Michael Rainey Jr. is addressing being overlooked in the industry for any awards.
Rainey Jr. has played Tariq St. Patrick on Power and the spinoff series Power Book II: Ghost for the past nine years.
Rainey Jr. also starred alongside Common in the 2012 film LUV, the 2013 film The Butler, and 2016’s Barbershop: The Next Cut throughout the years of his acting career.
At the 49th NAACP Image Awards in 2018, Michael Rainey Jr. received a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Youth. Additionally, he was nominated for a Young Stars Award at the BET Awards the year after.
Unfortunately, he came up short of both awards.
During a recent interview with CassiusLife.com, Rainey Jr. was very confident in his response when he addressed not being awarded for his roles.
“I feel like everyone does what they do for a different reason. I feel like I’m in this for just the enjoyment. I like doing what I do,” he stated. “I like playing the role of Tariq. I love coming to the set and being with the cast and the crew every day. So that’s one part of it that I just look at and be like, ‘No, I get to do this every day.’”
He added, “So I enjoy that. I don’t really look at it as far as being overlooked. Obviously, I’m not too oblivious to that, but I don’t really let that affect me too much, and I just let the work do what it does.”
Rainey Jr. continued by quoting Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, saying that since awards cannot be deposited in a bank, they don’t matter.
“The first time [50 Cent] told me that, I was like, I could never really care or go too crazy about not being seen for some of these awards,” said Rainey. “I definitely just do it for my enjoyment. So whatever followers, whatever comes with it, comes with it, but if it doesn’t come with it, it is what it is.”
