“Empire’s’ Trai Byers stopped by the “Meredith Viera Show” recently and dished on how he almost quit acting to become a pastor, how he first found out Empire was being renewed for a second season, and if Denzel Washington will guest star on the show.
Watch the video below:
Byers graduated with a MFA degree from the Yale School of Drama in 2011. While in school at Yale, he was still booking gigs on shows like “All My Children” and in The CW teen soap, “90210.” After some success on “90210” and in several indie movies, Byers hit a roadblock in 2013 when everything went completely down for some reason. Trai’s girlfriend of many years, gone. His friends, gone. During this hard time in life, the struggling actor turned to religion for guidance and, just as he was contemplating leaving show business altogether, he received his saving grace. “ ‘Empire’ came out of nowhere. [It felt like it] fell from the sky,” he says. The day after “Empire” was picked up to series, Byers got the role in “Selma.”
