HOW I BECAME AN ACTOR

oh hey so a few things about from today number one we're on a road trip is currently I'm not Day Afternoon Monday evening 8:19 p.m. at the time of this recording and I had a YouTube all ready to go for tomorrow in fact I have several for the next few weeks all ready to go and guess what thanks to Hydra it's corrupt somehow so I do not have a video depart tomorrow but I have been meaning to do this for a while so maybe it's all just a sign that this is what is meant to happen right now I don't know I might still be alive instead of the public for sure I have had my few questions asking how I enjoy acting I did it and I was thinking of doing a series maybe on a Friday night on YouTube with how I do stuff up in case so maybe like how I do auditions or how I got how I approach character or how I approach some things direct I print acting email or maybe you don't know any of that stuff that's completely fine and I can find other people to ask how they did it anyway anyway anyway anyway I've been meaning to do the first one of these if I do bees and they were gonna be just very simple not so jazzy editing under me I just straight talk of how I do something so I'm going to just take this opportunity of Technology feeling made me just not be very good at technology to say how I got interacting and I came to LA and I am a bit nervous that this is going to be really boring but I feel like my handles were before and this is what I should do I'm put it up and if you guys want to hear more of it let me know and if you don't you know yeah we're journey to acting I grew up in a family that was very medical and not really interacting it not in a bad way but just it was just wasn't really on horizon I grew up in her on a farm in northern England and I always really loved drama at school he was asked questions update the cameras stopped and frozen start playing in my ear so great frozen and you know what song it was let it go so I feel like I should probably just freaking tell you I don't know why this is so hard for you to write not science at school blogged also drama was thinking of maybe going to do medicine at University which is our version of college but decided that I just didn't want enough or I really wanted to do was really passionate about must roll man wasn't really interested in until year seven when you're about twelve or thirteen and my best friend Emily wanted to go to drama club and she didn't want to go on her own so I said I would go with her and we both went and we absolutely loved it and we did a Midsummer Night's Dream was our first while playing and what to do at City Theatre which is what professional theaters went a notion of burrows onstage doing Shakespeare at this place that I'd you know we've been to see plays growing up and I just felt the magic of her life just got bitten by the bug I kept it pretty secret I didn't really ever admit that that's what I wanted to do even when I went to university to study drama in theaters I still didn't really admit that I wanted to be an actor I just didn't didn't see my presence decision it just felt a little bit scary butpain sky so I decided I would go and study at university because then maybe I wanted to be a drama teacher or maybe working you just study all different parts of theatre so I thought maybe I want to be in the costume department or like a stage manager or look after props or something that maybe felt a little bit I don't move they're more simple careers or not but I just wanted to really make sure that it was acting and whatever I was gonna put everything into and just maybe do something to do winter you need got really involved in plays ran a theatre company there that was called affinity anyway um just acted in loads of different types of places different types of characters came out of medium really new after three years that I really really really wanted to do acting made peace for the fact that I'd probably never have any money and apply to get into drama school there's loads of little things on the way that I can go into more detail of like how I got into drama school how I got an agent what youth is I was in how that helped choreograph maybe the start of my career but I just feel like this would be a very long fairly boring video for dinner do you have any like did you think if this doesn't happen did you give yourself an adult or you thinking boy I'm just gonna go after this I can always go back I didn't have a plan B but I did have my drama degree which I guess was my plan B if like I can figure out what other job I could I just have to figure out how because I had a degree it was it was a drama Theresa was special if you like that thought I feel like you put everything into it because what else you gonna do with the drama degree besides kiss tell me that's interesting well because I chose you it was the skills that a lot of employers wanted at the time in terms of like PowerPoint presentations you know being able to communicate and it was a base in a lot of English literature so you know you got to write essays and I mean I didn't get in the drums I don't really know what they were well I so so was in the National Youth Center which is a national builder you can apply to and allows you to go to do plays in London and through that I met some people that knew more about getting agents than I did so when I left University I wrote - there's a handbook of agents in London and I wrote to a ton of agents saying I was going to drums for this year I'll be looking for representation when I come out please would you consider me a variety again in a band and I got postcards printed with my face on them my headshot on them and I handrail every single postcard so I wrote this postcard hand written and said about two good strong school for a year I would love to write you close to the type of a showcase which is like a flying or big bonanza that you invite agents to come and ask as an actor you hope to get an agent when you can start going out for an audition and I wrote to an agent band from the post I said you know here's my contact details but I'll be reaching out closer to the time for my showcase and this agent wrote back to me and said actually we'd love to meet you so I went to go meet them and they signed