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

Tom, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Sometimes it takes me a while. I mean look, it was 1981 when I got my first professional acting gig. A senior in high school, and I had been afraid of everything since second grade. Except onstage. I could do anything onstage. I even loved auditioning because it was just another chance to perform.

Got into college by the skin of my teeth because of my SAT scores. Odd for me, but I excelled in freshman year with A’s. Then I transferred to where I could get a good undergrad degree through a professional actor training program. (Hat tip to Wright State University.) Went directly into a two-year intensive program at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree. I had no desire to teach. None. Didn’t care to direct either. All I wanted to do was act and I had a solid grounding in classical actor training.

Married my high school sweetheart, an actress and artist. She got a job in a fine art gallery, and I… um, let’s see. Never took any business classes in college, and now I had to find work. You know, something to pay the bills.

Went to a temp agency for an interview. “What can you do?” Boy, that must have been amusing for them. They asked if I could type. As a kid I had the habit of using my cassette player to record the sound of my favorite movies when they came on TV. Then I’d type up the scripts. All formatted properly and everything. “Sure,” I answered.

So they gave me a typing test. My speed was below average but hey, my accuracy was high. So my first assignment was a one-day job doing data entry into a dumb tube. (If you don’t know what that is, just picture green characters on a black screen. No mouse. Just tabbing from field to field, pecking out info.) I was apparently so good they extended it to three days. Got big praise. Who knew?

So after a string of those jobs, I got a long-term gig with a telecommunications company. The bigger paycheck allowed me to go out for community theatre jobs.

Got an audition at the John F. Kennedy Center in D.C. and ended up working in “Shear Madness” – the longest running non-musical play in American theatre history. Had such a blast in the twenty-three months I worked there. (Got to play all four male roles, so that was cool.)

Now, let’s leap through time to a couple of important milestones.

First of all, I turned a “never” to a “hey, maybe” after I saw something horrible. Made me cringe. Had to bite my tongue. I witnessed a director say to a self-conscious teenage boy, “Now place your foot here. Okay, now put your hand like this…” The result was as expected. The poor kid became even more stiff and awkward in the play.

Part of the fun of acting is the creative process. Making the discoveries through the work. It’s not the director’s job to get the actor to paint by numbers. I realized directing might not be a bad idea. I went for it.

The fun of directing for me is to ask the questions to help fuel the actor’s inspiration. Get them to dig deep and make discoveries on their own. What is plain and possible to me might not be apparent to the actor because, like all of us, actors have blocks too. Blocks in understanding, blocks that get in the way of emotionally connecting with the scene, blocks in physicality. And yes, I know that sometimes an actor has to “do it faster” just because it needs to be done faster. And it’s on the actor to figure out why. Bottom line is I now had two mistresses: acting and directing.

The second “never” was shot down when I was forced to teach. Well, not at gunpoint or anything. It was a contractual obligation with a theater. But the cool thing was that I got to design the class. Never say never, kids! Because now, dammit, I fell in love with teaching too. Acting in plays, doing some directing, and an actress friend suggested I apply for a part-time gig at the Shenandoah University Conservatory. Wound up teaching acting there for 13 semesters. This was an incredible time because it really helped me solidify and hone my own approach to acting. It was also a bright point in a particularly dark time in my life. More on that later.

But now, let’s take another jump. One sunny morning in the 60th year of my existence, I found myself frustrated with mounting another theatrical production.

After 40 years as an actor and 20+ as a director, why was I doing this if I wasn’t enjoying it? Something was missing from my soul.

I was directing another play with my wife—directing together is something we’ve always done from the first time I decided to do this. It’s weird because neither of us had a clue we’d want to do this together. We really compliment each other’s styles. Anyway, we were working with a young actress who had trouble letting herself shine through to bring this character to life. I tried so many things to help her. When it finally clicked, I saw that spark in her eyes. She was free.

My point is that working with the actors was the ONLY thing I was enjoying about this particular show. There was other stuff in the way and I realized I was wasting my time and energy. The spark in that actress’s eyes was MY spark too. The one I’d been missing for years. Right there, knee-deep in someone else’s character development, I had my grand revelation. The best part of directing wasn’t calling the shots or setting the scene.

It was the coaching, guiding, helping actors dig into their souls and pull out gold. Not my gold – theirs.

At the same time I was directing this play incidentally, I had also stumbled across Ed J. C. Smith online. I was on his email list and reading about becoming a coach. But I swear I didn’t know why. So obvious now. I seriously remember thinking to myself, “Why am I reading these emails?” Talk about blocks. It was right in front of me and I couldn’t see it.

The fluorescent light flicked on over my head. Could I really pivot what I was doing to chase this new dream? At sixty freaking years old?

