Geovanni Gopradi Talks ‘The Haves and the Have Nots’ and ‘Will & Grace’ [Exclusive Interview]

Geovanni Gopradi got his start in acting in an unexpected way.

Gopradi currently stars as Broderick on the OWN series, The Haves and the Have Nots. I recently had the chance to chat with Gopradi about his role on the series, his start in acting, and his work with the Special Olympics and a campaign that’s close to his heart.

“It all began because I was preparing to go to law school, and I was having a bit of anxiety speaking in public. I had never been placed in that situation before to speak in public, so I was having a bit of anxiety doing so,” Gopradi began.

“I knew for law school I would have to be presenting cases, and so that was part of the deal. I tried a few different things, public speaking classes, none of that really worked. The class itself just taught me how to write a speech. It did not really prepare me to be in front of people. So I just felt like acting classes would be a final try, an attempt to see if that would help, and it did. And then I fell in love with it, and 10 years later, here we are.”

Acting appealed to Gopradi for several reasons.

“It was a process of discovery of experiences. It’s discovering emotions, discovering human interactions, human relationships, human qualities that were different from my own. Experiencing so many different lives, so many different emotions that I perhaps could go a whole lifetime without experiencing unless I was able to put myself in a life, in a situation of someone else with somebody else,” Gopradi said.

“There were so many different elements — so much involved in it that just appealed to me to all of my senses,” he continued. “It appealed to the ability to create something, and then also connect and influence the audience, just like I grew up being influenced by a lot of movies that I have seen.”

As for what movies influenced in particular, Gopradi shared some early memories.

“I grew up watching a lot of action shows. The first ones were from Bruce Lee. Watching these movies influenced me to want to begin Martial Arts studies at a very, very young age. At three years old. My dad took me around town looking for a school that would take me in at such an early age.”

Gopradi said his father was relieved when he finally found a program that would take him, and he ended up being the very first student in that new program. That marked the beginning of his Martial Arts studies.

As for his acting career, Gopradi is known for his roles on Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, True Blood, and Major Crimes, among others. Now, you can watch Gopradi on Tyler Perry’s series The Haves and the Have Nots, a show that Gopradi feels grateful to be a part of.

“Initially, my contract was for several episodes, but my third episode, I was offered 10 more episodes, and then I was offered, I think it was eight more episodes after that. It was a total of 24 episodes. My contract is still growing, and my character is still growing,” Gopradi noted.

“I’m really excited and very blessed about that, and how it all developed and grew. It’s been a learning experience to be on that set in particular.”

Working on a Tyler Perry series is a unique experience all it’s own, and it’s been a chance for Gopradi to learn a great deal.

“Tyler Perry shoots a bit quicker than most TV shows. Most TV shows take about three or four days to film an episode. He’s filming an episode a day, which means he’s covering about 80 pages of dialogue a day, and he writes and directs and edits as he’s shooting with three cameras, so the speed at which he records, and the pressure we have as actors on the set to be on point, and just rely on our instincts to carry us through the scenes because it’s the closest thing we have to, well that I felt, was [close to] to being in theater.”

Gopradi shared a few hints about what we can expect from his character, Broderick, on upcoming episodes.

“My character is going to be developed way more this coming season. There will be a lot of moments of shock and awe that my character gets involved in. Things that a lot of the fans have been waiting for, for five years, and I think finally we will get a glimpse of that,” he revealed.

Gopradi said if he could give his character one piece of advice, it would be to say that “Not everything that glitters is gold.”

“He’s pursuing the American dream in very questionable methods because he believes that by cheating, that is going to bring him to happiness that he is looking for, stability, and he’s just walking into a whole mess of stuff, but he has no clue. He’s thinking that the grass is greener on the other side until he gets to the other side and realizes that it’s not,” he said.

Gopradi also recently appeared on another series that he said was a great learning experience — Will & Grace.

“It was a learning experience to be around such comedic geniuses in such a beloved show,” Gopradi noted. “It was really a learning experience just to sit in on the conversations at the rehearsals and the different drafts the writers were doing, and seeing how these comedic geniuses just navigate through every single draft the writers throw at us to make it work, to make it funny.”

In addition to acting, Gopradi has been active in working with Special Olympics and Best Buddies, and became involved in The R-Word Campaign a few years ago.

“The R-Word Campaign is all about eliminating the R word. It’s a very derogatory word — very demeaning to the special needs community,” Gopradi said. “The campaign is just about reaching out and educating. Educating people and empathizing with people, and having them learn our stories, learn about our community, who we are, and gather signatures as pledges that they will not use the R-Word.”

“We’ve done this every year, and every year we’ve collected about ten thousand signatures from different high schools, middle schools, colleges. And this year I was invited over to speak at the Title at UCLA,” he continued.

“We reached quite a few new people that did not know about the R-Word or the campaign or our community or what it was about. It’s just a matter of reaching out and trying to touch as many people as possible with empathy and educate them.”

Gopradi spoke of a family member and a friend, both with special needs, and said this issue was something that had “always been knocking at [his] door.” Then he met Lucy Myer, a spokesperson for Special Olympics and for UNICEF.

“We became quite good friends. We started to reach out to other celebrities,” he said. “Special Olympics reached out and asked me if I would be a celebrity ambassador for them and to help them bring awareness, and so I used my platform. At the time I was promoting Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, a movie I did with Kevin James, and I was using that platform to bring the awareness and educate people on the 2015 Special Olympics and to bring them onboard, to come out to support,” he shared.

“Especially focusing more on the Spanish Community,” he continued, noting that there wasn’t much outreach to the Spanish community for the Special Olympics. “So I took advantage of my platform to do so.”

Be sure to catch Geovanni Gopradi on The Haves and the Have Nots, airing Tuesdays at 9/8c on OWN.

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