me in that meeting and she said let's get going get working and I said I've been show us for a year really what this education is like we love you you like here's the paperwork sign on the dotted line I just went in it was very honest and just said I went and not really expecting anything because I felt like I I was on my way to drama school so I went to do it masters for a year so I didn't I I thought this was just more of a hey lovely to meet you because I didn't think that's anyway then sign me when I wouldn't be available to go to any auditions for a year and drama school is like I'll be boot camp it's super-super internship no time to do anything else you work in the evenings and weekends prepping all this stuff is just very stressful so I didn't think I still felt like there was nothing to lose I'm sure it was nervous like I know everything but I don't remember there being that much of risk because I just thought anyway they find me so they sign me they say they want to sign me and I said well I really want to go to drama school it's really hard to get in and it's a big investment of money so I just I was really committed to wanting to go and hone my craft a bit and what was brilliant about that agent is she said great we love it we love that drops below 80 is 15 which is a bit of a artsy kind of a very avid progeny live in the woods for days Sarah leaves and stuff because I'm fine I was quite academically minded I needed loosening up a little bit so that was brilliant about that agent so then anyway fast forward a year I come out of drama school I do a couple of short films that my agent got me the audition for you don't get paid anything that it's all been that well Ben where you like them you know it's a student film a student short film so you see Cuse loosey-goosey that's where you really learn I never trained in film either boney in theatre so you do know that if study and character study but never I never did any acting for the camera license so then then I did my first low-budget feature which I think I got paid maybe 50 grams a day maybe so I was doing the million other jobs alongside acting kind of kids from and theater and singing for fool to eight-year-olds Athena's pops interval actually ended up getting fired from that job and actually it's so hard at it that it was just not meant to be I handed out flyers on the street I tested people flipped NVIDIA home other thing that we didn't go into site as a jobs anyway acting at this point was definitely not paying my rent and then I did a movie vampires with people from La still didn't get paid anything wedding but it just opened up this door of here's these people from his mythical place in Los Angeles and they just seemed normal and I was just as good as they were and we were colleagues instead of me feeling like oh my gosh is these American film makers they're gonna be like gods and they were amazing but like I could hold my own and so that I just got this this absolutely burning desire to go to LA and answering your questions like I said to myself I'm going to give myself five years yes I'm going to give myself five years that's several things I'm going to give myself five years and if I can't pay my rent from acting after five years then it's time to do something else so because I gave myself that deadline I just felt like now is the time to go for it so if this is great look now's the time to go for it so I just had this bee in my bonnet about getting to LA about like I had to come out of drama school I always want to do theater while I was booking with student shop films and these very low-budget feature films there for me were absolutely amazing but I wasn't booking any theatre that's all I ever wanted to do was theater and I was booking these film jobs that I had no so I thought well if this is my pattern in I have to go where the films made and I haven't timers on Sundays I didn't have any money I didn't have any contacts oh no I did have these contacts from doing this film so I know I knew that people in LA were not crazy and like mythical gods I didn't know how we didn't have any money and no contacts in the industry other than the people in this film so I just said out loud that I was gonna go I wrote too I 47 agents and did the exact same thing as I did in England I hand wrote the letters I sent a headshot in the mail I found them all on IMDB Pro which if you get your needs monthly subscription I think at $7.99 a month and it gives you the names and addresses of people's agents Owen looked up actors that I laughed and I saw the agents of ropes that I mean I had no idea who was a good agency who was bad managers all this stuff in in LA you have managers and you have agents so I wrote to a bunch of them didn't hear anything back pull it up with an email heard back from Wow and then I got a ton of rejections brilliant that I wrote to the again still say I wrote to them this was end of September I finished the film I wrote to them saying hey I'm coming out in November a month I had no no money for a plane ticket no place to stay I just told them that I was coming out and I would love to meet with them I was coming up for a month then fast forward two weeks I was talking to the people that I did the film with they were seeing if they could find anybody to like any accommodation I could stay out hadn't come through yet still didn't have money for my plane together so then it's like two weeks out from flying I booked a commercial uh gave me money for my ticket had a ticket no way to stay one week out from going the director of the movie is ex-girlfriend lived in a studio apartment in Silverlake and she said that she would rent her sofa to be the 501s like dumb so I had a plane ticket and I had a sofa to sleep on I did not have any meetings then like a couple days before I heard back from three people saying that they would like to meet with me great and then one of those meetings fell through when I landed there anyway landed it was a mild disaster but credit card would have worked my debit card was rejected when I was trying to do the hire car anyway finally got into this very car driving to lovely old friend driving to Silver Lake in this person that I had never met before it was getting dark my sat-nav has stopped working