Evy Royal’s Versatility From Skit Actor To Short Film Maestro

Manchester native Evy Royal, known for his humorous Instagram skits, which capture the essence of rural Jamaican life, culture, and psyche, transcended digital boundaries when he was hand-picked to star as a rogue, in Trap-Dancehall artist Rygin King’s 2021 hit Squeeze Trigga and an embattled office worker in Chronic Law’s Choices earlier this year.  

The Christiana High School Alumni received high praises from his fans for what has been described as his superb performance in Squeeze Trigga, where like a chameleon, he changed from the humorous country-bumpkin character seen daily on Instagram into a hard-core Jamaican gangster.  

Squeeze Trigga, which spans a total of four minutes and 20 seconds, has so far racked up 2.7 million views on YouTube.  Choices’ accompanying video, which is also a four-minute short film, was released on March 31 this year, and has amassed more than 1.9 million views.

Evy Royal told DancehallMag that he was approached to make his music video acting debut after the video producer expressed interest in him playing a role in the film.   

“The producer for the Rygin King video reached out to me which is Sky Bad.  Him reach out to mi and seh ‘yuh know mi have this video and mi woulda really like yuh fi come lock it off because mi si yuh an dem ting deh pon di internet’,” Evy, who also attended Holmwood Technical High School, explained.

“It was a great experience fi be in that video and when I go to the set I see a lot of new things and I was very excited for that experience.  I meet some great people like SaiiMedia and Prince Guava.  They are really good friends of mine.  Me and Prince Guava and Sai Media right now we are working in a movie together…  We haven’t come up with the name yet, but we are shooting and all these things,” he stated, adding that he was so excited that he could not pinpoint any standout moments on Squeeze Trigga, as all his moments were quite exciting.

“I don’t have any memorable moment.  All I know is that I like doing what I am doing,” he said.

In relation to his appearance in Chronic Law’s Choices, in this instance, Evy, whose real name is Evert Johnson, said that this time he was the one who initiated contact.

“I remember when reaching out to Zbek on the Instagram and seh ‘bro mi woulda really like to do some work’.  And him seh ‘bro mi si seh yuh have a talent and yuh different from the rest’.  From there I meet Zbek and Zbek reach out back to me and she ‘bro yuh have work fi do’.  And that’s how I get Chronic Law music video and that’s how I meet Shane Creative and some great people,” he said.

The idea of Dancehall artists making their music videos into short films to provide meaning and value to the lyrics is a concept that resonates with Evy, and is one that he sees as providing big opportunities for upcoming actors.  

“Nowadays you realise a lot of these Jamaican music videos are really short films, which is really a good thing for artists as well.  So, for me to get the experience in a short film is a great thing, because it is different from how I do social media content.   Because we have to work with script; we have to see that the dialogues are very consistent and connect,” he said.

“It is a great experience because it is just like how you would be in a movie.  So for me, music videos right now are very good,” Evy added.