We recently connected with Courage Escamilla and have shared our conversation below.
Courage, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
After seven grueling years in Los Angeles sacrificing, suffering and nurturing hundreds of relationships, the fact that I have been able to consider myself a “full-time actor” for the last three is still surreal, bittersweet and relieving. As a poor child of color, pursuing any dream often comes with a price and often I feel like the ones that were paid were too heavy but I will never take for granted this life that my mother and others made possible for me. I was carried to this point. In no way did I do it alone, but so often it felt that way. Shaking off “imposter syndrome” is a daily challenge for me, but on rare moments like while writing this story, I’m able to look back with a renewed perspective and realize that I owe myself more credit.
My current life as an “artist” is actually much more complex than most could realize. I’ve done many indie films, a ton of musical/theater and a few commercials here and there but I’m what they call a “Jack of All Trades” in legends! (The jury’s still out on whether the “master of none” part of that figure of speech applies.
I’ve been a “scareactor” for haunted attractions for nine years collectively, a mascot performer for ten, muppet actor, creature-suit performer, voice actor for five years, motion capture performer, an outdoor survival enthusiast for five years, a singer and pianist since my teens, an aspiring parkour artist, Zumba instructor and I’m damn good at most of those things.. I love all the ways I perform and express myself through “art” and this is basically *how* I make a full time living as an “artist.”
…But what many don’t realize is how much my creative life is both supported and, if need be, supplemented by my “army” of hard skills… I’m a journalist (can you tell?), a web/graphic designer, a video/audio editor, marketer/networker, teacher, public speaker/community organizer and costume designer. I’m even a professional organizer where I organize the homes of hoarders.
What led to me doing all this? Well honestly, it was because of two-to-three reasons. The first is how far the love of a parent can go… My mom, through all the denials from me, believed that I was amazing at everything. She never wasted a moment to tell me “how talented I was.” Give her a long enough wait at a stop-light with an open window and she’ll tell you all about my accomplishments. She was often sitting in the front seat of every show, camera in hand, shortly after, taking a trip to the local paper with pictures of me on her dash port. It was a vicarious relationship, it had its toxic aspects of course, but in the most subtle and unexpected ways, it led to me having so much confidence to pick up almost anything new throughout my life and go “Yeah, I can do this too!” OCD perfectionism was also a big factor in how my mind developed in early childhood. But regardless, never underestimate the power you have to make your child
feel like they can be the “rising star” of their own story. Mom, through all the arguments and difficult times, you *were* my guiding star…
Second, when starting high school, at some point I became obsessed with being a community super-volunteer. Name a club I’d be interested in aaand… I was probably in it! Writer in the high school/college paper, a docent at the local zoo, intern at the arts center, sunday-school teacher and presenter at the Unitarian church… speech team, the multi-cultural club, youth advisory board, astronomy club, anime club, any theater/art club that popped up, high school sewing classes, etc. Was I out to prove something? Maybe. But I do know that I loved it for the community, the experience and just feeling like I was a part of something. Such a life definitely led to the development of my biggest personality flaw (spreading myself too thin) but if anything, it allowed me to start developing all the skills I listed earlier.
Even though I couldn’t afford photoshop until my 30s, I learned how to create amazing graphic design using just Powerpoint. And while my OCD perfectionism led to a big struggle with wording, I eventually became a great writer. Ironically, I also became supremely good at articulating myself by spending years on the Nintendo “NSider” Forums debating with other gamers for hours, learning how to structure arguments and counter-arguments! (Not everything your kids are doing is a waste of time!)
Lastly.. was Los Angeles itself. As some of you may know from my (very long) life story, I underwent many years of homelessness and crushing terrifying poverty. Even before poverty defined my journey, I knew that Los Angeles and “the dream” would be a fight for my life the second I arrived in the city. I knew that everything I ever did and learned back home in the little town of Scottsbluff, Nebraska would be an asset here in this rat-race city.
Very slowly over five years, I learned how to create my own website (couragetheactor.com!) after hearing about Word Press where I then refined my skills working on the website for the Michelle Danner acting studio as an intern for years; taking their classes on improv, on camera and scene study in exchange. I took pages of notes of every lead I heard about in a little book finding out how to print cheap business cards at Staples, create QR codes and Linktrees, use NFC readers to let people remotely bring up a link to my website on their phones. I attended every free class I could find on parkour, martial arts, stunt work and stage combat using GroupOns, YMCA memberships and volunteer opportunities. Info tables are your best friends! Asking the right questions and bringing up the right topics is a huge skill! Never take no from the “gatekeeper” at the front door, use the back door! Learn when “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” applies.
