We were lucky to catch up with Martin Arreola recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Martin, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Directing was a very fortunate “accident” for me. When I was in college, my friends were part of the musical theatre company of the school, they would go to rehearsals and had their shows and everything; me, I was more a sports guy, since I was a little kid, Mom used to take me to karate, swimming, soccer, gymnastics, you name it. One day all my friends were going to attend their audition and managed to convince me to apply. To be honest, I didn’t care, I wasn’t interested in the project, I took it far from serious: I got late to the audition, I got a terrible place at the very back of the room where I couldn’t see the choreographer properly and couldn’t remember a single step she showed us. When the time came they gathered us in groups of 5. They made us dance the steps in front of the directors. When I was in front of them I said I couldn’t see anything and that I would be improvising the thing. They were okay with that. The music played and I began to break dance (since I was good at acrobatics for gymnastics). A few days later results came with my name on it. I couldn’t believe it. They needed men in the dancing team, I didn’t know that. I attended the first rehearsals with a high level of skepticism but surprisingly I liked it, I enjoyed it very much. One day I woke up and I was totally in on dancing.

That was my beginning, as a dancer; soon I took an acting part, and later started to sing as well. I had been a passionate guitar player in high school so I understood music as well. Suddenly there weren’t enough theatre plays or projects at school and I thought to myself ‘why don’t we write something to do?’. I read some scriptwriting books and did my own monologue. Years later I realized I knew about acting, music, story structure, rhythm, producing, etc. Basically, I had learned how to communicate efficiently with artists. All of a sudden I realized I had gotten a set of skills very effective for a director, without planning so.

When I look back at those times I just can’t imagine another way to get to where I am right now.

Martin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I remember I was a shy, insecure, timid kid. I was afraid of the world. I used to observe a lot but not to tell much. I found in art a way to express my thoughts, my ideas, my suspicions, my findings, my reflexions about life in general. Theatre and film are a perfect outlet to do so. You get to share yourself without speaking, you get a chance to see if people relate to you without asking. I guess that’s the way I found to talk to the world and myself.

With the experience I gathered throughout the years plus my formal drama studies at London, I got hired to direct on 2016. I was 27 when I directed my first big boy production play. At the same time film had always been in my mind. I directed my first short film a couple of years before too.

Wether in theatre or film I wish to continue exploring subjects and emotions I feel attracted to and share them to the world to see if someone else feels the same way as me.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to be 100% honest and truthful to myself. To jump into the matter or subject I choose to explore removing any possible judgements and taboos, and hoping to connect with someone out there. Life itself is a mystery and it is my need to do my best to explore it, observe its nuances and share my thoughts.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I was younger, I had and urgent drive to scale quickly, learn faster, get all the roles, sing better, dance stronger, write deeper, etc. At the beginning it helped me get over a couple of steps quickly but then that urgency started to bring me more problems than the ones I could bear. It took me years to understand that time can’t be altered. You can manage it better and make the most of it, that’s true, but you can’t definitely rush nature and its own process. Everything has a natural time of gestation and you can’t do anything but be patient and enjoy it. If you’re not able to enjoy it you picked the wrong profession.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marclaxon/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/martin.arc.79