It’s easy to see why top Hollywood stars and directors want to work with acclaimed actor and Kansas City, Kansas, native Cynthia Kaye McWilliams. Her words flow rapid and fresh like a mountain stream, yet she remains supremely present, tuned in to subtle shifts in the conversation.
McWilliams is currently starring in Average Joe, a pulp thriller from BET+. Last year, she played opposite Samuel Jackson in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple+ and starred with Kevin Hart in a revival of Real Husbands of Hollywood on BET+.
A graduate of Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kansas City, Kansas, McWilliams earned an MFA in acting at DePaul University in Chicago. She immediately landed a role in the feature film The Lake House and the series Prison Break. Many more films and TV shows followed, including a recurring role on Bosch.
In a sparkling, wide-ranging phone chat from her Los Angeles home, McWilliams talked about how television is evolving and shared behind-the-scenes observations about working with elite Hollywood actors, including a story about a screen test where she was asked to improvise with a famous comedian without warning.
You were born in Berlin. Why were your parents there?
My dad was in the military. My parents have actually been together since they were 16.
That’s so cool.
Yeah, it’s very interesting. They got married at 18, very young, and had my brother and then decided to have me. I can’t imagine being 20 and saying, “Let’s have more kids.”
Do you have memories of Berlin or were you too young when you were there?
Not really. I was definitely too young to remember, but because we have pictures, sometimes I feel like I’ve convinced myself that I have memories of it. I have a picture of my dad and me—he’s holding me and we’re standing in front of the Berlin Wall.
In your bio it says you grew up “primarily” in Kansas City, Kansas. What ages were you when you lived there?
That would have been from about 5th grade, so late elementary school. Then I did 6th grade at Coronado Middle School, 7th grade at Arrowhead Middle School, and then Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences for [grades] eight through 12.
What neighborhood did you live in?
It’s off Parallel [Parkway] and State [Avenue] in Wyandotte County, my parents are still there. It’s funny, when I tell people I’m from Kansas, I don’t view it as a really small town, but people, when I tell them the names of those nearby streets, they think it’s really small, like there’s one main street and then a street that runs parallel to the main one. [Laughs]
How often do you get back to Kansas City?
Honestly probably only once a year, always for one of the holidays, usually Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’ve gotten better. My brother has four kids—he had all the kids so I didn’t have to [Laughs]—and over the last three or four years, I’ve been really intentional about going more. Even if I can only go home for one day, then I’ll do that, so that it doesn’t end up being that I’m only there for the holidays.
When I do those quick trips, I’m not getting to see the city very much. I’m just hanging out with my parents. I’m in PJs, watching movies and sitting around the table talking. But when I go for the holidays, it’s nice because I get to be there and actually drive around town, see a show, do things.
We love to go down to The Phoenix, a little jazz place. We don’t even see who’s on the lineup that night. We just go and surprise ourselves because it’s always someone great.
Since you’ve been gone from Kansas City for so long, are your football loyalties divided?
[Laughs] I will never say I’m not a Chiefs fan, because I know what a big deal it is to be a Chiefs fan. However, I’m going to be honest. I never really had any football loyalties. I was always a theater kid. I was always a big nerd. I didn’t get into sports in high school. So, it didn’t live with me, you know?
My family, my father, my brother, all of them are Chiefs fans. My brother went to K-State. They are all very big fans. But I’ve never been a fan of any sport.
That’s a brave answer.
But it was exciting when we were in the Super Bowl! And when the Royals won the World Series! It’s all very exciting. I’m mostly excited because I know what a big deal it is to my family and all the people I went to high school with and the friends I still have that live there.
I know what a great source of hometown pride that is. I love that Kansas City still has that sense of hometown pride. I think that’s part of what has helped make us more unified and communal. It feels less like there’s this side and that side and these neighborhood lines. I feel like the hometown pride has fostered a lot of communication between cultures in Kansas City.
What do you remember about growing up in Kansas City?
My earliest memories are probably from when we lived with Papa, my grandfather. He lived in Kansas City, Missouri, near 18th Street. He took me to the 18th and Vine district. I remember my Papa telling me all about what Kansas City was like, 30, 40 years before that—all the things about jazz and how it had come to the city and why. And telling me about the Negro League baseball team and what a big deal that was for so many of the men that he had grown up with.
