Where many college basketball players go on to pursue NBA careers USF’s Sinqua Walls landed himself an acting career. Fresh off the debut of his movie, Shark Night 3D, Walls sat down with CT to talk the new thriller, working with mechanical sharks, his adjustments to acting and his future in show business.

Tell me a little bit about the filming for Shark Night and how filming for 3D was different.

Shark Night is a mix of suspense, horror, and action. There are a lot of thrill rides in this movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Along with some up close and personal encounters with different species of sharks!

Was there a lot of physical activity?

There was a decent amount of physical training for the movie in order to prepare for what we were going to encounter working in tanks and open water. There was wakeboard training, handgun training, scuba training, and a lot of training under water with navy seals.

Is that one of the reasons you were cast?

I’m not sure if my physicality is the reason I was cast, but I do know it came in handy for the more aggressive shark fight sequences with the mechanical shark.

Did you work with live sharks or are they being added later?

We worked with mechanical free swimming sharks that were built to look like scale replicas of their live shark counter parts. They had real shark teeth, movable eyes, and worked on remote control to give them a free range of motion in the water and believability.

How do you feel about going into the ocean now?

Oceans, lakes, swimming pools, they all scare me now, because you just never know!!

Tell me about your NCAA sports career at USF.

Playing collegiate sports gave me a sense of work ethic and dedication. I learned the importance of time invested, and how to manage that time in the right areas.

Which do you prefer now: professional actor or professional athlete?

Acting is the best job on earth, and I genuinely feel very fortunate to be able to call it a career. I wake up every day excited to go to work, no matter what I’m doing. Both are very competitive and require a lot of mental preparation and focus. The best actors are those that are always thinking of new ways to improve and build better characters as they go along. Just as the best athletes always say the game is more mental than physical.