First generation Haitian-American actor Jéan Elie is getting a lot of love for his portrayal of Ahmal, Issa Dee’s no-holds-barred younger brother on HBO’s Insecure.
Ahmal is gay, but Elie makes it his business to subvert stereotypes about Black gay men and give Ahmal the complexity he deserves.
Elie got into acting in a pretty funny way. After finding an ad for actors on Craigslist, he arrived on set thinking that he would be a background character with no lines.
He was then told to improvise a scene—and he crushed it. That gave him the confidence to move forward as professional actor. “[I] told my brother about [that] whole situation and after he passed away, I decided I wanted to fulfill the dream he and I had for myself—to come to LA
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