Hollywood Training - a lifetime learning
In my 11 years of acting so far, I have always been in some kind of school: acting, dancing, voice, filmmaking, etc. In Chicago, I started with Act One Studios based on a friend’s friend recommendation. I was there for about 2 years, and I learned theater acting and Uta Hagen’s approach, and acting for the camera in TV&Films, voice, commercial, industrial (earprompt, teleprompt) improv, movement, stage combat, even yoga for actors. I had a lot of fun evolving into the acting community in Chicago. After I took the improv classes I thought it was a great way to challenge myself both culturally and language wise to do more improv. So I enrolled myself into the famous Second City Training Center in Chicago. In the year long improv for actors program, I learned the basic rules of improv and became more relaxed and spontaneous when performing. I was so happy when people told me I was very funny. Upon completing the program at Second City, I found another training center at the Green Room. I wasn’t good at Monologues, but for theater auditions, it is utmost important. So I took the monologue bootcamp. There I met coach Steven Ivicich and later enrolled in his 2 years professional program from 2012-2014. It was a 3-level program and every scene we did was taped on camera. In early 2015 before I moved to Cali, I took 2 months training classes at Vagabond School of Arts based on my then agent’s recommendation. I honestly didn’t remember at the time how I juggled through the school commitment with the dramatic changes in personal life and a full time job at the bank. And imagine all happened in the cold Chicago weather with snow storms happening even in March.
I worked and lived in Irvine for about a year during which I would drive myself once a week to LA to study with my private acting coach Vincent Chase, who was recommended by a manager I got to know at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Mr.Chase was great but at his old age he sometimes forgot our appointment. I would be spending an hour and half struggling in traffic driving to LA and only to find out he was not available. I moved to LA early 2016 and lived in Hollywood. I went on searching for new acting school when I heard the Ivana Chubbuck Studios. Her method of using personal emotional wealth resonated with me as I thought of the depth of my life experience so far could help me in finding better connection with characters I play. I learned a great deal there but then I thought I should broaden my skills and work on scene study more, so I asked my then manager for recommendations and selected Beverly Hills Playhouse to further my training. It is a beautiful school tucked in the quiet neighborhood in Beverly Hills. When I started training there, I was living in Burbank, so the commute wasn’t the greatest till I moved to West Hollywood. At BHP, the import thing is to create the environment when do a scene. So I had the pleasure to learn how to make creme brûlée and bring it to the stage when I did a scene from the Rabbit Hole. It happened that my short term housemate at the time actually are friends with the playwright David Lindsay, so he wrote to David and told him the story.
Fast forward to early 2019, after I went through numerous acting schools and training classes, I decided to go with an institution, a formal university. That was when I applied and got accepted to the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television (Just the name itself sounds official enough isn’t it?). I studied with great teachers and made actor friends from different countries and backgrounds. It was a little regretful that half of our school year we had to do Zoom learning due to the pandemic. But the new format worked out for on camera training in someway and allowed me to stay in South Korea for a couple of month while still finishing school. Our graduation ceremony was canceled but so were a lot of things in 2020.
So far from my writing you would have a peak into the lifetime learning process as an actor, and vast investment of time and money we pour into it. The heartbreaking part is that this doesn’t guarantee a successful career in acting at all. I had to maintain a full time job in order to pay for these investments as well as pay for living costs. But I never thought of giving up. So do many other passionate actors. Whenever there is will, there is way.
(Image of my class at UCLA with our teacher Megan McNulty and guest teacher Amanda Schull)