that basic eight all this stuff went wrong met with the two three meeting 72 if I said that met with them one really liked one seems Dorji was gonna sign with this one manager and then oh my gosh this is gonna be so long I was gonna sign with this one manager at their firm went for lunch with the girl I was staying with and we ended up having an amazing time went for lunch with one of her friends we were talking about what I was doing there I said him my show wheeled I had made entirely from one student film I because it was high quality and look like it could have been this you defeat you found but just shoot short film he sent it to his managers who dad wanted to meet me I go on one of my last days there to meet them oh I was halfway there to meet these managers and they called and cancelled and said they had to be shared or for exams with really this isn't happening then I went to meet them the next day got on like a house on fire I spoke about my cat's operation and I showed them videos of this operation it was over in Barroso plan anyway we all fell in love ended up signing with them with one of my last days in LA and they said to me you have to come back in January fallacies this point where in the end of November and they told me I had to move to LA in January I which is when all the TV shows used to be cast for the year so I go back home if you're easily save the money working for different jobs and start trying to apply for a visa straik the money together for plane ticket come back out and had enough money three months because I had done a TV my first TV job and the money for that came through at the right time which gave me money for three months in LA and this was like living eating cans of soup I go I hit the ground running pilot season had enough money for three months ended up moving off that friends so far because she was moving in with her boyfriend at the time found these new roommates on Craigslist that went great ended up moving in there and then was getting to the point where it was three months and I was going to be out of money and then I get this audition for a TV show food shelter I booked it in March he just no Balaji I booked two in March because that was my three months March on Sat on April the 1st 2012 I stopped that pilot my first proper I done a little bit role in a TV show but this is my first American TV shows in an American accent who do I meet on day 1 of filming as a creeper engaged that pilot didn't go but it gave me enough money to feel a bit more secure for the rest of the year although I did end up having an accident and having a medical bill that totaled the amount that I paid on a pilot after I paid my ransom it was pretty close to it so after feeling like oh my gosh I've got a nice chunk of change it won't automatically because started being had my fees are now at this point but I could oppose and I could only it was only for a cutie and there was about I could do acting I could be a horse groom or I could be a party princess because that was still performing to her cash world I was still auditioning so I was a party princess I would go dressed up as Ariel and she was worth it to these children's parties our so terrible there to face painting and games and kids just had just have no authorities that have been listen to me and then it's a so then fast forward were towards the end of 2012 now and I was just out of cash I was having a great time so and I were kinda dating really dating but I just I had a booked another job I was kind of I was just out of money I just couldn't keep myself afloat so I decided I was going to go home get back my waitressing jobs get back my flyering whatever and I felt completely at peace with it I felt like I'd come to LA and given her a really good go and met some incredible people I'd booked a job which for me was the like pinnacle he would reach age it was a big pile and it just it was an American I just so many things that are validated me having this crazy treatment bang is yawning I'm so yeah I got to the end of the year and I was basically it was time it was time for me to go home my last audition before I was to go home untitled marble TV pilot that was gonna shoot in January of 2013 I go through the first round I then get to the second round with producers I then here I'm testing I then test with a man work what would actually with three fits three Simmons I'm in a TV I'm in a room with all of the other people more than you trusted wanting one of them is like like if you wanted out let me make this maybe I'm anyway I booked it they can I get the call and they say hey you need to be back in LA in January you booked this pilot and I said he oh that's great but I'm back in England now can you fly me back I ran out of money and they said yep we'll fight back and I never left it's not TV show with agents of shield we did the pilot in January and then we both picked up to go to series in and we'll season one [Music] Cyberman is airing right now and my life completely changed you're in big ways but just in no in huge ways it didn't change my friend slide and change you you know but it definitely I've been basically changed everything they just didn't change I want that racing all community so that's my journey from school day to shield if you want more of these videos they're going to be me trying to talk with quickly as I possibly can but I want to be super honest I want to be able to help people act if they want to act or direct if they want to direct or do auditions maybe can help you for job interviews - we're doing could be something that is logical that transferable skills if you want to see more of these videos let me know this might just play out my favor that's never I might put it on the Internet hey thanks for watching stay safe stay [Music]

Channel: Elizabeth Henstridge

Views: 24,415

Rating: 4.9885154 out of 5

Keywords: how to start acting, how to become an actor, how to become an actor with no experience, acting tips, acting advice, how to become an actor as a teenager, acting advice for beginners, elizabeth henstridge channel, acting advice from actors, jemma simmons, agents of shield, agents of shield actors, how i became an actor

Id: IXw_yzwzEFs

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2020