Young stars of ‘The Drop’ chase dreams on and off screen

“There’s a certain level of inflation of ego that happens at that age,” he explains. “You kind of have to be brought back down to earth and realize, ‘OK, you might be really good at what you do for the age you’re at, but you’re still in the real world. There’s still work to be done.”

Despite the success of “When They See Us,” the story of the Central Park Five, Blackk had to keep pitching. “You still have to go after it the same way you did before anybody knew who you were.”

That hustle figures into his latest series, “The Drop: A Snowfall Saga.” In it, he plays Lamar Kinsey, a young Californian with music ambitions. Trusting his career to his cousin (played by Gail Bean), he encounters others with similar dreams.

Peyton Alex Smith, who plays his older brother, and Simmie Sims III, who plays Artillery, a local rapper, had similar trajectories in their own acting careers.

“My parents wanted to keep me out of the streets,” says Sims, “so they put me in this conservatory where they taught a bunch of inner-city L.A. kids how to act, sing and dance and we did live theater plays. And then I got to an age and a point in my life where I got tired of pretending to be somebody else and rap and hip-hop gave me the opportunity to be myself for myself, express myself and figure out who I am for me.”

Adds Smith: “Nobody bleeds into the dream until you do it.” Living in Dallas, he had the dream, too, but didn’t have the luxury of Zoom auditions to meet with casting directors. “I just kind of bought my time. It wasn’t something that everybody wanted to do.”

Roles, however, started coming. He landed on “The Quad” and got the kind of exposure that leads to callbacks and castings. Roles in “Legacies,” “BMF” and “All American” gave him solid footing.

Teachers and mentors, Blackk says, try to prepare young actors for the world they’re about to face, “but it is a one-in-a-million opportunity to be able to do what you love and make a living at it.”

Like the characters they play in “The Drop,” “you know it’s a long shot, but you’re still going for it. Who cares if you have a dream?” Blackk says. “Chase it and see what comes of it.”

“The Drop” is a cautionary tale, Smith says. “You might be the best in your particular category — whether it’s sports, music, acting or whatever — but the light can be cut off.” The series’ world — 1990s Los Angeles — “was the most violent of times. If his environment is going to let him be who he’s supposed to be,” it’ll happen.

Sims, who’s known professionally as Buddy, began rapping as a teenager and got a shot with Pharrell Williams. He signed him to his “I Am Other” collective and released “Awesome Awesome” and, later, “Staircases.” Several singles, albums and mixtapes followed, leading to a solid place in the industry.

“The Drop,” however, gives him a chance to see what the business was like at another time — “with the cassette tapes and all the live equipment.” Someone as young as Lamar “was not uncommon at all. It’s quite easy for some.”

To prove rapping can take hold, Blackk has released an EP, “Breakfast with Blackk,” and plans to follow it with “Lunch with Love.”

“I like what we’re trying to depict with the show — the option to chase after something that has never been done before,” Sims says.