Jasmin Savoy Brown Talks ‘Stitchers’ and ‘The Leftovers’ [Exclusive Interview]

Actress Jasmin Savoy Brown loves a challenge.

Brown currently plays Nina on Freeform’s Stitchers, and she’s also known for her role as Evie Murphy on the HBO drama, The Leftovers. I recently had the chance to chat with Brown about her experiences playing those two very different roles.

Brown was drawn to the role of Nina on Stitchers for several reasons. “Nina reminded a little bit of myself, actually a lot of myself. Just that she was quirky and funky, and I loved her confidence,” Brown said.

“She was confident and knew who she was, and had something to say. I thought that was awesome. You don’t see that on TV a lot — when someone plays a nerd, they often look silly, or not sexy or whatever.”

That character is also dramatically different from Brown’s character on The Leftovers. “I considered Nina a woman, but I consider Evie a girl. Evie is still seventeen, and not totally developed in terms of who she is — even though she might think that she was,” Brown said. “It was just two totally different approaches.”

“It was more of a challenge doing Evie, just because it was such a dark place. But to me a challenge is fun. So I’m not complaining at all. I loved it, and I loved doing the two back to back,” Brown continued.

On the set of Stitchers, Brown said she really enjoyed working with Kyle Harris, who plays the role of Cameron.

“We obviously spend a lot of time together. He is a lot of fun, and very down to earth, and funny. And he went to school for musical theater, so we had that in common right away.”

In addition to acting, Brown also plays several instruments and is a student of ASL, which she learned because of The Leftovers. “That’s one thing that I love so much about this career path and this job, is that I get to be so many different things,” she said. “I don’t have to just be one thing, you know what I mean?”

Brown said she always knew she wanted to be an actress. “There was never anything else. I mean, other things interested me for a moment. I really wanted to be an astronaut, and I really wanted to be a soccer player. But I always, always knew.”

And there was one particular moment when she was eight years old that solidified that goal. “My aunt and uncle had gotten me and my mom tickets to go see the touring Broadway production of Music Man at our local theater in Eugene. And it just, it changed everything,” Brown said.

“There was a little girl about my age in that show, and she was playing the piano, and she was singing, and she was so happy. Then the whole company came out, and they were singing and dancing together, and that’s when I was like, ‘oh, but I could also actually get paid for this.’ That’s when I decided for certain there was nothing else I could do.”

Brown had been given some good advice about that particular feeling, and the rest was history.

“I had a lot of coaches, but one in particular, Jonathan Segal, he said, ‘if you can do anything else at all you need to do that. But if you can’t do anything but act, then pursue it.’”

In addition to her current role on Stitchers, Brown has a few other projects coming up. Among other things, we’ll get to see her on an upcoming episode of Comedy Bang! Bang! and the indie film, Lane 1974, alongside Katherine Moennig.

Brown is also currently writing her own show along with Andy Allo. As for what exactly the show will be, Brown was tight-lipped on the details, but she was happy to share her excitement about the project.

“We want to tell the stories we want to tell, and we’re also tired of waiting,” Brown said. “We’ve both been blessed with good careers — I’m not complaining — but it’s just really frustrating waiting all the time. And so we’re writing!”

You can catch Jasmin Savoy Brown on Stitchers, airing Tuesdays at 10/9c on FREEFORM.

Featured image: Jasmin Savoy Brown, Photo Credit: James DePietro