JONTILLE GERARD

JONTILLE GERARD

Notes: There are alot of things I could say about Jontille Gerard: she's a trained actress, she's focused, has an amazing work ethic.....but all of these facts about Miss Gerard pale in comparison to her ultimate truth: Jontille Gerard is the most talented dramatic actress I have ever had the pleasure of working with. But before I can share my experience with Jontille on set; I have to begin two months prior....and about 20 hours before her audition for Robert Townsend's highly anticipated new dramatic feature film, "The Discarded Boyz". We were about 3 weeks into auditioning for the film and had pretty much settled on an actress for the role of 'Gemini' in the first week, but through the course of several events, Jontille's name kept coming up; in my head and in the mouths of our mutual friends...so, I called her, at 8pm, the night before FINAL callbacks. ME: "Jontille, I know you've heard about the movie, I know you've wanted to come in, but I couldn't call; we stopped seeing actresses for that role the first week... But it's really been eating at me that you didn't come in. Final callbacks are tomorrow, I want to bring you in an hour before and if the audition goes well, I'll just throw you in front of the Director and we'll see what happens." JONTILLE: "Ok, I'm there." At 4:15pm the next day, Jontille came in, completely off book and blew us away. Rarely have I witnessed a PERFECT audition. She tapped into every layer created for the character and added about two dozen of her own. I knew in the first 2 minutes that she was 'Gemini'...and hour later, she recreated that same magic and won Mr. Townsend's heart as well. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Day Two of shooting arrived and I watched our amazing Director, Robert Townsend, mold Jontille and push her even farther. I was so proud watching Jontille and Jonathan McDaniel spar as 'Gemini' and 'Xtra', that it brought me to tears. I've never been so overwhelmed with pride watching two young actors really go to work. Jontille Gerard is a gem and I personally guarantee that when the world is introduced to this amazing young actress in "The Discarded Boyz", she will become Hollywood's most sought after actress. I'm so thankful to have been Blessed with the opportunity to witness her breakout performance, before my very eyes.