Why did you become an actor? What made you decide this was you? What do you love about acting and living the actor or entertainer or dancers life? What gets you motivated and loving this world?

Great topic if you ask me, so tell us why you began an acting career.
I choose professional acting as a career because Actors have an opportunity to affect people, take them away from current situations and make them think about something important.
Most of all Life without laughter is death with living.

I believe it's a calling. I was an actor before I knew there was such a profession.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Kostroff:
I believe it's a calling.

I first discovered acting in college my sophomore year. We needed to take a fine arts credit as part of our core curriculum, so I took "Intro to Acting" - THTR 105.

By the end of the first day of class, the clouds had parted, the light shone down, and I couldn't bear to be in any major but Theatre. I knew then and there that my purpose in life was to entertain and make people happy. Any other possible career then became only a means to make money to support my true love - acting.

There are few things that provide you with the same kind of high that making an audience laugh or smile does. And knowing that you've affected someone is incredible, be it in some profound way that gets them thinking, or just an entertaining escape to let them forget real life for a while.

Ever since that first day of class years ago, I haven't looked back. Now I'm a graduate with a BFA in Theatre, living in LA pursuing the dream.

Also, ever since I can remember, I've longed for adventure and action; I want to go on some epic quest and save the world; or at the very least make it a better place. Acting provides the best means for either - hopefully someday I'll be in a movie where my fellow adventurers and I save the world. And if I'm lucky and can be rich and famous as well, I might have the influence and funding to help do some really good things around the world.


And that's more or less why I act - a major epiphany moment when I realized that my purpose is to entertain and make people happy, the feeling you get when on stage or on camera, and the hope that I will be able to someday make the world a better place by spreading ideas and supporting/starting various causes.

I definitely love this thread. Good thinkin', Lincoln!

I definitely just had an epiphany moment, I was at a show and somehow this actor who had one line in the whole show stuck out to me. Not necessarily because of that one line, but I was so captivated by the fact that he was in character the entire ret of the show. I was mesmerized by him and I don't think I have ever believed a performance as much as his. At that moment I just knew.

Other, more "pragmatic" reasons that I can put more clearly into words...

It is a way of communication for me, really the only way I know how to effectively communicate. it was always my outlet of expression. I also love story telling and becoming so many different characters and feeling what their life is like. As actors we have a chance to be anything and everything we have ever wanted to be, and I think that is truly magical. My last reason that I can think of off he top of my head is how fascinated I am by the study of the human condition (that's what I believe acting is).

Once again, great thread!!

I had a professional ballet career, so in essence it was acting but without the spoken word. Once I was injured I tried to stay away from performing but I couldn't.

I love having the gift to entertain, and move people, whether it be through laughter or drama.

It also is thrilling to be able to en body people, situations, stories not what could be normal day to day.

Taking my audience on a journey is why I love acting, it is very fulfilling.

I was in ninth grade and played Mary Magdalene in a church youth group skit. I thought nothing of it until one of the local dance teachers who happened to have a degree in musical theatre accosted me after church and more or less dragged me by the hair to acting classes at the local fine arts center. Weird how I've never looked back ...

I love your stories, keep them coming it inspires me to not give up.

I fell in love with movies at a very young age. My mother told me I said I wanted to make them around age 3. This obsession never really died down.

I always wanted to make movies...ie direct. I went to film school, and ended up acting in all my friends movies. i caught the acting bug there, but never really took it that seriously. But I must have been at least passibly good at it because everybody kept useing me as an actor.

After college, I got various on set jobs, PA and grip mostly. On almost all of these first few films I worked on, I got pulled aside by the director asking me if I wanted to play a small role. Before you know it, I had built up a decent acting resume.

I decided to go for it. I got a lot of acting experience without really trying...I wondered what I could do if I tried! Now I consider myself primarily an actor.

in addition to that, my original dream of being a filmmaker was slightly flawed. Its almost as if I loved movies TOO MUCH. Every time I sat down to write a script, it was very difficult to decide which movie I wanted to make. I could never decide to make a comedy or a horror or what... Maybe its ADD or something, but seeing a script through to completion proved extremely difficult for me.

With acting, I could have my cake and eat it too. What type of movie it was was pre-determined. I didn't have to think about that part. I could narrow my focus on just the one aspect, a certain character's performance. That opened up the world of filmmaking for me in a big way.

I was originally a government intern before I left High school. I was in the process of being listed as one of the top credited graduates for the program, and being given a steady, secure job with a high rate of pay possibly in the 6-figure range before I even graduated college.

But I felt empty, and hated the feeling that I had when I thought about it for too long that I wasn't doing something that made me -truly- happy. I'd loved acting ever since I was a little child, to watch movies, to see plays, to delve into another world than this one. I'd felt a lot of pain as a child, having lost many family members in death and divorce- All I wanted to do was escape it. To -be- someone else. And the feeling...God, the feeling was amazing to literally forget everything of my world, and use myself as a piece of this different world, alternate reality. Quickly, it became a passion...And it was no longer to escape pain, but to enjoy the beauty of the art, and to see the whole piece of it working together.

So, one of my peers, one of the dearest friends I had made in the program, noticed it, and the last words we ever had, he made me promise I'd do the thing I love, and work to change the world with my acting. That something as gnitty and gritty as this job wasn't something for someone with my potential, because both my looks and personality were something that could be a thing that would undoubtedly change things if I developed my talent.

I took him on that promise, and pursued my passions 2 years into college. I'm a senior now in college, having been studying the craft of acting for 2 years without looking back. Every day, I read to learn more about the art, every day I make it an effort to develop something of myself, whether it be my body, my mind, or my resolve(spirit).

My belief is that every day, if I am not taking a step, a bound, or a leap toward mastering my art to effect the world, to change what I can of it--Then it is a day wasted.


You can guess what my super-objective is, eh?

Great topic...
Inspiring stories inspire!
In high school I was the awkward shy misfit. I tried cross country, but I didn't like running THAT much. So I decided my Jr year to take a theater class.

Suddenly, everything fit. I had done some speech classes, some skits at my mom's church, etc, before, so I knew I was good in front of people, but until that class I think I was too shy to take the plunge.

My first part (other than church skits) was as a Fairy in "Midsummer Nights Dream" in High School. I was a 6'4" green fairy... LOL
I was hooked nonetheless. I felt alive on stage (and later the camera). I finally 'fit'.
And I found others who understood that... which has helped inspire and push me ever since.

I took a few years off and about 16 months ago and have now started again. I can't believe I even left it -
It is my 'thin' place, the place I feel connected with others and with god (whoever s/he is)...

I enjoyed being creative and physical. I also love, love to mimick.

$$$ lol

quote:

Originally posted by Popeye:
$$$ lol

Okay, that made me laugh. Haha!

I remember being in church musicals before I was in Kindergarten and loving the parts when we'd sing & dance. It was until I was in 4th grade and got picked to be Belle in Beauty & the Beast that I realized how much I really loved to act. Ever since then it's been the only career I've ever seriously considered. I went to a performing arts high school. I majored in theatre in college. And now one husband & 2 kids later I'm finally living in LA and I'm happy!

Happy to read scripts {or even just the sides}. Happy to be in audition rooms and feel the palpable energy around me. Happy to connect with an audience whenever I perform on stage. Happy to get to "play" when I'm working and step into the shoes of many different characters. Happy to get to be creative and not stuck in a cubicle for 8 hours a day. Happy to tell stories that can inspire, enrage or simply entertain others.

I love my job...now I just need to get paid for it. :-)