2013: Number 1 of 4

I am a man with many ideas. I have many dreams, visions, and goals, the one thing I don’t feel I have is a clear purpose of why I want to do all of these things.  Since elementary school when I did my first production as a Munchkin in ‘Oz’ at Bellevue Model Elementary School, I knew I wanted to be an actor.

There was a chance I could have been a child star at one point.  Unfortunately, there were some real world roadblocks.  However, I imagine it could have been for the better. Beyond that opportunity I continued to pursue acting in the theater.

There were some roles, that I found myself getting lost in to the point, that I barely knew the difference between the character and I.   The first time I remember doing that was in the early 2000s.  I was portraying Willie Joe Pool in the North Star. Continuously portraying a role on stage helps me make the character come to life more and more.  For me it has always served as a great escape.

What I enjoy the most about acting is I get to explore life from another viewpoint.  Whether it be a story based on real life events or make believe, each new role  is an adventure waiting to happen.  I get to play a good guy or a bad guy.  Through acting, I could even fly, or die and come back to life.  One dream of mine has always been to possess magical powers. Due to the magic of acting, this dream could one day come true.

When I was looking to go to college, my main vision was to find a school where I could continue to pursue acting as a career.  My dream school was Howard University.  They have produced many successful black actors and actresses who are well respected fro their craft.  However, when I visited the Theater department, I got nervous.  I saw that the program was absolutely nothing, but theater ALL the time.  There was also a factor of the program for the male students.  It scared me at the time because I was not yet comfortable in my skin and sure of who I was, that I didn’t want temptation to play a part in me not being successful.

As the years progressed and I was well into my studies, I got the opportunity to audition for a student-produced film.  The audition went extremely well.  It was so good that I got lost in the role I was portraying and didn’t realize what had happened.  The writer/director/producer told me after I missed my callback, that had I not missed it, I would have been likely to get the part.

A year or two later I was fortunate enough to be part of another student’s project.  While the role I had was relatively small, I discovered a lot of things about myself that I wanted to reconnect with.  I wanted to reconnect with getting in touch with a different version of me and allowing it to be portrayed on stage, on a TV screen or a movie screen.

In 2012, I was inspired by a TV show, L.A. Complex, to get back into acting. The show was based on different people trying to catch their big break in the entertainment industry.  It reminded me that if you want something bad you have to put a lot of hard work into it.

Although I was nervous and scared the first time around, I am not anymore.  I know what it means to persevere through hard times, I know that my dream is something a lot of people in America want to come true.  I can feel in my inner spirit that right now is the time for me to pick back up in following my dreams.  I am able to be good at a plethora of things, but acting is where I enjoy being good the most.  The freedom to escape my personal trials, tribulations, and turmoil and to experience a pleasant ending through each character is the biggest thrill I receive from acting.

A lot of people want to be actors to be famous and receive a lot of attention. While I do want to be an actor on the big and small screen at the same time, I don’t particularly want all the rewards or consequences of fame.  I wouldn’t mind some of the fortunes a person gets along with acting because it can be invested into something positive.

One of the things that I took away in watching The L.A. Complex was dreams don’t come true overnight. A lot of hard work has to be put into the dream. That is why I am doing some planning and grunt work now so that when it comes down to implement my plans, I will be ready.  I am taking the approach of the tortoise, steady wins the race.  I’ve learned from a lot of my experiences that if I give too much of myself in the beginning I will burn out. I have set a goal to be in a certain place of my dream by a certain time.  What I need to do now is fully outline that plan and continue to pray over it.