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

Scott, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I definitely believe I should have started sooner. When I was a child I wanted to be an actor, more of a martial arts actor after watching many martial arts movies with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jean Claude Van Damme, etc. However at the age, I was already doubting myself that I’ll never be successful into acting so I turned my attention to sports. Acting was not of any interest in me until college when I attended Bellarmine University. It was at Bellarmine where my passion into acting started to creep back in. I took a technical theater class my freshman year. And in my senior year, I took an Intro to Acting class. A couple years after I graduated from college, I was able to be in a Netflix film as a background extra. The film was called “Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile.” After that experience, seeing how they create films and watching actors like Zac Efron and John Malkovich perform in real time made me want to commit to acting.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. I went to school at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky for Chemistry. I graduated with my Bachelor’s of Science.

Currently, I am a Quality Control Analyst at a Pharmaceutical Company. I perform in acting as well; more like a second job. I also model, but not so much. It can be time consuming, and I’m being conscious of choosing certain acting roles that doesn’t interfere with the schedule of my full time job.

I also have a deep passion for martial arts. I currently train in Capoeira, which is a Afro-Brazilian martial art. In Capoeira, music is the most important aspect of the art, which helps create the image of Capoeira looking more like a dance than a self-defense, which is honestly the goal.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Back in the end of 2007 going through 2008, I had a bacteria staph infection called MRSA. It was known as the “Superbug” at that time because of its high resistance to most antibiotics. It got super bad that the infection went into my bloodstream and nearly reached my heart, which would have killed me. Also, it was bad to the point that they almost had to cut off my leg. I was in the hospital for over two weeks, and out of school for 3 months. I had four surgeries in one week and had six surgeries in total with the incident.
This experience humbled me in the way of me working to build my body back up to a physically fit state where I can walk normally, and even possibly play sports again. It was definitely a struggle and frustration cause I was because I was a very active person. This taught me that literally life is too short and one may never know when it’s their time to go and appreciate every moment in their life. This encouraged me to focus on my passions and things that I really wanted to do in my life.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was to not take any risks, to be very cautious. As I grew older, I understood that almost everything has some sort of risk. What’s more important to face those risks, to not be afraid and remember the destination.

For example, for many actors it’s difficult to make consistent income. There may be some months where you’re doing great, you have a lot of acting gigs and the money is flowing. However, there may come some months where you get a gig here and there, or possibly you don’t see any work for a couple months. That can be scary especially when acting is your only income. But these are the times one needs to remember the risks, not to fear failure, and also remember the reason one is acting. For me, acting is a path for me to express myself in the perspective of the characters that I perform as. Allowing myself to become these characters also allows me to see the world through that characters eyes, in which allows me to become more understanding to the rest of the world.
Today, I am taking more risks because I’m looking at the end goal (reward) while facing those risks. In result, I will become a stronger person who brings happiness, joy and love to the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.heymantalent.com/t/scott.calmeise
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/s.calmeise?igsh=MXU0aTN3aXNlbTFhaw==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1AXZRRJeEt/
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10453426/

Image Credits

Kimberly Strunk
Kiya Treon
Dylan Firlie
Shannon Williams