Harold Perrineau Looks Back on "Fame"

[JamesG]

"I don't know if a lot of people know this, but I got a scholarship to dance and I learned to dance, but I always wanted to be an actor, that's what I wanted to do," explains Harold Perrineau, who trained at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

"So while I was in the chorus of Dreamgirls as a dancer, I was still auditioning for acting roles. And this thing came up for Fame. And it was in New York City and I thought, 'Oh, it's an acting role,' but it wasn't, it was still a dancing job."



He went to the audition anyway, and found himself among a massive, "500 people deep group of hopefuls. I flew in from like Detroit or something crazy like that and stood in this line, auditioned, and then got the job to be in this one episode in New York out of, I mean, literally thousands of people."

That wasn't the end of the road though. "From that group of dancers who did that job, they took one person to LA and that was me."



And so started his onscreen career, already in the background of scenes with icons like Janet Jackson and Debbie Allen, who he says he is "still in awe" of to this day.

https://ew.com/tv/harold-perrineau-l...eer-interview/