Actor Jay Ellis has made a name for himself with memorable roles like Lawrence on the hit HBO series Insecure

and his fighter pilot Payback in the box office blockbuster Top Gun Maverick. He's also starred in the

Netflix series Running Point,

and will soon be seen in the Peacock series All Her Fault.

Born in Semptor, South Carolina to a military family,

Jay spent his childhood inventing new personas for every town he landed in after college.

He brought his one-man show to Hollywood, landing a recurring role on BET's The Game.

In his hilarious and vulnerable memoir, did everyone have an imaginary friend or just me? Jay shares the story of growing up

with an imaginary best friend Mikey who helped him navigate boyhood. Jay shares the funny, poignant,

and deeply personal stories of his childhood and how he had to look inward to solve some of

his life's biggest challenges. I sat down with Jay who opens up about his acting career, how imagination

and storytelling have been a consistent thread in his life and the impact books have had on him.

I'm Jenna Bush-Hager. Welcome to my podcast, Open Book with Jenna.

Yeah. I'm Jenna Bush Hager. Welcome to my podcast, Open Book with Jenna. Tell me about why you decided to write this memoir.

Well, I think the origins kind of came like during the pandemic.

Yeah.

And I think it was just this kind of like want or need to get back to like creativity and play and fun.

And I started thinking about my parents live in L.A. and I was at their house. And my mom is like the keeper of records in our family. She has all these pictures. And so I was going through these pictures. And it just brought back all these memories of my childhood. And then my mom would tell me a story. And then my dad would chime in. And so I really just started thinking about how as we get older, we kind of lose this sense

of play and creativity and imagination. But like, it starts so innocent and it's so healing and

so freeing and protective and so many things when you're done, when you're young, excuse me. And

mine just happened to be through my childhood imaginary friend named Mikey,

who was like my big brother who protected me and taught me everything and got me into a lot of trouble as well.

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