The Real Reason Shalita Grant Hated Working On 'NCIS: New Orleans'
There are many things that fans don't know about the NCIS franchise. This contains a few of the behind-the-scenes drama that takes place. Not the entirety remains hidden, after all. Some things get leaked and contributed to the destructive power some enthusiasts have round the display, particularly NCIS: Los Angeles. Shalita Grant's sophisticated go out from NCIS: New Orleans may be something die-hard lovers are aware of. But they won't know the extent of Shalita's horrible enjoy making the display.
A lot of press was sparked when Shalita exited NCIS: New Orleans in 2018. She claimed she was treated differently by the crew compared to her co-stars. On top of this, she stated that her hair was once permanently broken because of a decision to make her herbal Black hair glance straighter. In an interview with Vulture, Shalita went into far more detail than she ever has about her terrible experience working on NCIS: New Orleans and why exactly she left...
Shalita Grant Didn't Want To Feel Stuck Making A Police Procedural Like NCIS: New Orleans
One thing this is virtually never spoken about when the topic of Shalita Grants' NCIS departure comes up is that she in reality didn't want to be caught in a single process. While NCIS: New Orleans offered her unbelievable task security enjoying Special Agent Sonja Percy, Shalita was once ready for different issues when she left.
"After I left, I had a come-to-Jesus moment with myself. For your career, you have to consider more than a couple of things. I don’t have any family in the business. I come from Virginia and Baltimore, nobody in my family does what I do. I was the first person in generations to get on a plane. I’m flying by the seat of my pants, always. I was thinking about the choices that I made, having some compassion for myself, and was like, I need to do comedy. If it’s a drama, it has to be something that I feel love for. It can’t just be a procedural. There’s more to life for me," Shalita defined to Vulture. "Why I wanted to do a procedural was also from a beautiful place. I’ve been to so many hotels across the country and seen Law & Order: SVU and felt like “that’s home.” I was presented with the opportunity to work on NCIS and I was like, I want to be that person for other people too. Then when I got on the show, I was like, Wow, there’s a lot you didn’t know."
What Was Up With Shalita Grant/Percy's Hair On NCIS?
News of the poisonous paintings prerequisites on the set of NCIS: New Orleans circulated when Shalita Grant left the display. So a lot of her negative revel in was once based totally on how the show handled her hair. This used to be something fans kept noticing variations in from episode to episode. According to Shalita, this wasn't just because of sloppy work from the hair and make-up department but additionally on account of racism coming from the top of the show...
"For Black women, the way our hair is policed is that we’re told it’s unprofessional in its natural state. From the time that you’re in school, you are getting this lesson. It’s shored up with punishment. Schools expel children or suspend children because of their hair. The way we touch our hair is full of internalized white supremacy, because of the anti-Black myths that it requires stringent chemicals to be manageable," Shalita explained.
On the set of NCIS: New Orleans, the hair and makeup division were policed by means of the manufacturing to ensure that Shalita's hair looked a definite means. According to her, the manufacturers have been "committed" to her character no longer having "a natural curl pattern".
"Between season one and season two, I became a series regular. Season one I did a couple of episodes, and I wore this straight-hair wig. Some of my hair was out, but it was in its natural state. Type 4 hair like mine, in its natural state, our strands are very fragile. If it put heat on it, it could break off. In the hiatus, I was like, I’m going to be doing a lot of episodes, I need to talk to them and tell them that I need curlier hair, because we’re in Louisiana. I called the hair department head at the time, and she was like, 'Send some photos of the wig or whatever it is you want to wear.' What we got back from an executive producer was that he was okay with the curl, but not that type," Shalita mentioned.
Shalita submit with this for a total of 3 years. Throughout her time working on the show, she in point of fact struggled. Not only as a result of the undercurrent of racism she was once experiencing but in addition as a result of her hair used to be bodily going through agony.
"From episode to episode, my ponytail was completely different, and that was because I was trying to chase the traction alopecia — in 2017 I had less than an inch of hair in the front. When I came back for season four, I was wearing this helmet-head wig thing. I was like, I don’t give a f***, I know this looks crazy, but I have to save myself, because they don’t care. I’m showing them pictures of the bald spot I got in season one, because they had me in chlorinated water and promised me I would have time to get my hair done, and then, always, on the day it’s 'Oh no, we have to … whatever'", Shalita defined.
Ultimately, what used to be as soon as a dream task for her become an utter nightmare...
"They were so committed to me and my hair being a problem that I had a meeting with a lower-level producer where he was like, 'You couldn’t get your hair wet so we had to reshoot a scene.' The reason we had to reshoot that scene was because it was raining and the stunt couldn’t happen. I wasn’t the only actor in that scene who would need their hair blow-dried for the shot. When I brought up the white actors that would need the same thing for the shot, he had to drop it. It was all because, in their minds, a love interest doesn’t look like that. A love interest has straight hair. It’s all built around those assumptions, and I suffered because of that."
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