But surely, the thing I think tragically taught me the most important skill that led to my current “marketable skill-set” was suffering in LA poverty and how it taught me persistence. As unjust as it is, when you’re poor in Los Angeles, you are thwarted every single moment by the cities corrupt systems and institutions compounding on each other and the technologies, bureaucracies and authorities you’re forced to rely on that fail you time and time again. Because of that, I’m now an expert problem solver, I’m lovingly stubborn as my mom ever was and I’ve learned to find brilliant ways to do so much with very little. The sooner you learn to cultivate options at every moment, to never back down and never accept the truth of a reality you don’t like, the sooner you’ll realize how much you are capable of so much!
In today’s world, despite having so many “tools at our disposal” like many older people tell us, life [society] is a hundred times more complicated. It’s not enough to just be an artist, you have be as sharp and well-rounded as you reasonably can be. Being an artist is a craft, but
unfortunately in this era, it’s a business. I swear, the amount of times I met a talented person who never prioritized a computer or phone, saw a website or a single social media account as important or kept a single business card.. you don’t have to operate at the level I have my whole life. [You’re not crazy I assume.] But know that if you want to make it in today’s broken over demanding society, you have to play to all of your best strengths. It may not still work, but you have to try.
Courage, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
So if the answer to my last question didn’t already cement the idea, I’m “crazy.” I’m what they call an “ambitious” and “intense” person: a “jack of all trades.” I swear you *have* to be in today’s world if you want to stand a fighting chance, as unjust as that reality is. When you’re not born into privilege, all you have is persistence.
I don’t know when exactly it happened, but when I was first bumbling my way through creating my first website, I suddenly thought of three words to describe the many many things I do: “Actor. Activist. Adventurer.”
ADVENTURER
While this part of my journey is still far in the horizon, since I was little, I was motivated by this vision to be a real-life adventurer. Today, it’s turned into training weekly with Christopher Nyerges at the School of Self Reliance slowly developing an expertise in wilderness survival. Before the pandemic, I was also training at the Tempest Freerunning Academy learning the basics of parkour. In time, I hope to afford training in Wushu, an acrobatic form of Kung-Fu I’ve done in the past. In the meantime, I’m planning to start spending my free-time with indoor rock climbing. If you follow me on social media, you will see all these passions and others from time to time. I want to learn how to fully utilize my body, thrive in any physical or political environment and be known for reality-adventure projects. An “adventure soldier” I’ve sometimes called it.
As a child who grew up in an over-protected bubble, I will fully admit to this being the hardest dream I’ll ever reach for, but it’s definitely worth achieving or die trying. (Er. Maybe not the best choice of words!) Far future projects in the works include an emotional powerfully uplifting reality show called “DREAMCHASER” that’ll follow me and other adventurers striving to achieve yet another grueling daredevilish dream every season; a show that’ll surely pave the way fo me to live the life of an adventurer that I’ve always dreamt of living. “Life is too short to do just one thing.” as the tagline goes.
ACTOR
A desire for adventure is what formed the deepest depths of who I am. I want to do it all because I love the gift of life. A free-spirited life. A life experiencing once-in-a-lifetime moments that you’ll remember forever. Daring to understand the meaning, worth and awards of having the “courage” to pursue them. Yeah, I know, I went there.) Which is why my acting career is *also* defined by it. I remember years ago I described my dream as “being the world’s next great adventurer” and how “I’m an actor because I dream of being adventurers in worlds even beyond this one.” I want to be what I call an “adventure-actor.” That’s the goal. Big light-hearted
adventure films, movies and projects in fantastic fantasy worlds. I want to be the underdog with every odd stacked against him, finding out the power that lies within his own heart and the friendships that he’s formed.
Ironically since I was little, being the “underdog” is what ended up defining my journey well into my adulthood. When I was a kid, I never had friends. I was a loner because I was so different from other kids. But in time, I learned to be ok with it. The only friends at the time I felt I needed were the heroes in the shows I loved who were just like me: misunderstood loners who had a different life because they were destined for something great; to be whisked off to another world and do something no one had ever done before. They were stories like Digimon, Pokemon, The Land Before Time, Sailor Moon, Matilda, anything Disney and countless movies from the 80s and 90s. They were stories about how even a misfit with the power of a virtuous and courageous heart and how the bonds of friendship can triumph over any evil or overcome any obstacle.
