J. August Richards: A Q&A on him as an actor!

Nearly 18 years after wrapping up his breakout role as vampire hunter Charles Gunn on the cult WB series Angel, J. August Richards has returned to the genre – with a twist. As Victor Dashkov, a royal advisor in Peacock’s newly launched Vampire Academy, he’s wearing the fangs now. We recently caught up with him:

Cox: I’ve been a fan of yours since Angel and through Marvel’s Agents of Shield. Let’s get straight into it. Where did this love for acting come from?

Richards: I’ve been studying acting my entire life. It’s very innate to me. When I was a child, I would sit in front of the TV and try to figure out how to get inside.

Cox: What is it about acting that drives you every day?

Richards: I’ve always been drawn to artists because they just seemed like they were getting so much out of life. Where most people seem led or pushed around by life itself, I saw how artists take the juice of life and create something special.

For J August has a love and affinity for acting because there is a joy in expression he gets with each role. He can use that character to communicate things that are often too hard to communicate with words. He can use his pain or joy and bring that into the character and scene for other people to gain something from it.

Cox: How do you get into character?

Richards: It starts with me exploring and questioning the material. For example, Mike Peterson, who I played in Marvel’s Agents of Shield, was a man going through a low point in his life. He needed to find strength and become his own superhero. During that time, I had gone through a similar experience, so I took that experience and what was written and delivered it to the audience so they could feel it. I’m talking through Mike to the audience, and what I wanted to say was that even at your lowest point, you can find strength and become your hero.

With my current role as Victor Dashkov on Vampire Academy, I asked myself personal questions: I questioned what happens to human beings when they have given up their dreams and now they have the opportunity to live them? What would that person do to make that dream come to pass? At what cost? That’s how I started to explore this character.

J August sees the most important part of character development as how he will be able to communicate something to the audience. It isn’t just about nailing the role, people need to feel something so from either shared experiences or exploring human behavior he focuses on how well he tells the story. This always starts from within for him.

Cox: You came out as gay in 2020, when you took on the role of a married, gay father on Council of Dads. Was there any hesitation in coming out publicly?

Richards: There’s a quote from James Baldwin that Billy Porter said in his Emmy speech: “It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.” I knew I had to switch my perspective. I had every right to be out there as an out, gay, black actor. Any fear or stigma was all B.S. I wasn’t going to be limited by an antiquated way of viewing gay actors – especially black actors – or intimidated by how that might affect future opportunities.

Cox: Was there any apprehension that coming out would lead you to being typecast into gay roles?
Richards: Well, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing when you look at it. None of the characters are going to be the same, even if they are all gay. I just played three gay, married fathers in my last three projects [Council of Dads, Generation and Vampire Academy]. One was a doctor on a family drama, one was raising a Black, teenage daughter in a conservative Orange County community, and the other was a vampire. Each character is completely different and a new opportunity.

“There is an incredible feeling of freedom that comes from standing in your truth. I feel unstoppable.”

Cox: What’s your advice for aspiring actors?
Richards: Invest in your work. Ultimately, it’s the only thing that will save you. We are living in a time where people invest more energy into how many followers they have over the quality of their work. If you can take a writer’s words and move them with their own material, no amount of “clicks and views” can beat that. Invest in your work!