When I Knew I Wanted To Be An Actor

One of the most common questions I get asked on a daily basis is "When did you want to become an actor?”  Well children, in today’s blog I'm going to answer that question for you, with details and backstories included!

Before YouTube, before VHS tapes turned into DVDS, before digital cameras could take video, their was a 7 year old girl, standing in front of her bathroom mirror, with a Shampoo Bottle in hand, thanking her fans for her Oscar. That little girl was I!

In elementary school, I was always known as the class clown.  I was constantly making people laugh with the things I would say or do.  In fact, in 3rd grade I won the "Most likely to make you laugh" award!  An accomplishment that I am still very proud of, even to this day.  The thing with my humor though is I never try to be funny, it sort of just comes natural.  Also, despite the blonde hair, I never played the "dumb blonde" card in order to get a laugh. Usually my humor came from witty things I would say or do. Till this day, pulling the cute/dumb card pisses me off; it comes off as a cheap laugh.  Its likes that one friend you have who always talks in a baby voice.  Please, grow up and stop now.   

My elementary class clown days was when I sort of knew that I liked to perform.  I liked to entertain people, whether it was in a classroom, through a story, or even on stage.  I liked the attention but not in a self centered way, because I am anything but.  I liked knowing that for a few seconds, five minutes, or even a half hour, I took people into my world and made them forget about any worries they had prior.  It’s a nice feeling when people would later say to me, "Thanks, I needed that".  It’s like watching your favorite TV show; despite all the worries you had prior to its airtime, once you start watching the show you are taken out of your world and put into theirs.  The acting and dialogue are so believable; it makes you feel like its real.  You are so drawn into their problems, struggles, and even happiness that you forget about your worries for the time being.  

Ever since I can remember I was always writing scripts, stealing my dads video camera, or submitting to contests to appear on Nickelodeon.  Acting was the one thing that always stayed constant in my life, when everything else was changing.  In the third grade, my teacher read us this book called "Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone".  Every day for story time, she would read the book for 15 minutes to the class.  I fell in love with this book, and looked forward to story time just  to find out what would happen next in Harry's World.  A few months after finishing the book, I found out that they we're making a movie!  I thought to myself "This is it, this is my big break, I need to audition for this!"  

When I got home from school that day, I made my mom free up the phone line so I could connect to our dial up Internet.  I found the production companies address and wrote them a letter asking if I could play Hermione in the upcoming Harry Potter movie.  About a month later, I received a letter back from them. I remember bringing the letter into my brother’s room and saying to him, "Tyler, this could be the letter that changes my life, I could be a movie star!”  I debated whether or not to open it, knowing that it would either contain really good news or really bad news.  Long story short, although I did not get the role (obviously!), a nice casting director wrote back to me, expressing how happy my letter made him.  He took the time out of his crazy Hollywood life, to write back to that little girl in Massachusetts who had big dreams of being an actor.  I still have that letter, to this very day.

Lets fast forward to my High School years.  I used to audition for my High School's plays all the time.  I was lucky if I even got casted; never mind getting a speaking role.  My debut role was in my senior year of high school.  The role involved me being a nerd and peeing my pants on stage. There was this tradition at my school, where we would wear our costumes during the school day to promote opening night.  My costume involved an ugly sweater that was tucked into mom jeans, my hair in pigtails, and my grandmas super thick glasses.  My favorite part of that day was when no one knew that I was wearing a costume.  Thank you everyone.  I'm glad you think that this ugly, mismatched look is a normal thing for me.  By 3rd period I was ready to ditch the costume, but I didn't have any normal clothes on me!  Typical Brittany situation!

To wrap things up, I was always interested in Acting, but it didn’t become a career possibility until I moved out to LA.  Being 15 minutes from Hollywood, and having access to some of the top acting schools in the world was enough to make me want to go after my dreams and stop making excuses.  I promised myself that I would never live a normal life, and so far I have kept that promise.  I want to continue to keep it though, no matter how much work it takes, no matter how much money I have to spend, and no matter how many times I have to hear the word “no” before I ever hear a single  “yes”.  Cause somewhere, somehow, someone is going to come along in my life and give me that one “Yes” I need to jump-start my career.  Until next time; Don’t let you dreams be dreams. 

Today’s song of the day is a tune my friend Christian sent me over Facebook!  Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/U36NNr_HTXg