Actor, singer-songwriter Daniel Augustin talks ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘Rap ‘Ish,” ‘How I Met Your Father,’ importance of being multi-hyphenate

WJBF – Actor and singer-songwriter Daniel Augustin has had roles in several notable television series including Grey’s Anatomy, How I Met Your Father, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and most recently, Issa Rae’s Rap “Ish .”

Augustin sits down with WJBF to talk about his career and the meaning and importance of being a multi-hyphenate.

Welcome to Celebrating Black Excellence. Let’s get started with one part of your of your career. How did you get started with acting?

You know, I started with acting actually in high school just looking for electives. I think I was kind of surprised, actually, that it was one of the electives. I remember being younger watching shows, like Martin and whatnot, and never really knowing how they went about filming this stuff. I just kind of always watched it like it was magic, but being able to go to school and actually take classes… my first class was an improv class. Then, I got involved more. I actually did like state competitions in high school. There was like a thespian competition and all, and so, I even went as far as doing that, and that was just in high school. When I went to college, I ended up going to college for sports. I went to college to play football and run track. After college, I got back into it by way of a web series. I sent them some of my music, they liked my music, and then, they asked me to come on as one of the actors and after they asked me to come on as one of the actors, I just really was enjoying the playfulness of it all, the seriousness of it all, the technicality and creativity of it all, and then, I just kept going. I kept looking for more opportunities. I got into background work. I think my first background job was on Ballers . Yeah, my first background job was on Ballers . I did like two or three episodes on Ballers , and then, I was like, “Man, how do I actually get some lines?” That’s when I started finding commercial work. Commercial auditions – kept mining, finally got one-liners. Yeah, it’s been it’s been very interesting. It’s been about a ten-year journey, I would say.

We remember your song was the opening theme for a popular webseries Close Friends. Speaking of your of your music, how did you get involved with that?

Music, though, was… funny because, you know, like, the same way I didn’t even know how they made TV, music was even deeper for me. I used to hear songs on the radio and I used to think that the people, the artists, were at the radio station recording it and performing it. Then, I think really it started with church. My dad would tell us, like on our birthdays and stuff, me and my siblings… He’d be like, “Listen, man, it’s your birthday. You know, find a way to give God glory, man. Go sing. Do something.” I used to listen to this group at the time called Winans Phase Two. They’re like the nephews of Bebe and Cece Winans, if I’m not mistaken. I used to listen to them and this other group called Cross Movement. I just started rapping their music at the church. It started from my birthday. I did like one or two of their songs at the church. I did a song called “I Am That I Am.” It’s very simple. I’m Haitian-American, and the Haitians at the church understood that term. It really resonated with them. They kept repeating it every single week. They would see me at the church. They would be like, “Hey, Mister, I am that I am.” They kept pushing me to do it again and keep performing again. After doing it six or seven Sundays in a row or whatever, the pastors’ kids were in the band. One of them played the drums, and the other one played the piano. This is… man, I’m talking about like throwback. So there’s a game back in the day that people would do off of PlayStation to make beats – I forget the name of the game, but they started making beats on the PlayStation, and then, they started using Fruity Loops. Then, we just formed a band at the church. We formed a rap group at the church, and it was like seven of us. We just were rapping every single Sunday that we went to church. We would stay at the church. We would write songs, we would perform at our church and at other different churches, and we would try to submit our songs sometimes to like different opportunities with like NBA2K. We never got in the game, but we started getting very active musically, and this is before I’m in high school or whatever. I’m probably like, 10, 11, 12 all around this time.

