Kat heeft een interview gehad met HungerTV, hiervoor had ze een bijbehorende fotoshoot met Charlie Gates
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http//: Charlie Gates
At the tender age of 25, Kat Graham has already accomplished more than most could hope of achieving in a lifetime. The actress, singer, dancer, filmmaker and human rights campaigner has starred in the hugely popular teen TV show Vampire Diaries for the past six years and later this year will drop a nineties inspired, power pop album, following the release of her second single tomorrow. In between music and acting, Graham found time to make a three-part film noir series to critical acclaim in February, and is heavily involved in the work of refugee organisations. We caught up with the inspirational star to discuss growing up on screen, being a role model to millions and her new album.
With the imminent release of your new album, how do you juggle your music and acting projects?
Fortunately the role I play on the show doesn’t require me to shoot every day and I’m a workaholic, so on my off days – I’m actually not in about a third of this season – I’m able to shoot my music videos and photoshoots so it’s been actually quite…not easy, because it’s really not easy. You just don’t really stop I think, you have to commit to not stopping.The vibe for “1991” is a bit TLC, a bit Janet Jackson. Have they been big influences on you musically and visually?
Well I’m obsessed with the nineties. I’m obsessed with Linda Evangelista, and high waisted pants, bustiers, and the whole Madonna/Jean Paul Gaultier style, that’s my natural style, so I wanted to do a song that reflected who I really was inside, and my mentality when it comes to my relationships. I had done a few other songs when I was signed to Interscope, when I was signed to A&M Octone and when I was signed to Warner Brothers, and they’ve been written by other people, and some artists are really good at that, but I’m actually kind of shitty at selling music that I don’t write. TV is a little different, but music I really feel like you have to have a sense of connection to it and for a while I just didn’t.Does that track reflect the vibe of your upcoming album?
Totally. My second single is with Babyface, which is super huge, and it’s all of this kind of nineties sensibility of bringing a very melodic, strong, sound. Sonically the sound was very similar to what the nineties was, and I’m bringing that back in a modern way, a cool and an unapologetic way. I like Ed Sheeran and I like Jason Derulo but the stuff that I really connect to is from like twenty, thirty years ago.
In February you released Muse, a series of shorts, which you created, starred in, and you did the music for. How did that project fit in with everything else?
I wanted to produce my own thing. It just got announced that it made it into the Palm Springs International Film Festival which is huge. We also did a cool screening at Cannes for it. It was directed by Darren Genet, and was an incredible experience because it was something that really started off as really just one song, and then it was three songs, and then it turned into a full film series, and then it was a black and white film noir thing. I thought it was important because I really kind of – not quit music – but I really put it on hold, for a couple of years. My label folded, I needed to re-record everything, and I just needed to come back to myself after recording dance music written by other people. I wanted the first thing that people heard, for there to be a bit of a bridge between acting and music, because so many people do know me from Vampire Diaries, which is such a blessing because there are so many shows that either make it on the air, and they’re not a hit, or they get cancelled, or they’re not internationally known. People don’t understand the rarity of that, so not to shun that but to create a bridge saying ‘Listen I’m acting, and I’m doing music’, and it’s also great to let people know I’m really focused on producing now.I’m really into producing and developing film, and I just released the news with Deadline that I’m producing and starring in the Tammi Terrell biopic – that’s something that was important for me to tell her story, but also it’s very very difficult to find roles that either don’t typecast you as the token black girl, I mean Hollywood is the most racist industry.
Have you faced a lot of prejudice and discrimination?
