Yaya DaCosta:

Top Model to Ballroom Beauty

by Lynn B.

Beautiful Yaya DaCosta almost became “America’s Next Top Model” in 2003 but was beat out on the TV show by Eva. Good thing since she has turned her attention to acting and plays LaRhette, one of the leads in the dancing drama Take the Lead opposite Antonio Banderas and hot Rob Brown. The film focuses on tough kids in detention hall who find a whole new way of expressing themselves through ballroom dance. It’s a bit hard to sit across from gorgeous Yaya. She just turns her head a bit and you can see a magazine cover! She’s waaay photogenic and the girl is no dummy. She can speak four languages and is a Brown grad with a degree in Africana Studies/International Relations.

For our chat in Beverly Hills, Yaya wore a black sweater and shawl, long jeans skirt, silver hoop earrings and tons of silver bangles. Classy magazine cover all the way. She’s a dancer but what did she think about learning ballroom dance in an 8 week long boot camp, how does she feel about modeling as a career, was it fun to act opposite hot Antonio, can she let the guy lead and did the Take the Lead cast members hang out off set? For the answers, check below:

AGW: You were a dancer, but had you done ballroom dancing?

Yaya: Oh no, I’d never done ballroom dancing before, but I had done some other techniques, especially when I was younger, I did after school programs, ballet and modern and jazz. But I’d never done ballroom before so that was really exciting and so different, dancing by yourself verses dancing with someone else, and having to do what [your partner] tells you to do with his hands. I was like, ‘Okay,’ it was great.

AGW: What kind of gal were you in school?

Yaya: I was quite the nerd actually. I went to a junior high school that was quite similar to the school in the movie but I was not in detention. I was a good student. My parents were educators, they made it very clear that you have to get good grades and you have to go to a good high school and you have to go to a good college, and I had a great, great family life, both my parents are wonderful, but I did come from a similar neighborhood, so all I had to do really to do the research was remember, go back home to the block and look at my old friends and see where they came from. But, personally, my experience was very different than hers.

AGW: This was your first film – you did a good job. How did you get started?

Yaya: Thank you. At my junior high school, they had electives and some kids did band and I did drama, and this teacher really, really got me interested in acting, and I’ve done plays in high school and a couple in college, and then once I was done with school I found her again and started doing classes and she introduced me to my manager. She sent me out on auditions and I did a couple of things, but this is the first feature film that I got.

AGW: How was this audition?

Yaya: You read two scenes, they pressed ‘play’ on a boom box and said, ‘Dance.’ And I was like, ‘Okay,’ I knew it was a dance movie, but no instructions, just go. So it was some hip-hop song and I did what came naturally, some hip-hop moves, and then at the call back it was the same thing but instead I did modern and slow movements and did everything that contradicted the song, and then I got called back again, and the last time talked to Liz Friedlander, the director and then learned within fifteen minutes a bunch of different dance moves from Pierre Dulaine [the real dance teacher that Antonio plays in the film] in his studio, and showed Liz, and then the next day I got a call that I got it, then the next day I flew out to Toronto to shoot. It was so fast.

AGW: Do you see any similarities between Pierre and Antonio?

Yaya: Absolutely. They’re so different as people, but one of the things that I think Antonio captured the best about Pierre was the balance between grace and the demand for respect. And Pierre is such a nice guy, he’s so jolly and so easy to be around and just makes you love him, just by his presence, but at the same time he demands respect, and it was not hard at all to see how these kids whose lives he changed really looked up to him.

AGW: How did he get the kids’ to “mind” him?

Yaya: He would do little things, like tap us with his tie, he always dressed professionally, it was always like ballroom dancing is something to be respected, he made you want to look good, he made you want to feel good, he made you want to dance well, and I think Antonio captured that really, really well. But, as people, of course they’re different, one has a French accent, and the other has a Spanish accent. But on the most essential levels, yes, I think they’re similar.

AGW: Did your director Liz get you and Rob Brown together before so that you could talk about your roles or did she just throw you on the set and say, ‘here’s the guy, go’?

Yaya: We met because we had a month of rehearsal, but even though he was still in school [college] for part of it, he would go back and forth, and dance with us on the weekends so we met but it was dance class, ‘Hi, how ya’ doin’? You ready? Go.’ Then when he finally got to Toronto permanently and everyone started hanging out together, and that’s when we all got to know each other a bit more. It was all about dance at first.

AGW: One of Dulaine’s messages to the girls in the class is that it takes more strength to follow. Do you agree?

Yaya: [Smiling] It depends what kind of woman you are. I think it does, especially for a really head-strong woman, a girl like LaRhette, who is used to doing things for herself. For me, my father is the ultimate feminist, and I was always taught that you should have your own. It was like, ‘Hey Dad, I’m going out on a date,’ ‘Well, do you have money for the cab and for dinner, he’s not paying for anything.’ Dad was the only one who could ever tell me what to do, maybe my big brother sometimes. So it was just a whole other way to look at the relationship between a man and a woman, and it took a lot of strength to follow. It’s a different kind of strength, and it’s a different kind of abandon, and you know that it’s coming from a place of respect. No, he’s not trying to dominate you, he’s trying to dance with you, so it’s okay. And you do feel like a princess, being twirled around, and it was fun.

AGW: What was your experience on “America’s Next Top Model” like. Was that wild, fun or was it frustrating?

Yaya: It was all of the above. It was fun, the frustrating part was just watching it because we were reality TV, and that’s what it is, but it was a fun experience. And then it ended, and I moved on to other things that I really wanted to do like this. It was nice to have had the experience. I learned a lot.

