Taja V. Simpson’s beginnings started in Lake Charles, Louisiana as a young dark-skinned girl who struggled with acts of bullying towards her because of the color of her skin. Yet, she found a way to press through it. Growing up, she discovered her love for acting, and later being told she had talent, she moved to Los Angeles on a quest to pursue her dream of acting.
Today, Simpson is a four-time award-winning actress with more than 20 years in the industry and over 50 credits to her name. She has starred in many well-known shows, including her breakout role in The Bold and the Beautiful. Other popular shows are Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, and All American, to name a few. Most recently, she has starred in Insecure on HBO, and the TV series, A House Divided. But her best-known role is Priscilla Owen in Tyler Perry’s, The Oval, on BET. Simpson also stars in the feature film, LOLA, where she plays the main character as a female boxer, which can be found on Tubi TV. After much persistence, drive, having faith, and believing in herself, she has become a much sought-after “working actor.”
And if that’s not enough, Simpson has created two new brands under her parent company, The Dream is Real. After all of that, she has also found time to become a part of a collaborative book called, Women Who Shine, written with 30 other women. She is a woman on the move who is inspiring other women to believe in themselves as well.
Meet Taja V. Simpson―actor, mentor, author, director, and entrepreneur as she shares her story.
You are a woman of many hats, tell us about all you do.
I am the CEO and owner of three very different brands. The parent company is called, The Dream is Real because that’s what I believe in and that’s my mantra. The Dream is Real… I believe it. I stand by it. And all my dreams absolutely manifest because of it.
The first one is the TVS brand itself, and that’s Taja V. Simpson (tajavsimpson.com). That is the actor and everything that goes with that.
So, the second one is The Working Actor’s Academy, which is TWAA (theworkingactorsacademy.com). It is an online platform that’s dedicated to actors to be able to take a self-paced online course to give them all of the business side and the tools they’ll need to be successful in this industry. It’s something I’ve been passionate about for a long time because I’m asked quite frequently, “How do I become an actor? How do I get started? What do I need to do?” It’s roughly the same questions so I decided to go further. First, I wrote the book along with Sabrina M. Revelle called, Cracking the Acting Code, which kind of expounds on that. I created the online course from scratch, mind you, that allows people to go in and learn how they too can become a “working actor.”
And the third brand I own and operate is Taj Hair Growth, that’s my baby. I mean all of them are because all of them are things I’m very passionate about and it helped me so I want to help others. And Taj was born because I started losing my hair a lot because of my heavy workload being an actor. Sometimes your hair is pressed and pulled and curled and a lot of heat gets to your hair and I always prided myself on having really great, thick hair including my edges. But slowly, my edges started to leave me and because of it, it led me down a road of discovery.
It started with looking up different shampoos and conditioners and all these things I needed to help and I was vigilant; I was on it trying to do what I could to get my hair back. Nothing was really working if I’m honest. So, I believe food is your medicine and God provides us with everything we need.
And so, that led me down a road of discovery of trying to find natural-based products that were great for hair growth. And I created a water-based tonic and I was using it and I gave it to all of my friends who had hair problems and they used it, and it literally grew all of our hair back. So, I started giving it to tons of people, some who suffered from alopecia, male pattern baldness, thinning whether due to medication or sickness, or any of those types of things and it started really working. It was at that moment I said, “Okay, I have to bring this to the world.” And now, I bring it to the masses.
There are moments where I’m like, “This is a lot.” But, I’m very grateful that I’m surrounded by people who believe in, support, and love me, and all that I desire to do. And it’s what continues to keep me successful. I make sure I meditate and say my affirmations every day, and I try to stick to my schedule as much as possible.
Name an actress in the industry who inspires you.
That is going to be Jessica Alba. I say that because she’s successful in acting in the shows and films that she’s done. And also, as an entrepreneur, she owns Honest Company and that company has grossed over a billion dollars. I remember when that came out, I was like, “Oh wow, that’s amazing.” So, she inspires me as an actress/entrepreneur.
The artist that inspires though would be Viola Davis. She is always so drawn into every role that she portrays. I love Meryl Streep. And I think those are my top two and I get that they are the biggest ones out there for sure. And they are because of everything that they do. My God, the way these women can lose themselves, their mannerisms, everything about who they are, their aura can completely change and transform and become someone else over and over and over again. And these are women, they’re creating these people off the page. They’re not doing impersonations of other people, I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, but I love that they are creating people from scratch. And they are something that… it’s new, fresh, different, grounded. Like that is inspiring to me.
How do you choose and prepare for your roles? What drew you to the female boxing role in the film LOLA, and your White House staff role in Tyler Perry’s show, The Oval on BET?
