N.C. A&T freshman psychology student, actor and singer Jaden Lucas Miller experienced a huge milestone in entertainment on March 12 with his debut in the newest daytime soap opera Beyond The Gates.
Miller plays Tyrell Richardson, who is part of the esteemed Dupree family and one of two adopted children of Martin and Smitty. The Duprees are the center of the series, a multi-generational family living in the gated community of Fairmont Crest in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
Beyond The Gates holds significance in television history as the first Black-led daytime soap opera and the first new daytime soap to debut on a major American broadcast network in over 25 years. The last time viewers welcomed a daytime soap was in 1999 with NBC’s Passions.
Just last summer, Miller, a Raleigh, North Carolina, native, graduated from Cardinal Gibbons High School and enrolled at A&T that fall. He grew up as an active participant at the Raleigh Little Theatre and the North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre. It was during his final months of high school, as a prospective college track athlete, that he realized his true passion for acting and decided to fully embrace the grind.
The original plan was to temporarily stop running track to focus on finding acting roles. But through the Cardinal Gibbons theatre program, Miller discovered that performing was a talent he couldn’t continue to put behind athletics.
Miller starred in Not Another Church Movie alongside Kyla Pratt, Jamie Foxx and Tisha Campbell, which premiered on Amazon Prime on May 11 of last year, right before his graduation.
“I printed out copies [of movie flyers] and was handing them out, saying, ‘You should go check it out, it’s in the movie theater,’ and only like four or five people from the school showed up to watch it,” he said.
He credits this memory as the moment his true friends and supporters were revealed to him as an upcoming teen actor.
In November 2024, he auditioned for a role in Beyond The Gates and was notified that he booked Tyrell while taking finals. Before his agent called with the news, Miller had been auditioning all semester for countless roles due to the “acting bug” he claims.
“It’s something where you get this little tingle, this little desire that keeps irritating you until you fully dive into it,” he explained.
Other major projects Miller has auditioned for prior to the soap include Space Jam, The Hate U Give and Stranger Things.
Miller’s mother, Georgia Mullings, expressed how proud she is of her firstborn and how Beyond The Gates is simply a product of hard work and faith.
“God showed me before that Jaden would land the opportunity that was meant for him. When he booked Beyond The Gates, that moment certified what he had planned all along in real time,” Mullings said.
In addition to Miller, Mullings has two younger children and has served as a role model for him over the years. She also works in the talent management industry and has played a huge part in helping Miller land jobs.
He is now taking classes online and working on set in Atlanta but hopes to return to Greensboro before the end of the semester to thank his supporters in Aggieland.
Beyond The Gates airs weekdays at 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. PT) on CBS.
