Comedian Johnny Daley ‘ready for the world’

Award-winning actor, comedian and former child star Christopher ‘Johnny’ Daley, whose upcoming slate of projects includes multiple live performances locally and overseas, as well as a featured role in a television series co-produced by HBO and the UK’s Channel 4, is “ready for the world”.

“We have given the world the Marleys, Shaggys and Sean Pauls ... as well as the Usain Bolts, Asafa Powells and Shelly Ann Fraser Pryces. We have had four Miss Worlds. But in the realm of film, theatre and television performance, we have yet to fully set the world ablaze. Certainly, icons such as Sheryl Lee Ralph and the late Madge Sinclair have definitely made and continue to make an indelible mark on the acting industry. But I feel that now, we are at a moment where the interest in Jamaican stories being told by Jamaican actors has never been higher. And I’m excited to be part of that renaissance and to see what the future can bring,” said Daley.

Daley is referring to the plethora of recent film and television productions which have been either partially or completely set in Jamaica, featuring Jamaican actors or actors of Jamaican descent in key roles. Among these are Netflix’s music industry drama, Champion, Hulu’s Oprah Winfrey-produced Black Cake; Paramount’s Bob Marley: One Love biopic; and Idris Elba’s urban drama Yardie, in which Daley had a supporting role.

But he is especially excited about his upcoming appearance in the HBO/Channel 4 television series, Get Millie Black, a crime drama surrounding Jamaican-born detective Millie Black, formerly of Scotland Yard, who returns to Kingston to work on missing persons cases for the local police force and finds herself involved in a case that could blow her world apart.

Daley portrays no nonsense Jamaican detective Lance Stennet, whose tense relationship with Black heightens the drama around the difficult case.

While he awaits the première of Get Millie Black, Daley will embark on a busy fall schedule of live performances beginning with The Kings of Jamaican Comedy live event in Dorchester, Massachusetts on August 25, followed by Laugh A Ton, heading a line-up that also includes Fancy Cat and Kathy Grant, and then the annual Grace Jamaican Jerk Festival in South Florida.

The Kingston-born Daley was a mischievous primary school student when his principal suggested that he join the school’s drama club. He won the leading role in his first school play, and was named ‘Best Actor’ by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission. His prize was a summer scholarship to the Jamaica School of Drama where he met acting teacher and television writer Melita Samuels, who effectively changed Daley’s life.

She was commissioned at the time by JBC Television (now Television Jamaica ) to write a television series about a group of residents in a small Kingston community called Lime Tree Lane.

“She was trying to cast the role of a young boy named Johnny and she asked me to audition. I got my mother’s permission to go ahead and I won the role. And the rest, as they say, is history,” Daley recalled.

Overnight, Daley and the entire cast of Lime Tree Lane became instant celebrities, so much so that Daley was permanently tagged with the name of his character ‘Johnny’ and still uses it today.

He effortlessly made the transition from child star to adult actor, and now, more than three decades later, has nearly 40 major stage productions to his credit in a career that has taken him all over the globe.

Among his many awards is the International Theatre Institute (Jamaica) Actor Boy Award for ‘Best Actor. for his performance in Basil Dawkins’ For Better or Worse.

In between, he has established himself as an emcee, television and radio host and stand-up comedian in such high demand that he has found it necessary to consciously carve space out for his friends and family, including his three children.