We recently connected with Destiny Harris and have shared our conversation below.
Destiny, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
The sentence “How did you learn to do what you do?” when discussing acting is well … very, I don’t know… it seems as if I “finished”. To let ya’ in on a little secret, I didn’t ! EVERY SINGLE DAY I am still learning my craft and quite frankly, I don’t think an actor’s craft should come to a Finish. From being on Broadway, having your show’s posters all around Times Square — with flashing lights around it, and having your audience wait for you afterwards just to get your scribble scrabble signature. Or from being in front of the camera, having the movie premieres, streaming on Hulu, Netflix, and all the other many streaming networks. Now this is the magic moment, an actor’s “promotion” or some label it as “luck”. But what’s dropped from all of this “luck” are the years of preparation it takes an actor just for one of these opportunities. With knowing all that I know now, what could I have done to speed this up? Well, in simple terms go to THERAPY. Jokes… that was just a joke… However, as demanding as it is to be an actor from YEARS of training in everything and somehow having a full time job on the “side” of that, being told “No” 97% of the time, and OH YEAH wait one huge thing: Learning WHO YOU ARE , the complete ins and outs of yourself— just so, you can transform yourself into a character from a script that you MIGHT get. I know I just gave you everything that should make the normal run from this career however, I wouldn’t want to trade it for anything else. There is no better feeling than when your Craft finally becomes an Art Form. I’m imaging it ( since, I still don’t got it yet, remember?) after a long day of walking and being on your feet all day, never sitting down once for 20 hours and finally, getting home to take your shoes off. Skills that I know are essential from my little amount of experience are: Strong Work Ethics, A Passion, and your own Vulnerability. It takes a lot of work to acquire these skills especially, the last one — every single day is a new learning experience you can’t let your own pride and ego get in the way of this learning or you’ll triple the amount of time and just block your blessing.
Destiny, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
You ever hear the sang “Fate decided for her” — hopefully not because I just made that up, I think anyways… Growing up I was the kid who became any and every movie she watched. I’m talking from a time in the summer of June 2008, after I first watched all the Step Ups and Stomp The Yard — I was the next best Moose for that whole two months. Every time that it rained, I was outside standing in our street’s pothole that was filled with it’s dirt and of course now the rain, practicing my “In the Rain” dance that Moose did in Step Up 2. Or how when I was in my PRETEENS I watched one zombie movie, Dawn of The Dead and I immediately made zombie cased files and PowerPoints to present to my mother — who was what you call a “disbeliever”… and forced her to listen to those at least once a week. On top of watching every single kind of zombie movie there was during this obsession period — which I may say this was the longest phase of mine. There’s so many more, still to this second but to leave one more: on this day I must of heard a real good song but I decided in the fourth grade that I was going to be a rapper. In my mind all I had to do was sign a paper— which was easy my teacher could give me that. As you can see that didn’t turn out well considering my friends at school laughed at me and my mother once again, being the “dream shutter downer” said “Uhhh…. Maybe a different dream Des”.
I am a professional working actress in Film, Commercial, and Theatre currently training at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City !
What I am most proud of is me finally listening to my calling to be an actor. It’s been about three years now since, I’ve decided to pack up and leave my home in Toledo, Ohio to first go to train in Dallas, Texas to now New York City! Within majority of my time so far being training— I’ve gotten about 8 months of working professionally in the industry and I absolutely love every ounce of it.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I LOVE life and I yearn for more of it every single day! Dramatic Disclaimer but for since I could remember, I’ve always loved humans and valued life so much. Which is why I need more of it and that doesn’t just apply to me getting the role of a character but “more of it” by being able to use those characters to save the REAL lives struggling, sinking, etc. in the world with the messages from every stage play, TV Show, and movie that I do!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn was being “tough” and not expressing my emotions when I felt other than “Happy”. Due to how I was raised, neighborhood I grew up in, people that said things to me, etc. As obvious as this is going to sound, Learning that I was a human with emotions that are the same in us all as far as happiness, anger, sadness, etc. and there’s no right or wrong time to express them — is something that I sometimes still can’t comprehend. To be able to allow yourself to feel instead of always living in your nervous system’s “freeze” mode and just becoming numb to everything in the world — isn’t helping you or ANYBODY around you as much as you think it is. We’re made with these emotions for a reason and to block ourselves from being able to have them destroys our one and only body. With that being said I hope that you all no matter where you are in life come to your own self’s truth and unapologetically live in it!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imdestinyharris/
