It’s cool letting it go and then returning to it. It’s almost like a time machine. You get to remember the emotions you were going through while you were filming that episode: “Oh, I had a cold that week. I remember it being hard to wake up at four in the morning.”

Also, the thing that’s cool about TV is you do a couple of takes of the scene. They switch the camera around, they switch the lighting, and then you never touch the scene again. If it’s a really hard scene, you hunker down for one day and you film that. You’re exhausted and all that, and then you never have to worry about it. With Broadway, as you saw in Beautiful, I had to have mental breakdowns eight times a week. It was exhausting.

PC: You made your television debut in Power Book II: Ghost. What did you learn from that experience that you’ve now been able to bring over to 4400?
Cory: Everything, man. I sent a letter to Courtney Kemp (the showrunner of Ghost). I said, “I truly believe that you having me on your show is one of the reasons that I was able to seamlessly transition from being a recurring guest star to being a series regular.” I’m used to creating a character in two and a half acts for Broadway. But from when you first meet the character to the end of the play, that’s all I have to worry about. Whereas with television, you meet the character in one episode, then the next episode, then the next episode, and you’re constantly learning things. In a Broadway show, you have parameters regarding who they are, what they are, what they do, all of those things.

With this, I knew my character Logan Kaminski from the pilot episode and that was it. Any questions I had, they (the writers) were very hesitant to answer because they don’t want you to get married to certain ideas. If you find out that in Episode 10 you become the bad guy of the series, you don’t want to start bleeding that too soon. Actors want to drop little Easter eggs, so the creators don’t want to tell you everything because they want it to be a natural progression. It was this balance of wanting to create a fully realized character but also only having so much information. Doing Ghost made me aware of that. When I transitioned into 4400, I knew what I was doing a little bit more. It also freed me up in front of a camera. Because I’m sure you can understand that as soon as the camera’s on you, you freeze up a bit. Your posture changes. You start thinking about how you’re delivering lines and all of that. But the reality is, you just need to do it more and get it out of your system. The camera becomes a scene partner.

PC: Speaking of 4400, what can you tease about what audiences can expect from Logan in these next couple of episodes?
Cory: I think what people are going to experience is that they’re going to start understanding him a bit more. Because, Kevin, right now, people don’t love my guy.

PC: Yeah. [laughs]

Cory: It’s been hilarious seeing people so passionately frustrated with Logan because he’s got so many dimensions and so many layers to him. Because for sixteen years he thought this woman left him, then she comes back and she’s like, “No, I didn’t leave. I was abducted.” Then he has to accept that? Of course, that’s going to be hard for him to accept. A lot of people are frustrated with that. In this Monday’s episode, which is titled “The Kaminski Experience,” it’s about his experience of what he went through. I think they’re going to get a good understanding of who this guy is and why he functions the way that he does—why he is so hesitant to let his daughter meet Shanice, his wife, why he’s tiptoeing around so many things, why he’s lashed out a few times, and why he’s frustrated. They’re going to see a new version of this guy. Everything is going to make a lot more sense.

PC: When the 4400 are brought back to present-day, we see the effects that it has on everyone’s relationships. How did you and Brittany [Adebumola] approach the dynamic between your two characters?
Cory: One of the first scenes that we shot was the protest scene when Logan and Shanice first meet. We had talked about it because we had met a couple of times before we even moved to Chicago to start filming. We spoke about it. We talked through things. We were talking a bit about how we have only a limited amount of time and a limited number of scenes for people to understand the level of love that they had. We had the protest scene and then the first scene of the series where I’m waking Shanice up and she’s laying there. We were like, “People need to fall in love with these characters and with their love.”

From the get, people need to go, “Oh. That’s love. That’s the love that we all want.” That’s the “I got your back” love. When she disappears and then comes back, it’s even more devastating because you’re really rooting for them. The way we’ve approached our relationship is that this is real love, the love that everyone wants, the love that everyone hopes is out there. Every interaction they had is met with such resistance and tension, so the payoff for whatever happens—whether they get together or they end up deciding they shouldn’t—is either going to be much more gratifying or that much more devastating.

PC: Like you were saying earlier, fans have really had a strong reaction to your character. What has that experience been like getting to see their reactions in the midst of filming? Are their initial reactions to Logan the same that you had when you read this character?
Cory: It’s been such a surprise to see people so fervently against him. Not so much against him, but they’re frustrated with him. I’ve spent so much time with this guy. I get him. I understand why he moves the way that he does. Like I said before, he’s been working on himself for sixteen years. He went to therapy. He went to group therapy—a grief group. He raised his daughter on his own and all these things. Then she returns and she gives him what sounds like this cockamamie story about, “Oh, I disappeared and now I’m back.” He’s like, “What?”

I get it, but also, I understand why fans are so frustrated because how can you not love Brittany/Shanice? She’s so damn lovable. Of course, you’re going to take her side. You’re like, “You know what? This Logan guy can take a hike. But at the end of the day, I think that I was surprised because I understood him so much. I understood why he acted the way that he did and why he’s so protective of Mariah, knowing how much he loves Mariah. Of course, he’s going to be hesitant to let her see Shanice and all that. But I was hoping that people would understand him a little bit more.

PC: There are so many layers to your character. Which was the most challenging to bring to life?
Cory: A personal hurdle for me was his age. I had to play him sixteen years later. I experienced imposter syndrome. Justine, who does my makeup, did a fantastic job putting on wrinkles and graying out my hair, but anytime I looked in the mirror, I was like, “You’re a fraud. You’re a phony.” There was definitely this imposter syndrome that I had to get over and accept that I belonged there. That I had weight to me. Gravitas. That I was grounded. That I was there for a reason. I was cast in this role because I bring something that the other people didn’t but that’s in everything that I do.

In Beautiful on Broadway, I was waking up every day waiting for them to tell me, “Actually, we got the wrong guy.” I’m hoping that someday that imposter syndrome will go away. That was definitely the hardest part. I was playing that truthfully because there is not a huge difference in terms of the way you move over the course of sixteen years. It’s not like I’m coming back as an old man. I just come back a little bit older, a bit more mature, a little bit more poised, but without making this a caricature of a middle-aged man.

PC: The show tackles so many timely and relevant themes. When you’re working on a project that has so much to say, does that bring a different weight/expectation to it?
Cory: Of course. You have to handle it delicately and make sure that you’re handling it truthfully. You’re honoring these stories because there are people who are watching it, let alone the people who are in the show, who experience these things. There are people who are watching it who are going to be able to call you out on what you’re addressing. Our writers and our showrunner Ariana Jackson handle it so delicately. They handle it with pride because it’s a big responsibility to shine a light on these things. That’s our job as artists. It’s to shine a line on or mirror our reality and show what is happening. It’s disheartening because before we even started filming, there were so many people that were meeting our show with resistance before the show even came out. When that happened, it made me go, “Don’t you see that you’re the problem?” It’s like our show is literally showing the problem that people are facing. It’s a story that needs to be told. It’s many stories that need to be told, and we tell it pretty damn well in my opinion.

PC: Definitely, and final question for you: If we’re lucky enough to get a second season, where do you want to see Logan’s storyline end?
Cory: I want a superpower, Kevin. I want to come back with super strength, and I want them to explore his relationship with Shanice more. I really want to see what’s still lingering there. I would love for him to have a superpower, actually.

To keep up with Cory, follow him on Instagram. Watch 4400 on the CW every Monday at 9/8c.

Photo Credit: Anthony Mendoza at Moxie Portraits