Adrian Walters – 10 toes deep and rooted!

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Hailing from the Keele and Lawrence area, born and raised in a Jamaican Canadian family, no one loves their roots more then our first Classic Man of the year. This month Toronto Caribbean Newspaper will be highlighting young Caribbean men, who may not have been born in the Caribbean, but have done a wonderful job representing their islands in the Caribbean Diaspora. Let us take a look at our first pick, actor and one of the founding partners for a local production company BDB Productions Inc., Adrian Walters.

“You and your little smart self, and you didn’t want to go.” From that day on I trusted my mom. I knew she would never lead me astray. ~ Adrian Walters

When I had an opportunity to speak with Adrian, he was eating at a Soul Food spot in New York, called Soda Caribbean Cuisine. He was visiting his brother in New York, but he had graciously taken a few moments to speak to me about his journey as a young actor. “I was born and raised in Canada, but my parents hail from the beautiful island of Jamaica. My dad immigrated here in 1977, and then he brought my mom here in 1979. They knew each other from back home and had kept in touch. Finally, they got married, and had six children (I happen to be the youngest). I was raised on soup in a cup, oxtail, barbeques, and of course dominoes. I love my Jamaican food. I can’t lie. Especially my mom’s food; my mom cooks with love.”

I asked Adrian how he got involved in the acting world. “My mom was very supportive of my acting, which may be a surprise to many Caribbean’s. She is the one who introduced me to the business. It was my dad who was more conventional; his mentality was to work hard, and that is what he did for us.” According to Adrian, his mom was the one with the imagination. She saw opportunities that extended outside being a doctor, lawyer or engineer.  

“Mom always enjoyed clothing. She loved to sew, and when she was younger, she wanted to move to Paris. She did not have that opportunity, but she did not let it die there. She allowed us to see that we could do anything, even acting. Mom was the one who started me off doing background work and commercials.” Adrian recalls a time when he was younger that his mom wanted him to do a commercial audition, and he didn’t want to do it. “I kept telling her, I don’t want to do it!” I will never forget it. She did the Jamaican mom thing and drew me up, ‘You are going to go, you are going to write your name, and you are going to do it!’ Of course, I ended up going and doing it, and they loved me. ‘You and your little smart self, and you didn’t want to go.’ From that day on I trusted my mom. I knew she would never lead me astray.

At the age of fifteen, Adrian became invested into the idea of acting. He graduated from high school, but was still not landing any steady acting gigs. At the age of eighteen, his dad introduced him to a man who helped him get a job renovating condos. He was making a lot of money, and this was a sense of accomplishment, but he still felt that there was something more for him. He realized that he would have to return to what he loved best; acting. It was time to focus.

As you can imagine, this was very difficult time for him. For two and a half to three years, he didn’t get any call backs from auditions. He realized that he had to make money, so he took on side jobs. The challenge with that was he would sometimes have auditions on the first day of work. He would have to make a decision: the new job that promised him some coin, or an audition that was truly a shot in the dark. He would always take that shot in the dark, even though it would mean that he would get fired. He remembers once that he got fired for going to an acting class instead of taking an extra shift at work. It definitely was not an easy time for him.

In the acting world, having a principle agent is crucial, and to add with all the other difficulties of his chosen profession, Adrian did not feel that he and his agent were aligned. Adrian again had to make a difficult decision: keep the agent he had for safety sakes, or let him go and trust that he would find a new one. Adrian ended up letting the agent go, and for awhile, he felt dejected because after looking around for a new agent, he realized just how hard it was to find someone who you could trust had your best interest at heart.

Adrian’s star has been on the rise, and from what it looks like; we will be seeing a lot more of this young man. He has had a major role on CBB’s Private Eyes, guest starring as Dexter Grant. He also had his first stage debut as the beloved Jesus, in Judas Noir. The stage play received a 2018 remount by Obsidian Theatre in their October, Dart Town Inaugural release, which received a nomination for ‘Best Ensemble,’ at the 2019 Dora Mavor Moore Awards. He has had recurring roles on The Handmaids Tale in their second season, as well as in Ben Stiller’s new CW show, ‘In the Dark.’ He is currently portraying Marine Recruiter (Jimmy ‘PFC’ Tibbs) in the new USA Network series Dare me.

He remembers a very low moment that tied into one of his highest moments in acting, “I remember I was by the Eaton Centre. I didn’t have a lot of money; actually, I only had enough to buy myself either a drink or a sandwich. It was one of the lowest moments in my life. I questioned why I was even doing this. Three years later, the crew from Dare Me were shooting in Hamilton, and we were invited to a private screening of Mark Wahlburg’s Movie Mile 22. We ended up in Dundas Square, and I had to take a moment to just be grateful. Three years earlier, I couldn’t even get myself a complete meal at McDonald’s. Now, I was here again, in a completely different place in my career. Not only did I have an amazing agent, I could buy myself four or five meals if I wanted to. What a difference.”