As many of my readers know, there are an extensive variety of actors that I adore having the opportunity to interview multiple times. Moreover, once in a while, I am blessed to make a connection with an industry professional who is so committed to his craft and accomplishing his goals and dreams that I become an active participant on the sidelines who witnesses history being made. In the case of Jaime Callica, I cannot even tell you how thrilled I was when I observed the success he experienced over the latter part of 2019. I watched as he booked a huge Lifetime Christmas movie, his first Disney movie, and ultimately, his first series lead regular on a Tyler Perry show! As 2020 has now arrived, I cannot begin to contain my enthusiasm in sharing our most recent chat about one of the most successful young actors I know!
RH: Jaime, it’s so great to chat with you again! You’ve had a lot of things going on lately, and I am so happy for you!
JC: Ruth, thank you so much for reaching out and for all your support. Yes, it’s an exciting time.
I know since we last chatted, I saw you in that great Lifetime film My Mom’s Letter From Heaven. It was such a fantastic movie, and I was crying while watching it. I loved everything about it, and even though your part wasn’t really big, it was definitely important. You were amazing!
That’s awesome, thank you.
I know Lifetime typically does thrillers, but I would love to see Lifetime do some more movies like this one. Thankfully, they did have some great Christmas movies this past season, and yours was one of them.
Thank you, Ruth.
Merry Liddle Christmas was one of the only Lifetime Christmas movies that I saw being advertised EVERYWHERE! Even my satellite company was advertising it, and I’m not used to that. They usually advertise things I’m not interested in seeing, but I was happy to see yours being featured all over the place.
That’s great to hear! I know they definitely threw some great advertising dollars and promotion behind this one, that’s for sure. The main premise of this movie is a family story. And there’s a nice subplot with a sweet love story. In the movie, the guy that Kelly Rowland’s character meets, well, they go on a couple of dates, but it’s really a not the main story. With most of these rom-coms, the main storyline is about the romantic relationship. That wasn’t true with Merry Liddle Christmas. I think it separated itself from a lot of other movies because even though it had that nice, romantic feeling about it, the focus is on the family and spending Christmas together. I was there every single day of filming, and I know everything that happens. So it was such a joy for to watch along with the world as we finally had a chance to see it.
And it did not disappoint. I really enjoyed the movie, Jaime.
I am so glad you did, Ruth.
So how did last year go for you in general, Jaime?
Well, after My Mom’s Letter From Heaven, things seemed to dry up for me. I was putting really solid work down. I was auditioning a lot. I was putting things on tape for Vancouver while I was in LA. And it was crazy. I didn’t get a callback, and I wasn’t put on hold for anything. But the craziest thing about this is that for the first time in going that long without booking something, I wasn’t discouraged at all. The hardest part about it was that I still had my house in Vancouver, so while living in LA, I was paying double expenses. So it was an expensive year, but I anticipated that. So even with that, I didn’t let it hinder my spirit because I needed to go down to LA and establish myself. I was ready to be the leading guy.
Jaime Callica, Christina Milian Credit: ©2018 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Bettina Strauss
So four or five months went by without booking a job. In previous years, that would have hit me harder. So I booked my trip for Toronto, and again, almost like clockwork, I was put on hold for another job. I ended up not booking it which enabled me to take my annual trip to Toronto for Caribana. On the last day as I was getting ready to leave, I got a call saying that I was on hold for this Disney movie I had auditioned for.
It really sounded like the job was mine until I got an email later on that day saying that wanted me to come in and do a chemistry read with the little girl who was playing my daughter in the movie. So I went from being really excited to being kind of sad because I thought, “Oh, I could lose this based on lack of chemistry.” You don’t do chemistry reads every day. Or you could also get worried because they might like the chemistry of the other person they bring into read more. But you just have to do what you have to do. Thankfully, our chemistry was great, and I ended up booking the job by that evening. And that was amazing, because now I’m in the Disney family! Joe Nussbaum directed it, and he’s an executive producer at Disney. He was a great person to work with. He wasn’t just hired by Disney as an outsider. He is a Disney executive who also directs.