So from early on, I understood that Kansas City was a city that had such a history. Now coming back it’s amazing seeing how much things have changed since I left after high school. In 20 years, I’ve watched so many neighborhoods pop up and neighborhoods change and build on the city’s history to create cool new communities.
How long have you been in California?
Longer than I’d care to say. [Laughs] I came out right after I graduated from college in 2003, so 20 years. I went to DePaul University in Chicago, which was already a huge jump from Kansas City. And then the leap from Chicago to LA—both of those moves were a huge leap of faith. I went to DePaul because it was good to have a conservatory theater program, which taught me an immense amount and prepared me to come out here.
But LA was not too kind to me in my first year or two.
How so?
I had a lot of nos. A lot of doors shut in my face. I could not get an agent to save my life. So I left and went back to Chicago. I stayed there another three or four years because that was where I was able to get more television credits, and I worked on a feature film there. In Chicago I was able to be a bit of a bigger fish. In LA I was swimming with sharks and dodging to not be eaten. [Laughs] Going back to Chicago was great because it taught me to swim a little stronger.
Also, Chicago has a really strong artistic community. So I had a lot of support from other women, a lot of other artists, really a lot of encouragement and that helped me to come to LA and understand how important it was to do the same thing, to build a really good tribe and surround myself with like-minded people so that I wouldn’t get lost.
I really appreciate my first failures in LA because they taught me how to regroup and be stronger and be ready.
Your new series on BET+, Average Joe, is hard to place in a traditional genre. How would you describe the show?
That’s exactly what I say whenever I’m talking about it. First of all, because of Deon Cole, we all love him from Black-ish and his comedy specials and tours. But it’s not a situational comedy. It’s not a kitchen-sink comedy either. And it’s not even quite a dark comedy because, at the end of the day, if you say it’s a comedy you forget that what the story is about is suspense.
The opening scene establishes these characters and in the first episode we know that somebody died, somebody has some money, and we don’t know why he has it, we don’t know if we’re going to get it, and the process of getting it is literally life or death And plus, there’s a giant secret that immediately the wives are in on, which I love. I always hate when there’s a show where these men are having all these exploits and their wives are in the dark. Because how is that possible? There’s no wife on earth who doesn’t notice when her husband is doing anything differently.
True.
If my guy comes home and he starts buttering his bread differently, I’m gonna look up. [Laughs] “Why’d you do that? Why’d you put the peanut butter on first instead of the jelly?” I know him.
So I love that from the very beginning they establish that these women are a part of whatever the ride is that we’re about to be on. But it’s impossible to pin it to one genre. It is funny, but it’s funny in ways that sometimes seem inappropriate and/or unexpected. The humor is not what it is in a traditional sitcom—one, two, three, punchline, or set up, punch. The humor is definitely in between the lines. It’s under the lines. Sometimes it’s nonverbal. It’s got a really lovely subtle comedy inside some sometimes very big physical comedy. It’s unafraid to be whatever genre it is in the moment. Because what it’s doing is just telling the story. I think that’s super cool.
I think we’re in a phase now where television is getting super creative and we don’t have to stick to genres anymore, and we can tell the stories the way life happens, which is a bunch of unexpected mess. We can literally be crying at a funeral and then laughing and telling stories the next minute. That’s life. We can literally be in love with our partner and then wonder if 20 years of marriage is even worth saving. We can be in a marriage we hate and think we want to leave and then go, “I love you like I met you yesterday all over again.” We can think we know our children and then be surprised by the secrets they keep from us. And we can think we know ourselves and be surprised at what we will do in an unexpected, high-stakes situation. I think this show covers all of that.
What did you enjoy about playing Cathy, your role on Average Joe?
I love Cathy so much. When I read the script, I closed the last page, called my agent, and said, “I have to be Cathy. There’s no question. That’s who I want to read for, that’s who I want to be.”
I think she’s unfiltered. It’s very easy to write off a character like her as a bitch and that’s it. But I loved the process of finding all of her layers, understanding that her hard edge came from somewhere and beginning to understand how that might have happened.
I love that she’s unfiltered about her opinions and her feelings. I love that she’s a little on edge. [Laughs] I love that she’s a little crazy. I mean, that’s fun. What actor doesn’t want to play something a little crazy every now and again? I think Cathy is this really cool version of someone just darkly twisted enough that you still relate to her. She’s a psycho you want to hang out with.
