'This Is A Great Show With Great Energy': Da'Vinchi On The CW's 'All American' & Ben Affleck
(CBS Local)-- The actor known as Da'Vinchi is only 24-year-old, but he's already made a name for himself in Hollywood.
Da'Vinchi plays Darnell Hayes on The CW's "All American" and the show is inspired by Los Angeles native and former NFL player Spencer Paysinger. All of season two makes its way to Netflix on March 17 and Da'Vinchi is excited for fans to see what has happened to Hayes, Spencer James, and Olivia Baker.
"This show has been a great process. When I got cast for it, I felt like it was family," said Da'Vinchi in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "I was familiar with a few of the cast members already. I remember I went in for the Spencer character like four different times and a whole other bunch of different characters. I felt so familiar with it. It wasn't something I was apprehensive to get into. It felt so natural and I love it. Everyone is cool, there's great energy, and it's a great show."
FULL INTERVIEW:
Another one of the reasons Da'Vinchi loves "All American" is that it tackles real issues like gentrification, death, and love. In addition to this show, Da'Vinchi recently got the chance to work with Ben Affleck in his new movie "The Way Back" and says he learned a lot from the 2x Academy Award winner.
"It definitely was a dope project. I missed a few of the scrimmages and they had to test to see if I could really play basketball," said Da'Vinchi. "The process was like three months, it was ridiculously long. I was like give me the part already. It was amazing. Ben Affleck is a really cool dude. We bonded because of our heights. I'm 6'3 and he's 6'4. He's a big guy and I was telling him sometimes I feel like I'm too tall. My love interest for certain roles will be like 5'3. I just got turned down for a role recently because of my height. They make me feel like I'm Shaq. They've told him before that he's too tall and he's Ben Affleck."
While Da'Vinchi is only 24 years old, he's already learned a ton about dealing with fame. There were a few things that surprised him when people started to change how they treated him.
"The biggest surprise has been the level of stress that comes with this," said Da'Vinchi. "The saying much is given much is required is so true. When you decide to embark on this journey and be in front of a television screen, I think we forget you start to possess a small fraction of a God-type power. You become omnipotent. Millions of people are able to see you at one time and talk about you and look at you like a commodity and that garners different attention. Everything is amplified with what people ask you for and how they try to use you. Everybody thinks you got it and none of your problems are serious. There's was no way for me to understand the side effect of this. Everything in life has a side effect and the side effect of success is stress, but I have great people in my circle that help me out with it."
"All American" is streaming now on The CW app.