While I was on the set of this Disney movie, I booked Merry Liddle Christmas. I was actually shooting them both at the exact same time, and there was only one date conflict. Merry Liddle Christmas made a change for me that enabled me to do both. I did both for like a month. It was amazing!
with Kelly
I remember you posting about filming both. I was so excited for you! Now, working with Kelly Rowland…did that blow your mind?
Yeah, it really, really did. When I booked that and we had a table read, she walked into the room, it was like…now, for me, I wasn’t a huge fan of Destiny’s Child, but I always liked Kelly.
Same here!
When she walked into the room, it was like greatness was in the room. So for me, keeping it together and not fangirling was hard. Every single day, it was a conscious effort that had to be made to be normal and be myself and not ask for a million photos or try to get extra hugs from her. She’s really sweet. She would just come and sit down beside me, and we would just joke around. My character had two small babies, and I love kids. I would always be playing with the twins, and she would come take one of the babies, and we’d sit down in the corner just her and I and we would be playing with the babies. Then we would swap babies, and their mom would take pictures. So it was great and genuine. I was just being as professional as possible, but then I was also a huge fan of hers. We had our photo ops, and we got to hang out. We ate lunch together all the time. She’s really sweet. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve met in this business…period.
with the babies!
I can imagine. I did a lot of studying up on Destiny’s Child when I was a music teacher, and I just fell in love with Kelly. I was so impressed with her. I felt she always could have been featured more in the group, but she was just happy to do her part and stay out of any conflicts that might have been going on. It’s so good to hear what you’re saying, Jaime, because it just reinforces what I’ve always believed about her.
Oh, she’s lovely. And she’s been acting for some time. I don’t think I’d even realized that. She was in Freddy vs. Jason. I had forgotten about that until I was posting about making a movie with Kelly, and one of my friends reminded me she was in that movie. She is a phenomenal actress, and she had her acting coach on set with her every day. In between scenes, she would work with her coach if she felt like she needed to do something slightly different. She was also a really gracious student. She would take in whatever direction he gave her so that she could go and give the best possible performances. It was also cool to see that she didn’t think she was bigger than the craft. She was always thinking of bettering her performance at all points.
All that would explain why this movie was so great and so much fun to watch. I really enjoyed it and thought everyone did an amazing job.
Merry Liddle Christmas
I’m so glad you thought so, Ruth. It’s been great to see how things have grown for me over the years. We are at the point where my team is reaching out to the writers and the executives letting them know that I am coming off of a lead with Kelly and with Disney. And also there’s another movie I can’t say much about that will be coming out later this year. I can tell you that I shot it in Winnipeg, and it’s my first horror movie. It’s called Tales From the Hood 3. As has been announced concerning this movie, it is produced by Spike Lee and directed by Darin Scott. This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the original on Halloween, so it will be released this year. It’s my first ever Spike Lee movie. I was on set with Kelly when I got the call about this movie. I wrapped on Merry Liddle Christmas. I got home and had a couple days before flying to Winnipeg to shoot this one. Then I got home from that, and I was home a few days until I got the audition for Tyler Perry’s Ruthless. Then I booked that, and I was off to Atlanta.
When you announced your Tyler Perry series, that was just incredible!
Yeah, this is what I’ve been working towards and praying for. Series regular lead, twenty-four episodes with Tyler Perry at the helm…this is my career-maker! This is what’s going to get me noticed by the industry. And hopefully this is what will keep me inside Mr. Perry’s good graces as we hopefully do a season two and I get to do movies with him and then really jump off from here. This is it.
This is such exciting news, Jaime. It seems like the studios are finally recognizing what I have known about you for all the years I’ve known you now. It’s like, “Yeah, Jaime’s talented, and you need to use him!” But I know that’s how things work in this business. You’ve had your dry spells, and you’ve just kept at it. You didn’t give up.
