‘I just want it to be good’: Mekai Curtis looks back at playing Kanan Stark and leading ‘Power Book III’
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The 25-year-old actor grew up in front of the world on “Raising Kanan.’ As the final season arrives, he says he and his castmates didn’t have pressure because it was the final season, but because they wanted their performances to be special.
Mekai Curtis might be the only Disney actor to say they’ve embodied some of the mannerisms of 50 Cent for a television show.
The actor joined Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder of “The Pivot Podcast” on the same day “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” debuted its final season on Starz and while a majority of the attention was given toward his portrayal of Kanan on the hit Starz series, Curtis opened up about the lessons he learned working with Disney for the animated series “Kirby Buckets” and “Milo Murphy’s Law.”
“Fun time,” Curtis says of playing the animated characters. As a younger actor, he bet on himself by telling his parents about an audition all the way out in Missouri. The Jersey-born actor thought of it as a long shot, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
“Even having the aspiration to be on Disney, you never really think it’ll happen till it happens. I’m living my wildest dreams,” he said.
As Kanan Stark, Curtis portrays one of the more ruthless characters in the “Power” universe, taking on a character who fans of the original series know did some of the most heinous things. Things that, as “Power Book III” concludes later this year, feel like child’s play compared to what he achieves in a “dark” fifth season. But as he continues to grow and add layers to Kanan, Curtis doesn’t want to be fully typecast into those kinds of roles.
“I think that’s anything that you play long enough or well enough, this industry will pigeonhole you if you let it,” he said. “But that’s your job to show what you want to do, what you can do. How would they know if they’re only going to see you in this sort of thing? You got to pivot. You got to figure out how you’re going to continuously keep people on their toes.”
He later added, “I have nothing left to prove, but I can and will do it all. There’s nothing that I can’t do and I’m ready for it all. Wherever it comes, it’s where we’re gonna be.”
As Curtis and the cast prepared for the final season of “Power Book III,” there was less pressure to make a last hurrah, given that the show was about to end, but to deliver the best performance possible.
“I think again we kind of take it back to day one, where it was just like I want it to be good,” Curtis told Taylor. “I want it to be as good as I can make it, you know, and as long as I’m showing up with my best foot forward, I know everybody else is going to too.”
He added, “I think that was more of the pressure everybody was putting on it. Not necessarily like you, it’s the end of the show, and we’ve got to make it good. But I think the fact that everybody, you know, just showed up and wanted to be better every day is what makes how the show ends really good. I think everybody’s extremely accomplished and at least I feel everybody’s extremely accomplished. I know I am. You know, I feel we did exactly what we were supposed to tell that story.”
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