A short interview segment in which Nyasha Hatendi recounts a low point early in his acting career—being detained at US customs, returned to New York, and forced to rebuild his career—during which he discovered Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. The book appears to have offered emotional support and perspective during a period of depression, anger, and determination.
How does the Invisible man come into your life? It was actually one of those moments where my life had kind of imploded. My very first job out of drama school, and part of that job involved coming to America for a while. When I went back to the uk, one of the customs officials asked me, do you intend to look for work while you're here? So I had a student visa at the time, and I said, well, if somebody offered me a job, I probably wouldn't say no. And I was being facetious, but I ended up in a cell. Then I was put on a flight back to New York where I'd just been. So I ended up in this apartment at this point where I thought this was going to be my first job. I was going to go on to get another job. The world is going to be my oyster. Instead, I end up grinding the streets, trying to get an agent and trying to get a manager. Kind of what every actor has to do, but in an environment that I wasn't prepared to be in and to do it in. So there were lots of moments of depression and sort of anger and sort of this will where I was like, one day I will overcome this. And it's at that point that I came across the Invisible Man. How did the Invisible man change your life?