I’m a fucking Liberian-Israeli woman, I’m all about keeping it 100% real and I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve been given a lot of opportunities, but I’ve busted my ass, in a lot of ways harder than other people that aren’t black and a woman. So for me, I have to produce. Yes I love it, and it’s a passion – but even making beats like…I didn’t want to make beats. I didn’t want to have to buy all this equipment and learn how to make beats, and produce and play, I wanted to be produced for, that’s what I wanted, at least I thought I wanted it, but if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.The type of films that I get offered I’m like ‘I don’t have a connection to that.’ I wanna do high quality, high content stories, really well produced, the cinematography has to be amazing. I’m thankful that I have a great partner in Darren Genet, who’s been my director on Vampire Diaries and on Muse, and even my campaigns with Foster Grant, just to have the high quality is super important, and I don’t think that even if you’re a black woman you should have to sacrifice that, just because people want to see you in a specific way that they understand – it’s our job, to create the art and to create that image that you want the world to see.
It’s really admirable that you have such a strong work ethic and integrity because a lot of people would be happy to sacrifice and compromise their core beliefs to make a name for themselves.
If I’m going to fail at it, let me at least try to put together a film – and then it got in a festival. Let me at least try make my own album – and then it got the attention of Babyface. Let me at least try to do this, and I’m succeeding. I did that, I did the shitty movies, I did the shitty roles, I’ve been the background person, I’ve been the token best friend, I’ve been all that shit – I’ve been in the fucking music videos. And I’m like, “you know what, I think in my heart, I think I’m better than this.” Let me be a better representative for young black women. Specifically African-Americans, my family is from Africa, and as my mum put it I need to make my race proud. My projects need to reflect my people, women, African-Americans, I have to hold myself responsible for my art, I have to do cool shit.Having almost two million followers on Instagram, do you find it difficult being public property and having that responsibility on your shoulders?
Yeah! It’s not that I don’t love being responsible because I do a lot of work and I like that it brings attention to it. Whether I’m working for GLAAD or whether I’m working for the UN. I like that I can make people aware automatically with a Twitter post or automatically with Instagram, “this is what’s happening in the world, wake up.” Also, I have a very young demographic and sometimes within that they don’t have patience, they just want to lump you with your cast members!They identify you as Bonnie and it must be difficult to separate that.
Yes – they see me in my bustier and high waisted pants, or they see me performing “Put Your Graffiti On Me” or “1991” and they’re like ‘Bonnie what is that?” and they’re calling me Bonnie in their responses, and I think that’s why people are sometimes like “I’m not doing anymore than five seasons of a TV show, because I don’t want people to only know me for that”, but I’ve done music consistently since the show, and it’s more so that I really care people know who I am versus the characters.You can have an amazing career like Johnny Depp but people only want to see you as Jack Sparrow, even if you’ve done a show and a shit tonne of successful things before, it’s whatever people want to connect to. I’m happy that the majority of my fans are these young women. That is a privilege to have. It’s not some like horny, misogynistic men who are just wanting me to take me top off. I’m so grateful that I have these very strong, sassy, young girls that do identify with this character. I just want to do right by them and I hope that they’re patient with me and that there’s somehow a tolerance and acceptance and a shift in how they view black people. And a shift in their global consciousness through me being that character. I hope to God that they’re getting that.
Talking about you being an inspiration to young sassy women, who have been your influences?
I always loved Kelis, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Linda Evangelista and Cindy Crawford. Always loved Tyra Banks. They’re just unapologetic. When people are like ‘Who do you love who’s out right now’ – she’s actually here downstairs [in Rankin’s studio] – Rita Ora. I fucking love that woman, I love how unapologetic she is, how real she is. The first time I met her, we had a radio show in Orlando, Florida and she was blowing up, and she was so grounded and real and anti-bullshit, and the rarity of finding someone like that is beyond. I’m sure for her it’s been tricky because she is competition to a lot of women, but she’s so all about girl power and everyone coming together and just creating good art, and just being funky and taking risks.But saying that she does get a lot of flack for being so strong and powerful but at the same time being sexy. People still find that intimidating and threatening, even in 2015…
I think she gets a lot of flack because she’s just that fucking good. She puts herself out there, and a lot of people don’t, or they’re just jealous, or they don’t know how. Any time you put yourself out there – and I tell this to my fans who get bullied for what they look like or the clothes that they wear, or their religion or background – you’re gonna get it. You know, I get anti-semitism, I won’t even say what I’ve been called, but even just in this past week it’s been just mind boggling. I create art because I like creating art and I do it unapologetically, and talk about shit that I feel like people need to hear.Considering you’ve been in the industry for a long time do you feel more desensitised to it or does it still hit you?
