Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aaron Donahue. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Aaron, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

As an actor, you only get to perform when you are given a role to do so. We audition endlessly and only ever get a fraction of the roles to try out for. Some of the most exciting roles that are written, are housed inside massive blockbuster or indie films that most newer actors will never get access to. Do you ever get frustrated that these opportunities are so far our of reach? That you could shine if you just had a seat at the table?

Make the damn table. Write your own stories, find friends to write and make films with you, and learn how to make them well. Don’t sit around waiting for roles to find you, if you create your own roles you will always have the agency and the potential to build your own career even further. Without waiting around for the role to find you.

Aaron, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m originally from New Jersey and had gone to undergrad for Biochemistry. after realizing I would go mad doing that for the rest of my life, I dove headfirst into acting. I auditioned for anything I could, learned how to self-tape, got a backstage account, moved to NYC, auditioned for grad school, moved to Savannah to attend SCAD, and finally ended up here in Atlanta. I started acting and shortly before quarantine in 2020, I started writing my own little shorts and sketches. I found relying on comedy and jokes was the path of least resistance for myself to write, as I could fall back on the comedy despite lack of film knowledge at the time.

I wrote, found a writing partner whom I love very much, and have since written a vast number of shorts and sketches, with more always on the way. I love comedy and often find I resort or return to as a way to cope with how absolutely infuriating and unfair the world is. My writing partner and I started our own production company, Mazel Tov Cocktail Comedy” in which we’ve produced dozens of comedic shorts and sketches. We learned how to make movies from the ground up and we are now working on our first feature. It’ll either be a sci-fi drama or a horror comedy. We’ll see how that goes but for now we keep writing.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I finished undergrad in four and a half years, one semester longer than the rest of my class. After a heft amount of disagreement with my parents, they finally offered me a contract to return home after school that involved mandatory wake up times, minimum applications each week, and a ban on curse words in the home (fuck that). My friends at the time were generous enough to offer me their couch for a short while until I figured it out. During that time, I doubled my efforts and subscribed to backstage, looked for acting roles on Craiglist, took any job to save money. Everything was in service of trying to make the acting thing work. Yet with not even a major in Acting, and limited knowledge of the industry, I wasn’t moving very fast.

I remember one day I complained to my friend Richie, who is a smug asshole genius mind you, that it felt like the odds were stacked against me. I was infuriated with how impossible it felt to get roles, improve, get feedback, and instead I’m watching all these rich people or nepo babies get the roles I wanted! It’s unfair! I deserve those roles. I complained and whined forever until he finally stopped me and said, “Okay. Well if it’s impossible then just do something else.” I couldn’t, I exclaimed! I needed this, this was the only thing I could do, the only thing my brain was good at. So he shrugged at me and said, “Well, you gotta deal then.”

Richie was never phenomenal at empathizing with people when they needed it, but my god did I need to hear that. After thinking about what he said I realized if I wanted this, if I truly wanted this, it wouldn’t matter what benefits or shortcuts others had, I needed to find a way to make it work because this is all I know how to do.

tl;dr You have to need acting like you need to breathe. You have to need it you’ll do anything to make it work and to keep creating…or you will do anything else. Because anything is easier. But that’s showbiz, baby.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aaron.donahuehue/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-donahue-598b188b/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Mazeltcc

Image Credits
Headshot by: Val Tannuzzi Photography