The Many Faces of Rodney Chester

By Keith Boykin, in pop culture
Thursday, August 31 2006, 10:48AM

A year ago or so, my partner and I were in Los Angeles and we paid a visit to Rodney Chester. The day we stopped by his office, I only knew Rodney as an actor. I had no idea that he ran his own talent agency in Los Angeles. Rodney is a man of many talents, as I also discovered last year when I saw him do a split on stage during a drag show scene on the LOGO TV series "Noah's Arc."

Without a doubt, Rodney's character Alex is the most colorful of the four principals in Noah's Arc. If Ricky is the slut, Chance is the stuffy one, and Noah is the complicated narrator, then Alex is the most amusing character. But he's more than comic relief. He also plays the role of the jealous husband in a long-term relationship. But as we have discovered in the the most recent episodes, Alex has every reason to be jealous. In real life, however, Rodney Chester has no reason to be jealous. In fact, he's too busy to be jealous.

Rodney is a graduate of Bethune Cookman College in Florida, where he received honors from the alumni and he participated in the band. Currently a resident of Los Angeles, he spoke to me by telephone as part of my continuing series of interviews with cast members from Noah's Arc. During the interview, he opened up about his life, his career and the hit show that's making him into a recognizable figure in many communities.

INTERVIEW WITH RODNEY CHESTER

BOYKIN: Hi Rodney. Thanks for doing the interview...So what’s the de gaga?

CHESTER: Laughter

BOYKIN: I couldn't resist. You use a lot of inventive words on Noah's Arc. So tell me, do you make up those words on your own?

CHESTER: It’s lingo, but most of them I made them up.

BOYKIN: I had a feeling about that. So where are you from?

CHESTER: Originally I’m from Florida. Cocoa Beach, Florida. …I’ve lived in LA for about eight years.

BOYKIN: What do you do for fun?

CHESTER: I dance a lot still. Dance and movies. Theater.

BOYKIN: You have a dance and choreography background and I know that Christian has a dance background too. And Jensen told me that he dances in videos. Is that part of the master plan?

CHESTER: It just so happened like that. Christian and I have danced together. So I knew Christian prior to this project…and I just knew that everyone had had dance experience before.

BOYKIN: What made you become an actor?

CHESTER: It was nothing that was really set for me to be an actor really. It was just sort of like dancing and doing theater. And I worked with Patrik on a project prior to this one, and he called me and said he was working on this new project and asked me if I would be interested in being a part of it….And he said I would like for you to play this part.

BOYKIN: What was the previous project?

CHESTER: Punks.

BOYKIN: Did you audition for this role?

CHESTER: I didn’t have to audition but I had to read, and of course I had to be okayed by the network once it got picked up by the network.

BOYKIN: Outside of the show, who’s your favorite actor?

CHESTER: I would probably have to say one of my favorites would be Denzel Washington.

BOYKIN: Really, why?

CHESTER: Acting wise, he’s just a brilliant actor. And he comes off the screen as believable. And you feel like whenever he’s on screen and he’s acting on a role I feel a part of the actual scene because he makes it so believable. He kinda draws me into his work.

BOYKIN: What do you think about the new season of Noah's Arc so far?

CHESTER: It’s really exciting first of all because this season everyone is going to see growth in everyone, which I think should only be normal actually…Definitely to me, it has more in depth stories with each character. [It's going to be] very interesting….

Alex is going to be Alex, the funny guy. But also you’re going to see another side of Alex, which is good…so that Alex has some levels in his characters so it’s not like the punchline funny guy all the time. I have some serious issues that I’m going through [as Alex] and I’m trying to change things from the way I was in my relationship.

BOYKIN: How similar are you to the character you play?

CHESTER: In each character there has to be some part of you in the character, but Alex is a little bit more over the top in some situations, which is definitely not me. But I like to laugh and have a good time…[My goal is] to make Alex the character that Patrik created but also to bring some part of me in it to make it feel real.

BOYKIN: Some people say the roles are stereotypes. What do you think?

CHESTER: I feel that everyone has an opinion and everyone’s opinion is valid, and it was all taken into consideration because this season they tried to broaden that. But ultimately this is about OUR set of friends and what we go through in our lives…we also can’t be everybody. I feel like this is what we’re portraying with these characters. I think it [the criticism] was noticed because they brought other characters in to try to broaden that part of the show.

BOYKIN: So you think the show has changed a lot?

CHESTER: I wouldn’t say changed. I would just say there’s a lot of growth in the show. The only change for me is that the season itself is better and it’s gotten better for everyone. And [they're] adding new people to the show…

BOYKIN: What other projects are you working on?

CHESTER: Right now I’m running my business. I own a talent agency in LA that’s located in Beverly Hills and I rep dancers and choreographers. And I was actually asked to be in a film but I haven’t gotten the okay to talk about it yet. But I was approached to do a movie too…

BOYKIN: Congratulations. Do you think your life is changing now that you're on Noah's Arc?

