Emayatzy Corinealdi knows what she wants, and isn’t afraid to go after it.
As the star of Reasonable Doubt on Hulu, she comes to streaming screens weekly as Jax Stewart, a beautiful mess of power and vulnerability, taking on high-profile, controversial court cases by day while navigating ambiguity in her own values and love life by night.
Like so many of the big wins of Corinealdi’s career, it’s a position she had to fight for –– despite already having the success of the proverbial bird in the hand right in front of her. But the character was too complicated, too controversial, too rare to be written specifically for a Black actress to pass up the opportunity.
“I’m very interested in people and why we do what we do,” Corinealdi says. “I think a large part of that is because of all of the moving around I did as a child, just always being very curious, having to make new friendships then leave those friendships abruptly without closure.”
A self-described army brat, Corinealdi moved from state to state to country with her Panamanian-born father, Ohio-bred mother, two brothers, and a sister throughout her childhood. Born in Fort Knox, KY, she spent years in New Jersey, Kansas, and Germany, among several other locations.
“I think that’s done something,” she continues. “It’s helped me be able to create characters and worlds. I’d make up stories about the friends that I had and what they’re doing now, that kind of thing.”
Like most children, Corinealdi tried many different hobbies and extracurricular activities in grade school before figuring out what her path into adulthood would be. “Of course, my parents wanted me to go to college and my dad wanted me to go to the military,” she says.
“Somewhere in there is where I realized,” she says of discovering her passion for acting. “For a long time, I wanted to be a lawyer. Myself and my girlfriend in high school, we already had our firm name picked out. And then I realized, ‘Oh, you do not want to be a lawyer. You just want to play!’”
Rather than the actual practice of law, Corinealdi realized she enjoyed the drama of the courtroom; the glamour of the perfectly pressed suits, the thrill of playing up details to the impressionable jury, the back and forth of cross-examination, the authoritative bangs of gavels, the whole gamut of what television and film have taught viewers happens in legal proceedings.
“Once that clicked, I said, ‘Oh, I think I really want to be an actor.’ And so she went on to be a lawyer. I went on to be an actor, and that’s why this is even more full circle. Playing a lawyer on television.”
Corinealdi’s road to starring in her own streaming hit, Onyx Collective’s salaciously sexy courtroom mystery series Reasonable Doubt, was marked by determination and grit. After completing high school in Kansas, she moved back to Jersey to wet her toes in the off-off-Broadway scene, take acting courses, and hone her talents. Once she felt like she was ready to take the industry on, she packed her things into her 1995 Nissan Sentra. Cooled only by her big dreams –– the car had no AC at the time –– Corinealdi drove cross-country to Los Angeles, making the four-day trek from coast to coast all by herself.
“Those days are always difficult,” the actress says of her early times in LA. “For a long time, all I ate every day was oatmeal for lunch. But these were also some of the best times, grinding and going to all of the different summer intensive workshops and classes and grouping up with other people who had the same passion, who also didn’t have any money, didn’t have anything.
You’re just acting every day and auditioning and reading plays. It was very difficult, but it was some of the most rewarding times.”
Things took a turn for Corinealdi’s career when she starred in Ava DuVernay’s 2012 drama Middle of Nowhere, where she portrayed a medical student who drops everything to dedicate her life to the well-being of her incarcerated husband. Her powerful performance alongside David Oyelowo caught enough eyes that the actress was soon granted the rare luxury of taking her time and being intentional about her roles.
“From there I was always able to just make the choices rather than have my team send me out for an audition just because I’m supposed to audition,” she says. “I was always very clear and particular about the kind of work that I wanted to do.”
“And so that made my journey just a bit longer, by the nature of me not wanting to do everything. But it was also more rewarding in a way because I had agency in the choices that I was making. If I was auditioning, it wasn’t just because my agent gave me this job and I have to go.”
Her steady pace and deliberate choices allowed Corinealdi to work with amazing actors and directors along the way, before finally landing a guaranteed series regular role on a major network show that stood to make her a highly recognizable household face. But then, Jax Stewart came along.
“I was on my way to another job. Someone had offered me a role, a great project, two years guaranteed. And I was set on doing that and then my team came and said, ‘We need you to read this. We really think it would be great.’ And…I didn’t want to read it,” she laughs. The script in question was for Reasonable Doubt, Raamla Mohammad’s Black millennial-coded court procedural mixed with mystery, dipped in sex appeal and wrapped in drama, whose title was a play on both the legal term and Jay Z’s platinum-selling debut album.
“They would not let me let it go. They were adamant,” Cronealdi says.
“Finally, I read it about a week or so later and I said, ‘Okay. I get it. I get it.’ But I was going to have to fight for it. They weren’t just going to give it to me.” Despite having a guarantee sitting right in her lap, Corinealdi set off to audition against everyone, “from the names we all knew to the ones we didn’t,” to win the role of a lifetime.
Creator/showrunner/executive producer Raamla Mohammad was looking for the right person to play Jax, a high-powered LA defense attorney who has it all together in the courtroom and the boardroom, but not so much in nearly any other area of her life. Fans of season one were treated to a messy character with sometimes questionable morals, a dysfunctional family dynamic, and shaky personal motivations, who smokes the occasional blunt, and even enjoys her fair share of casual sex and exhibitionism – despite being married. Just like viewers who got hooked on Jax from S1 E1, Corinealdi was gripped by the complicated woman she met on the page when she received the script.
“This woman…she was just unapologetic, formidable, successful, but still messy. She didn’t have it all together. She made choices that could be deemed questionable. And I loved that because it was so realistic,” she says. “I also loved the sexiness of the role, getting to see that kind of vibe between this married couple while still seeing all the struggles that they go through.”
EMAYATZY CORINEALDI
If you watched season one, you know that Jax and Lewis’ ups and downs were a bit more unique than those the average couple faced. Separated and each testing the waters, they each ran into more than they bargained for while attempting to tackle life Season two finds them reconciled and working to discover if their deepened relationship wounds can be mended as Jax pieces together her fragmented mental health…just as another wrench is thrown at Jax when her close friend of many years calls her with news that will rock all of their lives.
“Everything is elevated [this season] and the stakes are much higher,” Corinealdi says. Aside from the personal trauma and drama between Jax and Lewis, this season is set to potentially open some tough dialogues in the community about very real-life issues that touch more people than many are prepared to admit.
“We have a domestic violence storyline, those kinds of things are going to spark conversations some uncomfortable conversations with people, which I think is what is necessary,” Corinealdi says.
In the meantime, when she’s not onset tapping into the messiest parts of her acting repertoire to play Jax, Corinealdi is playing the most important role of her life: Mommy.
“It’s not easy,” the actress says of juggling busy family life as a wife and mother and a bustling career as the star of a top streaming hit. “I think for me, it’s about keeping my priorities in check and understanding that sometimes those priorities may clash. You have to prioritize one thing at one time and the next time it may be something different.”
“But for me, it’s my family first and my baby girl,” she says. “This career has been so wonderful and I love it, and I can’t wait to see what else comes next. It’s a dream come true.”
“[But] having my child is a dream come true. She’s number one. So everything kind of revolves around that. So it starts with just knowing that I won’t be able to do it all all of the time, and that’s okay. I’m doing my best to try to make it all work.”
