How an ‘American Idol’ winner and an aspiring Hilton Head actor landed TV roles

Sonya Grant doesn’t remember some of her earliest performances, but her family does.

As a young girl of about 4 or 5 years old growing up on Hilton Head Island, Grant would jump on the tables of her grandparents’ restaurant and launch into song. Abe’s Native Shrimp House and its Gullah dishes helped teach Grant about her roots as a fifth-generation native islander.

“They kept a lot of the cuisine culture, and growing up with a lot of Gullah relatives, we kept the dialect,” the 28-year-old Grant said Monday. “And just (learned) the importance of keeping culture alive through the generations.”

That background and a drama degree helped Grant land a television role on the second season of WGN’s “Underground,” which premiers Wednesday. She joined St. Helena Island native and “American Idol” winner Candice Glover on the show, cast as Gullah women enslaved on a plantation on the South Carolina Sea Islands.

After the first season on a Georgia plantation, the show’s producers wanted to make an authentic distinction in culture with the move to the South Carolina coast.

“Everyone always talks about ‘You don’t want the culture to die; you don’t want it to die out,’” said Glover, who now lives in Atlanta. “The fact that it’s going to be on TV is going to be great for the people of St. Helena Island. For someone to go on TV and speak Gullah is a dream come true for all of us.”

Another St. Helena native, Marquetta Goodwine, consulted on Gullah-Geechee culture for the show, which was filmed in Savannah last fall.

In addition to winning Season 12 of ‘Idol,’ and the ensuing television appearances, Glover also had a role in the television movie “Northpole,” on Hallmark.

The television experience was a first for Grant.

At the new season’s premier in Los Angeles earlier this month, Grant saw big stars and grabbed pictures with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Jurnee Smollett-Bell, one of the show’s stars.

Grant and Glover originally had several speaking lines in the first two episodes, Grant said. Although the lines were edited from the first episode, the women can still be seen and heard singing.

The women met on set, Grant impressing Glover with knowledge of the reality show star’s album.

Grant sang in the choir at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church on Hilton Head. She followed her mother, Terry, a church pianist, choir director, music teacher and jazz singer.

Sonya Grant performed in the local youth theater, for church productions and danced tap, ballet and jazz.

“Most of her life she’s been involved in the arts doing something, whether it was singing or dancing or acting,” said he aunt, Carolyn Grant.

After graduating Hilton Head High School, she participated in stage plays at Spelman College in Atlanta, where she studied acting.

The experience on Underground rekindled Grant’s acting dreams. She jets around the country as a flight attendant for Endeavor Air and had not previously enjoyed the time to act.

But now she plans to find an agent and explore opportunities after her first breakthrough.

“It was almost like a blessing that fell in my lap,” Grant said. “It was an amazing and humbling experience for sure.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2017 at 3:44 PM with the headline "How an ‘American Idol’ winner and an aspiring Hilton Head actor landed TV roles."