Joy Sunday | Girlhood Firsts

I definitely spent some time on LimeWire.

[person laughing]

Hey, I'm Joy Sunday

and this is Glamour's Girlhood Firsts.

I don't know what piece of media I saw that made me think

that like blue eyeshadow could work all the time.

Upon review, I eventually realized like, oh,

this is probably not the best thing for me.

Or using a body scrub on my face,

that's probably a pretty bad one.

When I was younger, I had a pair of Gauchos,

which archaic concept, I don't think

I've seen another pair of Gauchos since.

But I wore those things to threads

and I think it was like part of a two piece set.

So it was like pink on the top and brown on the bottom.

And I just felt so like Cavalli.

[person laughing]

You know, it was my church outfit, 12 years old

and I think probably the first thing

that I picked out for myself.

So yeah, it'd probably be those pair of Gauchos,

which might still be in my closet.

This one is between Christian Bale

and Aragorn from Lord of the Rings.

There's a through line there.

I'd say probably Aragorn

'cause I loved Lord of the Rings,

the books and the movies.

It was just something about that sword.

And I was heading

to the Wednesday premiere from New York with my father.

He was doing the thing, he was turning to people

and saying like, we're on our way to the premier

to go see this show, have you seen it yet?

It wasn't out yet.

But he was just so proud to tell people

and they were like, no, but they could see his pride.

And then actually getting to go with him

to the premier was really sweet.

He wore traditional Nigerian attire

and I was just so happy to share that moment with him

and to share my culture

at one of the biggest moments of my career so far.

The first time I felt beautiful

feels like it's kind of in two parts

because the first time I understood

for myself that I was beautiful

and actually was able to build self-confidence

was when I went to Nigeria

with my family as a young teenager.

And the other time, I've spoken about it before,

is when I went to Bahia in Brazil

and somebody told me I was beautiful.

And that's when I began to have an inkling,

oh, other people think I'm beautiful.

But the first time I actually like understood

and was able to overcome

a lot of the, you know, castigation

or harassment that I'd faced as a kid,

racial harassment, all that jazz,

was in Nigeria where I found myself surrounded by people

who look like me and who live happily

and love each other and find beauty in community.

And that's really when I began to understand for myself

that I could find beauty within.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, point blank.

She was just fascinating

and magnetic in Chicago,

which is probably the first movie I really was like,

this is the thing.

And because of that movie, it really just opened up my eyes

to wanting to be an actor in the first place.

And I just have always found her so inspiring.

And as I always say, we're birthday twins

Jackie from Cyberchase on PBS Kids.

I loved that show so much.

And it was the first time I'd saw a dark skinned black girl

and it was a animation,

but it was still so cool that she was like part of the trio.

And I can't really think of other characters like that,

you know, like for kids growing up.

And I just loved her and she was smart and spunky.

And yeah, that was the first time

that I you know, saw myself reflected on screen.

Probably in middle school.

That was really the first time I encountered racism.

And funnily enough, in Brooklyn, New York,

because I always grew up with so much pride in my heritage

and so much love in my community

and my family, it was really jarring to encounter folks

who I eventually realized targeted me

because of that pride

and because of that, you know, self-confidence

and so it made me feel like I wouldn't fit in at all.

And it kind of followed me for a good chunk

of my, you know, educational career, my education.

[person laughing]

But you know, again, I'm still grateful for it

because it really trained me to find love

and compassion for myself through it all.

And that's lasted ever since.

I definitely spent some time on LimeWire.

[person laughing]

What's really coming to mind

is that I bought this cool record.

It was actually like a Nigerian high life record,

but I found it in Bucharest, Romania the first time

or the first season of Wednesday.

We were shooting Wednesday.

So that's pretty, you know, foreign.

But it's the one that keeps coming to mind

because I love, whenever I travel,

I love to get records from wherever I've been.

They serve as souvenirs for me.

I don't wish, I kind of think I am a little bit,

but I always view even the bad things

as you know, purposeful

because at the end of the day, it led me to this moment.

And so I don't really look at things

as like, I wish I had understood

or known or seen what was coming

because I embrace it all

and you know, it fills me with so much emotional life

to be able to have gone through

everything I've gone through.

So yeah, I'm pretty okay with that.