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

Alright, Cole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned through taking class and workshop, really. I started taking private lessons from a guy who used to run a studio, then went to the performing arts center here in Denver for classes for a few seasons, and now I’ve been at the studio I currently take class in for a couple years now, I’m in there every week. It’s valuable to read about the craft, watch people do it really well etc but it’s so crucial to get hands on, in person coaching from someone who knows the craft so well, and to see others learn and develop in front of you as well.

Knowing what I know now, I think the only thing to speed up the process would have been dropping, ironically, the very things I did to try and speed up the process. Getting out of my own way, removing the self conscious nature of it, and letting go of trying to control it, that goes for doing a single scene as well as my path as an artist altogether. At the end of the day, this is an art form, it’s freeing up the channel so that something higher than us can move through us, and ego driven habits like trying to do this for some sort of self validation, trying to control how it’s going to go, that only impedes this thing altogether. The doing of it and how far we can take it. Pretty paradoxical, which I think is beautiful

Skills I’ve learned to be most essential are listening, really active listening to whoever it is you’re sharing the scene with, and feeling your way through it as opposed to thinking your way through it. Listening keeps us in the moment, and it informs how we feel about what’s going on, what was said, and if we can be in tune with that feeling place in ourselves from moment to moment and just let whatever arises from that come naturally, it’s going to come off as alive and genuine.

I think the main obstacle that can get in the way is just trying to be safe, neat, protected, guarded about it. That goes for the work in a scene or the way you go about your own development, learning.. what degree of work you put into it. Again, this is art and it needs to be raw, authentic, messy, things like that in it’s nature. So just take the shackles of safety off and really go for it, every time and see where that takes you

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

Well, I’m an actor! Acting was a childhood passion of mine that sprung from watching Jim Carey movies countless times as a kid. I did school plays, improv, classes etc until athletics (soccer, specifically) took center stage for the rest of my adolescence. After a pretty decorated youth/college playing career lead to me ultimately being forced to retire from playing competitively due to injury, and after years of feeling frankly quite lost and without passion/inspiration, acting found it’s way back into my life quite serendipitously. I told my best friend (a screen writer in LA) that I wanted to be an actor, and the very next day he ran into the guy he himself used to take acting class from, he hadn’t seen him in 10 years! I started taking private lessons from that guy almost 3 years ago. and haven’t looked back ever since.

I’m based in Denver, have been a part of around 15 or so independent local short films/featurettes and a handful of local commercials. I’m currently repped in Denver, New Mexico and the Southeast but am actively looking to gain new representation in other markets. I like to think I have a uniquely potent dynamism, charisma and depth of character about me that I thankfully have the freedom to bring to life in front of camera. Comedy is definitely my strength, but I’ve got a strong penchant for drama as well.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

To create art for art’s sake. I think art in it’s highest form finds a way to touch the deepest part of us, it makes us feel alive again, sets our hearts on fire, helps us navigate our own life experiences, gives or reminds us of just the message we needed to hear. I think art tends to the most vital and important part of us, and visual storytelling such as film and TV are a very full and vivid way to do so.

I just want to be a faithful servant to that cause. I want to be a part of cinematic storytelling that really touches and leaves a lasting impact on people, helps guide them on this journey of life that we all walk. Or maybe it just entertains them! Givers them a viewing experience that is enjoyable and lets them forget about whatever tough things in life they may be dealing with at the time

There is also an element of self expression here. Part of that is expressing the parts of me that make me uniquely me, the elements that make my personality vivid, I want to let those out in full force and put them to good use. But I also want to express the Self, with a capital S, the higher self, the God within us all. I believe that lives right smack dab at the center of our being, and ultimately I want to leave the channel open so that can move through me, express itself outwardly through me in ways that I myself, individually, could never do on my own.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It’s having the freedom to be all of myself, to express fully and openly, and to get to contribute to something that is so inherently sacred and special, that being art itself. I’ve found that being an artist goes hand in hand with knowing yourself more fully, more completely, and it shapes you into a more well rounded human being. Being a human and being an artist are anything but mutually exclusive, and so I find having my passion and my career be streamlined with my own existence is incredibly rewarding

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @colechapleski
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cole.chapleski