No, it still hits you. It’s okay if they’re talking about you but sometimes they talk about your family, or your friends – I mean even when people come for Rita I get upset – for you it’s a bit desensitised because it’s like “You know what, at least I’m doing something big enough to get your attention, now that I’ve got your attention lets put it towards something that’s bigger than both of us” mentality. It focuses me and makes sure that I’m centred and not making my life only about myself and just being some hot chick that does pop music, but it’s when they’re talking about your friends or your family, people that have really no way to defend themselves, I think that’s really when I do get into protective mode and that’s the hardest for me. Or when my fans get bullied – that really fucks me up.You work with the UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. Does that put things into perspective in a way?
Oh yeah. I have to go to Central America next week with the whole refugee team. The first time I went I visited Jordan, to a Syrian refugee camp, about 80,000 refugees that were living there in these tiny tents, or these little caravans, and they all slept in the same room. They had lost everything, whether it was the dress shop that they had worked at their whole life that had been blown up, or their house, or they’d lost their family members along the way, I worked with people that had literally just been smuggled across, possible death for them to even cross the desert to get past the Syrian border and then going from that to ‘Who are you wearing?!’ But then also I had to realise that one thing fuels the other, and sadly people don’t care about it unless it maybe comes from a celebrity.Is it strange going from working on a close-knit production with the show and then working on your own personal baby with your new album?
The good thing though is that I don’t really change up my team too much, the people that have been working with me, like my engineer and my partner Jeeve, we did Muse together, we’ve worked together for about five or six years. The people that do all the art for the album is the same guy Roi who does my website, who’s been working with me since I was over at A&M Octone, three or four years ago.It’s my friends who I’ve worked with a for a long time, it’s juts two very separate families and the way they work is very different. Actors are very, very different to music people, because I think lot of music people have to do it themselves, the either have to style themselves or dress themselves, they’re on the road. Whereas I think with actors, and I say this with a lot of love, I think they get a lot of things done for them, and musicians are used to just kind of hauling ass themselves. So I think it’s just a different energy, where you just have to pick up and pull up on your own. And then the people that work on the music side of things with me, they literally do a million other things.
Can you see yourself doing Vampire Diaries for much longer?
I think I was really excited about the idea of doing a season seven, based on the fact that I feel like my character, who was basically in the other dimension for about two years, finally got out, and I knew that the fans felt that the character’s story wasn’t completed. There are storylines with other characters, whether it’s Damon, or other people that the character has scenes with, that they just felt that the character’s relationships had not come full circle or had not fully developed, and wanted to explore that also, I felt the same way. I didn’t feel like the character’s story was done, I felt that there was more that they could do, but I won’t say I would do a Season eight, it really depends on whether I’m fulfilled, and whether we’re like ‘Okay, this story’s been told, and we’re good to go.’The dynamic on set must be quite different without Nina Dobrev?
For me that’s my fucking girl, like she’s the most real girl, next to Claire Holt who was also on the show, that I also had a great connection with. It will be very weird for me to not have her there. I mean I did most of my scenes by myself the past couple of seasons, so unfortunately beside a couple of flashbacks I haven’t really worked with her. But this is somebody who put their heart, and their soul, and all their time, for half a decade, into the show, and I really want to see her do some spectacular things now, and she obviously felt like Elena’s story had been told, and I can’t disagree with her. I’m like okay, you had enough time to tell the story, let’s jump to the next part of you life, and I’m just excited to see what’s next for her.