Sherman Augustus from “Into the Badlands” Talks Film, Football and Acting While Black

The Man With The Plan Sherman Augustus is a man with a plan. In fact, he’s had a pretty good one since he attended Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, California back in the 1970s. Back then, Sherman played football, hoping to get a scholarship to college while doing a bit of acting on the side. “My whole goal was to see how far I could go as a football player…I had the will and the talent. I just wanted to see if I could do it,” he tells me over Skype while lounging in his rooms in Ireland only a few days after wrapping filming on his current project, AMC’s Into the Badlands. Sherman plays “Nathaniel Moon”, the Widow’s Regent and resident badass. For the third season, which began airing only a few weeks ago, Sherman received series regular status. “Being a series regular means you got a job,” he laughs when I ask how the upgrade feels. “You get to wake up every morning and go to a gig. It’s a privilege to do this.” For Sherman, acting has always been a solace, but playing football, running track and academics gave him little time to pursue his passion. After earning a degree in Physical Education at University of Northwestern–St. Paul and playing professional football with the San Diego Chargers and the Minnesota Vikings, Sherman itched to conduct his energies into something else. “The folks I used to look up to that I knew played football and went into filmmaking [are] Jim Brown, Bernie Casey, Fred Williamson. They made a transition into another profession and [were] good…