That’s right. You know, I had this one Instagram post where I made this swimming analogy. It is something that flowed from me, and I hope in the future that it is something that can inspire others. Maybe it will be a quote or an uplifting thought for me to be known for. Essentially, it is this. If someone told you to jump in the ocean and start swimming toward the horizon, and you had to swim and never stop. If you keep swimming, there’s no chance that you will drown, and as long as you keep swimming, you’ll achieve your goal. But the second you stop, for even a moment, the current will pull you back, and you will have to start over. And in a lot of cases, people quit because now the journey seems doubly hard. I don’t say this out of vanity, but I am the living manifestation of destiny. That’s how I look at myself. I feel I was born to do something, and when I finally knew what that was, there was no option for me to stop. Once I decided to embark upon this crazy journey, I knew it was just a matter of time. With God’s blessing and grace, it was only time. I didn’t know when I was supposed to book this break and with whom, but it was just a matter of time. And that’s what really pushed me through. That really helped me in 2019 when it was looking like I was coming from one of my best years in 2018 to one of my worst years in 2019. And then August happened.
with Kelly
As I look back at everything, there’s a lot of days that I have tears in my eyes, and whatever I’m doing, I look up and thank God. I stop reading lines, and I thank God. It’s really a crazy feeling to realize a dream. Not that you accomplished a goal, but to realize your dream. I was asked at the end of last year what the next thing was for me, and I said I thought it would be disrespectful to remotely think about anything else. I just want to be happy in the moment, achieving this milestone.
I realize I’m not competing against a clock or other people, but my other analogy is my track analogy. If you finished any place in the race…I used to be a sprinter. If I finished eighth place in a race, but ran a personal best time, is that a loss? No. That’s a win. I finished last in the final five, but I ran faster than I’d ever run. So while I don’t compete against others, I can see that what I’ve achieved in this short period of time is phenomenal. I feel super super super super super blessed every single day to be able to look back and look at my own scorecard and say, “Man, you kept swimming, and you’re at the horizon.”
set of Merry Liddle Christmas
For those who didn’t see Merry Liddle Christmas, please tell us a little about your character and how he fits in with the overall storyline.
I play the husband of Kelly Rowland’s sister who’s played by Latonya Williams. So my character’s connection to the family is by marriage, and my character is featured quite a bit in the family. We go to Kelly Rowland’s house because she wants to host Christmas this year. My character’s name is Julian. We have a small daughter, and I’m a loving dad who works really hard. He’s had some struggles at work, and he’s not sure if his heart is really in it anymore. You get to see a lot of fun times when it comes to my work and my family with Bresha Webb’s character and me and my wife and Kelly’s character. Her mom is played by Debi Morgan, who as you know I’m sure, is amazing. She was a part of Young & the Restless for years. She’s in Power right now. She’s had a really long career. Working with all of them was awesome. It took us about a month to shoot that film.
Now what about this Disney movie?
It’s called Upside Down Magic.
Are there any details about this one as far as when it will be released and on what channel or platform?
Well, not quite yet. When I was shooting it, they still were not sure whether it was going to be one of their premium films on Disney Plus, premiere on the Disney Channel, or if it was going to be a theatrical released. It is supposed to be released this year. Last I heard it was scheduled for this summer.
Okay, then that means we just need to keep watching for it. Honestly, you have so much coming up this year that it’s going to be amazing! Some people might say you’re lucky, but I don’t think any of this has to do with luck.
I agree. I am happy to say that I’m blessed. The way I see it is that you do what you’ve got to do, and you leave the door open a crack so God can do what He will do as well. But you’ve got to keep doing what you can yourself. It’s definitely not luck. Some people get “lucky,” but even then, one could make a case that what it meant for you will be yours. In their plan and design, that was meant for them. You can say, “Oh, they’ve been acting for six months and they got discovered and now they’re a star.” It appears to be luck, but that was the path that was meant for them. It wasn’t meant for us.
