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Actress/model Tika Sumpter plays Candace on Tyler Perry’s “The Haves and The Have Nots” but depending on who you are, you may know her best from her role as Layla on “One Life to Live,” as Raina on “Gossip Girl,” as Jenna on “The Game” or as Delores in the film remake of “Sparkle.” According to fan Tom Joyner, though, in her role as the “low-down, manipulative, no-good, real slutty,” Candace on “The Haves and the Have Nots,”  she’s doing her most memorable work yet.

“People tweet me all the time or they’ll come up to me saying ‘I thought you were so nice and I’m like ‘I am nice!’” Sumpter says.

The Long Island, NY native went to Marymount Manhattan College to earn a degree in communications, but modeling and acting gigs soon took over those initial ambitions. Sumpter, now 32 (she turns 33 this week) may seem like an overnight success but she’s been steadily working for some time.

“I’ve always wanted to do this since I was a little girl,” she says. “Since I sat in front of “The Cosby Show” and said ‘Omigod, I don’t know what that is, but that’s what I want to do.’ It’s always something that I wanted to pursue. I’ve been doing it for a while now, it’s just now that people are starting to get to know me in the last few years and it’s exciting.”

The soap opera elements of “The Haves and the Have Nots” are nothing new to Sumpter who got her start in daytime soaps on “One Life to Live.” But as Candace, the scheming daughter of the Cryer’s longtime maid, Hanna Young, she’s playing a role much different that the one she appeared in on the daytime soap.

Tika Sumpter Does Her Dirt On “The Haves and the Have Nots”  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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