Five Questions With Stacy-Ann Facey

Possessing an engaging personality, combined with a body that will stop any man mid-conversation, entertainer Stacy-Ann Facey has been shaking things up for over a decade, thanks to her career as a dancer, recording artiste, and actress. A founding member of the popular group Dance Xpressionz, Facey’s dancer strut has taken her all over the globe; however, it has not led her to international big-screen stardom just yet. But, as she tells The Gleaner, “Nothing happens before its time.”

She adds, “Both careers (acting and dancing) go hand in hand, and I am getting there. Ring Games has been my biggest role on screen so far,” she said of the television (TVJ) drama in which she played the colourful character Latesha.

Her earliest ambitions were to become a teacher – in the traditional way. “Little did I know I would end up teaching dance and music at a government institution and then teaching to the global dance community,” she said of the opportunity that the entertainment industry has afforded her. From dancing in music videos, the first of which was Vybz Kartel’s Buss It Off, to her debut in an Xpressive Productions play called Corner Shop and then auditioning for films like Sprinter, Stacey-Ann Facey has done it all.

With the second season of Ring Games coming to an end last Sunday, Facey shows no signs of slowing down. She is taking her acting career to the next level.

This week, Stacy-Ann tells Five Questions With ... about her transition from dancing in the streets to acting in theatres and on screen, and finding herself along the way.

How would you say dance helps you in your acting or vice versa?

Both act as a balance for the other. Whereas dancing is without words and I am able to emote through movement, acting is, in some cases, less movement and more words, and I am able to express even better knowing how to manage when words are not part of the script. I also don’t get stage fright because I am used to performing in front of an audience, and I have developed a strategy before a performance. For example, with singing and deejaying, what I normally do to break the ice is make a joke when introducing myself. It always helps to warm up the audience.

What has been your most challenging role thus far, and have you shared any similarities with the characters you have had to play?

My most challenging role was playing a woman in her fifties in Corner Shop. Practising the walk and getting the tone of voice correct was hard for me then. Have I shared similarities with any characters? Maybe the former Stacy-Ann Facey could be compared to the confrontational Latesha, not the present-day me.

As a burgeoning actress, do you find that women face more obstacles on the road to stardom in theatre and film than the opposite sex, and if so, why?

Entertainment on a whole has obstacles, not just theatre and film, and then the females have too much problems. I believe the men tend to stay on the straight-and-narrow road. I say that to mean they remain focused on exactly what they want. The females of this generation are easily distracted, and speaking from experience, I am still training myself to keep focused. That includes things like ignoring what I see on social media.

Name one place you have visited that made you feel like you would not return home.

I have been all across Europe, Colombia, Canada, and the Caribbean islands but I can’t say any of those places made me feel like I would give up home or live there. My recent trip to China, though, definitely exceeded all my expectations and made me think, if it was not for the language barrier, that I would make an extended trip of it.

Complete the sentence. When I step out of the spotlight…

... I am a very shy person who spends her downtime burying herself in online articles about world history. A bit of what some people refer to as a nerd.