By the time I get to high school, I leaned into it more. I joined a high school choir. My choir director was a woman named Julie Webb. She was really dope. That’s when I got involved I would say more musically, not just rapping wise, because I first really started as a rapper, but going to high school, I got into the choir. That’s where I really started to, I would say, hear my voice more from a standpoint of like, “Oh man, I could carry a tune. I can carry a note.” I started as a bass, but then, I went to tenor. Being in the band, I would hear the differences between the sopranos, the altos, the tenors, and the basses. So, that’s why in a lot of my songs, there’s a lot of melody because I kind of came from a choir background, and I also came from a background of recording my own songs. So, I just kept leaning into that and kept making music. I’m still making music right now, and it’s been a good personal exercise, a personal thing. It hasn’t really been something that I thrived with business wise. The business side of the music is very, very… it’s quite the loophole. It’s more expensive than I genuinely thought. I enjoy making good music. When I made “I Think I’m In Love,” which is the theme song for “Close Friends.” That was just a really great day, and it was a day that afterwards I was like, “Oh man, what is this? This is dope. Where does this come from? What do we do with this?” So sometimes to see the birth of a song, it’s just something that I have always enjoyed. I’ve always found to be like magic almost. So, you know, it started at a young age, and I’m still doing it now. It’s still a great exercise, and it’s something that I’m very grateful that it’s a part of my life.

Now back to your acting, you’ve had roles on several notable shows: Wu-Tang: An American Saga , David Makes Man , and plenty more. Let’s tap into first your recurring role in How I Met Your Father . How was it working on that series?

That series is interesting, man. That was really interesting. That was the first recurring guest star role I ever booked – booked that after having been in Los Angeles for like eight months. I had auditioned for it before, and I didn’t get it. Then, it came back around, and then, I got it. So when I first got it, it was honestly a challenge just to feel like I fit in because my first feeling was like, “They didn’t want me on the show. Y’all didn’t pick me.” But then, they picked me after. So it took me some time, honestly, just to get over that. I remember just being on set and just trying to feel like I belong, especially since a lot of the other names on the show were bigger names – people that had been on TV longer than me and had so much more experience, so much more stardom. It’s a multi-cam show. So multi-cam is completely different than single cam. Like single cam is like this almost like small village. Whereas multi-cam is wild. There are four different cameras – 3 to 4 different cameras at all times. There’s like 50 to 60 people on set, and they laugh at the jokes right then and there. If they don’t like it… they’re laughing at everybody else’s jokes, but they don’t laugh at yours. There’s like a disconnect, you know? So it was really challenging for me at first because when I first got there, they weren’t laughing at my jokes, and that was hard. That was hard for me to deal with because I fancied myself as somewhat of a comedic person. I don’t try to be, but I fancied myself as someone who can be. I’ve auditioned for years drama, comedy, and I started in improv comedy. So I think I expected that I can go there, do my thing, and be successful. So to first go there and to feel like it’s me, it’s my fault. Nobody said that to me, but to feel like that was one of the hardest things I think I’ve dealt with in TV and film. At the time, it was very challenging because as I was getting on that show, a lot of like people who I came up with in TV and film, I think we’re seeing me differently now because they were seeing me book, and there were things that some of them would want from me. Sometimes that was just really challenging for me to give them because I was really like trying to just survive on the show. I wasn’t trying to embarrass myself, so it was a really challenging time. I only had two episodes in the first season – the first and the last, just based on how they were working with my character and trying to kind of bring him in. He leaves to go to Australia, and then, he comes back, and then, he’s supposed to be on the show for a much longer extended period of time.

