Making Big Names

Making Big Names

PHOTO CC TORE SAETRE

These stars got their starts at Oakland School for the Arts.

Zendaya

The 22-year-old actor/singer got an early break portraying Rocky Blue on the Disney Channel’s Shake It Up. She was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, a producer and star on K.C. Undercover, and the lead on HBO’s Euphoria. She’s appeared in several movies, including The Greatest ShowmanSpider-Man: Homecoming and Spider Man: Far From Home. In the song world, she has hit #40 on Billboard’s Top 100 with the single, “Replay,” #51 with her album Zendaya, and even hit platinum internationally with the single “Rewrite the Stars” from The Greatest Showman soundtrack.

Years ago, you may have seen her on stage at Orinda’s Shakespeare Theater. She’s won 10 Teen Choice awards, and her credits are too many to list, but two that bear particular interest was her guest judgeship on Project Runway and Mattel’s making of a Zendaya Barbie. The Barbie doll depicts her as she appeared on Oscar night in 2015 with long dreadlocks and a white gown and for a time was sold via Target.

Her charming website offers videos of Story Time with her mom and her nieces, makeup tutorials, and even a feature on The Book I Can’t Put Down (she is a huge Harry Potter fan, she told InStyle magazine). Watch for her in next year’s Dune movie. (photo CC Toglenn)

Tati Gabrielle

The 23-year-old actor began modeling for Macy’s and Nordstrom at age 5 and joined OSA in middle school. Her IMDB profile talks about her directing and performing in many productions there. Since then, she has achieved a résumé with many roles, from appearing in The Emoji Movie, Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans, CW’s The 100, Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Hulu’s Freakish, and Disney’s K.C. Undercover along with fellow OSA student Zendaya, among many others. It’s sweet to see the OSA students supporting each other; Zendaya and Tati follow each other on Twitter. (photo courtesy Riverdale Wiki)

 

 

 

Kriesha Chu

This 20-year-old singer is now based in South Korea. She was a K-Pop star (a reality series to find pop stars) and released Kriesha Chu 1st Single Album in 2017 and the EP Dream of Paradise in 2018. She speaks four languages and got her start in OSA’s chamber choir, memorialized now in two YouTube videos of the choir singing at public performances in 2014 — a fun look at the singer before her international stardom. (photo by Julie Anderson)

 

 

 

 

Angus Cloud

This 25-year-old actor’s first appearance was in HBO’s Euphoria — perhaps as a hand-up from fellow OSA student Zendaya, who plays his love interest in the show? GQ Magazine, however, said he was just walking down a Manhattan street when a casting representative asked him to come in for a read. As of this writing, he doesn’t yet have a Wikipedia page, and his IMDB listing only mentions Euphoria … but just wait.