Charlotte actor Branden Cook makes his way up the ranks

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Branden Cook, who moved to Charlotte at age 12, is moving up the acting ranks with parts in TV shows like “Chicago PD” and Apple TV+’s “Masters of the Air,” where he portrays World War II pilot Alexander Jefferson.

We all have dreams.

Sometimes dreams may come at a young age, and we may spend years trying to accomplish them. However, one little switch in course can make a difference in what dreams we will pursue next.

Ohio-born and Charlotte-raised Branden Cook, 29, used to watch movies with his grandfather. Those movie nights turned into him visualizing a live similar to the characters he was watching.

“We used to watch a lot of movies, and I wanted to be like Indiana Jones, James Bond or Jason Bourne,” Cook said. “I think that's what kind of started the idea. I've wanted to be an actor because when I was young. I wanted to be like a detective and all this other stuff, but I realized I could kind of do all of that when I started acting.”

Cook moved to Charlotte at age 12 and played football at Crestdale Middle School. Though he enjoyed the sport, dabbling in a new adventure changed the course of his future.

“I started doing plays while I was playing football as well.,” Cook said “Eventually, I stopped playing football and just stayed straight on acting. I ended getting a scholarship to Wake Forest (University) for acting. Then, after graduating, I went to Lambda (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.)”

Cook went straight into working on his career and appeared in several prestigious projects, going from small and supporting roles to playing significant ones in shows such as “Chicago P.D.” and “Industry.” He is working alongside actors like Austin Butler in the Apple TV+ miniseries “Masters of the Air,” which began shooting in 2021.

“I got the audition from an agent, and I just knew it was something I had to do,” Cook said of the Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg-produced World War II drama. “I had to rewatch ‘Band of Brothers’ because it was the team that did ‘Band of Brothers,’ which was a huge show. “I think I spent six hours taping the audition before I sent it off. I got a callback with Dee Rees, who’s huge, great director. Got the call maybe a week or two later, and I was flying off to London a couple months later.”

Cook plays Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Alexander Jefferson, a Tuskegee Airman who was shot down over France in 1944 and interned at a German prison camp in Poland.

“He was a real-life man,” Cook said. “He was a war hero. He was … actually a prisoner of war until all the prisoners of war were free and the war was over.”

Cook is in Atlanta working on a new season of “Tell Me Lies,” a show that tells the turbulent story of a couple as it unfolds over eight years.

“It is season two, and I am really grateful and blessed to be in the position I'm in now,” said Cook, who plays Evan. “Not a lot of people get a season two of a show. So, I am grateful for that.”

Cook said he enjoys entertaining people, which is one of the reasons he pursued a career in acting.

“I think there's different ways to entertain people,” he said. “You can make them laugh. You can make them cry. You can make them feel something, and I think with acting, it's an art form that is very personal and intimate and it makes the artists as well as the, when it's done right, the audience share something. Share in the energy and intimacy. I think it has that capability to really touch people and change people and make people feel cool and connected and also gives people relief.

“You know, not everything you do is going to make someone cry. Sometimes people just need a relief from their 9-to-5 and their hard life and they just want to wind down and watch, you know, a funny movie or a rom com or something like that.”

Though acting is his main source of income, Cook has other hobbies, such as reading. If he wasn’t an actor, Cook said he would have still done something in the arts.

“Like the art of painting or drawing or involved in music or something,” he said. “Those are kind of other things that really interest me. Or maybe a writer,” said Cook, whose goal is to bring his acting knowledge back to Charlotte in the future. “Just because Charlotte gave so much to me, and I feel like there's little pockets of small art stuff there,” he said. “I mean, they have the Blumenthal Theater and whatever, but I would love to bring… a center for arts in Charlotte.”

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