You're feeling Nicco Annan’s presence instantly when he walks in a room. Between his 6-foot-2 top, vibrant fashions and melodic baritone, his vitality is dominating. However not so dominating that it engulfs. As a substitute, his vitality is as heat and beneficiant as it's regal and charming. Just like Uncle Clifford, the beloved home mom he portrays on “P-Valley,” Annan looks like house.
That’s no shock. For 2 seasons sturdy, the Detroit-born actor has invited TV viewers right down to The Pynk, a legacied stripper joint within the fictional Chucalissa, Mississippi, the place you will get a lap dance, lemon pepper wings further moist and a brush with seduction in a single fell swoop — however provided that you observe Cliff’s guidelines. Along with her flashy fashions, distinctive prowess, nation twang and grandmother-like phrases that make you chuckle and assume on the identical time, it’s exhausting to not really feel Uncle Clifford. Actually really feel her. And also you’d be exhausting pressed to seek out one other character like her in TV historical past.
Annan, 33, has been taking part in the function of the nonbinary HBIC for concerning the previous decade, since he was solid in Katori Corridor’s “Pussy Valley,” the play from which the tv present was created. The play ran solely in Minneapolis.
The actor, who labored carefully with Corridor in molding Uncle Clifford, is aware of that this character represents the intersection of so many individuals’s actual on a regular basis life experiences. Annan breathed life into Cliff. That’s why the breakout character has been in a position to preserve viewers enraptured in all her glory.
Season 2 finds Uncle Clifford susceptible to dropping The Pynk, but once more, whereas navigating the load of a world tormented by COVID-19. She’s taking good care of everybody — her grandmother, her dancers, her membership’s legacy — however has uncared for taking good care of her coronary heart as she fights the trustworthy, uncooked love she shares with a rising native rapper half her age, Lil Murda. Her story is about vulnerability, trials, triumphs and neighborhood care. Her story is about studying to decide on love, regardless of what the world believes a Black nonbinary individual ought to expertise. She represents humanity.
The important thing ingredient to Annan harnessing Uncle Clifford’s energy? “Intimacy,” Annan stated.
When Annan auditioned in 2009, Corridor invited him to learn for the a part of Uncle Clifford in her residence. She was initially solely in a single out of the 2 scenes within the five-page script. The outline of Uncle Clifford — together with the dialogue between dancers Mercedes, Mississippi and Gidget — energized him.
“It actually was the factor that sort of woke me up,” Annan stated in reference to Uncle Clifford. “What is that this character? As a result of usually if you would learn a personality breakdown, it’ll say, ‘Black, male.’ Or it’ll say, ‘30s, male.’ Or, ‘Black, homosexual, flamboyant.’ And it didn’t say that.”
He recalled among the finest notes he’d ever gotten from Corridor in portraying Cliff. “Dare to bore me,” she advised Annan. It allowed him to “breathe and simply be.”
“I feel that Katori created the character to be all of the issues,” Annan stated. “It resonates with me when plus-size or full-figured ladies and full-figured males which are straight, which are homosexual, which are nonbinary, and all people sort of identifies together with her in a method. That’s a gag for me, for actual. I’m like, oh, for this reason the SlimFast didn’t be just right for you if you have been a child. For this reason it took time for me to even be snug in my physique and to have the ability to stroll in that gentle, to face in that solar; it’s an honor.”
The world Annan grew up in didn’t need him or another younger, Black homosexual children from the Midwest to see characters like Uncle Clifford on display screen. He knew he wished extra out of life than to be the inheritor of his family-owned carwash. He was teased for having darkish pores and skin and Ghanaian roots and being heavyset.
“Rising up, I didn’t see myself, however I knew that there was one thing else inside me as an actor, as an individual,” he stated. “I really feel like I’ve been by way of this fireplace as a result of I’ve been trusted with a sworn statement. That’s actually how I really feel as a result of there are individuals who appear like me, individuals who come from the Midwest, there are folks on this entire LGBTQ+ spectrum that haven't had a stage of visibility.”
He visited Ghana, his dad’s house nation, for the primary time when he was 10. He was reluctant to take the lengthy aircraft trip, particularly after a classmate advised him he’d be sleeping with animals. However that journey to Ghana helped illuminate some issues about Annan that the U.S. wished to cover from him. That journey helped him embrace his darkish pores and skin, full lips and hole in his entrance tooth — “Again house, having a spot is distinguished. That signifies that God smiled on you.”
He sat within the chief’s throne on a flooring product of pure gold. It was a gradual course of, however Annan, whose first identify interprets to “first-born son of a prince,” started to come back into himself.
“To have that sort of expertise as a toddler, even being teased and all that stuff previous to, it modified for me. I used to be like, ‘Oh, you’re price one thing. And everybody simply doesn’t know. Everybody simply doesn’t know.’”
As Annan’s dance and choreography profession merged with an curiosity in appearing, he met brokers, executives and others alongside the way in which who didn’t acknowledge his true price. They’d inform him he needed to reduce weight with a view to make it on TV. However with nods from legends like poet Maya Angelou and dancer George Faison, Annan knew he was destined for extra.
That’s why the gradual ascension of his success as Uncle Clifford means a lot to him. With it, he’s been in a position to create a framework that’s allowed his TV goals to come back true. It additionally led to roles on “This Is Us” and “All American,” and choreography work on “All American: Homecoming.”
He additionally acknowledges that characters like Uncle Clifford solely just lately started to have the house to exist on TV. GLAAD’s 2022 “The place We Are on TV” report discovered that 11.9% of all characters on prime-time TV are of the LGBTQ neighborhood, a report excessive.
Whereas filming Season 1 of “P-Valley,” Annan recalled, a nonbinary manufacturing assistant thanked him for the work he was doing on the present. When Annan advised them he was simply doing his job, the PA advised him they have been wearing all black for the job however usually they gown like Uncle Clifford. They advised Annan, “If I had seen a personality on TV like Uncle Clifford after I was youthful, I wouldn’t have tried to take my life.”
Annan stated he was “caught.” He stated, “As a result of, my God, what a strain, but additionally what a present, what a present. It has taught me that, Nicco Annan, you've gotten a spot.”
Embodying this function has performed so much for Annan, reminding himself of the house that's rightfully his on this business as properly.
“If this had occurred in 2009, after we first began the undertaking, it might be a really completely different expertise. I don’t assume that the world was prepared,” Annan stated. “I feel that the world is in a spot the place we are able to see ladies for who they honestly are. We are able to see Black our bodies, we are able to see full our bodies in an area that aren't overly sexualized. There’s a stage of artistry, there’s a stage of appreciation for the sheen, for the stretch marks, for the tiger stripes and the solar rays.”
Annan has TV and movie plans on the horizon. He hopes, greater than something, that extra individuals who appear like him expertise true celebration in Hollywood, and never simply within the type of awards and accolades.
“There'll by no means be one other Nicco Annan. I’m not making an attempt to be anybody else. There are various people who have gone earlier than me that I stand on their shoulders, and I like for all of us to have the ability to have time and shine. It’s actually dope to be round, particularly on a popular culture sort of present, and bringing this stage of artistry and integrity to the characters. I at all times wish to inform gritty, exhausting, lovely, advanced tales as a result of in there may be gentle. In there may be enjoyable, and there may be pleasure. That's what this expertise of life is really all about.”
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