Jalyn Hall Dishes On What It's Like Taking on Historical Roles like Emmett Till & Martin Luther King Jr

Jalyn Hall has had quite the career so far, with some pretty major roles already.

The 16-year-old The Crossover star has taken on some historical figure roles, like Emmett Till in the movie Till, and he’ll also be playing a young Martin Luther King Jr in the upcoming anthology series Genius: MLK/X.

While making an appearance on Good Morning America Friday morning (April 14), the actor opened up about what it’s it like taking on these roles and what it means to him.

Keep reading to see what he said…

“It’s an honor. It’s really crucial and important to me and, like I said, an honor to bridge that gap between the youth and the history of it all,” he told Michael Strahan. “With Till being a prime example, a lot of us, that’s the younger generation, didn’t know the story, or at least the entirety of it.”

“I was blessed to have a mother who instilled so many life changing lessons into me, and she let me know the initial kind of gist of what it was,” Jalyn continued. “But going deep diving into the project, I got to learn in depth. The same with MLK. You get to see him as a teenager, a young adult who is still learning his ideals, still figuring out who he was. A lot of times, we can forget that these historical figures weren’t always these historical figures. So I’m really honored to be able to show the sides of that.”

You can currently check out Jalyn in The Crossover on Disney+, with Genius: MLK/X also coming to Disney+ at a later date.