Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amanda Winston. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
The creative spark has been with me as long as I can remember. The first time I had an inkling that being a performer was a a thing you could do, I was a pre-schooler, cast as the ringmaster in our school circus play. The joy of performance was ignited from that experience. Did I get cast as the ringmaster because I was the loudest and bossiest of the kids? …Well that’s what my mom tells me, but I like to believe it’s because my teachers saw potential in this tiny kid with a big mouth. Aside from a brief period as a kid where I wanted to be a waitress (they got to work with food!), my sights have been squarely set on being a professonial actor for the vast majority of my life. My parents didn’t know much about the entertainment business; I grew up in a suburb in Indiana where opportunites were limited, and no one in our family had ever pursued a career in the performing arts. But, they have always fully supported me; taking me to see plays throughout my youth, encouraging and helping me with all my auditions and performances over the years, and supporting me while earning my BA in Theatre Arts at Butler University – which is also where I met my future husband (and fellow actor!). When I graduated from Butler, I set my sights on Chicago, and never looked back. Chicago was a perfect landing spot for me. A diverse midwestern big city, not too far from family, and full of opportunity for a young actor to get their feet wet. For some, finding your passion can take time and experimentation. For me, it clicked the instant I put on that preschool ringmaster costume and stepped into the spotlight for the first time. Storytelling is my destiny.
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 background and context?
I cut my teeth as a performer in the storefront non-union theatre scene in Chicago. We did scrappy artsy plays on shoestring budgets for little to no pay, for strange sounding now-defunct theatre companies like “Gorilla Tango Theatre”, “Dream Theatre”, “Fury Theatre” etc. I treasure those experiences and learned how to be a better more resilient actor because of it. When Covid hit, like many of us, I spent some time re-examining the kind of performance I wanted to do. I had done a couple small low-budget indie films in Indiana prior to moving to Chicago, and had consequently filmed my first lead role in an indie horror film called “Evil Lurks” in 2019. I’ve always loved horror movies so I set my sights on getting more involved in the indie horror film scene in Chicago-land. Since Evil Lurks, I’ve starred in Homecoming Massacre, Dracula: The Count’s Kin, Tin Roof, Alien in the Heartland, Vic Effects, and two films currently in post-production; Hug These Bones and Fashion Killerz. Along the way, I managed to land a great acting agent in Chicago, which opened me up to bigger opportunities in commercial, voice over, and television. Recenlty, I achieved a long-held goal of making my network television debut with a small speaking role in an episode of Chicago Fire (season 14, ep 14) and am now SAG-eligible.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
For me, performance always come back to story telling. What story are we trying to tell, who is this story about and who is it for, why is this story important historically and today? I want to tell stories to open audiences up to new ways of thinking, to feel something in that moment whether it’s sadness, joy, anger, relief – to build community and bridges of understanding and give light to stories that have been diminished, ignored, or underrepresented. Performance of all types can provoke change and shift culture in profound ways. And sometimes, the story and the goal is simply to entertain. And we need that too!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Anyone going into the performing arts faces a tough road. Most working artists aren’t rich, and often barely scraping by and/or working any number of survival jobs to make ends meet. On top of that, as an actor auditioning you have to be grounded, emotionaly vulnerable and truthful in your peformance, while developing a tough skin to handle the near-constant rejection that comes with auditioning for work. A college professor once told me that on average, actors may audition for 50 roles, and get 1 callback. And for every 50 callbacks, you actually book one job. And that’s for an actor doing fairly well! That kind of constant rejection while trying to be emotionally available can wear on anyone. With time, you either get used to the rejections and it affects you less, or you slowly stop auditioning. Longevity as an actor is all about staying power. Find ways to act and perform, stay creative, and keep sharp, and the work will come. I’m no longer a naive baby actor in the big city; I’ve weathered theatre companies rising and dieing, multiple industry shut downs and strikes, filmed movies that never got finished, performed in shows to an audience of 1, worked survival jobs I’ve hated, and done more auditions and self-tapes than I can count. Through it all, I’m still here, still putting myself and my art out there, ready for the next project, whatever it may be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amandawinston.com
- Instagram: @the_amandawinston
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWinstonArtist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandawinston
Image Credits
Tyler Core, Jeremy Applebaum, Chris Shern, Jarod Hussey, Eileen Tull