Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christin Jezak. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Christin, thanks for joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?
An important lesson that I learned at a prior job is that every job has a purpose. Every single job I have ever had before working fully in the entertainment industry has helped me to take the next step in my career. Even the jobs that I thought I were not the best fit gave me a skill in my creative toolbox that I needed.
Back when I was in college, I never really considered myself a good writer. It was hard for me to write and because of my insecurities writing, I did not write much. At the time when I was an honors student at Bridgewater State University, I received an email that they were hiring writing tutors in the writing studio. I thought to myself, “Oh, they definitely don’t want me.” On top of that, I couldn’t even make the interview times because my church was having a living Stations of the Cross for Good Friday. I was in rehearsals all week directing our youth group, so I let the opportunity go.
Then, I ended up receiving an email saying that I got the job. I was like, “What? I didn’t even interview for this.” I thought it was some kind of weird mistake, but my father said to me those who don’t know how to write sometimes are the best tutors because you know your struggles and how to address them.
He encouraged me to take the job and I was so grateful that I did. I had to take a responding to writing course every week while I was working the job. It made me feel so confident about writing and it gave me the juice that I needed to be able to write an honors undergraduate thesis project, and then it also gave me the courage to be able to write a One Woman show, Person-to-Person: A Mother Teresa Project for my graduate thesis project for my M. A. in theater at Villanova University.
This was so important because, since its development in 2007, I still tour with that show. I even performed for the official Youth Festival of World Youth Day Australia. This is an event with thousands of youths and young adults from around the world and includes the pope. The rest is history. If I didn’t have that job opportunity, I wouldn’t have gained the confidence that I needed as a writer. The job allowed me to flex a new muscle because sometimes we get a one-track mind. We think, “Well, I’m only good at this.” We don’t explore and develop the other skills we need as an artist.
One of my first-day jobs in L.A. was working as an assistant in a tax office. This was another job that found me through a friend in my acting class. When you first come to L.A., you need something to support yourself as an actor. You can’t just rely on auditions or when you get gigs because they come when they come. I ended up working as a receptionist at the front desk of a tax office and my boss taught me how to do QuickBooks. I thought it was odd because I don’t consider myself good at math. However, this prepared me for my next job and gave me a VERY important skill as a producer and creative. After this job, I ended up working as an executive assistant for a producer. This producer hired me originally because they were behind inputting receipts for accounting from the latest production and needed help.
Through this job and witnessing my boss in action, I went on to understand the importance of accounting for creating a budget and keeping track of expenses on a production. Again, the prior accounting receptionist job took my fear and insecurity away about math. Suddenly, I realized how important it was for me to get comfortable doing QuickBooks.
Even the job working as an Executive Assistant for a producer, I learned so many important skills like creating pitch decks, and what a budget looked like and she even trained me to be a production coordinator on her productions.
With all the unexpected jobs, I’m so grateful for every boss who taught me something new.
Christin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers.
I want to bring joy to the world. I want people to know they’re loved, needed, and have a purpose. I want people when they experience anything that I create or even visit my Instagram page to feel inspired. I want them to feel touched and that anything’s possible.
Sometimes faith is looked at as something that makes you weak, but honestly, my faith makes me strong. It’s the thing that has kept me going, even when I first moved to Los Angeles and things were so lean and hard. To know that I have Someone looking out for me above is what drives everything that I do.
I started in the performing arts at a very young age. My dad, in his late 20’s/early 30’s did community theater and sang in the choir. When I was about four years old, I started to dance, and I started to do community theater with him and my grandmother (my mom’s mom). I loved it! At the same time, my mother was a youth minister at our church and ran the confirmation program. Through my mother’s involvement in the church, I encountered a God who loved me and accepted me the way He created me. As a young girl who was bullied, this meant the world to me.
Then came the nuns. When I was about 16 years old, I met a group of religious sisters called the Daughters of St. Paul. Imagine my surprise when I learned their whole mission is the media. They produce good media like music and books and pray for people in the media. In them, I found a place where I felt like I was understood and could understand my gifts as an artist in the Catholic church. It was these sisters and their spirituality that encouraged me to keep going.
