This North Mississippi native left on a Greyhound to NY with $80. Now he's a Hallmark star

The distance between Olive Branch, Mississippi, and Hollywood, California, is roughly 1,824 miles.

Somehow, that intimidating stretch is reduced to the gleaming span of an ear-to-ear smile or the accommodating circumference of a warm hug when one encounters Akono Dixon, an Olive Branch-raised actor who this weekend makes his debut as a feature-film heartthrob in “Spring Breakthrough,” which premieres Sunday on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel.

In "Spring Breakthrough," Dixon plays young, engaged-to-be-married Shawn Norwood, “a guy who really loves to embrace life, a guy with a cup-is-half-full mentality,” Dixon said. “So he walks on Earth with a happy smile.”

So, apparently, does Dixon.

The 28-year-old actor — born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and this week visiting his mother in Collierville — is currently best-known for a less-than-smiley characterization: He has a recurring role as a conflicted drug dealer on “All American,” a sports drama in its fifth season on the CW network.

But spend time with Dixon and you will be convinced that he is ideally suited for a Hallmark film, as if he is fulfilling the upbeat destiny promised by his name: “Akono” is Nigerian for “my opportunity."

"Come on, man, can we talk about 'alignment'?" he asked. "To be working with a company whose mentality and movies and cards and essence are all about love and all about connection, I'm a big believer in all of that."

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Beyond being an ambassador of the Hallmark brand ethos, Dixon might be an embodiment of the aspirations of the network’s new “Mahogany” line of feature films, which seeks to diversify the traditional (i.e., largely white) casting of Hallmark’s extraordinarily popular made-for-cable productions by looking at love “through the unique lens of Black culture,” according to a Hallmark press release.

Dixon said when he was "a young boy from Mississippi who would sit in his bedroom and dream," he and a cousin were watching a television show starring Olivia Holt, a blond teen who also had been living in DeSoto County before she "graduated" to the Disney Channel.

Dixon's cousin, he said, told him that "no Black person" could star in that type of program. "I just looked at him and smiled. Now, I am that guy, a walking figure and face for young men of color and girls of color to see. And I'm happy to have that privilege."

"Spring Breakthrough," which debuts at 6 p.m. Sunday on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries cable channel, is the fifth film in what Hallmark calls its Mahogany "brand extension," launched in the summer of 2021 and "rooted in the iconic Hallmark greeting card line of the same name," which is aimed at Black consumers.

Dixon said he is proud to be part of the Mahogany effort. He praised its commitment to storytelling that "encompasses love and family and human connection" in a Black context, presented largely by Black creators. ("Spring Breakthrough" was helmed by actor-turned-director Mykelti Williamson, known for his role as Bubba — namesake of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company — in "Forrest Gump," starring Tom Hanks.)

Taking a Greyhound from Memphis to New York

The son of pharmacist Alvin Dixon and law-enforcement officer Patricia Bridges, Dixon was born in Clarksdale but moved to Robinsonville after his parents divorced, when Akono was a boy. He and his mother next moved to Walls and then to Olive Branch, "which is kind of where I grew up," Dixon said. "That’s where I consider home.”

Dixon said his parents are "very education-minded," but he aspired to be an actor and model at a young age. Three days after graduating from DeSoto Central High School in Southaven, "I took a Greyhound bus from Memphis to New York, with $80 in my pocket. I lived in a hostel. It was rat-infested and roach-infested, but I was really determined. My parents weren't too happy."

Before moving to New York, he had sent photographs and query letters to various modeling agencies, especially to those that emphasized "male models of color." As a result, he quickly booked a few jobs with such publications as Vanity Teen magazine.

The next few years, however, were back-and-forth for Dixon. He studied at Ole Miss for a while, taking pre-med courses with the idea that he might become a doctor. But "I realized, 'You know what, Akono really wants to act.' My dad was like, 'Boy, you talking crazy.'"

Yet at the same time, “One thing my father instilled in me was a firm belief in going after what you want," Dixon said. So go after it he did. He returned to New York and won various small roles; a part in the 2017 true crime reenactment series, "I, Witness," attracted the attention of a "Hollywood" agent who encouraged him to relocate to Los Angeles, which he did.

"I told myself no matter what happens, I'm always gonna love acting, whether it's onstage at a breakfast theater or winning an Academy Award presented by Meryl Streep," he said. "I wasn't really fearful."

Nevertheless, the competition was intense. In little more than a year, he went on more than a hundred auditions, he said — "at least one a week. And I was consistently being told no and no and no."

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From 'Dolemite Is My Name' to Hallmark

In 2018, he began receive the encouragement he needed. That year, he had in a small role in the Eddie Murphy movie "Dolemite Is My Name," directed by Memphis' Craig Brewer (who did not know Dixon prior to shooting). "Before getting 'Dolemite' I was almost at my wit's end," Dixon admits.

Although most of Dixon's work in "Dolemite" ended up on the cutting-room floor, due to time constraints and story considerations, "I was really impressed by Akono," Brewer said. "He was so focused and committed, you couldn't take your eyes off him."

More crucially, Dixon was cast as the drug dealer, Andre, in "All American," which gave him plenty of screen space in which to display his emotional range. That led to "Spring Breakthrough," in which he and Rhyon Nicole Brown star as Shawn and Vivian, a young couple whose surprise engagement causes consternation for Vivian's mother (Keesha Sharp) and Shawn's godfather (Demetrius Grosse), who discover a mutual attraction of their own when they meet for the first time to check on the "kids," in Gulf Shores, Alabama (where the movie was filmed in February and March).

"You see these two families trying to learn how to understand where each other is coming from," Dixon said. "It's a beautiful film." (Following its 6 p.m. Sunday debut, the movie repeats at 6 p.m. May 2, 8 p.m. May 4 and 6 p.m. May 8, and also becomes available via Hallmark on-demand.)

Dixon said his mother is a big fan of Hallmark Christmas movies, so when his manager called with the offer from Hallmark, “The entire time I was asking, 'Is this even real?' I was literally pinching myself and slapping my arm like I‘m doing now, to make sure this is even real," he said, expressing surprise and gratitude that his career had progressed to the point of attracting newspaper interest.

In addition to acting, Dixon already is thinking about writing, directing and producing. He's developed his own project, "Caterpillar," which he hopes to make into a feature. The story has something of a spooky, spacey, youth-oriented "'Donnie Darko' vibe," he said.

At least one fellow filmmaker is rooting for him. "He's going to have a long-lasting career," Brewer said. "Count on it."

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Hallmark's 'Spring Breakthrough': Star Akono Dixon on his journey