I come from a sports background, so I’m a very results-oriented person. After that first season, I went, and I found a coach. I found somebody who focuses on Multi-cam. Her name is Leslie Khan. She was so, so helpful. She was extremely helpful to me in just understanding how I can do better with the material, whether I felt like the material was funny or not. There is a cadence to multi-cam comedy, and I didn’t necessarily understand the cadence. I just understood me and how I say and do things. Yeah, this is my character, but it’s me, but there’s a cadence to multi-cam. So she helped me understand like, “No, man, there’s like pace to this. Figure out the pace. It’s just like you singing. Here’s the note. You need a crescendo at this spot right here. You need to speed up, slow down.” It was just extremely helpful. Then, it came back around, and that second season, every single time I showed up, that second season was a completely different story. People were laughing. I felt better about the work myself. Unfortunately, the show didn’t continue. I think the show was getting better. I think it was a show that kind of was a little rushed, you know, even just based on the way I got casted and how fast it all went into production. Like, I think I cast it on Thursday. They told me I need a COVID test on Friday. Then, on Saturday, they had us on set rehearsing, and then, like on Sunday or Monday, we were filming. So they went into production right away. I feel like because of that… Nobody on that cast – even though people had experience – had ever done multi-cam, and I think it really took those first two seasons for everybody to figure everybody out. I think come season two, the writers and the actors were finally starting to gel unlike in season one. I think season one was almost like a trial run, but if your trial run is on TV already, I think it’s hard for the audience to connect with that and to stick with you because people don’t have that kind of time to just be wasted on bad TV. Not to say it was bad TV, but just to say it’s a very competitive time. That was during the boom. That was during that boom era of television. As you see right now, television is not really popping like that to where there’s just constantly a brand-new show. Right now is a time where people are clutching their purses, and they’re trying to be very, very, very, very, very calculated about who they bring on, what the TV show is, who the creator is, etc.

So it was a good experience. It was a very good experience. It was something that I could say I absolutely learned from and something that challenged me as an as a performer, as a creator, as a just, and as a human being in general, but I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to do it. I think it was a very important experience for me.

We definitely appreciate your transparency. Thank you so much for sharing that. Now, you also had a guest spot on one of the longest running dramas on television, Grey’s Anatomy. Now, how was that experience for you?

That was dope. I was very nervous about that because that, too, again, happened so fast. I had been in L.A. for three months, and I booked that, and it was on TV two months afterwards. Even just filming it, I think I had four or five scenes in that episode. In that episode, I filmed my first scene on like a Monday, and then, the next three scenes I had were like my most emotional scenes. I have one scene where I cry, and another scene where I’m coming from the doctor or what have you, and then another scene with my son and then my wife. I show up that day. We were supposed to film by like 2:00, and they ended up taking more time filming one of the O.R. scenes, and I’m not surprised because when you see the O.R. scenes, they’re intense. Those scenes are always fast paced. You know, it’s this person over here. “Oh, give me the scalpel. Oh, my gosh. We don’t have the scalpel. Where’s the scalpel?” Those scenes are very intense. So instead of us filming at like two, we didn’t get to start filming until like 5. Then, once we started filming at like five, they went rapid pace, and they were like, “Okay, we’re going to film your first scene at five. We’re going to film the next one at six and the next one at seven.” So I didn’t necessarily have time to think about it. It was all just feels all the way through. I’m really, really grateful for that opportunity, you know? It was great. The people on that set were good human beings. I remember having a conversation with Debbie Allen. She asked me if I was married and if I had kids or anything like that. I told I was married, but I didn’t have kids [at the time], and I told her I was nervous about that and she was like, “Take your time. You’re good.” That was like three years ago, and now, I have a son.

So it was a place where I felt like the human beings there were very, very, like warm. I can’t say I’m surprised. You know, when you got a long running show on air for 20 some odd seasons, you’re going to have an established environment. A lot of shows are like on their first or second season. They’re trying to stay on their feet. They’re hoping for another season. They don’t know about this. They don’t know about that. It could be a lot of tension. It could be a lot of challenges on set versus a show like Grey’s Anatomy , where it’s like, “We know who we are, we know what we’re doing even though the show might turn into this kind of show this year,” because that was the COVID year, and that was really weird. I had a bunch of scenes with my mask on. I hated that. Not gonna a lie, that made me feel quite restricted as a performer and as a person. You know, you could lie with your mask on, you could completely lie. You can have your mask on, and people don’t know if you smile or they don’t know if you’re sticking your tongue out of them, you know. So the COVID thing was weird. It was weird to watch because of the COVID thing. They didn’t have a real baby in the in the crib that I was crying over. That was challenging. No lie. I mean, I guess that’s how every audition is. You don’t necessarily have every piece you need in the audition, but looking at a doll was like, “All right, what were we doing? It’s a doll.” They were telling me that they were going to add VFX to it. That didn’t happen, but it was… that was an experience. You know, I’m not taking any of these away, and that one was one that’s like the start of me seeing the fruits of the labor – this ten-year process starting on the show like Close Friends . That’s part of like the big magic of all of this, you know? So it was amazing. I’m really grateful for that.