As I grew and developed these two great loves for theater and my faith, it became clearer that I wanted to create plays, TV shows, and movies that could make a difference in the world and touch people’s hearts. So, that’s how I got started.
When I came out to LA, I remember saying, “Lord, whatever you need me to do. Whether it’s in front of the camera or behind the camera, whatever you need me to do to make the world a better place. This is why I have done everything from acting, writing, producing, production coordinating, set dressing, and movie marketing.
All this has led me down a path of creating my own content. I have a passion for comedy. I love making people laugh and I love bringing them joy. I also have a desire for people to feel loved, wanted, needed, appreciated, seen, and not degraded, especially women.
When I was in school, from about kindergarten through seventh grade, unfortunately, I was horribly bullied and I understood what it meant to feel like you’re less than, or like you don’t have importance. So, this is a very important theme in my work, that people know that they’re loved, appreciated, wanted, and have purpose.
This theme is so clear in my one-woman show I created and perform called Person-to-Person: A Mother Teresa Project. The play is all about Mother Teresa’s ability to see the value of every single person. I play a total of six characters including Mother Teresa, a homeless man, a disabled woman, a prostitute, a young adult dealing with loneliness, and a woman in a nursing home. My characters are wild, funny, and passionate, but also heartfelt. They make you laugh and cry. It’s an amazing experience when I bring these characters to life on stage. As my audience listens to their stories, many times it changes their opinions of them. When you receive a compliment that a character reminds an audience member of someone they know or they see themselves in a character, there is nothing better than that. I have been traveling and performing the play since 2007 all over the U.S. and Australia.
You can learn more about that play and booking me here: www.p2ptheatre.com.
Right now, I’m in the middle of producing a comedy series I created called Neighborhood Watch. The Neighborhood Watch takes “love thy neighbor as yourself” to the extreme. The characters are relatable and include Josie, a nosy suburban housewife who knows everyone’s business on the block played by Sarah Hernandez; Kimberly, an out-of-control mom with an army of children played by me, and Laurie, the young college student who has so much to learn played by Hillary Hawkins. In each episode, they tackle a new problem to protect the peace in their community. Each episode tackles a different theme that is sure to inspire. You can watch the 1st episode and get updates about the show here: https://p2ptheatre.com/neighborhood-watch We have 2 more episodes finishing up post-production and soon to be released. I’m in pre-production for 4 more episodes.
One of the things that I am most proud of was when I saw my name for the first time on TV as a producer back in 2020. The Sister Disciples of the Divine Master commissioned me to create two short films on the topic of their foundress. After the shorts were completed, I submitted them to the Catholic cable channel EWTN, and they decided to combine my two short films into one television program, For the Sake of the Gospel. It aired on EWTN, and I saw my name on the TV screen for the first time as a producer. It was so thrilling to have this production that I wrote half of it, was in it, and produced the whole thing on TV.
I am also really, proud of a movie that I was in and released on Pureflix last year called Miracle at Manchester, starring Dean Cain, Daniel Roebuck, and Eddie McClintock. It’s this phenomenal true story, about a young high school student in San Diego who ends up with a brain tumor. His entire high school prays over him, and it miraculously disappears.
I was cast as Dr. Sam, the difficult doctor who misdiagnoses the teen. I don’t normally play those kinds of roles. I’m used to playing light comedic roles. I had three great scenes in the film. In one scene, I butted heads with Eddie McClintock who played the father of the teen. We just went at it; it was so much fun! Then, it was wild to have people come out of the movie theater or contact me and say, “I hated you.” It’s funny because people don’t normally like to be hated. It just delighted my heart to be a part of a movie that brings about cancer awareness and says that miracles are possible.
I also cannot wait for people to hear Season 2 of the sitcom podcast series that I am in Confessions of a Catholic Single. Episodes started releasing on Valentine’s Day of this year. The series tells the horrors and hilarity of dating through the lens of Cecelia a recent widow. I play Agnes who is the quirky wild younger sister of Cecelia’s priest friend, Fr. Paul. In Season 1, Agnes is a complete trainwreck who has no idea about adulting and after being dumped ends up living with Cecelia. Season 2 is Agnes “Eat, Pray, and Love” season.
