[THE MAIN EVENT ]
The Insecure alum and star of MACRO's Freaky Tales opens up about becoming an author and how his childhood creativity shaped him into the man he is today
UpRising: The idea for your new book, Did Everybody Have an Imaginary Friend (Or Just Me)?, was spawned during the early days of the pandemic. How did you go from thinking about your past to realizing you have a premise for a book?
Jay Ellis: I don't know that I saw the connection [initially]. I remember being at home and I had done all the things: I burned some bread, downloaded Duolingo, watched all the movies and TV shows, read a bunch of books. I had a great time, but I found myself wanting something else. I was at my parents’ house in Inglewood flipping through [old] pictures. I see baby me butt-naked, young me missing teeth, first-basketball-tryout me. I'm like, man, what a wild experience. I started talking to my mom about my childhood imaginary friend. That got stuck in my head.
One day, I posted this video on Instagram [about having an imaginary friend]. I didn't think anything was going to come from it other than me telling this random story about being a kid. People dug it and started talking about their imaginary friend, their sister or brother or cousin or kid’s imaginary friend. All the replies got me thinking: People have this experience or knew someone [who did], and they don't talk about it. Why did we forget it? What did we get from having these overactive imaginations that led us to believe that we had imaginary friends? By the way, the definition of imaginary friend is so much larger than what people think. If you put any human-like qualities to an object—you think your G.I. Joes or dolls can talk—you’re creating something imaginary. So, in some ways, everyone has this experience.
More and more memories started flashing through. I was lucky to have this moment to be reminded of them. I didn't want to forget these moments—some funny and silly, some heartbreaking and life-altering. I started writing them down and I couldn't stop. Then I was like, maybe there's something more to do with these stories than just keeping them for myself
.Our society so often doesn’t allow Black children to maintain their innocence, but your book leans into that joy while also showing how you navigated some serious situations.
There were so many moments in my childhood that were goofy and embarrassing—all the things young boys do, especially when you don’t know how to talk about your feelings or you're getting mixed messaging from the media. So you're trying to process what's real and what's not. There was this point where this imaginary friend came into my life to help me navigate the world and figure all of that out. There were moments in my life that no kid should [have to experience]—heavier moments that kids don't have the skillset or emotional wherewithal to understand or process. Because of that, we lose our innocence so much younger. Childhood gets cut short in a lot of ways.
Was it easy to remember so many of these vignettes and chapters of your life with so much detail and also be vulnerable enough to put them in writing?
The remembering was tough. Some things came back crystal-clear—I could still see sweat rolling down somebody's nose. Especially as I tell preteen and teenage stories, because a lot of them were firsts. Losing a kid that I was in a gang with to Russian Roulette, getting pulled over by the cops nine times, or the first time I made a basketball team and got kicked off. All those things formed thought processes and put things into action that changed my life.The childhood memories though, I tapped in with my mom, my dad, grandmas, cousins. I asked them, what do you remember? What did I say? Where were we? How did I react? What were you doing? I used this storyteller tradition to get details from folks who remember better than I did.
Was there a chapter or event that was particularly difficult to open up about or want to share with the world?
I really wanted to write a book about joy. There were things I didn't write because of that—things that were traumatic. But some stories made it. The Week I Joined a Gang was a chapter I went back and forth on a lot. To do that chapter, I had to talk about family and experiences I had previous to me joining a gang. So that was really tough to write. My cousin who was killed is still an unsolved case, so there were some sensitivities to think about. I almost [removed] that story because I wanted to be respectful and thoughtful towards the people who also went through this experience. The story about getting pulled over was tough to write. It's one thing to get The Talk, but when it actually happens when you're a teenager, you're like, “Whatever, I ain't do nothing, just give me the ticket or citation and keep it pushing.” That youthful ignorance and bravado shaded the experience. But it got more and more life-threatening every time—or it felt that way. That was tough to think through again.
Has this experience got you thinking about writing another book—or possibly adapting this one into a TV series?
I have a few ideas for another book. The next one may take a bit of time because writing is not easy. It's been a journey I've loved, but [still] a journey. So I need a break. But as I got into writing this book, I thought of it as a half-hour family show—Everybody Hates Chris meets Young Rock. Mikey, my imaginary friend, would take the place of that voiceover that we hear through Everybody Hates Chris. You have these moments of humor and fun, but you also have these real-life things that happen to families and young kids. But I gotta get through this process first, enjoy this moment, and be present in it. I'm sure I'll get the calls to adapt. And I have some ideas for how I would do it. But being informed by what stories touch people is also a great litmus test of what the TV version of this book could be.
That’s exciting, as is your performance in the upcoming movie Freaky Tales. How did you prepare to play such a different role?
I’ve never trained so hard in my life. I was asked to do six different types of martial arts and learn how to use five to seven different types of weapons. No guns—all swords, daos, butterfly knives, stuff like that. I hadn't had experience with any of that. I was training in L.A. from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m., then I would do martial arts, then drive across town to workout for an hour with my trainer. I'd come home at 1:30 for lunch, then another trainer would show up at 2:30 and I would just do weapons. I was training six to seven hours a day. The production schedule was crunched on this movie because of the way it's shot [in] four different stories. But film is forever, and I want people to remember this dude forever, so I put in the work. I had about five weeks to learn everything before I had to go up to Oakland and start filming. The Bay holds a place in my heart. I had an uncle who lived in the Bay, so I spent a lot of time there. One of the stories I didn't write in the book—I wish I put it in—actually takes place in Hayward. So I was super excited and grateful to get to shoot up there. I'm excited for Freaky Tales to come out. What a crazy movie. And I get to do something so different than what anyone expects. That’s one of my favorite things to do—just hit people with the unexpected.
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Jay Ellis new memoir Did Everybody Have an Imaginary Friend (Or Just Me)? is now available via hardcover, e-book, or audiobook. He also stars in the upcoming film Freaky Tales, which debuted at Sundance in January.
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