Seven years ago, Jaalen Best had never boxed, never landed a major role, and never met Michael B. Jordan. He was a student at East Carolina University, studying exercise physiology to become a physical or occupational therapist. He’d also walked onto the college’s basketball team, balancing four hours of practice a day with school. “I never wanted to be an actor growing up,” he says.
But during his junior year, in 2019, Best enrolled in his first acting class to fill an elective requirement. To his surprise, the teacher told him he “had a face for television,” a compliment he took all the way back to his hometown in Alexandria, Virginia, where he auditioned for a local production of Pocahontas. He got the part of Chief Powhatan and began driving more than an hour after school and basketball practice to make rehearsals. The Pocahontas director, who saw something in him, soon convinced Best to move to a bigger city and pursue an acting career. “Since that was the second time I had heard that, I’m like, O.K., let’s give it a shot,” Best says. He quit basketball halfway through rehearsals and devoted himself entirely to the play. After graduating in 2020, he set off for Los Angeles.