Harper IMAGE

How GH's Tanisha Traded The Runway For The Soundstage.

- Mara Levinsky

As a kid, “I was really into fashion,” says Tanisha Harper, an interest that her grandmother, “who would sometimes do fashion shows as a model and was also really good at making clothes,” cultivated during the summers they spent together. “I would pick an outfit from Teen Vogue or whatever and that would be our project. We would make a couple of outfits, exactly like what I saw in the magazines. So that’s what I thought I would end up doing; I thought I’d be a fashion designer or work in fashion somehow. I never even thought that acting was something I’d be able to do. It just never crossed my mind.”

Her fashion ambitions took a surprise turn when, at the age of 14, she was discovered at a mall by the owner of a modeling agency. Her mom was wary at first (“She was like, ‘No. No modeling. They’re all bad! They’re going to get you into trouble!’ ”), but when photos the agency took of her during a casual first meeting landed her an offer for a Nike campaign, Mom came around. “When she saw how much money it was, she was like, ‘Okay, where do we sign her up? Let’s do this!’ ”