Jahleel Kamara is Surging

We don’t often see entertainers like Jahleel Kamara. Actors generating steady work and boasting an impressive list of credits between the ages of four and six years old are like finding four-leaf clovers in a briar patch.

We have that four-leaf clover, however, with six year old actor Jahleel Kamara. The young child actor has worked in television and film alike already and his new role in the Lionsgate feature Shadow Force with Kerry Washington and Omar Sy, among scores of other familiar faces, will shift his career into a new phase.

The new roles are going to come in even faster now and, having proven his ability to stretch with this new part as well as prior roles such as recurring appearances on ABC’s Manifest, casting agents and producers will scoop him up in the wider nets they cast. Kamara stands ready to answer their call. His willingness to try anything once as a performer is the providence of youth, perhaps, but serves his artistic fortunes quite well.

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jahleel.kamara/

He’s naturally too young to entertain possible pretentions like if he’s an artist or not and so on. Kamara, however, isn’t too young to intuitively grasp what passes for professionalism in this world and maintains a consistent standard from one project to the next. He isn’t in big tent blockbusters, yet, but there is a lot of money riding on these productions for the parties involved. Children creating problems on-set are going home, no more how adorable they are.

It’s dependable behavior that forms the basis for a long career in the business. Kamara presumably wants this, he’s picking things that promote passion and profit alike, but nothing ever comes across as bloodlessly plotted out. The people guiding Kamara’s career are steering him towards the kind of work that highlights his innate strengths as a child and, above all else, a human being. At risk of cliché, it’s priceless.

Cameras clearly adore him. Press photos for Jahleel show a charismatic and life-affirming child with an intelligent sparkle in his eye and an effortless smile. There’s something in those features, some invisible sorcery, suggesting that there’s something in him to take his talents as far as he likes and enjoy a long career as an actor. Perhaps we can and will one day look back and say we remember when Jahleel’s public story first began.

We can’t predict the places he will go from here. Perhaps he’ll put acting aside one day, maybe even soon, when something else captures his heart. It’s unlikely though. Some people are born to sing, write, paint, play an instrument, or a role and Jahleel Kamara has their glow surrounding him. You have probably seen it before. You will recognize it in him and see it in everything he does. It’s the sort of magic, as well, that follows a performer for the entirety of their lives and we’re better off, in some small way, that this young boy may end up as part of their company.  

Timothy Ball