PAGE 26 • TV
THE BULLETIN • MAY 20 - 26, 2021
What’s Available NOW On
“Movie: Shadow in the Cloud”
Roseanne Liang (“Do No Harm,” “My
Wedding and Other Secrets”) co-wrote
and directed this 2020 horror actioner
about a World War II pilot (Chloe
Grace Moretz, “Dark Shadows”)
traveling with classified documents
who encounters an evil entity
aboard her B-17 flying fortress. Nick
Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John
Smith and Callan Mulvey also star in
this U.S./New Zealand co-production.
“Movie: Race for Your Life,
Charlie Brown!”
“Movie: Neat: The Story of
Bourbon”
The Peanuts gang is at it again in
this feature-length 1977 animated
adventure that garnered good reviews
but disappointing box office numbers.
The story finds Charlie, Linus, Snoopy
and their friends away for the summer
at Camp Remote, where they endure a
variety of mishaps and participate in a
whitewater rafting race against a group
of bullies.
Co-writer/director David Altrogge’s
(“3801 Lancaster: American Tragedy,”
“Clemente”) 2018 documentary
celebrates the artistry of America’s only
native spirit through an exploration
of its history and interviews with
those who make it, including master
distillers Marianne Barnes and Denny
Potter and actor Steve Zahn (“That
Thing You Do!”).
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Checking in with
JASMINE DAVIS
For Jasmine Davis, her breakthrough role as transgender
hairstylist Imani in “The Chi” has proven to be
therapeutic.
The trans actress often uses the Method – an acting
technique that requires the actor to immerse oneself in
their character’s mindset and motivations – to create a
character. So she will often fall back on experiences from
her own past to inform behavior on screen, which also
means reliving and working through a lot of pain.
But she has a coping mechanism for that.
“It’s actually embracing it and learning how to manage
it,” explains Davis, who like her character is a South Side
Chicago native, “and that’s when I took this character on
knowing that there are going to be some things that I’m
going to be triggered by being here. ... So to do it in a
very healthy way, I know that I have to let these triggers
affect me but how can I manage it in a healthy way? And
so I learned to do that through my acting coaches and my
therapy, it’s like managing it, accepting it. How are you
going to manage it? You know, make sure you’re aware of
this. How does it make you feel?”
In Season 4, which premieres Sunday, May 23, on
Showtime (and Crave 1 in Canada), Imani’s world expands
as she opens her own shop and interacts with more of
“Movie: Wander Darkly”
Sienna Miller (“21 Bridges”) stars as
a woman so emotionally traumatized
by a car accident that she believes her
injuries were fatal and she’s a ghost,
thus forcing her and her partner
(Diego Luna, “Narcos: Mexico”) to
dig into memories of their past for
answers in this 2020 drama from
writer/director Tara Miele (“Starving
in Suburbia”). Beth Grant and Vanessa
Bayer also star.
the community on Chicago’s South Side. At home, she’s
settled into domestic life with boyfriend Trig (Luke James),
and together they’re now raising Jake (Michael Epps), of
whom they became guardians in Season 3.
“People don’t get to see these type of relationships and
families on TV,” Davis says. “You know, even though they
exist in real life, we don’t really get to see a transgender
woman with a guy who is heterosexual raising a kid, going
to school and Imani’s stepping into the mother role and
trying to help nurture and mother this kid to get him on
the right path.”
Full name: Jasmine Cree Davis
Birth date: April 8, 1991
Birthplace: Chicago
Education: Studied to be a nursing assistant at
Parkland College in Illinois; an alum of Second City in
Chicago
Family ties: Raised by a single mother along with
five siblings; single with no children
TV credits: “L.A.’s Finest,” “Downward Doug”
(short)
Movie credits: “Deviants” (TV movie; 2018);
“The Downside of Bliss” (forthcoming)