Amiyah Scott: Hollywood's New Leading Lady

LGBTQ&A

Jeffrey Masters

Society & Culture

4.7 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2019

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amiyah Scott talks about discovering the ballroom scene in Atlanta after Hurricane Katrina forced her to leave New Orleans. "Balls were created to not only be a safe space, but to celebrate the community. We weren't being celebrated, so we decided to celebrate ourselves." Amiyah also talks about the challenges of playing a trans character on the TV show, Star, who is going through so many of the same things she's gone through in life. LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Originally from New Orleans, Amaya Scott was forced to leave her home in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina.
0:07.0	She moved to Atlanta, and it was with this new start that Amaya discovered the ballroom scene
0:13.0	where she quickly started making a name for herself.
0:16.0	All of this laying the groundwork for her launch into Hollywood.
0:20.0	Not only does she have 1.6 million followers on Instagram,
0:25.4	she's on the TV show Star, which Lee Daniels created,
0:28.5	and she's one of the only trans actors in a leading role on TV.
0:33.2	While her character on Star is groundbreaking for a number of reasons that you'll hear about,
0:38.1	at times it can be difficult to play a trans character that's going through so many of the very things that she went through herself.
0:45.8	Amaya describes this as reopening wounds that have just started to heal.
0:51.7	From Luminary Media, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is LGBTQ and A.
1:00.9	I cannot believe that your first professional acting job is on a hit TV show where Queen Latifah is playing your mother.
1:12.0	Yes.
1:12.5	That is wild.
1:13.3	Yes.
1:13.6	I mean, like it's almost as crazy as Paddy LaBelle playing my grandmother, right?
1:17.4	Yes.
1:18.4	And so Lee Daniels found you because your Instagram was very large and his sister followed you.
1:24.2	Yeah.
1:24.5	At that time, he did not know that you could act.
1:27.3	But did you? He took a chance
1:29.8	with me. I feel like in a way, I've somewhat acted my whole life unofficially. I mean, just
	...

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