You can check out the series here: https://dash-entertainment.weebly.com/confessions-of-a-catholic-single.html.
If you are looking for daily inspiration, be sure to follow my Instagram page where I love to share video messages in my stories to encourage people. You can also keep up to date with all my projects: https://www.instagram.com/christinjezak.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My journey as an artist is all about meaningful projects. If the project is not going to be meaningful, I’m not going to have the passion to finish it, because my heart is not going to be a hundred percent in it. When you’re writing, it’s hours of work and sometimes revisions, so it’s so important that you’re passionate about what you’re doing. This is why as a creative, I have to create projects that I feel passionate about, that I feel can really help people and touch their hearts.
When I’m hired as an actor, if the project is something I’m passionate about, I know that my performance is going to be the best. I LOVED being a co-star on Raising Hope. I have a deep admiration for the show creator, Greg Garcia, because of his ability to make us laugh at his characters, but also share something important about relationships and family in his shows.
Since the beginning of my work, I’ve always wanted to touch the hearts of my audience because at the end of the day, what’s it worth if it doesn’t help someone? If it doesn’t make someone smile? If it doesn’t bring joy to someone on a human level?
I remember one time there was a woman in the audience of my play Person-to-Person: A Mother Teresa Project who shared with me a response I never expected. When I start the play, I always come out as Mother Teresa, and I pick someone at random from the crowd to help Mother Teresa to carry these linens that become my set. Then, I pick a second person who is strong enough to move the chair I step on to do it. In this particular show, I picked this woman, and I said, “You’re nice and strong. You’re going to help Mother.” After the performance, she shared with me how powerful it was for her because she was struggling with a horrible illness and she felt very weak. The experience made her feel strong and that was incredible.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
One of the greatest resources that I wish someone had told me about when I first came to LA to help my creative journey, is the one thing that I would have rejected. I probably would have not believed them and said, “No, no, no, I need to focus. I need to just get down and dirty in the work and the creativity.”
I wish that someone had told me that it’s not just about networking, the classes you take, and meeting other people in the industry, it’s about life. One of the greatest resources and joys that I received after being out here for eight years, believe it or not, happened during the lockdown.
Because I was now stuck at home, it forced me to walk my neighborhood. As I walked my neighborhood, I got to know my neighbors. I started to have this community outside of my creative circles. A couple of my neighbors did work in the industry, but most did not.
During this time, I also ended up at a different church than the one I was originally a parishioner because they had more services available. The church community ended up asking me to volunteer. It was beautiful. I’d help at the outdoor services on Saturdays and then we’d have a meal together. It brought me so much joy because suddenly, I had friends that felt more like family. It gave me a sense of peace and security. My friends in the industry were all transplants like me who also were fluctuating and had no stability.
Now, I met people who had stability and I started to see life. I started to see families. I started to see all the real things that make life what it is. I appreciated relationships more. It’s not that my creative friends were not good or helpful. I am very blessed to have some creative friends that stand the test of time. However, it took some pain and heartache to find them.
It’s hard to make good creative friends because of the temptations of competition or comparison – the pain of it’s happening for me and it’s not happening for you. My new neighborhood and church friends gave me a safe place to let my guard down. Los Angeles now felt like home, and I felt a peace and a calm, I didn’t have at the start of my journey in L.A. I started to experience life on a deeper level, on a level that was normal, and it fed my creative tank.
It’s life that gives us the experiences to be able to touch the hearts of audiences. The audiences that we’re writing for are not necessarily the creatives in L.A. They’re Joe and Sarah and David and Bethany who live in Ohio and are experiencing the joys and sorrows of work, family, and relationships. These are the people that we want to reach in the movie theaters and on TV in their living rooms. We reach them by experiencing life to the fullest and sharing it with them in our projects. I’m just so grateful for the gift of my community and I wish that somebody had explained that to me when I first came to Los Angeles.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.p2ptheatre.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christinjezak
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christin.jezak
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/christinjezak
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@P2PTheatre
- Other: http://imdb.me/christinjezak
Image Credits
Brian Love JC Films