In Pulse, Jessie T. Usher Forgoes Superpowers to Play a Real-World Hero

Jessie T. Usher has a simple barometer for his character in Pulse. "If I ever had a question of what Dr. [Sam] Elijah would do, it's whatever A-Train wouldn't do," he said. Of course, the third-year resident Usher plays in Netflix's medical drama and the superhuman he's starred as in Prime Video's dark comedy The Boys are not entirely dichotomous. (A-Train's redemption arc is under way after Season 4.) But for the most part, the characters are polar opposites. "One of them is taking lives on a regular basis; the other one's saving lives on a regular basis," Usher told TV Guide. "To be honest with you, I think the Sam Elijah character was kind of a breath of fresh air."

It was a day before Pulse's April 3 debut, and Usher, who spoke to TV Guide over video with Los Angeles' blue skies behind him, beamed as he talked about his new character. "It was nice to have someone who is truly good-hearted and who, from the very beginning, is always trying to do the right thing — even if it means losing out in the end," Usher said. "It's very different from A-Train who just would refuse to take any losses." 

In Pulse, which follows a group of physicians in Miami's Level 1 trauma center in the fictional Maguire hospital, Elijah is an outstanding emergency medicine doctor. He's being considered as the next chief resident after the suspension of the last doctor to hold the role, Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell). And his main competition is Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald), Elijah's dear friend, who filed a damning report that led to Phillips' suspension.  

"Obviously, some things get ahold of him, but he always comes back to who he is, and that's this true, altruistic, compassionate person," Usher said. To be clear, the actor doesn't prefer playing a hero over playing a villain. It's more that he relished the opportunity to inhabit two TV characters who were so dissimilar. Production on The Boys Season 4 began in August 2022. When that season wrapped, Usher filmed Pulse, and now The Boys is back in production for its fifth and final season. "It's kind of fun to go back and forth between those two," the actor said.

His role in Pulse also gave Usher the opportunity to explore the experience of Black doctors. "I'm very proud to be playing this character who is not an underdog, even though he is a minority," he said. To prepare, Usher spoke to a friend, Antoine, who practices medicine in New York City. "He's the only Black male cardiologist in his hospital," Usher said. "[So I asked him,] 'What is that like?'"

The two spoke about Antoine's conversations with his mother as he worked long shifts, particularly during COVID. "It's just those conversations that you have with a loving, caring parent that I'm sure Samuel Elijah also would have had," said Usher, "not having any experience in this background, not really having any peers, not really having anyone to look up to, necessarily." The actor noted that Dr. Elijah is "the top of his class, he's a leading candidate to be a chief resident. And it's just all of these things that I'm sure inherently would come as additional pressure, being one of the only Black faces in the hospital."

Usher also celebrated Pulse's ensemble, which is diverse across race, gender, and disability. The actor cited Justina Machado's Natalia Cruz, the chair of surgery and emergency medicine — "[She] is running the entire hospital at the top of the season and doing it well" — and Harper Simms (Jessy Yates), a second-year emergency medicine resident, who uses a wheelchair and at times faces discrimination for her disability. "You see how good she is at her job," Usher said. "It's nice to be on a project that shines these characters in such a beautiful light, and also doesn't shy away from what those difficulties may or may not look like in a real setting."

ALSO READ: Pulse Season 2: The showrunners talk about what could happen in Netflix's medical drama

Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, Usher was heavily involved in the Baltimore theater scene as a child. By age 11, he had starred in productions ranging from Kurt Weill's opera Street Scene to Shakespeare's Richard III. "I was trying a few different things, but the singing and the dancing was taking off a little bit more," Usher recalled. "I could have stayed on the East Coast and then segued towards Broadway, but the singing and dancing aspect isn't something that I wanted to do — and my parents took that very seriously."

They decided to relocate the family to Los Angeles so that Usher and his sister could pursue their acting dreams. "My parents were very well into their careers, so it was a huge sacrifice that they made," Usher said. But there was also a personal motivation — his mom had always wanted to live in L.A. "She saw two kids [wanting to act] and went, 'This is my chance,'" he said with a smile. 

The move proved critical in helping Usher gain clarity about his interests — though it would be a yearslong journey. After training to become a singer-dancer-actor in Baltimore, in L.A. Usher started dissecting that multi-hyphenate experience to identify what he enjoyed most. In 2005, he guest starred in an episode of CBS's procedural Without a Trace, followed in 2007 by an episode of Disney Channel's sitcom Hannah Montana. Usher was becoming more drawn to acting. But at the same time, trying to figure out his passions at such an early age was taxing. 