Your real-life boyfriend, Malcolm Barrett, plays your husband on Average Joe. Was it weird creating a fictional relationship with someone you have a real relationship with?
[Laughs] I don’t know if “weird” would be the word, but it was definitely new. I think that more than anything, it was a pleasure. Because of course I know and love him as an individual, but I’ve also known and loved him as a performer for years before I met him and started dating him. I always tell him, “You’re America’s favorite lovable nerd.” We all loved him in Timeless and Better Off Ted and in this show he gets to do a new thing and be this fierce friend. If you give him a comedy, he’s going to play it, if you give him a drama, he’s going to play it. If you let him surprise you with an improvisation, he’s going to come through and take the story to a different level. He’s just a fine actor. I love watching him. I love working with him. I love the support he gives me as an actor.
What was it like working with Samuel Jackson in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, the Apple+ miniseries that got rave reviews?
Oh, honey, that was wonderful! He is so practiced at his craft. That guy’s been doing major films for 30 years. If you are not an actor, I think that number has to sound like something, but for an actor, that is just unfathomable. To be able to sustain a career for that length of time. But what’s more unfathomable is that he didn’t really get started until he was in his 40s. That’s insane. And then once he got started, he did nothing but leading roles. And that’s really cool. I think what people forget is that he started in the theater.
That script was written by Walter Mosley, the award-winning author who also wrote Snowfall. So I felt like this show was a real group of artists. Sam is a theater performer and I got to see that fully, the way he handles text and props and partner work with such care and intentionality. He doesn’t need to do more than one or two takes ever because he gets it on the first one.
He’s just lovely. He’s also a great storyteller. He’s just so excited by the work that he does. He loves being an actor. He’s not tired of it. He doesn’t take it for granted, and he expects everyone around him to perform and behave at a certain level, and that’s a great thing to be around on a set, when your lead is really serious about the work. He’s a great role model.
One of my favorite guilty pleasures is BET’s Real Husbands of Hollywood, which ran for five seasons starting in 2013 and was revived last year. I love your character, Trina, but I can’t imagine how intimidating it would be to do comedy with Kevin Hart.
Yeah, and you know what? They sure did make sure that I could. That audition process was unlike anything I’d ever done. When we did the screen test, there was no script. What they did is, I walked in the room, and here’s Kevin Hart! I had no idea Kevin was going to be there.
Wow.
Yeah. And they said, “Tell us about Trina.” And I did. I described this lawyer who was successful and represented most of Hollywood’s black elite. And then they said, “Tell us who Kevin Hart is.” So I described him. And then they said, “OK let’s talk about a situation.” It was like being back in theater school playing an improv game. I remember the situation [starts laughing]: For whatever reason, Kevin Hart was crashing at my place, and I had come home, and he had eaten all the bread. And I wanted a sandwich very badly. So we began an improv.
Of course, it was impossible and scary, nerve-wracking. But Kevin is an incredible improvisor, and I would love to believe that I am also very funny, but I think the great thing about working with someone funny isn’t trying to out-funny each other. It’s about if they give you space to tell the story with whatever humor is present. If you are both just available to one another, it can work. And immediately we learned that about one another. And we sat there and improvised for 23 minutes straight, and that was why I got the job.
What a great story. A downside of success can be how much work it requires to maintain. Do you have any dreams for the future that don’t involve work?
Oh, goodness, so many. I love to travel. I really enjoy seeing different places and different cultures. I also love learning languages. I started learning Spanish as an adult after a trip to Barcelona. I’d like to learn French. I studied it in high school. I thought it was a beautiful language, and I hated that I lost it. It’s a romance language, so I should be able to pick it up pretty easily. I want to keep learning. I want to keep being a better person, a better citizen of the world.
Here in LA I work with a group called Door of Hope. I could talk for hours and days about it. It’s a homeless shelter but that I think is ingenious in that they don’t just shelter, they give people keys to their own homes. They teach them autonomy. They deal with the holistic individual and the family. They offer counseling. They help people that were born into homelessness and don’t know any other options. They teach them how to build resumes and careers and how to be in society.
And that is something I have a dream about, is becoming someone who is successful enough and has enough of a platform that we can talk about systemic issues and bring awareness that there are people out here solving these problems and help them get the attention and the money and the support they deserve. One of my biggest dreams is to take all of my life experiences and funnel them back into providing other people better life experiences and an opportunity to have dreams as big as I did.
Interview condensed and minimally edited for clarity.