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

Christian, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Before you answer this question I think you must ponder it for a moment. What defines success? Truthfully the analysis of success is difficult to measure. Are you successful in your eyes? In the eyes of others? I think in my time, the most important thing is being confident in yourself that you have been successful. If you’ve gotten up and made your bed in the morning that is successful. In my shoes, I’ve been acting for a year and have had success landing roles with very little on camera experience prior to my beginning. No matter what anyone tells you, when that camera cuts on for the first time there’s very little to prepare you for it. So for me just being able to audition competently was a success! When you’re on set for the very first time, and everyone is speaking foreign to your ear, just keep in mind eventually you will be one of those people speaking the jibberish that you once couldn’t cognitively comprehend. The success only stops, if you do.

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

I remember being a kid, being a Vancouverite, one of the guys I looked up to was Hayden Christensen. Regardless of all the hate the prequels (Star Wars) received, they made me fall in love with the allure of cinema. I’d watch hours and hours of behind the scene footage of the films on my portable dvd player while sitting under my grandmothers kitchen table (weird right). It lit a fire inside of me to consume the industry, it took me along time but finding Letterbox led me to finding my passion for film again, and so began the journey of trying to make it like so many before me. Networking and just introducing myself, spending time auditioning, working on my appearance and my skill. It’s a beautiful yet horrifying industry that most of us have to have a screw loose to even have the courage to pursue. I desire to produce memorable performances that are talked about for years, but I also desire to be a great person off of the screen.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think overall what’s gotten me a ton of work early in my career is the fact that I remain coachable. I like to pain attention to detail and I thank my severe OCD for that. I love the long hours that go into building these people that we become for a short period of time. I like to think I’m the easiest person in the room to work with and that’s been very beneficial for me in helping make peoples vision come to life.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I had an audition for a feature film a few months back. I ended up getting on site early for the audition and I locked myself into the role. I felt as if I physically became that person. I poured my heart into it and after auditioning I ended up not landing the role. I was completely devastated as it was a role I had my eyes set on for a while! A few days went by and the director called me and asked me to audition again (for another role) in which I was shocked. So I packed my things and headed out to audition and I gave one of my best performances to this date. We have finished filming and it should be able to view very soon!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: the_christian.tatum

Image Credits
Redhawk Crescent Studios Ethan Bruner James Yates Jarod Wood