'Queens' star never intended to become an actor

On the new ABC dramedy "Queens," an all-female hip-hop group from the '90s is poised for a comeback in middle age. A lot of life has been lived since their first brush with stardom, which has dimmed in the intervening years, and it's not entirely clear if they're prepared to step back into the glare of the spotlight. But is anyone ever really ready?

Created by Shondaland alum Zahir McGhee, the series premiered last month and stars Chicago native Nadine Velazquez alongside music industry veterans Eve, Brandy and Naturi Naughton.

Of the four, Velazquez — who first made her mark as a cast member on "My Name Is Earl" and whose credits include everything from "The League" to "Hart of Dixie" to "Major Crimes" — is the only performer in real life who doesn't have professional experience on the music side.

"It's been intimidating," she said. "Even more so now that the show is airing because it's like, wow, I really did put myself in a position to get totally smashed (laughs)."

Velazquez's path into acting is uniquely her own. She remembers going to a birthday party as a child and meeting another little girl who had been in a commercial. "I wanted my mother to somehow enroll me into acting, but she never really looked into it." Years later, while attending Columbia College Chicago, she was dating someone who introduced her to a talent agent in need of an assistant. Velazquez would end up working for that agent while she was also going to school and juggling cocktail waitress shifts at a restaurant.

"So acting was in my life," she said, "but not as an actress. I was thinking, well, maybe I'll become a talent agent."

She met her (future) ex-husband at a restaurant where she was working. He was a literary agent in Los Angeles and so she moved to the city. Two years after she moved to L.A., she booked her first role. Two years after that, she landed "My Name Is Earl."

That may sound like a charmed story. And in some ways it is. But the more personal side of Velazquez's life was anything but.

She describes her high school years as a "very hard, dark time," prompting her to leave home at 16, when she was a junior. She says her life is very similar to her story line in "Queens." "My character feels like she doesn't have family, so she's had to do it all on her own," she said. She felt isolated in her early years, didn't have very many friends and it led to a self-sabotage.

Much of that story forms the basis for a show she said she is developing for Showtime. It's semi-autobiographical and Will Smith is one of the executive producers.

"I had worked on a job with Will that I had gotten fired from, because like I said, I was just self-sabotaging. And he was curious why somebody would do that. I basically told him my story and he said if I developed this and wrote it, he would make sure I had a support system in him," she said. "And that's when I really started to change things in my life."