We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Marsol a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chris , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I had been told from a young age that I had acting talent and growing up I somewhat took that for granted. But I avoided pursuing it because I knew the odds of making it were miniscule. But once I decided to pursue it in a real way, I knew I had to get training and that’s when I really learned the craft and discovered how much I did not know. And I say that from both the craft side and the business side.

I don’t think I could’ve sped up the process. I say that because, I’ve always had a strong work ethic and once I committed to pursuing acting, I went all in and dedicated myself to learning as much as I could. I promised myself I’d never take any shortcuts in my learning process. Also, I was fortunate enough to get some really great roles early on that put a lot on my plate as an actor and really launched me toward my 10,000 hours. Those early projects on the stage, required a lot of me and gave me so much practice to hone my craft. At the end of the day, some things just can’t be sped up. It takes a lot of trial and error and ups and downs to really learn the game. It reminds me of what rookie NFL QBs go through. In the beginning, you don’t know what you don’t know. And you’re entering the pros, coming from a place where you are used to being told how great you are. And then reality hits. I needed to take my lumps and make mistakes and put myself in a lot of different situations and understand what it means to be a professional, to have a handle on this thing called acting. There just aren’t any short cuts other than putting your head down and working. And this also applies to filmmaking. I’m learning as I go and from my experience, I know that there aren’t any short cuts and I’ll have to go through the fire with learning how to make good films just like I continue to do with acting.

The best skill I have as an actor and filmmaker is my focus. When I’m working on a project, it consumes me and it’s all I think about and I’m able to lock in and put the time and work in to make sure I’m as prepared as possible. I used to be a perfectionist and that allowed me to do great work. But it also burned me out and wasn’t sustainable. I realized the perfectionism was coming from a place of fear. These days, I try to do it from a place of love. Love of the craft. That’s sustainable for me and provides just as much motivation. So that’s how I approach things now.

Obstacles that stood in my way. That’s a good question. The main obstacle was being told how great I was before I ever tried it in a serious way. When I first started, I bought into that myth that great actors are born and don’t need to train. And that if you had to take classes it was because you weren’t naturally gifted. Obviously I’ve learned better. But that mind set and experience of being told how naturally talented I was all of my life sent me in a direction of getting severely frustrated during the learning process because I expected it to come easy and I didn’t understand why it wasn’t. Combine that with a perfectionist attitude and you can see that I was really struggling to keep a positive mindset in the early stages and I was very down on myself a lot in the first few years.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Bio

Chris Marsol is an actor emanating from the San Francisco Bay Area. When it comes to his love for acting, Chris remembers when it all started. “I got the lead in my 5th grade musical called Steamboat’n. I was 11 and I played a 70-something year old man. I grayed my hair, changed my voice and walked differently, talked differently. I was completely hooked right then and there.” Chris is perhaps best known for his roles in 5 different installments of the uber-popular NBA 2K video game franchise. Other projects have afforded Chris the opportunity to work with talents like Spike Lee, Michael B. Jordan, Ja-Rule and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Marsol can also be seen acting on stage, appearing most recently in a revival of the award winning August Wilson play The Piano Lesson. Always working on his craft, he spent time in London training at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Just as in all aspects of his creativity, Chris unabashedly seeks out opportunities to challenge himself and dive into realms where he can share his own unique and authentic vibration.

When not in front of an instrument or a camera, Chris can usually be found binging on science and nature documentaries. “I’m a space geek and an animal nerd. I’ve got all of this useless information in my brain and I’m just waiting for my moment where it will all come in handy.”

Chris’ latest venture is the creation of Atomic Blue Films. Atomic Blue’s first release is the short film “ADAPT” for which Chris was the co-writer, Producer and Executive Producer. The short film is about Two lovers/colleagues at a Silicon Valley Tech Firm take each other on in a winner takes all game of corporate chess. Adapt is currently making the film festival rounds and was most recently screened at the Oregon short film festival and the Sacramento International Film Festival.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Over the years I’ve received a lot of push back about my creative endeavors. People have often told me this won’t work or that is a dumb idea or that is going to be too difficult. I think a lot of people operate on fear and avoid things that cause fear or discomfort. A lot of people do everything in their power to avoid failure and ridicule. And it’s understandable, because who wants that? And I found myself being affected and infused with other people’s fear projections. And I think a lot of non-creatives don’t understand the fearlessness it takes to do something like put out a film or put yourself out there to be critiqued and criticized. For your failures to be public where you can’t hide, it takes courage to even attempt these types of things that most people would never try. And so I’ve learned to keep things to myself. And I’ve learned to avoid putting myself in that sphere of negative energy. And I’ve finally accepted that I won’t be understood by everybody. And that’s cool.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Creativity is my journal. I document my life and my feelings. I also process my feelings through my art. And the feeling of knowing I’m not alone when I’m going through something or wanting to share something is what makes me feel connected to the universe. Being on stage as an actor and feeling everyone laughing together or crying together over a shared human experience is a feeling I don’t think I’ll ever match. I got the same feeling recently while screening ADAPT for the first time and receiving the audience’s genuine reactions. So at the end of the day, my art and my creations make me feel less alone and more connected to our humanity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://WWW.Chrismarsolcreates.com
• Instagram: @Chris_marsol
• Other: https://linktr.ee/chrismarsol. (For music-related stuff)

Image Credits

Photographs by: Frederick Watkins III