AGW: You have a degree from Brown. When you were attending university did you still see performing as your career?

Yaya: Absolutely. The thing about my upbringing is that my parents, like I said, are educators and so it was always very important for us to be great in school, but at the same time, they always sent us to after school programs, and always made sure we played an instrument or took dance class, and did acting, and so it was up to us to figure out what we wanted to do. They just wanted to be sure that we had options. And then when I went away to college it was clearly my choice but they were hoping that I would major in something outside of the arts. They knew I wanted to be an actor, but they wanted to make sure that I had something to fall back on just in case, or that I could do in addition to, so I’m still not doing this at the expense of other stuff. I still love to write, I did what you are doing for a while. Actually I love journalism.

AGW: And did you enjoy university?

Yaya: Loved it, loved it, I miss it sometimes, and I think I’ll go back. I think what I was planning to study when I graduated from undergrad, what I was planning to go into for my masters, is probably going to change because of the work that I’m doing now. I want to ultimately find a way to merge all these different interests. Yeah, I don’t think one necessarily has to contradict the other.

AGW: What’s your favorite kind of music.

Yaya: I love old music. My parents always had records and records, records the whole wall, and it was always like, ‘Can I put this record on?’ ‘Don’t scratch it!’ So I just love their music, like Marvin Gaye obviously, that’s one. I have a lot of music from all over the world, Northern Africa, Western Africa, South America, some French instrumental music, so I kind of continue on in that vein, and it helps because I don’t have a lot of people to practice languages with, that’s another one of my passions, I love languages, so I just get music and listen to the lyrics, whether it’s French or Spanish or Portuguese.

AGW: Did you go into ‘Top Model’ thinking it could be a launching pad for an acting career?

Yaya: You know what, I didn’t, which is so funny, because that’s the national assumption. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I was doing mid-terms and kind of stressing out, and I needed a study break, and printed out the application, thought the questions were funny and put it in the mail, and didn’t even think that I was going to get called. I got called, I got called again, and then went to L.A., and it just kind of kept happening and the day actually that I graduated was the day that it started. I never really had anything invested in it, I just thought it would be something fun to do and that just kind of came.

AGW: You were runner-up. What would you have done if you had gotten it? Wasn’t there a contract to sign?

Yaya: I think it’s four years of being attached to that title and having to do things that they want you to do, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, no. The only thing I want to represent is me and my family and my values, and they’re not competition between women, and I don’t know what’s going on.’ So it was a great experience, but it wasn’t really me.

AGW: Aren’t you acting in a way when you’re modeling?

Yaya: Modeling is a certain kind of acting but It’s not at all as challenging in that way. It’s definitely challenging physically, and you have to be disciplined. It might be really challenging and really exhilarating and satisfying, for some people but for me it wasn’t but it was a great experience.

AGW: So nobody on Take the Lead even know about you being on the show?

Yaya: Liz and [producer] Diane make it really clear that they hadn’t even seen the show and they had no idea that I was on it, and I was like, ‘Oh,’ because you never know, you just kind of assume that people watch it and they know. They said, ‘No, we saw your audition tape and we just thought you were right for the role,’ And I was like, ‘Yea,’ because you want to believe that you got it on your own.

AGW: Did the cast go clubbing to get into that dance mood?

Yaya: We went clubbing in Toronto a little bit, not a lot. Always all together. And that’s the crazy thing, we were rehearsing so much together that you’d think we’d get sick of each other, always, always together. We’d eat together afterwards, and sometimes if one person had a friend in Toronto and they wanted to go out, they would invite everyone else, and we’d send text messages, come meet us here. And sometimes we’d practice the steps that we’d learned that day from Pierre, in the club, obviously to the wrong kind of music but it worked, and that helped us believe that the fusion that happens at the end was possible.

AGW: Any favorite spots in Toronto?

Yaya: The one place we frequented was Lobby and then other places. It was really small, but we’d gone there a few times so the people there got to know us, and we they made us feel like kind of celebrities because there’d be lines to go in, and it was a really small place, and they’d go, ‘Oh, yeah, the American actors, okay come in.’ So that was cute.

AGW: Antonio seems so sweet and fun, it seems like he might even go with you to the clubs.

Yaya: I remember he said he was going to once, but he couldn’t because it was Father’s Day, or something like that. But he didn’t stay away from us on purpose. Even on set in our downtime, he hung out with us and joked around with us, and he was so friendly. We were staying in the same hotel, and he wasn’t, so it was just kind of our choice not to bother each other.

AGW: After this movie, what opportunities have opened up for you?

Yaya: Actually it was after this movie that I got an agent, and they’ve been sending me out on even more auditions, and nothing is really concrete right now, but we’ll see. I’m just continuing to work to get better and better at auditioning and see what happens.

AGW: Is there an actress whose career you would like to emulate?

Yaya: I’ve thought about that but I don’t think so because I’m coming at it from a different place. Some people were child stars, and I did educational films when I was little, but no one saw them except for students in the schools. So I don’t know, someone actually at the screening said that I looked like Angela Bassett on screen, and I was like ‘Yeah.’

AGW: Who is your favorite designer?

Yaya: I’m not really big on brand names. But if a designer wants to give me something I’ll take it! My sister actually just started her own line, it’s called DJA, so I’ll say her.

	Angela & Gina's Room \| Brigid & Kayla's Room \| Christine & Erika's Room \| Lauren & Sarada's Room \| Circle of Friends PenPal Club \| Site Map
	Since 1996, your space on the web : written and edited by girls and teens from all over the world. Media Kit Feedback Newsletter Write FOR us Contact Us