I never let go of that part of myself and I try to embody it in how I live my life everyday. Today I’m represented by three agents and a manager, namely for voiceover, theatrical and commercial. And as like with any actor, I’m doing different projects all the time. You may see me co-starring in the action-western fantasy film, White Dove, which just won its twelfth award across the film festival circuit. In the story of White Dove, I play the brother of an adopted girl raised-warrior in an indigenous tribe during the California Gold Rush who leaves her people to bring balance to a chaotic West, leaving the responsibility of protecting my people on my shoulders. Over the course of my career, I’ve co-starred in over half a dozen indie films, many by local Indigenous filmmakers and played a supporting/leading role in nearly ten stage shows and performed in about a dozen others. Come 2024, I will be the central character in a musical called Seeker’s Waltz playing a gender-queer person shifting their community’s understanding of gender, sexuality, hate and love as events transpire. I also just finished a two month 40-night show performing in Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood as the iconic monster, the “Clicker”, from the hit show and video game, The Last of Us. (There are also some more exciting developments in regards to that IP but I can’t reveal them at this time!)
In voiceover, my resume continues to grow rather quickly as I provide voices and performances for many audiobooks, spots, historical pieces, video games and animations. Currently, I’m exploring options to continue my training in motion capture for navigation, combat and monster movement in video games. I also had the accomplishment of being booked to voice my first major character in a popular video game however complications outside the studio led to performance not being used. In just five years, I have well over fifty credits in voiceover. My proudest work has involved anything that elevates my people as an Indigenous performer like dubbing for The Head of Joaquin Murrieta on Amazon or narrating spots for the Saints Joseph’s Indian School. Other notable credits are the video games Solani and Children of Lumera, an German film called The Boy That Couldn’t Feel Pain, an Italian film called The Last Cue and an audio drama called Fast Track to 40. (I also was the prince in The Asylum’s knock-off of The Little Mermaid, my first feature-length animated film, buuut I don’t talk about that one much! Ha!)
Lastly, I can never talk about who I am without talking about what I stand for. When you grow up a sensitive kid who’s entire existence was bullies and you’re marginalized in so many ways that you’re a minority amongst minorities you experience the world differently. Calling out injustice and corruption is something I can never not do. It’s something I can never switch off about myself. I’m not “opinionated”, a “complainer” or like to “rant.” I’m an activist. I do not accept society as is, I will not stand to see innocent people suffer, I refuse to be controlled and I’ll be
damned if I’ll let bad people get away with everything they want. Just like the shows I watched as a kid taught me, if you don’t do something, then who will?
Other than the many many groups and organizations I was a part of back home that had a mission of cultural enrichment or advocacy in my community, I’ve continually been, sometimes neck-deep, in a lot of work that’s most important to me. As a Water Protector, the work I was best known for was being a big part of the Standing Rock movement, spending several months squaring off against police and military in North Dakota working to stop the construction of an oil pipeline being forcibly built under my peoples only natural source of drinking water. It was a movement that made international news. While there, I also founded a “Two Spirit Camp” for LGBTQ+ indigenous Water Protectors at the camp, encouraging them to reclaim their traditionally sacred roles in our indigenous communities. It was later renamed “Two Spirit Nation,” when it was taken over by a successor. Upon returning to Los Angeles, other activists and I started the “Divest LA” movement, where after six months of service from me as their Head of Media, a number of years later, we were able to get the City of Los Angeles to divest eight billion dollars from a corporate bank funding the pipeline back in North Dakota. I was later featured on Elliot Page’s “Gaycation,” where I was interviewed as an activist at the 2016 inaugural protests and Women’s March in Washington DC.
Since then, most of my work has moved into the messaging of the projects I choose. I provide the voice of a real-life Native activist named Dino Butler in the podcast, LEONARD: political prisoner, demanding for the release of a Native activist wrongfully jailed for 40 years. I’ve provided historical voices for indigenous figures at several museums. I gave a moving performance for a gender-queer indigenous character advocating for their sexual health. I voiced an indigenous fishermen in Alaska facing racism and being forced out of his family’s ancestral fishing waters by big corporations. I also proudly performed in a spot where I talked about the cultural crisis that is the multi-billion dollar genealogy industry copyrighting the genetic histories of indigenous people. If interested, I have a currently discontinued web-show on Youtube called “The Actors Journey” about the barriers of a marginalized actor. “What is it REALLY like to be an actor in LA?” the tagline goes. Someday I hope to return to it and tell my full story along with the stories of other marginalized actors.
