LaVeda Davis appears in film set for February premiere

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Actress LaVeda Davis, of Baldwin, has a supporting role in “Speak to Me,” a short film produced on Long Island that is set to make its premiere in Suffolk County next month.

Davis, 58, who is originally from Miami, is part of the cast of director Kurt “Rockmore” Damas’s independently produced film. Its trailer debuted on YouTube on Monday, and it will begin screening at Sayville Cinemas on Feb. 16.

“Working on ‘Speak to Me’ was really profound and magical,” Davis said. “The cast and crew is so talented, and they really came together to support each other.”

Damas, a 34-year-old writer, artist and entrepreneur from Bay Shore, is the film’s co-writer, director and producer, and it is his directorial debut. The film, he said, is about two friends dealing with the tribulations of life, and the expectations of maintaining what he describes as the “stereotypical emotional boundaries” of interpersonal relationships.

Damas said he shot the film last October, after being inspired to write it following the deaths of one of his best friends, last January, and his 39-year-old uncle, last July. He recalled feeling isolated both times, and was thankful for his wife, friends and family, who helped him through the grief and despair. The combination of the vulnerability he felt and support he received, he said, prompted him to write the film.

In it, Davis portrays the mother of a man in his 20s, and her character is also a good friend of one of the leads, which she said gave her a chance to explore interpersonal relationships. 

Davis said she got the part by applying to Actors Access, a program in which actors can submit applications for roles, and was selected for an audition. She met Damas and his team on an online conference call, and was chosen for the role.

“There’s something that we say as actors: Everything was on the page. You just had to tap into it,” Davis said. “To perform a role as a mother, I used my own experiences as a mother.” She has a 38-year-old son. 

Davis has been acting since she was 6 in local and high school theater productions. After high school, she got an agent and found moderate success as an extra on movie and theater sets. She was a stand-in for the actress Maria McDonald in the television series “Miami Vice” in 1986, and appeared in an Isotoner glove commercial featuring former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino in 1987. 

Davis moved to New York City in 1997, where she lived for eight years, before returning to Miami to care for her mother, who died in 2005. In 2018 she moved to Baldwin to continue her career as an actress. 

Davis got her first major role in "Fallen Apple" in 2007, and continued her career has acted in other roles like, the 2017 movie called “Adopted,” and last year she starred in “Mama Duke,” a film about a middle-aged single mother released in April. She said she has two more films coming out this year, including a documentary web series, but she added that her ultimate goal is to work as an actress on episodic shows on television.

“Can you imagine them, the amount of people who pass away with their dreams still inside them?” she said. “There’s so many people who want to do something, and they talk themselves out of pursuing their dreams.”