Grace led actor to role in series
McClatchy Newspapers
PASADENA, Calif.
It’s not just a coincidence that actor Daniel Sunjata is starring as the lead FBI agent in USA Network’s taut new series, “Graceland,” premiering June 6. It took a mountain of circumstances to land him on the show, which is based on real-life federal enforcers who lived undercover in a Southern California beach house.
It wasn’t exactly luck. In fact Sunjata — who spent seven years as the fiery Franco Rivera on “Rescue Me,” and costarred in “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Dark Knight Rises” — doesn’t believe in luck. What he believes in bears far more consequence than luck.
“I believe in a universe where even though we might not be able to comprehend the divine calculus behind it, I believe in a universe that makes sense on some level, even if we can’t quite fathom how and why,” he says, his long legs grazing the small, round table in front of him in the lounge of a hotel here. “So there has to be a reason — karma — I don’t know,” he shrugs.
All of his life Sunjata, 41, has been goaded by forces beyond his control, starting with his adoption when he was two months old by a loving couple who nurtured and supported him.
“The only memories I have are of the same two people who adopted me and raised me to adulthood,” he says. “I never met my biological parents. There was a time when I thought about (finding them). I think it’s because I didn’t have any incredibly traumatic experience as an adoptee — I was very, very fortunate in my experience with adoption.”
His adoptive mother suffered from a polio-like disease when she was a child and was confined to a wheelchair. But it didn’t prevent her from being the major breadwinner in the family and encouraging her son’s imagination.
There was a period of five months when Sunjata’s dad helped with the rent so he could concentrate on auditions. “After that, it was like every time I really needed a job the universe would send one to me somehow. I know there’s a lot of incredibly talented people who don’t work ... there’s a lot of incredibly beautiful people who don’t work. I don’t know what to attribute it to. I had excellent training at NYU, very motivated, had a lot of desire. But there are a lot of aspiring actors out there who had all the same things, and it just never fell together for them. So I have to call it grace.”