"It's a lot for a 13-, 14-year-old boy," Usher said. "I was going through puberty, my voice was changing, I couldn't sing anymore — it was madness." Plus, Usher had commitments outside of the performing arts. He finished high school at the age of 15 and started college that same year. Studying for his degree while continuing acting, vocal, and piano lessons quickly became too much. Though Usher had wanted to quit acting before, he felt more resolute this time. That was due to both his overloaded schedule and the fact that a greater passion had emerged. "I wanted to pursue culinary arts — that's where my heart was," Usher said. "This acting thing was like an expensive, time-consuming hobby — and I didn't feel like it was worth it." 

But Usher's agents at the time knew he didn't actually want to quit. "They understood I just wanted to take a step back," he said. The actor started culinary school and stopped his vocal and piano lessons. Meanwhile, Usher's agents only sent him select auditions for roles they felt were perfectly suited for him. One of them was for high school quarterback Lyle Hugginson in Level Up, which became Usher's first job as series regular. The live-action comedy series began with a film in 2011 and ran for two seasons on Cartoon Network from 2012-2013. "I went, shot the movie in Atlanta, and then went right back to culinary school," he shared. "Then the show got picked up for series, so I had to leave culinary school and go shoot the show, and then came right back to culinary school." When Level Up was renewed for a Season 2, Usher knew something had to change. "I was able to go to my professors and say, 'I'm gonna do this acting thing while it's here and it's moving, and I'll come back when it slows down,'" he recalled. "And it just hasn't slowed down."

The actor credits Level Up as the project that prompted him to pursue acting as more than a hobby. Being on set regularly was the game changer, marking a shift from his previous acting experience. "It's different when you just walk on, do your part, walk off, and you don't really get to see what goes into [the project]," Usher said. As a series regular, he began to appreciate the craft of filmmaking in an entirely new way. "I started paying more attention to the DPs, I started paying more attention to the directors and having more in-depth conversations with them," he recalled. "And it made me fall more in love with what I do." That experience began to shape his perception of film and TV production, which he likens to an Olympic basketball team. "Everybody shows up and they're on top of their game. It's very fulfilling to see it come together."

Following Level Up, Usher landed another series regular role, starring as basketball player Cam Calloway in the LeBron James executive-produced series Survivor's Remorse. The dramedy aired on Starz from 2014 to 2017. Within that period, the actor also expanded his credits in film, including the Independence Day sequel Independence Day: Resurgence and the Danny Glover-led Almost Christmas. 

But another television role would become Usher's most career-defining yet — and his longest running. In 2019, The Boys premiered on Prime Video. In the adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comics of the same name, helmed by Supernatural's Eric Kripke, Usher plays A-Train, the character with superspeed whose accidental murder of Hughie's (Jack Quaid) girlfriend was the catalyst for the ongoing feud between a group of rebel humans ("the Boys") and superheroes. 

ALSO READ: Pulse's Willa Fitzgerald breaks down Danny and Xander's messy romance, season 2 hopes

"From Level Up to Survivor's Remorse to The Boys and now Pulse, there's elements that have come from each set and from each crew and each cast that I want to keep forever," Usher said. "There's little tidbits that I learned in each project that I feel brings everybody closer together."

The actor is now putting that on-set education to use as he moves into a new role and begins producing films. The subject? Culinary arts, which continues to be the actor's big passion. One untitled project he's developing, written by actor and filmmaker Allen Maldonado, is based on a documentary about a Michigan prison's culinary program. "They teach inmates how to make Michelin-star grade dishes so that they can have a career when they get released," Usher shared. "We're turning that into a feature film."

The second movie he's developing is a rom-com titled A Taste of Christmas. "[It's] two chefs battling it out right around the holiday season," Usher teased. "Obviously there's some some love and some drama in there." The actor is hoping for both films to be shot in the near future so they could be released in 2026.

Whereas the teenage version of himself often felt torn between acting and cooking, Usher is now finding a way to do both through these projects. "I was able to find this place of comfort instead of always feeling like I was being pushed or pulled in the middle between two passions," he said. "Now I feel like I've been able to marry them together." 

He acknowledged that the two projects he's developing are completely unlike one another. "They're so different that people won't even realize they're both about culinary arts," he laughed. "They're both secretly about me just wanting to be in the kitchen." 

But selecting work that is fresh is at the core of how Usher approaches his career, behind the camera and in front of it. "If there's something out there that I haven't done yet, that will be my next challenge," Usher said. That's part of the reason he was attracted to the role of Dr. Sam Elijah. "Pulse is so different," he explained. "[It] checks a ton of boxes for me." The actor is determined to build a body of work that will stand out for its range. "I just hope that one day, people will look back at my career and say I've done 100 different things — and maybe not all of them were done perfectly, or maybe not even done well," Usher said. "But I gave my best shot to as big of a variety and as big of a diverse career as you can as a performer."

Usher's go-to answer when asked about his dream role? "It's whatever I haven't already done."

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Pulse Season 1 is available to stream on Netflix.