Now, we have to talk about your role on the sadly short-lived show MAX’s Rap “Ish” created by Issa Rae. You played the role of Maurice. Can you talk about your time on that show?

Yeah, man, I was so excited about that show from the very beginning because I knew it was going to be different. I knew it was going to be a big swing. I remember when I first read the pilot script the first time, I just was like, “Okay, this is going to be something TV’s never seen before.” You don’t actually get to see that a lot. A lot of the shows that you do see tend to be remakes, but when I saw that, I was like, “Okay, you know, we’re going to do something that feels like real life, and it might be a bit jarring for people to watch this and feel like it’s in their world,” because we are in such a social media landscape in our real lives. So I thought that part right there was a big, big swing from Issa [Rae] and her team, and I was so happy to be a part of it. I’m so happy to be playing a character that was Haitian. I’m Haitian. I’ve been to Haiti more times than I can count. I watched my mom cut mangoes in the living room in Haiti and in my home. It’s South Florida so many times, and to be playing a character where they’re incorporating things that I had been through… I grew up in South Florida. We shot the first season in South Florida, and it was my favorite show that I can say that I’ve been on – my favorite experience maybe that I feel like I can say because of so many sentimental things.

When it comes to the business side of things, it was a show that I feel like didn’t get the best opportunity. Well, it got an opportunity, and sometimes, it’s all you can ask for. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s all you can ask for, but I don’t think it got the support it needed from the network. You know, I think the network was like really, really focused on maybe just surviving. I think MAX had just went into a merger with Discovery at the time. So we went from being a show that I thought was going to be on HBO and then ended up on HBO MAX. And then, MAX goes into this merger with Discovery. So now MAX is trying to figure out its identity again, and anytime you don’t know your identity – like I just said about Grey’s Anatomy and shows that are in their first or second season – anytime you don’t know your identity, you are hoping more than you are being, and that show was more in a state of hope.  It was what we wanted to do with this show that unfortunately didn’t get a chance to survive, but it was an amazing experience. The writers were dope. We got together every single week to actually connect with each other and watch the show together, and we used opportunities like opportunities like that to try to market the show, but I do think the marketing fell short when it came to the network. Like there were times where I would go on HBO MAX… and it happens a lot with a lot of Black shows…  I don’t know how this would be fixed. I feel like this is something that you would have to have a conversation with head of marketing, head of the company, CEO, etc. But like a lot of the times that there’s a brand-new Black show, you don’t often see the show as like the banner show, and I don’t understand why that is because the shows are only on air for eight weeks. So it doesn’t necessarily make sense to create a show that you spend millions of dollars an episode on a show, and then, you don’t promote it because it’s almost like not letting people know about the money that you invested in – the product you invested in.

So it did as much as it could with the support that it had, and for that, I can say I’m proud of it. For the fact that it was something that tried to be different, I could say I’m proud of it. The landscape of TV is very challenging because How I Met Your Father is a show that comes from another piece of IP. So it’s not this brand-new thing. It’s a spin on a thing that one didn’t last past two seasons. Rap “Ish,” a show that came out of nowhere as brand-new idea… two seasons. The landscape of TV is very challenging. This business is very challenging. This industry is the type of industry that you got to build up the gut for because it can make you sick. Sometimes, it can make you feel like there’s no point. It can make you feel like that because it’s hard to even really create any stability. I don’t even know that stability is necessarily a real thing in this industry as if you’re playing a character, you’re playing a character who could be killed off. If you’re a writer, you’re a writer who could be swapped out. If you’re an executive producer, maybe you can keep your job, but that’s if they don’t cancel the show, and if they cancel the show, can you get another one? At the end of the day, these shows are paid for, supported, and invested in by the company, and if it’s not a show that you’re creating and putting on YouTube, it’s a show that essentially is owned by MAX, or Apple, or Amazon, etc., and whenever the person at the top thinks needs to happen with that show, and whatever the slate of shows that they currently have and the slate of shows that they got coming out next, that’s what you’re going to see go on. That’s what you’re going to see. Kind of, you know, being finger-puppeted, you know, for lack of a better words. That’s what you’re going to see through their actions.

