Showtime and Paramount+'s The Chi shines a light on star Judae'a Brown as fans scour the internet for information about the actress.
The South Side of Chicago is front and center in the Showtime drama series, highlighting kids navigating the education system, young adults finding their way in the world, and the elders keeping a watchful eye on everything.
The 22-year-old Brown (born August 12, 2001) is featured in this series as Jemma St. John, Maisha's manager and Kevin Williams' girlfriend after first being introduced to the series in Season 3.
3 Things to Know About The Chi's Judae'a Brown
The Brown Family's Bonding Through COVID-19
Speaking on The Brett Allan Show, The Chi's 5'1" star went into detail about how she and her family handled the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in 2020.
Brown and her family bonded over cook-offs, and before long, her aunt joined them as they realized they "didn't want to be separated." They then gathered in the same space to quarantine together.
She teamed up with her aunt while her parents joined forces in cooking competitions, making "different types of foods" and taking part in "little contests" to make a game out of the experience:
"Me and my family, we had family cook-offs. Like my aunt came and stayed with us for like a few months because we didn't want to be seperated, so we all just got together and quarantined. Me and my aunt would be on one team and my dad and my mom would be on one team and we would just have cook-offs... We just made all these different types of foods and had these little contests, we made it a game."
Along with those cooking games, the family played card games like Phase 10 and Uno and "watched a lot of TV:"
"It was good. We played a lot of Phase 10, a lot of Uno, and we watched a lot of TV, I'm not gonna lie."
Judae'a Brown's Evolving Work Resume
Judae'a Brown first hit the acting scene in Hollywood in 2011, making her debut appearance in Natasha Parker's 10-minute short titled The Package.
Brown's resume on IMDb has seven appearances in total, including her work on The Chi, which is by far her biggest credit to date.
Her big breakout came with a role in an episode of Chicago Med from 2018, playing a young child named Gabby Phillips in Season 4, Episode 6.
That episode sees Gabby enter the hospital dressed in a cotton candy Halloween costume with her legs appearing swollen. She later shows signs of Wilson's disease, meaning her body could not process copper.
Other credits on Brown's resume include Native Son, South Side, and Our Father.
The Chi Season 4 Acting Struggles
During a roundtable chat with The Spot Real Talk for Season 5, Judae'a addressed some of her biggest challenges in filming the previous season's work.
While Season 5 was not too challenging, some of what she had to do on-screen in Season 4 made her "really have to act" by taking on things she could not imagine doing in real life:
"This season for me it wasn't really that hard, other than the depressed... Now last season, I had to really act, I would never do that in real life, it was a lot."
Season 4 saw Jemma involved in a love triangle with Jake and Kevin, cheating on Kevin with Jake for much of the season. In Episode 5, Kevin finds out about that affair as he walks in on Jemma kissing Jake in a stairwell, leaving him heartbroken.
She also went through plenty of trauma when Douda attacked her father, leaving him hospitalized as she could only hope and pray that his life would be spared.
How To Follow Judae'a Brown Online
Fans looking to follow Judae'a Brown on social media can do so on her Instagram page at @officialjudaeabrown and X (formerly Twitter) at @officialjudeea.
New episodes of The Chi Season 6, Part 2 premiere every Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime before airing on the network every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.
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