Hell yes, I could. Turns out Ed was turning the over-crowded coaching scene on its ear – but the truth is I didn’t find that out for months. All I knew was that I wanted this certification. Ed helped me realize I needed to stop directing plays and start changing lives. Told my wife that as soon as this play was over, I was taking 18 months off from acting and directing. I had to do the work and get my coaching cert. Supportive as ever, she was onboard.

So I took the leap, and five months later I had my certification. I realized I had been coaching actors for years. Until now, though, I had only dealt with the surface stuff of actors’ problems. But now my coaching was laser-focused. I could get to the root of their blocks – the self-doubt, anxiety, overwhelm, imposter syndrome, procrastination, over-thinking… all of those are fear in different clothing.

Sometimes the biggest risk is the one you don’t take. Don’t wait until you’re 60 to find your true calling.

Tom, 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 who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As a 4-year-old, I wanted to be a skeleton. It’s awesome to pick a goal you’ll actually achieve some day! Seriously, my first memory of acting was in a motel room by a Florida beach.

I remember standing on one end of a long cushion I’d put on the floor. I said, “Here’s a skeleton falling.” Then I feel forward, stiff-bodied onto the cushion. My older sisters, my Mom, and even my Dad laughed. So I put a washcloth on my head – you know, for long hair – and stood on the cushion again. “Here’s a lady falling,” I said, falling exactly the same way. Except this time I added a scream.

How could I not be an actor? My whole family laughed!

Somebody once asked me why I was an actor, and I said it was to survive middle school. But then the Florida beach memory came back and I knew that was my light-bulb moment. But it’s also true that I used my sense of humor and weird antics to derail bullies in school.

Guess this bit of history is important because as a kid I had no confidence. I couldn’t do sports. All thumbs. I was afraid of everything. But for some reason – I think it was the beach event – I gave myself permission to be fearless onstage.

This is key because – even though I did not realize it for years – my superpower was auditioning. Took me a while to realize this made me different from a lot of actors. Most hate auditioning. I love it.

Well…there was one kind of audition I did hate. The cold reading.

It’s funny how fear wears many guises. My cold reading fear masqueraded as anger. I was pissed at directors for not trusting me enough with the script. Or for disrespecting my art. In other words, I sucked at cold reading and it was their fault. [Tom laughs.]

But then something happened. I stopped focusing on the words and started doing the thing I was good at: connecting with the other actor. I was so excited. It was like finding the key to a treasure. A key I had in my pocket the whole time.

I started giving cold reading workshops in the D.C. area, turning actors on to the power of the unknown. At its best, cold reading is a chance to take three to fifteen minutes with a script and then give it all you’ve got. At worst, it’s like taking a dive off a diving board without knowing what’s below.

At the edge of the diving board is where I thrive. In the cold reading workshops I run, I have the actors bring me scripts, sight unseen. They pick my partner, they hand us the script, and only tell us our character name. Boom, we start. My partner and I have no idea what the scene is about or where it’s headed. Afterwards I love it when they ask, “How did you make the script disappear?” or “How did you know when to move?”

Why that little thing is important is because after getting my coaching certification, dyslexic actors started coming to me. I mean, look… How terrifying for an actor with dyslexia to be handed a cold script. My solution is perfect because the words are secondary. Heck, maybe even tertiary.

So yeah, I help actors develop a firm foundation of confidence in the audition, cold or prepared. And I don’t mean getting psyched up for it. That is a hell of a lot of energy to use – to get psyched up for an audition. Getting psyched up is a losing game. You’re fighting anxiety and self-doubt from the moment you first glanced at the audition notice. All the energy you need in order to access your creativity is wasted in resisting the fear.

There’s a reason even so many great actors hate auditioning. They hold it in a different place in their mind and psyche than they do performing. Their access to that deep well of creativity is short-circuited by fear. Battling themselves is where all the energy goes.

Looking back, my path to becoming an actor coach is as plain as day. I guess the biggest surprise to me is most of the help I give actors isn’t directly fixing the audition problems or acting blocks. It’s what’s underneath.

What is the root of that fear? Where does the self-sabotage come from? Whose voice is that telling you you’re not good enough? Why do you overthink everything?

Get those things out of the way, and the rest is easy-peasy. One of my favorite things a client has said is that she can’t believe that “all this came from actor coaching.” She and I are down to her last few sessions and we haven’t worked directly on her skills. We haven’t needed to. We’ve worked to get the obstacles out of her way. She’s doing the rest. Incredibly talented. We will refine a couple of skills, but the hard work is done.

But here’s the kicker. Her dream – what she stated to me when we began – has changed. It’s gotten bigger. It’s blossomed. Her eyes—no, her MIND has been opened to her true potential. Same with another actor I’m working with. The scope of his dream exploded from a modest “I want to get into voice overs from home” to directing, and even heading to New York.

It happens time after time. These people come to me, and they think their dreams are too big. Some feel like they’re impossible. To say it’s rewarding for me when they discover a new world of possibilities is an understatement. I am bowled over by their confidence and clarity of direction. And their excitement.

