Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christopher Studenka. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Christopher, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
After being an actor in dozens of other projects, I decided I wanted to write and make a film on my own and I was able to make a short film “Father’s Day”. I had worked with Director Justin Rose on a prior film and he agreed to make this for me. It’s a semi-autobiographical story about a man who’s finds that his life has not turned out as he expected and he is at a personal crossroads. Acting those scenes caused me to drawn on my personal experiences and I think the emotion was very well captured and seen and on screen. We were very fortunate to have it play in Film Festivals all over the world and win dozens of awards, which is great, but for myself, seeing it on screen the first time was worth all the effort.
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 found a passion for acting much later in life as I wasn’t a part of theater or anything like that growing up. I have been an avid runner and that led to modeling running clothes and shoes in catalogs. Which led to being asked to do commercials and eventually acting in TV and film. As it all began I realized I really enjoyed acting so I studied relentlessly and auditioned for absolutely anything I could and took any role big or small in any type of project. Just to get the experience. I purposely looked for roles of characters completely different than who I am personally and to try and play as wide a range as possible. I ended up doing a number of short films, a handful of TV pilots (none of which got picked up) and feature films. After working on a short film with Director Justin Rose and having great success on the Film Festival Circuit, he agreed to make a short film I had written, “Father’s Day” and that ultimately had great success as well. That led us to believe we could take on a feature film, that he had written, “Run Rabbit” which we made on our own and has literally played in Film Festivals all over the world and ultimately we were able to strike a deal for the film. It’s been great fun.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission is one of personal fulfillment. I found a passion for acting later in life after having worked in white collar jobs my whole life up to that point. I’ve been fortunate to have a great education and be able to have great jobs, but none were ever a true passion. When I discovered acting, I realized I’d never truly fed my creative side and maybe didn’t even realize I had one. So I put everything into it and have used my years of business experience to help further my own career in whatever ways I can. Most importantly I thoroughly enjoy it and I cannot say that about any job I’ve had prior.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me, seeing a finished product is certainly rewarding. However, as an actor you can only control your performance and not the production so you have to enjoy your opportunity to bring a character to life. I find the reward in diving deep into a character and truly thinking about all the ways they would act and creating those reasons why if the backstory doesn’t share it. That helps you get in that characters mindset. You have to enjoy the whole process and find the rewards in that because you never know what will happen with the end result so you have to make your experience count for you and in doing so you never know what that might help you with down the line or where it will lead.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084288024629
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.studenka.1/
Image Credits
all personal photos owned by me, Christopher Studenka