We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Owen Garrett. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Owen below.

Owen, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project that I have recently worked on was participating in the ASAP (Armed Services Arts Partnerships) program for acting. While I have been involved in many projects that have a deep personal resonation such as the Scotty Works Out trilogy, ASAP was a recent program that I completed that culminated in my first ever public Shakespeare monologue. ASAP is a program for armed service veterans, family members, and/or caretakers of veterans that uses many different arts, such as comedy, acting, or visual arts to help its participants gain confidence and self-esteem, while also building a sense of community. I am a son of a veteran and have struggled with self-esteem, anxiety, and mental health issues for many years and being a part of the ASAP community has really helped me with all of these challenges. We were lucky enough to have a fantastic acting teacher in Ronn Johnstone who really brought our group together and facilitated an environment where we all felt safe to explore new possibilities and learn about ourselves. If it were not for him, I wouldn’t have performed my first ever Shakespeare monologue; Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech. My entire family was there to see me perform at The Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis. I act because I want to make my family and friends proud so having them there and also to be a part of this amazing and talented group of performers meant the entire world. I am so thankful for my family’s love and to be a part of this supportive and amazing community of veterans and their families.

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

I started acting when I was six years old when I played Tommy in The Who’s Tommy at The Dunes Summer Theatre in Michigan City, IN. Since then, I have acted on stage and in high school I began performing improv at Comedy Sportz. Since then, I have experience at IO Chicago and IO West, The Annoyance Theatre, IndyProv, and The Groundlings. I had my first job on-camera in Albuquerque when I was an extra in Breaking Bad. My part was cut during filming, but I was able to drive my best friend Pete’s Durango and pretend to look hard on camera. In retrospect, it makes total sense why my part was cut. Around that time is when I first began to train in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As a lifelong admirer of Bruce Lee, this was a dream come true. I truly love martial arts with all of my heart. Later, I began doing stand up comedy. My first ever show was Deez Nuts at The Comedy Store and soon after I moved into a backroom at Marty’s Comedy Club. I lived with three other comics in a place that was a total fire hazard and I’m glad my Mom didn’t find out about that until I had to move out.
Today, I still perform as a comedian, actor, voice over artist, and a mixed martial artist. I just completed the UCLA Extension coding bootcamp and received my full-stack development certificate. As a result of being locked away and doing nothing but coding for three and a half months, I decided to pivot to becoming a yoga instructor.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My entire life has been a series of career and lifestyle pivots. I started off acting in theatre and eventually that lead to me taking my first improv class in high school and pursuing improv from theatre to theater and company to company. I had always wanted to try stand up and when I first moved to LA, I enrolled in David Arnold’s Art of Standup Comedy Class at The Haha Cafe. Stand up comedy eventually lead to me getting my first voice over roles, which I still do consistently to this day. As much as I love to perform, I have always had a day job, primarily in call centers or restaurants. Being unhappy and stuck in jobs where everybody takes their emotions out on you became too much, which is why I enrolled in the coding program at UCLA Extension. I love being a student and there are aspects of coding that I enjoy, but I realized that I had to unplug from the matrix. Now, I am pursuing my yoga instructors certification in Bikram and from there I will continue to take instructor courses in Vinyasa, Pilates, and more. Because of all of these pivots, I have passions for all of these things; acting, improv, writing, stand up, yoga, and martial arts. If you take one of these aspects away from me, then I wouldn’t be my true self any longer. I need all of these things to be the real me.

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

Personally, the most rewarding aspect of being a performer and an artist is making my friends and family proud. All I want to do is make them happy and bring enjoyment to their lives. So many people from all walks of life played a part in raising me and if I can do right by them and make them proud, then I’ll be fulfilled. Recently, I performed my first ever public monologue from Shakespeare (St. Crispin’s Day) at The Phoenix Theatre and my entire family was there. Never in a million years did I ever think I would perform not only Shakespeare, but perform at a truly great theatre like The Phoenix. My family was there and I was performing with so many other wildly talented and supportive actors. It felt like winning the life lottery in that moment because it was such a special evening. If I could do one thing for the rest of my life, it would be to perform for those that I love most in the world. At around the same time that I had performed at The Phoenix, I discovered that I’m actually in the opening title credits for the show Succession. I remember being on set that day and it was one of the coolest shoots of all time, but I had no idea what it was for. I play more videogames than I do watch tv, so I didn’t realize that I was included for years in one the greatest shows ever. Discovering this fact while scrolling through memes was absolutely mind-blowing, but telling my family and friends, particularly the ones that are fans of the show, was one of the coolest experiences ever! I’m in it for about three seconds, so I’m excited for the 14 minutes and 57 seconds left of fame remaining in my career! Honestly, I couldn’t be more thankful and proud to be in this and there’s no greater feeling in the world than being able to share this moment with my family and friends. They are my heart.     

Contact Info:

• Website: https://github.com/OwenGarrett/personal-site
• Instagram: @owenpgarrett
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the.original.gangsta/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-garrett-aa0a6368/
• Youtube: @owengarrett4112
• Other: https://substack.com/profile/140026924-owen-garrett?utm_source=substack_profile