We recently connected with Amanda Shafer and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

The single most unexpected issue I experienced that changed my creative journey was the sudden loss of my husband seven years ago.

I was a stay-at-home mom of two young boys and had just started my journey in acting. I was taking classes at a local theater and had done some background work. Most importantly I had discovered I had a deep passion and talent for acting and wanted to pursue it as a career. Life was busy but happy and the future felt incredibly bright. Until one morning I woke to the unimaginable news that my husband had died in a car accident. I was 35 and suddenly a solo parent to 3 and 6 year old boys. My world crumbled underneath me. The life I knew was gone and the future I had envisioned went up in smoke. Life became about survival: walking two little souls through immense grief and trauma, dealing with my deep grief and anger, and trying to piece together the broken bits of our life and create something new.

When you experience loss it irrevocably changes you. There are all the negative ways that we automatically think of: deep sadness and pain, losing the life you knew, having to rebuild. But what I discovered was that the loss created a wide-reaching opportunity. I now had a completely new perspective on life. I viewed things differently. I viewed people differently. I yearned to live every second to its fullest. I had been to hell and back and had deeper and wider experiences to draw from as an artist. I was able to use the pain and the experience to propel me forward in acting and in life. Now, this doesn’t mean there weren’t really dark times, because there were. There were many times I would lose myself in the grief but I always found my way back. And acting at the level I wanted became a lot harder as a solo parent. But again, I always found my way back.

Seven years have passed and I am a stronger actor and all around person because of my loss. I continue to use the experience and perspective to fuel my acting performances and create art that has a depth and reaches people’s hearts.

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 have always been an artist. I studied music during my formative years, I earned a degree in studio art, I owned a custom cake business making confectionary masterpieces, and now I am fully entrenched in the art of acting. I have always loved to act but I came to it later in life. In my early thirties I randomly submitted for a background role on a History Channel docuseries. After my first day on set, it was all over….I had fallen deeply and madly in love with tv and film acting.

I am a dramatic actor. I love roles that are emotionally and mentally meaty.- meaning they ask a lot of the actor. I love roles where I have to dig deep emotionally and where I can convey very raw human reactions. After being cast, I enjoy researching intensely and creating a backstory so I can authentically bring that character to life. I think my life experiences of motherhood, loss, and resilience mixed with my empathetic, tuned-in personality are strengths to each and every performance I give. I also deeply believe in helping raise the energetic vibrations of the collective consciousess through my work by creating pieces that resonate and lead to a greater good. Along with those factors I have a strong work ethic and am a kind and gracious team player, which is crucial on any set. Talent is one thing, but hard work, dedication, and a good attitude are what allow the space to create good art.

Although I have a propensity to play deep, complicated characters, I also love to do comedy and have a lot of experience in improv. I am currently branching out into voice over acting and am very excited to be directing my first short next month!

Above everything, my acting is in service to the art. It is one part of the puzzle of creatives coming together to produce something magical, or funny, or provocative, and ultimately help change the world, if even in a tiny way. I take it as an immense honor (and a necessity in my creative life) to be a part of birthing new works of art into the world.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As I’ve grown in my acting career I have realized that I want to be spending my time making art that has meaning. I want to spend my time on projects that convey human emotions that might help heal others, or projects that raise questions and make people think. I want to do projects that stretch me, that might be uncomfortable but ultimately expand my craft. I want to make art that contributes to the evolution of conscious thinking and mindfulness in the world. Not every film or commercial that comes along can be that, and that’s ok and part of being in this industry, but I find that it’s atleast important for me to have something I’m working on, even on the side, that has meaning.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

When I was younger I once said that I felt it would be easier to be an astronaut than a professional actor. I knew what I wanted but had no game plan to get there and didn’t know how to make one. Now adays, there are so many resources available online and on social media to help actors with their careers. There are websites dedicated to the steps on how to do just about anything in the field. There are acting groups, audition postings, meetups available through social media. These just weren’t available to me when I was in my early twenties. So I wish I had the same resources online that we have now, when I was younger. It would have made things feel more attainable and I might have pursued acting earlier in life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.AmandaShafer.com
• Instagram: @AmandaActsUp
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaActsUp
• Youtube: @AmandaActsUp

Image Credits
Francisco Jauregui Darren Durlach Robin Farrell