My Story
March 20, 2017 | Rod Rowland
Believe me, I understand your pain of being a new actor, At 21 years of age I too was an aspiring actor that knew acting was what I was going to do with my life. The problem was I had nobody to guide or mentor me on where to go or what to do, but I did know I would need training first. I ended up choosing this supposed master teacher who had written famous acting books. After 3 solid years going multiple times a week to class and giving him all my hard earned money. I figured I was more than ready to enter into the pressurized environment of auditioning for professional roles. Boy was I in for a rude awakening! Don’t worry actors I wont let this happen to you. I soon discovered his grand, pretentious, training techniques were basically useless when it came to what was actually demanded of me in an audition room. It was like I had never trained at all.
Talk about frustrating. In all honesty my entire twenties as an actor were wasted because I trusted the wrong self-proclaimed acting expert. But in spite of him I was still very determined, and after countless failed auditions, and even being dropped from several acting agency’s. I slowly figured things out on my own and was finally able to land my first real job, a series regular role on my 31st birthday. 10 years after my first acting class. I know, that sounds like and eternity, right? It was.
The Truth is …This certain technique of acting I had been studying and trying my best to decipher for a decade. When taught by someone capable and used correctly can set an actor free. It gives him wings as a performer. It allows him to breakdown a character and put his true self into it, and can entertain and affect an audience like no other form of entertainment. I cant wait to teach it to you.
But sadly even after becoming a working actor and training with other acclaimed coaches very little of my thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars of training were truly useful to what was required of me when auditioning or on set. Why was this?
The sad fact is that 95% of the acting coaches in America are just failed actors who at best maybe landed a bit role or two in their entire career.
They will think nothing of charging you a lot of money to be trusted with your dreams only to teach you an outdated technique that never worked for them, that they never truly understood, and were never able to ever use successfully under pressure in an audition room.
Can you imagine a failed Doctor teaching you to be a surgeon? There is a reason none of them put their own acting on their websites, if they did you would run.
Needless to say things are very different for me now….
Since my shaky beginnings I have done over 100 series regular, recurring or guest lead episodes on TV as well as numerous films. But even beyond that was discovering a way to explain, and teach my formula too newer actors and spare them the time and money-wasting struggle I went through.
A struggle which nine out of ten times cause the aspiring actor to give up and throw in the towel on their dream. A dream which if had been guided, and mentored correctly could have come true.
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