It’s all going to be about the script for me. If I’m inspired by the writing, then I’m inspired to do it. Like I get excited and I can’t wait to go to work every day. I can’t wait to create this person. I can’t wait to build this character and breathe life into and create this whole other person that has nothing to do with me. However, if the writing does not meet that for me, then I can’t do it. And I have turned down productions in the past because of that reason. Writing is what allows me to be able to choose roles that I want to do. If it’s something great that I want to do then I’m excited and that’s when my preparation begins. My preparation is very detailed and extensive I’ve been told; I do the work. I completely emerge myself into building my character, understanding and knowing them completely, and really breathing life into the words that are on that page. I make sure that I build a completely well-rounded person because that’s something super important to do whenever you are building character. I need to build someone that’s unique and I need to create a whole person to make sure they are beautifully layered and flawed.
LOLA is something that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to play a female boxer. However, I’ve never boxed before but I’ve just loved the sport. So, when I got the offer to do the movie, I was really excited. So, I Immediately started training, way before I was going to film it because I knew I wanted to look good and be able to play the role. So, I got with different boxing coaches and they trained me for free, and I was bouncing around like a cheerleader at first before I learned how to really move like a boxer and attack. But it took me some time to be able to do that. And I was attracted to LOLA because she was a lost soul trying to figure out her life.
Unfortunately, she is violated in the movie and she has to bounce back from that and figure out who she is after that. And that for me, it was all things I had never experienced so to be able to go into that, and that’s something that exciting for me too, if I’ve never experienced it and it’s exciting for me, I was like, I’ve never been sexually assaulted, praise God. But from an artist standpoint, I’m like wow that takes a lot of courage to be able to tap into something like that, to be able to go there and portray that onscreen and make it real. You have to mentally go to a real place to make that make sense for you as the actor to portray her, to bring her to life. That’s what drew me to LOLA, I loved how beautifully flawed she was, and everything that she was going through, and her really trying to find herself, and then she found it in boxing and that really empowered her. And she then turned to empower everyone around her. LOLA 2 is coming out in the summer of 2022.
And the White House role on Tyler Perry’s show, The Oval, changed my life. In so many ways, it made me grow as an actor. It grew me financially as well. This was like the role that came in and I was like finally, now I can say I’ve made it. I’m forever grateful to Tyler Perry for seeing my talent and believing in me enough to book me. I’ve been at the precipice for a lot of different roles, “it’s like she’s right there, she’s right there,” but it goes to the person who is not always the better talent but has more followers and things like that. But I appreciate him taking a chance on me and booking me, and that is everything.
What attracted me to that is she’s a series regular. I saw a lot of myself in Priscilla in the sense of like she’s a loyalist. She’s running the White House. She wants to make sure everything is good for everyone around her and things like that. But the parts of her I don’t have any experience in is being married for 15 years, dealing with infidelity and it’s at that level in her workplace and in her face. She goes through a lot emotionally in this character and there are a lot of layers, so that’s what attracted me to her.
What have been some highlights of your career?
Definitely booking The Oval. Booking Insecure was a supreme highlight. I watched for five years and remember saying I’m going to get on that show before it’s done. And booking the funny role of Cheyenne was definitely a highlight.
LOLA is for sure a highlight. To know that I’m the face of the movie; I am Lola. I am the leading lady and the movie went on to do so well. It was #1 on Tubi when it came out; that was a platform that ended up taking us. We were a finalist at American Black Film Festival. You know, so we were this independent film like the engine that could and just kept rising and rising to the top, so much so, that now we have already shot LOLA 2 with some pretty big hitters in it, and I’m super excited and proud of that experience.
And one of the other highlights in my career is being a successful business owner with creating my three brands from scratch and building them into empires. So those are some of the highlights that make me really excited.
What’s next for you, career-wise and business-wise?
Career-wise, I have a lot of things that are coming up the pipeline that I can’t really talk about but I will say LOLA 2 is coming out in the summer. So, other things are just like in the works, nothing I can talk about, but it’s a lot coming up.
Business-wise, what’s next is Taj will be coming out with shampoo and conditioner which I’m super excited about. TWAA will be expanding and I will be doing more of a fiscal side of it. I want to make sure actors and artists really know what to do with their money. Now that they’re a working actor, I want to give them great tools and tricks to keep their money.
Simpson is doing big things and so inspiring to follow, be sure to click the links below to keep up with her.
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Photo credit: Kate Haus Photography
Writer, Debbie Stokes is a contributing writer. You can follow her on Instagram @iamdebbiestokes
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