Source: Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.com / WENN
Rising star Asante Blackk is making major moves following his Emmy-nominated role in the Netflix series When They See Us.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blackk has been promoted to a series regular on the NBC show This Is Us. Blackk first made his appearance on the popular show two weeks ago during the season four premiere. He joins several new recurring characters such as ones played by Omar Epps and Marsha Stephanie Blake, who portrays the parents of Blackk’s character.
Blackk takes on the role of Malik, who is seemingly the new love interest for Deja (Lyric Ross), the adoptive daughter of Randall and Beth (Sterling K. Brown and Susan Kelechi Watson).
The creator of the series, Dan Fogelman, discussed the new characters with Shadow and Act ahead of the season premiere. “I think obviously these new characters are framed as characters who are going to have massive impacts on our main families’ lives,” he said. “It’s fair to say they’re massive parts of this season. They’re not just in a one-off episode as a person who was in a room when Nikki threw a chair through the window or to meet Deja at a party. It’s going to go far beyond that. And it’s a slow build. Part of the intent here was to establish these characters so that you met them kind of pure and outside of the purview of the Pearson family. And now, we slowly start building them into their worlds and see how they kind of effect and really change their lives. From Jennifer [Morrison] to Asante, they’re huge parts of this storyline this season.”
Blackk was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of teenage Kevin Richardson in When They See Us. Richardson was one of the Exonerated Five, a group of teens who were wrongfully imprisoned for the rape of a woman in Central Park in 1989.
