Brett Gray

Brett Gray was born on August 7, 1996, in Philadelphia, to Holly Gray. He has one brother.

As a kid, Brett Gray used to act in different plays in school. His humorous performances grabbed the attention of his fellow students and teachers. Due to their encouragement, he decided to pursue acting. To further motivate him, his mother took him to a theatre named New Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia.

At the age of seven, Gray appeared in his first ever professional show at the Academy of Music. He enjoyed performing in the show so much that it was hard for the audience to judge whether he was the lead character or not. He began to appear regularly in the plays from then on.

He appeared in three short films between 2015 and 2016. The first was ‘Tortoise’, an adventure comedy, directed by Gary Memi and written by Isaac Himmelman. The next one was ‘The Tale of Four’, a multilayered story based on ‘Four Women’ by Nina Simone. Gray appeared in the short film alongside Jacob Berger, Daniel G. Cunningham, and Dana Gourrier. He also appeared in the short film ‘Metrocard,’ another directorial venture by Gary Memi, which featured Jonathan Hansen and Kevin Rodriguez besides Gray.

After appearing in a guest role in ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ in 2018, Gray was offered another guest role in ‘Rise’, the same year. He was finally offered a lead role in a television show through his agent. Gray was acting in a musical at the time when the chance to audition for the television series ‘On My Block’ came his way. He bagged the role of a nerd, ‘Jamal Turner’, a member of a group of four colored teenagers. He was part of the show’s lead cast for all the ten episodes that were aired on Netflix exclusively.

Speaking about his character ‘Jamal’, Gray explained how tough it was for him to portray the character of a nerdy guy who has a cheeky sense of humor. The creator of the coming-of-age television series, Lauren Iungerich, helped him and the other lead actors, Sierra Capri, Jason Genao, Jessica Marie Garcia, Ronni Hawk and Diego Tinoco, grow into their characters as the show progressed. Gray’s character was much liked by the audience and his fan following on his social media accounts has been steadily growing since the series aired.