Since 2014, Sunday night's meant watching the latest episode of STARZ Power which is co-created by Courtney A. Kemp and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. As season 6 came to a close for its series finale, we were already anticipating the promise of a series of spinoff shows that would continue to follow an array of characters as well as a prequel to show us how it all started. Power Book II: Ghost launched its first episode on Sept 6th and has already been greenlit for a second season. STARZ has also greenlit Power Book III: Kanan and Power Book IV: Force. This month, we caught up with Gianni Paolo who joined Power in seasons 5 and 6 and is one of the leads of Power Book II: Ghost. In addition to shooting him in fall style for our virtual shoot, we talk about being a hockey player professionally, pickup hockey games, his experience being in Ma, reading for Power, joining the cast and how his character continues in Ghost. We also talk about how he's looking at his career and how he is engaging with various projects. ATHLEISURE MAG: Before we delve into your acting career and being on Power, you were a hockey player for a lot of your life! What drew you to this sport? GIANNI PAOLO: Honestly, I don’t even remember starting playing hockey. From what I can remember of just being alive, hockey was apart of my life. My dad was a big hockey fan so he wanted us to play. So all 3 of us, my 2 brothers as well, were hockey players. I literally started skating when I was 2 or 3 maybe and it’s all that I can remember, just my dad being the one that put us in. AM: Then you got drafted and continued to play! What was that moment when you realized that just as much as you loved hockey, you actually wanted to do acting? GP: I was kind of juggling with both of them and kind of struggling with the idea of both of them probably my whole high school career. So I got drafted to the Quebec Junior Hockey League when I was 16.
It was so funny because everything would keep drawing me towards acting and not hockey. Just small things would happen every single month, week – where I would fully immerse myself in hockey and then things would just get sidetracked. It just kept pushing me towards acting and when I got drafted, I was like, “ok this is what I’ve gotta do and my parents have put so much money into this,” but then there were so many things that just kept pushing me towards acting. So it just became something that I just had to do. It wasn’t like I was like, “I like this” – it was something that I just had to do. AM: Do you still play? I know that you don’t play it professionally, but are you still involved in the sport? GP: Yeah, I’m in NY right now because we’re still shooting. When I’m in LA, there is a Monday night league with CAA which is a talent agency which also represents a bunch of NHL players. I pretty much have a friend on every NHL team. I play with probably 50-60 guys that are the top NHL players right now. So I get tickets to any game I want and it’s great. So they come out and skate too because CAA represents a lot of them as well. There’s also Jerry Bruckheimer (Bad Boys, Top Gun, The Amazing Race) who skates and other actors like Michael Rosenbaum (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Neighbor, Smallville) – people who are actors but there is this whole entertainment industry hockey league which I love! So I play every Monday night and also I play a lot. I play 3 times a week if all of the leagues are going at the same time. My manager who is also a hockey player, he has a team on Thursday nights that we play and then there’s another director that I know and he has a team on Tuesday nights and he was like, “whenever you can play, just come by and play.” So, I play a lot and I’m still pretty involved in the sport.