When will the Tyler Perry series be out?
It is scheduled to be on BET Plus sometime this year. Hopefully by this spring.
So what was it like working with Tyler Perry? I have heard that filming with him can be a bit of a marathon.
It is a marathon. We shot the whole series in under a month. We did around ninety-five script pages a day, which to the average person, that might not mean a thing. But let me explain. The average amount of script that is filmed per day on a big film is two to five pages. The average TV movie does five to nine pages. And the average television show does six to ten. Now you have context when I say that we shot ninety-five pages a day! That is crazy! The amount that we had to memorize every single day is unlike anything we’ve ever done and we’ll probably never do again–unless we work with Tyler Perry again, which I definitely hope for.
And even harder than that is shooting out of sequence. The first scene of the day could be a scene from episode twenty-four. Then we’ll go to episode nineteen, then six, then twenty. Then we’ll go to episode one, then nineteen, then six, then twenty-three, then seven, then six, then three, then ten…you get the idea. It is virtually out of order and ultimately confusing and extraordinarily stressful, but at the end, more rewarding than anything else. I could do anything now. If I book a Spielberg or Scorsese film or Tom Cruise and we do three scripted pages a day, I am telling you right now, I know I could do it.
PC: diamondpointphotos
As far as my work on Ruthless, I believe it is Emmy nomination caliber work, and whenever I have the opportunity to do a big film with a big director,I believe it is going to be Oscar-worthy. I say this not because I think I’m so great, but because after you do ninety-five pages a day and when you go back to doing three pages a day, you’ll have the time to do something amazing in those scenes when you’re shooting in a twelve-hour day.
This was boot camp for me. It was extraordinarily difficult and stressful. There were days when I chose what meals I would eat and what meals I wouldn’t eat and when I would eat them. I couldn’t sacrifice the time running lines versus eating food. And that’s not an exaggeration. I had to decide which moments in my day I was going to eat. I couldn’t sacrifice two hours in my day to eat. I would be on set, go back to my room and run lines till 1:00 in the morning. Sleep for a few hours, wake up and go back to the studio and do it all again. I was there on the weekend every Saturday and Sunday ten hours a day. I would be on the treadmill or with my reader…which was a cool thing that Mr. P does. He hires young people that are readers, and they work with you throughout the day whenever you can. I got special authorization from the production coordinator to have my reader come in on the weekend so I could run lines on the weekend. He does a lot of stuff like that because he does know that what he’s putting us through is difficult. He wants to give us as many tools as possible to help us succeed in what is otherwise an impossible task.
What you describe, Jaime, is consistent with what I’ve heard from others who have worked with Tyler Perry. I know it always sounds like a high-energy job, but I know it is always worth it in the end.
Only at the end can you enjoy it. You book the job, and you get all this excitement. And the second you get the scripts–especially a character like mine. Some characters are lighter than others. Some don’t have a ton of dialogue. I loved working hard and doing well during the shoot. I would come to set prepared and kill my lines every day. I felt great, but you can’t naturally enjoy the experience because it was so hard. You couldn’t slow down and savor the moment.
Merry Liddle Christmas
Like with Kelly on Merry Liddle Christmas, we would have lunch together and joke around. On Disney, the same thing and on Tales, the same thing. I went out a couple of times. With Ruthless, I didn’t do a single thing until Saturday, and I went to the Coca Cola Museum by myself. Then I went and got a massage because my manager in LA bought me a gift certificate at the hotel. Then I went and watched the Raptors play the Hawks. Then we went and watched the fights. But prior to that, three weeks to a month, whatever it was, I hadn’t seen anything but the studio and my hotel… period. I couldn’t tell you what the street looked like outside my hotel because I got into the Uber and ran my lines the entire time back and forth to set every single day. It was crazy. I had never worked that hard in my life.
That is amazing! And now as you look back, you can see that you were up to the task. I am sure there are actors who would not be up to the task.