CHESTER: Yeah, you can’t really imagine. Because really we don’t really know how the show is doing because there’s not a ratings sheet. Just by people seeing you on the street, and it’s not just gay. A straight couple came up to me [recently and applauded the show]. And 99 percent of the time it’s all good. I haven’t really heard anything negative. I guess because more people are catching the show for the first time, they’re seeing the second season and they really like it a lot.

BOYKIN: If 99 percent of the people are positive. What about that 1 percent. What do they say to you?

CHESTER: I don’t think people can be that rude [to criticize you to your face] but online people are mean. But you go into a project, that’s just like anything. And we were told from the beginning that everybody is not going to like the show…You just have to take the good with the bad. And I think everybody in the cast has pretty much accepted that.

BOYKIN: Christian told me you guys watch the show every week at your house. What's that like? Do you sit around and critique each other?

CHESTER: He comes to my house every Wednesday and we have dinner. Actually we haven’t seen any of the shows [in advance except the first two episodes]. We’re watching it with everyone else. I didn’t have LOGO so I changed my whole cable provider and got Direct TV.

BOYKIN: Is it just you and Christian watching it or do you have some sort of weekly watch party?

CHESTER: Just Christian and I pretty much, and I may have a few friends come by.

BOYKIN: Do you talk to the TV when you watch it? Do you say things like 'Why did I do that?'

CHESTER: Actually it’s really quiet when we watch it. …I’m just watching it overall and I’m looking at my performance. And then usually we’ll watch it again…I Tivo the show so we usually watch it around 8:30 or so and then usually we’ll watch it sometimes again when it comes on again at 10.

BOYKIN: I watch it on DVR myself and I fast forward past the commercials. I'm sure the advertisers don't want to hear that, but hey, that's the way it is. So what do you do. Do you fast forward past the commercials?

CHESTER: No, actually I watch the commercials because it’s good to see who our sponsors are and they’re showing in the commercials extra scenes that we’ve done.

BOYKIN: You're right. I probably should watch the commercials too. But anyway, since you don't get to see the final package until it airs on TV, are you ever surprised by what you see?

CHESTER: Of course I think no one is more critical than yourself. That’s why even when we did the show we weren’t allowed to watch any of the playbacks because you’re so critical of yourself and it’s easier if you go on the trust of the show and know what the show is about and worry about the acting part and not worry about how you look or whatever. But of course I see things that I wish were a little different.

BOYKIN: And did you do something different in the second season?

CHESTER: I might have lost some weight...Patrik’s main thing was that he didn’t want everybody to be all buff, buff buffed. He kinda wanted it to be so everybody can kinda relate to the show. He didn’t necessarily tell me to gain weight but [i knew he was] just trying to make it more universal….My body type on the show before I started the show was different because I was actually way more muscular before I started the show [the first season]….So this time I lost some weight and I grew my hair out.

BOYKIN: In the first season you purposefully gained weight?

CHESTER: No. He didn’t tell me to gain weight. But I definitely stopped working out a little bit. I laid off the weights and went through the process of being a regular guy. Not that it was a bad thing. And nothing was told me to do this or do that, but I was given some direction and honestly it made sense. But also I’m not going be on the show and be…of course I want to still be toned…

BOYKIN: I was at the LOGO office a few months ago and saw a publicity photo of you before the show aired and you looked amazing!

CHESTER: Thank you for the compliment. I’ve heard that a lot.

BOYKIN: And last year you were the only one who looked good in drag because the rest of them looked a mess. And they're such attractive guys as guys. You must have had some prior experience.

CHESTER: I did a revival of La Cage and all the guys were in drag…And I know that there definitely is an art to doing drag makeup and you can’t do it like your’e doing makeup on a woman. I think [it worked] for me because my face is round and I have cheek bones…I thought that everyone looked good though.

BOYKIN: And when you did the split last year, I almost fell out of my chair. Where did you learn to do that?

CHESTER: I’m a dancer and a gymnast. Everybody was laughing because I did that about 12 or 13 times [before the final take]. And they were like, I cannot believe you….But when I did a theater show, we did a can can number where we did 30 jump splits a night.

BOYKIN: Are you single?

CHESTER: Right now yes.

BOYKIN: I do a series on my website called “My Favorite Things” where I get people to tell me five of their favorite things in the world. Can you tell me five of your favorite things?

CHESTER:

1. Family
2. Clothes. I love clothes
3. My work. My business.
4. Europe.
5. Friends.

BOYKIN: Anything else you want to add?

CHESTER: No. Just want to tell people to please keep watching and send the network emails telling them that you love the show. We want to try to keep it on the air.

BOYKIN: Great. Thank you so much and good luck with the rest of the season.

CHESTER: Thank you.

Noah's Arc Interview Series

• Interview with Jensen Atwood (Wade)
• Interview with Darryl Stephens (Noah)
• Interview with Christian Vincent (Ricky)
• Interview with Rodney Chester (Alex)

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