No Going Back for Girlfriends' Reggie Hayes

Although an uncertain future lay ahead of him, Reggie Hayes says that once he arrived in Los Angeles, he immediately knew there was no turning back for him. 

In an exclusive interview, the 36-year-old veteran actor who was born and raised in Chicago and is the only the only male cast member of the long-running UPN sitcom, Girlfriends, took the time to share his thoughts on a multitude of topics including his career, future and the acting profession as a whole.

EW: Reggie, how did you initially begin in acting?
RH: I was kind of an out of control kid. I was kind of disruptive. I had a lot of energy so I started performing with local theater groups in Chicago when I was young.

EW: When did you decide to make the trip to Los Angeles?
RH: I was working in Chicago doing theater and I was in a play all the time, usually at night. None of them were union (acting positions) in Chicago; it’s all non-union theater, which is better than out here because you have to pay to get into an acting job here. Anyway, I did a lot of theater in Chicago and I had day job. On the weekends, I would do a matinee and a regular-time show or a regular-time show and a late-night show. I was always doing three or four different shows. I had been dong this one show for about two years and a friend of mine, Paul Dillon, wanted to bring it our here (Los Angeles) and see if anybody would make it into a movie so I took some time off from my job and came out here.