Tons couldn’t do it. Some people that were cast couldn’t do it. There were many people there who had to be fed their lines because they weren’t up to the task. And I tell you, Tyler Perry’s shows are doing incredibly well right now. His new show, The Oval, is one of the top new scripted shows in television. The ratings are through the roof. BET is a niche market compared to something like the CW. You look at some of the popular CW shows, which is a wider demographic, and The Oval has higher ratings and more viewers than Arrow and Batwoman. He has a following that is loyal, and we’re banking on the fact that we will have all of those people watch this new show because it’s very much unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
I have not seen everything Tyler Perry has done, but I’m very impressed with what he has done and just with him as a person. What he’s accomplished and the way he lives his life are very inspiring.
Yeah, he was broke and homeless not that long ago, and he clawed his way out of that hole. He began producing movies and TV shows and then he bought a military base for thirty million–three hundred thirty acres. He has enough room to put as many studios and sound stages as he wants. Inevitably, it will be the largest studio in the world. I just found out that if you take the top studios–Universal, Paramount, Sony, CBS and one other studio–you can put all of them in the space his studio has and there would still be room. He has the space to expand as much as he wants.
That is incredible, Jaime. Anything else coming up for you besides all this?
Well, I just booked my first movie of 2020. More information on that to come. So watch out for them. It’s an exciting time for me, and I can hardly wait to share everything with all of you.
Thank you, Jaime, so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.
Ruth, thank you for all the support. And I also want to thank all my fans for their support over the years. I really appreciate it.
Jaime is one of those extraordinary people who doesn’t just sit around and wait for things to go his way, nor watch for opportunities to fall into his lap. In truth, he’s had seasons when the market was desolate, and I can remember the range of emotions he experienced during those times of industry famine. He’s only human, and I think we all can relate to the difficulties of playing the “waiting game.” The difference with Jaime is that he chose not to give up. He kept on striving to accomplish his goals and actualize his dreams, and because of his dedication, God has now offered these opportunities to him. However, it doesn’t mean that Jaime didn’t labor intensively for this! This guy is amazing, and his work ethic, humility, and kindness consistently come through. Having met him in person, I can state that he is authentic to the core as well as a very down-to-earth person, and he still continues to regularly interact with his fans on social media. And because of that indisputable fact, I hope that everyone visits his links below and considers following him on social media, a decision I can assure you that you will not regret!
If you have not had the occasion to watch his Christmas movie Merry Liddle Christmas, I would invite you to search it out on the streaming services (I know that Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, and Vudu have it) because it is the ideal film to chase away the winter doldrums. Additionally, I would invite you to mark the time expectantly and circumspectly in intense anticipation for his upcoming series on BET Plus, Ruthless, as well as his Disney movie (Upside Down Magic) and even his horror film, Tales From the Hood 3, if you’re interested. And here’s hoping that new movie he booked is a Hallmark one!
While it’s simple to look at these possibilities and deny the work of the Divine in Jaime’s life, it gratifies me to no end that he proceeds to give God the glory in every step of his life, journey, and career. I have no doubt that Jaime’s career is going to continue its upward swing, and sometime in the near future, we’re going to discover that he booked his first “big-screen” movie with one of the leading directors and/or actors of our time. I feel reasonably confident in making the claim that one of these days, I’m going to attend a premiere for a movie where he is featured, and I’m going to be able to smile and say, “And to think I knew him when…” However, I am also convinced that success and fame WILL NOT intrinsically change this man. If anything, as he has garnered more success in his chosen profession, he has become even more inspirational and generous with those who support him, and I can hardly wait to cheer him on when he’s nominated for his first Oscar!
FOLLOW JAIME
CHECK OUT MY OTHER INTERVIEWS WITH JAIME
Interview With Actor Jaime Callica, “Memories of Christmas” & “Christmas On Holly Lane”
https://starrymag.com/jaime-m-callica-the-bridge-part-2/
https://starrymag.com/jaime-m-callica-the-bridge-part-2/