Why they come to me is because they can’t get away from acting. They can’t put it down, even though many have walked away, only to come back. They want to have the clarity to know it really is possible. In their heart they know it is…but the fear is strong. And my heart swells when their dream grows even bigger than they thought possible.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

My business had a near-death moment before it ever got off the ground. The problem was two-fold. I had no plan, and I was financially ignorant.

It was 2005 and I was giving those acting workshops in D.C. I didn’t want to be like the other guys I had taken workshops from. “Hey that was fun, but what did I learn? What could I take away?” I wanted to make sure my actors had ongoing support. But how?

I gave my personal email and got a toll-free number so they could call when they got in a jam. And there I was coaching actors by email. I was kind of astounded at the feedback I got. They loved it. I started a newsletter. Did a little bit of advertising but it was mostly organic.

This was a side-hustle to my day job, which was as a documentation specialist. (See? I graduated from data entry!) By 2008, the economy was changing. The telecom company I had worked for since the early 90s was being swallowed by a bigger one. I was laid off with a great severance package.

Finally freedom! I could focus on just my biz! But see, there were those two pesky problems I mentioned. I was overwhelmed with trying to get my business, EmpoweredActor, off the ground. I kept buying solutions for problems I didn’t have yet. Coupled with no plan, that was a recipe for disaster. The economy tanked in August of that year, and I was fully in denial.

People were losing jobs left and right. My wife was terrified. I was certain I could get a job if I needed to. And I kept sinking our money into the wrong places in the business. Worse, I was keeping my wife in the dark. She was full of fear and I didn’t know how to deal with that. We had four kids and I refused to see the debt rising around me.

We lived out in the sticks and got our water from a well. Not like we had to go dunk a bucket or anything, but in the country a lot of people have well water. Well, the well collapsed. It took all the money we had available on 4 or 5 credit cards, something ridiculous like that, to have a new well dug. In other words, I was using money we didn’t have.

We were close to bankruptcy by the time I woke up. I tried to get a job and was shocked when I couldn’t. In spite of the fact that everyone around us was hitting hard times, I arrogantly thought I could return to the telecom industry without a hitch. Nope. Nobody was hiring. Not for that kind of work.

I pulled the plug on everything business-wise. I had to say goodbye to my stunned newsletter subscribers. I not longer had time to write those emails. I told my wife the only thing I was keeping was the EmpoweredActor website domain name. But did nothing with it. I just refused to let it go.

We really hit rock bottom. Went on food stamps. I went into a depression. The only job I had at the time was the Conservatory teaching job. I treasured what little time I had with the Conservatory students. I would come alive there. I loved it, but it was painfully little money.

I was hired at the local grocery story deli for a part-time job. And another as a waiter at our four-star restaurant. I eventually got a “big” part-time job (30 hours a week) as a financial officer (how ironic), human resources guy, and trainer at rehabilitation center for wayward girls. But the dream of the EmpoweredActor business? It was on life support.

Finally in 2011 I got a full-time job again. Nowhere near the money I was making when I was laid off, but it allowed me to slowly rebuild my financial house and a way to start to get out of debt. I left EmpoweredActor in hypersleep for seven more years.

Then one quiet Saturday morning in 2019 I was reading the paper. There was a free 9-week online business class for entrepreneurs starting in…oh, twenty minutes. I felt a disturbance in The Force…movement inside I hadn’t felt in so long. I signed up for that class, and the spark began to glow again.

I was understandably gun-shy, though. Didn’t know who to trust or what to do. So I started small. I breathed some life into my dormant website, and resurrected my newsletter Actor’s Break.

It was in September of 2023 that I stumbled across Ed, and earned my certification in March of 2024.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

For the time I knew I wanted to be an actor, I have wanted to change the acting industry for the better.

The heart of acting is not pretending. It’s truth. So many actors are drawn to it in order to hide. To cover up the self because, you know, “Who could possibly be interested in me?”

The thing is, acting comes from self. It has to. You have nothing else. You have everything you need within you.

That can be terrifying to an actor when all they want to do is get away from themselves. The ability to reveal self is incredibly powerful. Those are the most powerful performances we see on screen and onstage. It can also be quite scary, because you feel like everybody can see inside the darkest corners of you. But that’s an illusion. Yet somehow, those are the performances that allow us to feel most deeply.

This coaching journey of mine is just beginning. I never knew I would find something I love more than acting. So I’m going to keep doing it. I started by helping actors who feared cold reading. Then actors with a fear of auditioning. So I’m going to keep going. My goal is to keep leveling up my skills, keep up my education. The more I can level up, the more I can help actors to a greater degree.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://EmpoweredActor.com
• Instagram: tombrooks.empoweredactor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TomActorCoach/
• Other: https://FullyBookedActor.com

  Newsletter: https://empoweredactor.kit.com/

  https://www.tiktok.com/@tombrooks_empoweredactor

Image Credits

Photographer: Bob Peak