MOST Magazine Fitness APR-MAY'15 ISSUE NO.1 | Page 112

ex-husband recently died from a very aggressive
form of cancer, but as a result of the work we all
did together, she had the privilege of being by his
side and holding his hand until he finally took his
last breath.” If Troy can help achieve something
like that, then it seems anyone who has had an ex
could learn from her.
To further expand the message of her powerful
book, Troy wrote and directed the movie based on
it – “I Really Hate My Ex,” which will be released
by Lionsgate this coming April. This is not her first
time working on a film, nor will it undoubtedly be
her last. Troy got her start as one of the original
cast of the famous PBS show, “Sesame Street,”
and remained a series regular until the age of
nine before moving on to numerous national
commercials and movies of the week. However,
after growing up in New York City with only her
mother and older brother, Troy’s life changed
drastically when she was placed in foster care,
due to neglect, and was then sent to live with
her father in Idaho, whom she barely knew. But
Troy still wanted to act, so after high school, she
returned to New York City to study acting and soon
landed a part in Francis Ford Coppola’s movie,
“The Cotton Club.” This inspired her to move to
Los Angeles and pursue acting full time where she
was awarded with parts in numerous movies and a
role on an ABC hit soap opera. Her screenwriting
debut occurred in 1997 with the movie “B*A*P*S”
starring Halle Berry, and after the experience and
seeing how much her script was changed during
filming, Troy decided to direct and star in her next
screenplay. Titled, “Let’s Talk About Sex,” Troy
debuted the trailer at the Sundance Film Festival
and literally stood outside handing it out to film
executives. That’s called dogged determination,
which paid off for Troy as the film became involved
in a bidding war, and ultimately picked up by Fine
Line Features. She went on to make history as the
first woman of color to write and direct a studio
release film, with the Warner Bros movie, “Love
Don’t Co$t a Thing.” Most people have many
passions but not everyone can find a way to meld
them together into lucrative careers, and yet, Troy

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has managed to do so with her commitment to
helping people and her interest and experience in
the entertainment industry.
he doesn’t stop with healing broken hearts
though and is on her way to achieving
another amazing milestone that will assist
her in continuing to help people - her Ph.D. She
currently has an MA in Depth Psychology with an
emphasis in Community, Liberation and Ecopsychology. Troy recently switched her field of
expertise and will now be earning her doctorates
degree in Jungian Analysis with and emphasis
on Archetypal Studies. She tells Fitness MOST,
“My intention is to work with individuals and
communities that are imprisoned by their own
personal demons. By using elements of the natural
world such as medicine walks (walks through
nature in which you allow the earth to communicate
with you by way of symbols) and grounding
(prolonged physical skin contact with earth
elements), I am committed to empowering and
inspiring.” Thus, she stays true to her brand always
and persists in finding new ways to so.
With all this hard work, Troy still manages
to take care of her health through hiking, yoga,
Pilates, and conscious – eating and not putting
anything into her body she does not respect,
such as sugar or hard alcohol. She tells us, “I
have tremendous respect for gorgeous, green
vegetables and brightly colored fruit. I am not a
vegetarian, but I eat very little meat. The other
thing I do every day is I ‘oil pull’…it entails placing
one teaspoon of oil (I use coconut or olive oil) in
your mouth and swishing it between your teeth for
15 minutes. This process extracts toxins and also
leaves your teeth pearly white.” Furthermore, she
does Transcendental Meditations (TM) twice a
day, 20 minutes each session, and says, “When I
want to be really happy I play with my two-year-old
nephew, Theo. He just makes me so absolutely
happy!” Well we can all be happy that Troy takes
care of herself so that she can carry on helping
broken-hearted, lost people find their way back to
the joys that life has to offer.