So, you know, I thought it was a show that could have absolutely done some things to seasons over the course of like 2 ½ to 3 years. The show only really even got a chance to like story wise span like 6 to 8 months. The show clearly wanted to grow and something that wanted to do more, but sometimes you have situations where you’re born in an environment that’s not really conducive to where you were born. Sometimes you got to move to do better because if Rap “Ish” is on a network like FX, I think it does better. I think it does a lot better because I think they don’t necessarily have as many shows as a network like MAX would have, but they tend to invest in the show and the creators in a much more long-game type of way. If you look at something like Atlanta , you can see that. So definitely proud of it. Definitely proud of it. I’m glad that is here, but I feel like there were a lot of passes that were dropped. We dropped a lot of passes. There were a lot of fumbles, a lot of opportunities that I think were missed with that show.

Speaking of the industry, you talk about the importance of being a multi-hyphenate. Can you explain what exactly that is and why that’s important?

First of all, I’m not going to say it’s someone who just wears many hats because that devalues it. Multi-Hyphenate, though, is someone who has more than one skillset and is willing and able to use those skill sets for the sake of their creativity. A lot of times people will tell you, “Just do one thing. Just master that.” And I get the idea of mastering something, but I don’t understand why you should only do one thing when in this industry, doing one thing might keep you broke. It might keep you out of the loop, out of opportunities. Being a multi-hyphenate, I think, is the door to seeing who you can be. I think it’s the door to really coming to terms with your possibilities and your capabilities. You know, being an actor is amazing, but I think being an actor can be very limited. I think the only person who would say that being an actor isn’t limited to them is an actor who is constantly working. Whoever that person is, whatever show they’re on, they probably feel like “I’m good, I’m good. I’m working, I’m always working. I’m happy with the work that I’m doing. I’m happy with the people that I’m working with.” But actors aren’t even just actors, in my opinion. I think actors are physical authors. Actors take your words, and they lift your words off of a page, and they perform them. Sometimes they add their own words, they add their own facial expressions, and their own body movements to what you just put down, and just within that frame, I think an actor is not just an actor. They are also a creator or sometimes a writer, who is just not necessarily sitting down and writing all the words and the stories. I think when you’re able to write a script, write multiple scripts, direct the show, and/or edit a show, I think naturally it makes you more valuable not just to your own sense of creativity, but I think it can make you more valuable to the companies who hire actors.

Look at the strike. The writers’ strike lasted for five, six months. The actors’ strike lasted for like five, six months. The directors’ strike was like this; they handled it right away. They weren’t playing around with that. That was something that was like, “We need to get this taken care of,” and they got it taken care of. If you’re not in that pool now, you’re in one of these other pools waiting, and a lot of people thought that the writers’ strike was going on because “maybe we can replace them with AI.” I don’t necessarily know that that’s the truth, but that’s what a lot of people were thinking. That’s what a lot of the negotiations were about – this idea that AI is going to replace them. Actors’ strike, same thing: AI, trying to support the writers, trying to get better residuals, but when it comes to the actors, there are so many actors who people even have these stories about. You know, “I just found this actor. I just found this person in the mall.” Now, they’re on their show, and they just look so gorgeous and so beautiful and so handsome. They just fit perfectly on the show. They just got that “IT” factor. So when it comes to actors, there’s a long line of people who are ready to replace you, a long line of people who are ready to replace you and might be able to, depending on the context of the story.

