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

Alyssa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

It is so difficult to pick just one meaningful project I’ve worked on. I always learn from every project and being blessed to discover a new character or story to tell is always one that I cherish.

One project in particular though that I hold very near and dear to my heart is a post-apocalyptic film I made in the heat of COVID with 4 people I met at USC. I was a freshman in college when the pandemic hit, so right in the middle of the best year of my life, I had to put my passion on pause. A year later, everything was still shut down, but my friend Brandon who I had lived across the hall from freshman year reached out to me asking if I wanted to film a zombie apocalypse feature film that summer in his hometown of Rosebud, South Dakota. Without thinking twice, I accepted.

That summer remains to be one of the best experiences of my life. I lived with four other boys (Brandon, Sobo, Sam, and Alex) and not only did we grow exceptionally close, but we created a film that is something I’m still very proud of to this day. We spent all day every day for 3 weeks together, and I know that we could’ve spent the rest of summer driving to random fields to shoot, staying up late playing super smash bros, and eating f’reals. Even after a long day of filming, we would all pile onto Brandon’s bed at night in our pj’s and watch him edit until 4 in the morning.

We created something truly beautiful that summer, and our hard work paid off. “Decays II” released on Youtube in October of 2021, and now has over 2.5 million views and paved the way for our production company (Some Dude Productions) to have a fan base.

Even while we were filming, we would say to each other “we’re going to remember this shoot for the rest of our lives. We’re really experiencing something special”. I still constantly think about how much fun I had creating something so incredible with 4 strangers who turned into people I now think of as family.

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

First and foremost, I am an actor. I am one of the lucky people who found my passion super early on in life. My best friend, Amelia, wanted to audition for the school play in 7th grade and forced me to do it with her. I was exceptionally scared and was sure that nothing would come of it, but we both ended up getting cast. As soon as rehearsals started, I fell in love. By the time we were performing in front of people and I could hear myself sparking emotion in audience members with laughter or gasps, I knew that it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Now, a decade later, I am primarily still an actor, but I am also a director, screenwriter, and casting director. I’ve learned to love all elements of filmmaking, and I’m continuing to learn each day. My goal as an actor and filmmaker is always to evoke emotion out of the audience. Art is such a powerful healing tool in our world, and I strive to create art and characters that people can have endless conversations about.

I think that what I’m most proud of is the same thing as what sets me apart from others. I have never seen failure as an option. Sure, this industry is full of rejection, but choosing to continue even after you’ve been told hundreds of times that you’re not the person for the job is such a difficult thing to do. I’ve never been the type to quit. When I ran for Student Body President my freshman year of high school for the freshman class, I lost, but when senior year came around I ran again and won. I keep a journal of every audition that I’ve ever done and as of right now, I’ve auditioned for 154 different projects since my freshman year of college and I’ve booked 48 of them. I don’t see rejection or failure as this unbreakable force, I see it as an opportunity to grow and make myself better, and I’m incredibly proud of myself for that.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson that I had to unlearn is that being an actor is just about bettering your talent as a performer. Growing up in Missouri and participating in my high school’s theatre department, it was so simple. The most talented people got cast in the biggest roles. I had assumed when I moved to California to go to USC that the Hollywood industry worked the same way. I could not have been more wrong. I’m very grateful that USC offered a “Business of Acting” class that we were allowed to take our senior year. I learned that being an actor is half talent and half marketing.

I learned that before you can even really start to audition for tv shows and films that you need representation, there IS a difference between agents and managers, and you need to be able to professionally pitch yourself and have the materials to back up your credibility. Even after all that, it still takes more time to build up a relationship with your representation and the casting directors you audition for. It’s a long process. For the majority of actors, it doesn’t happen over night, and the way you make it happen is by pitching yourself as a product that you’re selling to a film or tv show.

I had to unlearn that the industry isn’t all about talent, but the important thing I did learn is that with the combination of marketing skills and talent, you will succeed.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an actor for me is usually a fleeting moment when I’m in the middle of a performance where I truly forget everything going on in my personal life and live as the character for a minute or two. These moments are very rare, but they truly feel euphoric. I’ll give you an example:

I have been at Graham Shiels Studios (an acting studio) for the past two years. My class is like my family, and every week, auditors come into our class and watch. Usually, there’s between 15-30 auditors, 12 of us in the class, and Graham as our coach. One week, I was performing a scene in front of everyone where I had to be exceptionally vulnerable. In the scene I was confessing to my best friend that I was in love with him.

In the middle of my performance, towards the end, I started to feel a tightness in my throat, and my breathing escalated. I felt like I was reliving moments when I had been this character, confessing my love to someone, and I felt the silence of the other person as well as the room. It felt almost out-of-body, and when the scene ended and I slowly came back to reality, it felt like I was waking up from a long refreshing nap. It’s a truly beautiful feeling, and I’m constantly chasing that when I act.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alyssaheyer.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alyssa_heyer/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alyssaheyer/videos

Image Credits

Dana Patrick, Chun Guerue, and David Deiser