Pardon the novel. LoL.
Tl;dr: I'm an actor/writer/musician, and I love every second of it!
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My father was a CEO for over 20 years. My mother was a biology professor. And I had a ridiculous interest in all things academic. So from a very young age I was groomed to be one of the highly educated professions, like a doctor or a fringe theoretical science. My memory recall from reading non-fiction and research studies is pretty good. Never took notes in school. Ever.
Then my family tore itself a part at the seems.
And during what is arguably the most influential years of a kid's life (10-17).
Suddenly I realized I shouldn't take their word on how the world works. When I was 12, I started finding solace in a pen and a paper. During the worst of it, I stayed out as late as I could. Not to party, but because I feared going home. I no longer had a sanctuary.
Friends of mine did theater. I pretended like I enjoyed it in the beginning. I loved being around them, but I was indifferent towards theater, acting, etc etc. Most people thought I was incredibly dedicated because I'd stay and paint sets or work out logistics of costume changes or set changes until 10-11PM at night, every night.
I was really just afraid of going home.
Two years of doing that, and I started to like it. Tried to act. Was the worst one in the department. But see...I have this thing with challenges, and loving them...
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My last year of high school I started to get a reputation. I was booking leads in plays. I played the Elephant Man in a state wide performance that got me some acclaim. Girls ran up to me yelling "Oh my god it's the elephant man", then trying to like...grab on to me. I've met people years and years later who tell me they still remember that performance. (which is flattering, but odd. Like "Oh, you were there? You remember that?" LoL)
Since then Acting has always been like that for me. I'll go somewhere, start at the bottom, gain a reputation, then go somewhere else. At the "height" my my acting career in the South East, I had seven talent agencies representing me across five states.
And now I'm in L.A.
Totally different beast out here.
But this is it. End game. Do all the things.
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I do it because I get lost in the brushstrokes of character creation. I've studied something between half a dozen to a dozen different approaches and processes to acting at this point, and there's always something new. Most gratifying is when I take some impulse that's truly strange and let it affect me and take a note of it.
One friend of mine in Florida told me he remembered when I did an abstract on an ice cube melting at room temperature.
"You said something like "at first everything was fine, but then I started to feel my armor slipping away, which infuriated me. Then, realizing I was helpless to prevent it angered me even more. But at some point, as the end neared, a sparked fear ran through me that this was the end. And I started shaking. And then it was over.""
It was an exercise I ran spontaneously. Just because, and with no expectation. And in the end I wondered if that was how I'd feel about death.
That's the kind of exploration I love.
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Writing had always been a private outlet. Much shorter story here. I'd always shown work to people when they asked, but it was always mediocre and crap. Something in the last year and a half clicked though, and now I show people segments of unfinished scripts and they respond with "what the hell happens next". So that's showing promise now.
And finally music.
Just joined a band a year ago. We already have an album out (Spotify, Amazon, soon on I-Tunes), have played some reputable venues in L.A., and are getting a decent amount of traction. And it's just a whole lot of fun, in general. And the three of us are like a family now. That is amazing in and of itself. Especially in this town.
So...that's the (long) story!