But there are not a bunch of people who can just replace this director. It’s not a bunch of people who can just replace that person and just take that person spot. It’s not a bunch of people who can just sit down and just write a story like this writer or like that writer. I think that when you just have the ability to offer different types of skill sets, you can have different conversations, you can have different relationships. You’re not just somebody who just has this kind of agent or somebody who could have an agent that has these capabilities and another agent or another manager who has these capabilities. You’re able to have different conversations because of your different relationships, which I think makes you more valuable. I think that gives you the opportunity to see more, do more, experience more, and possibly even have your career have more longevity than just the person who works on this one show. That’s show films for three months of the year, and now you just wait. You wait trying to get another audition: “Hopefully I get another audition. We’ll see.” As opposed to somebody like, say, Lena Waithe, who says, “I wrote up that episode, and I just finished writing that episode. I just executive produced that. I just did voiceover for AT&T, and now, I’m going to go and act in this thing.” It’s a real schedule. You’re actually working year-round, and you’re fully embodying all of these different things. It’s almost like being back in school when you got this first period, this second period, and this third period. We all know we’re capable of doing that because we did it in school, but when you get in this industry, sometimes they try to tell you to stick to one thing. Stick to one thing so people know what box to put you in. No, no. Why are you trying to put me in this box? I can do this other thing. You just aren’t really ready to see me do it. You don’t want me to do it. You don’t want to face the idea that I can do that. That’s not something that you want to face because you do the one thing or because you know.

So I think being a multi-hyphenate is something that can change your output. I think it’s something that can change your longevity. I think it’s something that can change your outlook. It can change what you even deem is possible. A lot of people are just thinking, “I just want to book my next guest, or I just want to book my next costar. If I could just book my next series regular.” It’s like when you’re a multi-hyphenate, you start saying different things to yourself. You start because I said those things. I’ve been that guy. I was like, “Man, I’m just trying to get the next guest,” but now it’s like, “All right, well, let’s write the script. Let’s see what we do with the script. Let’s write the script, and let’s see if we can pitch it here. Let’s see if we could pitch it there. Let’s see if we can get this to our agents,” and then, “Oh yeah, let’s go film this other thing, and after we film this, let’s see if we can talk to some distribution companies.” The way you talk changes. Doesn’t matter how old you are. The way you talk changes. You’re going to get around the right person one day. You’re not going to be somebody who’s just sitting there pining over like a guest star saying, “Hey, well, you know, think about me.” The next time you write something, you’re going to be sitting there saying, “Hey, I have a script. Is it any chance I can send it to you?” And then, you might end up being in that person’s writer’s room as opposed to just being somebody who’s hopefully waiting for this one role that they give you. You get the role, you shoot for one week, and then, you’re done. So I think being a multi-hyphenate, really, expands you. It’s almost like those infinity stones, and you’re just trying to put them in your gauntlet so that you can kind of access all your power, and then, you can really be able to conquer your capabilities and find out who you can be. Because these people will try to tell you who you need to be. Your agents are going to try to tell you who you need to be. They’re going to try to tell you how they see you. They don’t know. These people don’t know. These people are just to do a 9-to-5. These people are just trying to pay their bills. These are people trying to stay alive just like you. So you got to these people who are trying to tell you who you are. And it’s like, “Bro, you don’t even know me. You just saw a couple of auditions I do. You just seen my headshot, and now you think that I’m only really supposed to play these cop roles, etc. I’m gonna go ahead and just film this other thing, and whether you know it or not, see it or not, it’s not for you to know; it’s for me to know, and once I know that, I can edit it too, then, I can have these different conversations with these different people.” I can see things differently. You know, I love the fact that I was on Grey’s Anatomy , but because I edit when I watch the show, I’m also like, “I would’ve flipped that. I would’ve flipped this.” You see the game differently because you know you have different skill sets now and you got different capabilities.

Now, if people want to follow your journey, or if they want to know what you got going on next, how can they follow you or get more information about you?

I’m on Instagram @DanielAugustin . I have a Twitter @DAugustin__ . I think if they just type my name in on Twitter and on YouTube , they’ll find me. However, if you just type Daniel Augustin, you’ll find me on whatever platform.

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