Meagan Good has been in the entertainment industry since she was 13 years old. While the acting veteran managed to create a name for herself as a performer with massive range, she previously struggled to break away from the provocative lane Hollywood placed her in.
Good was the latest guest on TVOne’s “Uncensored,” where she discussed her time in the industry and explained the lengths she took for people to finally see her as an adult actress.
She stated, “At 23 I was still playing 16, kissing Bow Wow in ‘Roll Bounce’ who was actually 16. You know, I played younger for so much, for so long and I really wanted to get to the adult part.”
The “Harlem” star continued on sharing her want to make a “transition” from a child star to an adult actor.
“We all go through this awkward stage,” Good explained, “and sometimes it’s really hard to transition out of it to the next phase of your career. ‘But, how do I get people to see me as a young woman?’”
One way the 41-year-old decided to show her audience that she was no longer a child was by starring in the 2003 music video for 50 Cent’s hit song, “21 Questions.”
“I was 21 and I thought ‘How do I get people to see me as older,” Good said. “I was like ‘Oh, I’ll use a video as a national commercial saying I have arrived as a young woman, in essence.”
While her plan to break away from being seen as a child star was successfully accomplished, Good suggested that the strategy may have worked too “well” in her favor.
“When it worked, it worked so well that I kind of got pigeonholed in that kind of space,” she admitted. “It was like ‘Oh, well you know she’s a young s-xy girl. So, like let’s just let her do that and everything.’”
“And then like when I would, you know, look at other material that was more serious, or way more challenging all these things and I’d be excited to audition or meet on that, they’re like ‘No, you’re just the s-xy girl.’ Like, ‘Don’t think too hard,’” she finished.
This stigma stayed on Good all throughout her 20s, until she made the drastic decision to chop off all of her hair.
“No more long stripper s-xy hair,” she said. “I’m just gonna shed that completely, and then I decided to get back into TV.”
One of the first shows Good did after this drastic transition was “Deception,” in 2013. Throughout the NBC original, she played Joanna Loscasto, an undercover cop who is trying to uncover the murder of her former best friend.
While the drama series only lasted one season, Good recognized the show as a “strategic move.”
Fans can now watch the star as a DC superhero in her latest film, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”