Other than so many projects like these, I will always continue to run my mouth and smoke up my keys talking about injustice and corruption anywhere. Every moment of every day, I try so hard not to be overwhelmed by just how irreparably broken all our systems in society are, how incomparably internationally powerful greedy interests are, how messy and how much in-fighting there is in our culture is and how it’s only going to get so much worse before it gets better. Fighting off my own struggles with resentment towards it all is a constant battle. Every minute of every day, I work on the kind of “voice” I want to have and how I can best shift the narrative and get people to understand the complex messy world we live in.
Because of that, I’ve been heavily considering a show, stand-up routine or brand tentatively called “The Culture Activist” where I brutally roast all types and accounts of cultural and political dogma on the “left, right and center.” The material would revolve around the core idea that if we’re ever going to collectively and effectively tackle the real culprits of corruption, injustice and suffering we need to wake up to the fact that we allow ourselves to get distracted, caught up and conditioned by limiting implanted ideas. All cultures, communities, politics and especially institutions are held up by some level of often-unchallenged dogma. “Why is this seen this way or why is this that way?” a person like me would ask. With the tired lazy response always being “Because that’s the way it is.”
And always will be? I don’t think so.
Speaking as a student of anthropology, cultural dogma (social norms) are what cause us to get distracted by superficial, knee-jerk, emotional issues that the media over-fixates on. It’s what perpetuates the idea that all laws, policies and institutions, no matter how much harm they may cause, are seen as being the final unquestionable authority on ethical matters, as if they’ve always existed in the form they take. It’s why we tend to stick to over-simplistic cultural devices to defend our tribalistic tendencies and the harmful ideas that exist in certain communities, industries and cultures. What is the unexplored nuance, complexity and origins of the things in our culture that we’re allowed to do, allowed to say if we hold a certain status or allowed to do or say if it’s done in a certain way? Growing up, I was always lectured and told that I’ve always had “a big mouth” that gets me into trouble. Maybe that’s my strength? I want to blow open a hole in all established narratives and see how much a mess I can make in my lifetime.
This is me in a crazy crazy nutshell. Again, “ambitious” and “intense’ are the words that come to mind here, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. A friend once told me, “If you’re not afraid of your dreams you’re not dreaming big enough.” And trust me, I’m terrified. Good thing my name’s Courage right?
HA!
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
In my very strong view, we need to strive toward a society where everyone has a right to the basic necessities to survive and live a dignified life. If you want anymore than that, you need to work for it! It shouldn’t be so hard to be an artist and survive. Maintaining the basics of life shouldn’t be so difficult that you (by design?) have no time or energy to make something that empowers and inspires people or creates change.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me, the biggest challenge, especially in today’s algorithm-driven social media centric world, is to be seen. For people to know your work, support it enough for you to continue and grow, understand your message and not be drowned out by malicious interests that don’t want your truth heard or seen because it affects their bottom line or narrative. If you see my work and it may resonate with you or someone you know, reach out, share it, tell someone about it–show support in any way you can. That goes for any creative.
When starting my career, I was paralyzed thinking that I had all the makings of someone who was destined to cause “division”, attract hate, be canceled and/or be seen as a serious threat to the status quo that needs to be “shut down.” That was always my greatest fear. I’m now at the point where I can say “Let ‘em try!”, but in order for me to stand a chance and stand for and do everything I just shared, I need many people who believe in me, my work and my best self, past all the flaws and unevolved positions I may have. Not a single thing I believe or said here isn’t under constant reflection on whether it’s something I still can still grow or change from. That’s the biggest part of being human. We all change. So if you’ll honor me by walking with me in my
journey, I promise to always stay humble and consider every way I can better listen and improve who I am as a person!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.couragetheactor.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/couragetheactor
- Facebook: facebook.com/couragetheactornetwork
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/couragetheactor
- Twitter: twitter.com/couragetheactor
- Youtube: youtube.com/couragetheactor
Image Credits
Photo of me at “Divest LA” podium: Photo by Ursula Vari