Sheyi Cole’s ‘Full Circle’ Moment in New York
When the audition for “Full Circle” arrived in his inbox — on his birthday, no less — actor Sheyi Cole originally thought that he was in the running for a superhero movie.
“One of the scenes, [writer-producer Ed Solomon] had put a stage direction that ‘his spidey senses were tingling.’ So I was like, ‘Whoa, what?’” recalls Cole. “I was like, ‘This is great.’ But then I didn’t hear anything.”
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Turns out, the project was Steven Soderbergh’s original miniseries “Full Circle” for Max. A few months after his initial audition, the London-based actor was arranging an O-1 Visa to fly to New York to start filming. A year later, he was back in New York for the show’s Tribeca Film Festival premiere. “It’s really a full-circle moment. Pardon the pun,” says Cole, from the SoHo Grand Hotel’s salon in mid-June.
It was a few days before the premiere, but he’d already seen an early director’s cut with Solomon, who he was staying with while in town for the festival. “I would be more nervous if I hadn’t seen the first two episodes,” Cole says. “Even knowing where the story goes and knowing people’s ends and whatnot, I was still like, ‘Oh my goodness. What is gonna happen?’”
The twisty series features an ensemble cast and multiple storylines that all converge around a botched kidnapping attempt in Manhattan. Cole stars as a young man who moves to the city from Guyana with his best friend, and unknowingly gets stuck as an indentured worker for a crime syndicate. The show costars Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, Dennis Quaid and Zazie Beetz. The first two episodes were released on July 13, and the next four episodes will be released in two installments in the subsequent weeks.
“I really do feel like this show from [my character’s] point of view is about sacrifice,” Cole says. “He leaves Guyana, he leaves everything behind there with hopes and dreams of achieving greatness over [in New York]. He then realizes it’s not as simple as that and has to sacrifice even more just so he can live. Although there are so many different storylines that come together through this botched kidnapping, I really do feel like everyone in this show has to sacrifice a lot.”
For Cole, filming a series in New York was a longtime dream. “But for it to happen so soon and so early on in my journey is like a mad man dream for me,” he says.
The 24-year-old actor is a recent graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, but he booked his first on-screen roles, Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” and forthcoming Netflix film “The Beautiful Game” while he was still a student.
He started acting as a teenager after originally being drawn to music. “I auditioned for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ when I was 12, and didn’t even get past the first round,” Cole says. As a teenager, he went on to study at the prestigious BRIT School. “It was when I was in secondary school — where I was doing drama lessons — where I then realized that actually I think I’m more talented at acting than I am at singing.”
In mid-June, the writer’s strike was already underway, and SAG-AFTRA members were anticipating a forthcoming strike as well. As of Wednesday afternoon, both unions had yet to strike a deal with studios.
“It’s such a weird time with the industry with the strikes; things are really slowing down,” says Cole, asked about his upcoming work plans — which, like most, are in flux. “I feel like I’m at a point in my career now where I’ve been able to establish myself by working with the likes of Steve McQueen, Steven Soderbergh, Donald Glover, Bill Nighy, for my first four jobs. So now it’s kind of like, OK, not stepping backward, but finding ways to continue to elevate and continue to rise.”
With “filming in New York” checked off the list, Cole is already setting his sights on his next dream: becoming his own boss, and taking on the role of producer. “It’s all well and good having someone to tell you what to do, because then you learn from them. But eventually I want to be able to make decisions for myself,” he adds.
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