Adam Davenport

Thank you, @naacpimageawards ! Some moments from today’s nominees luncheon that I will carry with me: @derricknaacp , the President and CEO of the NAACP. Thank you for your powerful speech. @yvettenicolebrown , it was a pleasure to meet you! @khleothomas and I worked together on ROLL BOUNCE, which filmed twenty years ago in Chicago. I was a set PA and he was part of the main cast. We recognized each other after many years and gave each other a hug. Another full circle moment. @msjeanettejenkins , Olympic medalist @itskimglass , and @givethemdiamond , who was my date to the luncheon. Congrats to all the nominees in all the categories. Sending love to everyone and stay in the love!

I’m incredibly humbled to share that I’ve been nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Thank you to the @naacp and the @naacpimageawards for this recognition. Today I reflected with immense gratitude and reverence for how much @audramcdonald gave us all with her performance of “Rose’s Turn” at the Tony Awards for @gypsybway . After a passionate conversation with a few friends and students about it last June, @givethemdiamond urged me to write something! Thank you to everyone who supported what started as a Facebook post and contributed to the conversation. Thank you to @anitagonzalez7555 at Georgetown University and Denise Cordell Hall, the publisher of @bronzecommhub , who helped the piece find a home outside of Facebook. The NAACP gave me one of my first writing awards in their National ACT-SO competition when I was 16 and 17, so this feels like a full circle moment for me and I am truly grateful.

Serbian and Croatian filmmakers gave me some of the greatest opportunities of my career, and I remain deeply grateful. Thank you to the filmmakers — Rados Bajić, Stevan Filipović, Danilo Šerbedžija and Lazar Bodroža — for allowing me to participate in your storytelling. I will never forget what I learned from the artists in these countries, and I am honored to be a part of your history. I hope to continue fostering collaboration between diverse artists and opening doors for more creative exchanges that connect artists across the world.

“There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me, it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal ‘other.’ The children’s demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me—whatever that was—but somebody actually needed me to be that. If you listen to [your children], somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want.” - Toni Morrison on motherhood ❤️

I think there is something so powerful about remaining stubbornly committed to your own growth. Trust that what you put into the world matters, even when the results are not immediate. As a Christian, one thing I have learned is the importance of faith, the ability to believe in something yet unseen. And through Buddhism, one thing I have learned is the principle of cause and effect. The reciprocal nature of this universe is real. Whatever we give energy to eventually returns to us. It may not always happen on our preferred timeline. What we have control over is the choice to keep doing the work and showing up for ourselves. That requires discipline, patience, self-compassion and the humility to recognize and forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ll naturally make along the way, because that’s how we learn and make the choice to do better. Life is a school and we are here to learn and teach each other.

Great people, meaningful conversations, and an inspiring atmosphere at the North American Chilean Chamber of Commerce Spring Networking Party. Always great to connect with a community bringing together talent, business, and new opportunities between USA and Chile. #espinelco #NACCC #NewYork #Networking #NYCStyle

Having been close to fame now in various shapes and forms (whether my own brief fifteen minutes or supporting those who make a living from theirs), I’ve come to believe that fame is an addiction. Fame offers the deceptive allure of a desirable life. Fame tells us many different myths: “Have this much money, you’re going to be happy. Drive this car, you’ll be admired. Live in this home, you’ll have status. Wear these clothes, they’ll make you feel beautiful. Have this body and people will want you.” It’s a very powerful illusion, and now because of social media, an entire generation of people is caught inside it. We are living in an atmosphere of narcissism and self-worship right now that is so overwhelming that it threatens every other impulse. Everyone is now image-conscious at the expense of depth. Everyone is curating. Everyone is branding. Everyone is signaling their importance. I understand why people want this. I understand the fantasy. I’ve touched parts of it myself (as I post this with a carefully curated image of myself from the Waldorf). But I’m telling you it still doesn’t resolve the deeper hunger of our human experience. What is lost for us along the way is that genuine artists used to become visible because they had something to say. Bob Dylan and Joan Didion weren’t “influencers,” they were witnesses. They were talking about what was going on, responding to the world around them. Now everyone is an “influencer,” but what are they influencing in the literal sense if they’re merely emulating what they saw someone else do before? Innovation and true creativity are becoming endangered species because so many want the reward of being seen without the burden of knowing what they actually want to use their visibility in the spotlight for other than “look at me.” We’ve confused visibility with significance. They are not the same thing.

People sometimes ask me how actors can hold so many different lives inside themselves. But acting isn’t about having “multiple personalities.” It’s about expanding your capacity for the transformative powers of your empathy: you can not only step into someone else’s shoes, but you can also take on their own experience as if it is your own. Looking back at these roles from my years in New York theater and independent film, I’m struck by how little I recognize myself in some of these characters and how vividly I remember the process of becoming them. Before I started teaching acting, the directors who hired me were some of my greatest teachers. I’m grateful to the directors on these projects who recognized something in me that I yet didn’t see within myself. They gave me these opportunities to stretch myself and the work took me from Off-Broadway to Cannes, and everywhere in between. I’d do it all again just for the chance to create courageously with my empathy. These were all day-player or supporting characters: I never played the lead, with the exception of a one-man show where I worked on a Trinidadian accent (center left). But I’ve never measured the value of a role by screen time. I measured its value by how deep I could immerse myself in it. What has always interested me is the power of transformation.

Huge thanks to @thepowerjournalist & @digitaljournal for the interview article! Sharing my journey in TV & film was a blast. Appreciate @jaxxeline for the intro! And shoutout to @actingwithadam for being an awesome collaborator and uplifting our industry 🤩🎬🤘🏼

At the beginning of the year, I submitted my piece on “Rose’s Turn” for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. I didn’t win but wasn’t expecting to either: writing this piece was a personal milestone for me, and it helped motivate me to start writing again. So grateful for the response it received and for the NAACP Image Award nomination which came from it. 🙏🏾 Congratulations to Mark Lamster who won for Criticism and this year’s honorees. 👏🏾

Ten years ago, I was working on my first Off-Broadway show, LAST OF THE CAUCASIANS at the Barrow Group. This moment in the dressing room came up in my memories today, from the tech rehearsal. I was playing a commodities broker who stalks his girlfriend outside a bar after they break up. A man who couldn’t let go. At the time, I thought I was learning how to work on a new play and build a character from the ground up, with no preconceived notions or outside references coloring your own exploration of who this person is. But this role taught me so much more: I was also coming to understand the part of human nature that keeps people from letting go, and how that inability can lead one to unravel.