Signature Theatre co-founder and artistic director Eric Schaeffer remembers putting Brittany O’Grady through intensive auditioning before casting her in the 2007 production of The Witches of Eastwick.
“The show would begin with her singing, a little girl onstage by herself. We needed to know we had the right person,” he recalls. “She was the one who stood out.”
It was during that production that O’Grady, then a 10-year-old Montessori student at Drew Model School, decided to pursue a career in show business. A decade later, she may be one of the most successful performers to graduate from Arlington’s public school system since Sandra Bullock received her Washington-Lee diploma in 1982.
In her biggest break so far, O’Grady plays “Simone”—the youngest and most troubled singer of the ambitious R&B girl group that dominates the storyline of Star, Lee Daniels’ gritty new musical drama on Fox. Set and shot in Atlanta, the show is punctuated with sequin-packed musical fantasy sequences and enough sex, drugs and violence to require a viewer-discretion warning at the start of its prime-time slot. The show explores issues involving race, class, addiction, human trafficking, gender identity and foster-care abuse.
“I love being able to tell stories by living them myself through the characters I play,” says O’Grady, who turns 21 this summer, exuding both modesty and confidence as she perches on the sofa in her parents’ Arlington Heights home. “I am empathetic, so acting is a great outlet for me to express myself.”
Simone isn’t O’Grady’s first TV role. She has appeared in episodes of The Night Shift and Trophy Wife, and previously played Nadia Garcia in the 2015 religious sci-fi series The Messengers on The CW. “I’ve played Latinas my whole life,” she says. The Spanish she picked up at school is spotty at best, she adds, but her wide, expressive eyes and ethnically ambiguous complexion (her mom is black and her father is white) have appealed to directors who’ve found her look quite versatile.
Perhaps she was always destined for success on the stage and screen. As a toddler, she didn’t just watch Disney movies; she studied them, says her mom, Monique, a former TV reporter who now works in public relations and is running for an Arlington School Board seat. (Monique and her husband, Mike O’Grady, a higher-education consultant, also have two other children.)
By age 4, O’Grady was modeling and performing. During her formative years at Drew, Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Washington-Lee, she played saxophone in the band, studied dance forms ranging from ballet to hip-hop, sang in her high school choir and participated in camps and performances at Signature Theatre, Synetic Theater and Encore Stage & Studio in Arlington, as well as Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and The Little Theatre of Alexandria.
As a teen, she remembers spending hours glued to successful actors’ audition tapes on YouTube in search of “that magical moment that gave them that yes,” she says. “Usually the industry is full of nos.”
In many ways, O’Grady’s upbringing stands in stark contrast to Simone’s. Her character on Star is a survivor of rape and abusive foster parents who seeks solace in drugs and alcohol. “I grew up in a stable household, one house my whole life,” says the actress. “I’ve not gone through the struggles that my character has gone through.”
O’Grady says she rarely encountered bigotry growing up in Arlington: “My ethnicity was evident and normal. It was like the sky is blue. I don’t know if I would be the person I am today if I had been put down. I was always lifted up.”
And yet, there is a certain universality to the human condition—one that she’s tapped into for this challenging role: “I just found inspiration through watching films and being observant. You don’t have to go ‘method,’ ” she says. “You don’t have to do drugs or drink or go through dark times to play a character like that.”
O’Grady has plenty of star-studded company on the set of Star. In addition to main characters played by Queen Latifah and Benjamin Bratt, the series has included appearances by Tyrese Gibson, Lenny Kravitz, Missy Elliott, Naomi Campbell, Paris Jackson and Gladys Knight. Executive producer Lee Daniels also co-created the hit television series Empire, produced the movie Precious and directed Lee Daniels’ The Butler.
“I’m thrilled for her,” says Theresa Severin, the choir director at Washington-Lee. “She’s putting herself in the right places, surrounded by the right people. That’s wise and smart.”
What’s next? Since graduating from W-L a year ahead of schedule in 2013, O’Grady has squeezed in some coursework at Pepperdine University and a semester of study in China between acting commitments. There may be more college classes in her future, but not for now. Fox has renewed Star for another season.
The actress says she welcomes the chance to stay in Atlanta, given its relative proximity to her hometown, only a quick flight away. “[When I come back to Arlington] I hibernate,” she says. “I go home and veg out, hang out, see family and friends I grew up with. I try to cherish the time with the people I love most.”
Yes, her Hollywood career has started to accelerate. But she isn’t taking that success for granted.
“It is a gamble,” she says. “It’s not up to me. That’s the exciting part, too.”
Emily Schwartz Greco wrote about TV binge watching in the January/February issue.