The Intersection of Professional Football & Entertainment with Thomas Q. Jones

I had the pleasure of speaking with Thomas Q. Jones whom you either know from his professional football career or his thriving career in acting that currently spans 8 years. From on the field to the big screens he makes it his business to leave his mark in whatever he does. Acting was only the catalyst in his journey to tell the stories of others because now he is producing them. The field is where most of us met him but it is the screen, the paper and pen is where we get to feel, see and hear his perspective and how he wants to change the narrative for our community, culture, and especially black men. 

Cox: So Thomas let’s get straight into it, how was it going from the NFL to acting?
Jones: Honestly I had to play catch up after retiring from the NFL. I studied for four years straight taking acting classes for six hours a week year round. I was able to study under some amazing coaches and with talented actors. I had to humble myself to know that I was learning something new and that I wasn’t going to be great initially. 

“This is what I was able to do as an actor and why I think I’ve had some success in my career”

In most professional sports athletes review the plays of the competition. This was the same strategy he applied to studying other actors in TV shows, stage plays and film. It would allow for him to react in a natural way rather than thinking of his next line or movement. Like in sports he wanted to make sure everything was second nature to him with any character he plays. 

“I didn’t come into this business with a sense of entitlement”

Cox: How did you get the industry to take you seriously?
Jones: My first step was to convince everyone that I’m actually a good actor. They had to believe I know what I’m doing. This means they have to believe I’m the character I’m playing. I had to make sure that they could emotionally connect with me and live vicariously through the character on a certain level. This was necessary l so that I could earn the respect of other actors watching the television shows or films I’m in. 

“I think there was always a love for entertainment in me”

Cox: Where did this love for acting come from?
Jones: I’m a music guy and I had a music label for a few years while I was in the NFL. I loved managing artists and I actually had a record deal with Universal Music when I played for the Jets in New York. I never thought about acting until I produced a project and played the nephew of the legendary Clifton Powell. He was the one who encouraged me to take acting seriously because he thought I had some talent. Clifton kept pushing so I dedicated myself to get a manager and see what can happen next. 

“It helped me connect with myself” 

It was acting that helped him grow more than he knew! This journey led to him reinventing himself because he was exposed to different perspectives, cultures and people in a way that was never available to him in the NFL. In the NFL the only perspective and culture is to win, but in acting he had to read and learn to understand, adapt and form to characters who at times are completely opposite to who he is fundamentally as a human being.

Cox: So tell me about the highly anticipated show Johnson. 
Jones: In 2017 I met Deji who had already created Johnson. After he introduced it to me we agreed to produce it at the same time. Johnson is a dramedy about four black men who have been friends since elementary school. They all just so happen to have the last name Johnson.

Cox: What is something you love about what Johnson brings to television? 
Jones: You get to see four black men who have different essences, complexions, energies, conflicts. With these characters you get to see black men being more than one dimensional as you usually see on the screen. The beauty comes from them all clicking together when you see them together even though they are all so different. 

Johnson is just Thomas’s start on continuing to control the narrative of Black men in a way that the world can see them in a positive and diverse light. Tired of the same stereotypes portrayed about black men he is putting himself in the driver seat because unlike in the NFL, Thomas is in full control of what he wants to see the outcome to be.