We were lucky to catch up with Diego Salazar Lira recently and have shared our conversation below.

Diego, appreciate you joining 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.

Back in Elementary School I already had a flair for the stage. I regularly participated in poetry contests, I was part of the Drama Club and even joined the choir and the Jazz Club to learn how to sing and dance – or so I thought. But my first true involvement with Acting and the craft itself was when I entered High School and I joined the Theater Ensemble. That was when names like Stanislavski, Shakespeare, and Artaud started roaming around in my head. I then went on to pursue a Dramatic Literature and Theater degree in University and that was when things became more real.

Learning “how to act” for me has been a journey of self-questioning. Certainly what I thought it was to act when I was in Elementary School or even High School has completely shifted in the last almost ten years. I could say that the more I learned about myself the better I became at it. One of the most prominent acting coaches of the last century that, due to my training I am closer to, Stella Adler, would say that growth as an actor meant growth as a human being, and I truly resonate with that. I strongly believe that to be a good actor, the best thing you can do is being good at living; actors need to love being alive. I think if I had understood this earlier in my life, that would have sped up my learning process, but then again, maybe this is a realization that only came by going down the path I went this last decade.

Interestingly enough, we tend to believe that the most essential skills for an actor are singing, dancing, an able body, a certain look, a certain height, an attractive face… All these things may make you a nice object to be sold for a marketing campaign, but they do not make you an actor. However, the one thing that I can guarantee no respectable actor can do without is a profound sense of observation, of themself and of their surroundings. The more aware we are of our own self, our gifts, our flaws, our fears, our strengths, our trauma, the more we are able to understand what surrounds us. It is a cycle that repeats itself. We see – truly see – our inside, we understand the outside. It is a daily practice that brings awareness into our routine. My first acting coach in College, an outstanding mime and clown in his time, devout to Marcel Marceau, he used to say that Acting was another way of perfecting the soul; some people chose religion, some chose philosophy, and we had chosen Acting.

Like I said, however, this is a daily practice and we must work on this perfecting of ourselves every day. I often wanted change to come from the outside, something to shift and adjust so that I would not feel fear of being judged or misunderstood. This was too an obstacle for me to make progress when I first started acting. I still sometimes go back to those old ways of feeling like I am not enough or like the world I live in is not made for me – this also almost seems narcissistic at times. The truth is, this career does not follow a straight line. It does not follow a corporate ladder where we are certain of what is coming next. This career resembles life, what we do is literally repeat life onstage, so it comes with the same ups and downs that life does. Surmounting an obstacle in our career, means we are also surmounting it in our lives.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Besides being an actor, I have also co-founded two businesses in Mexico: Abroad and Punto Zero. Both ventures started out during the pandemic years, but we do different thins in each.

Abroad is an internationalization agency where we counsel people from all over the world on international applications (often college applications). As part of these applications we teach languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese and French), offer test preparation and immigration consultancy, and translate official documents.

Punto Zero, on the other hand, is a creative studio where we guide SMEs and Startups so that they can connect with their target audience. We provide companies a range of services from Art Direction, Strategy Consulting, Branding, Content Creation, Web Design, and PR and Social Media Marketing.

My business drive was apparently hidden within me until approximately five years ago. I initially started producing plays in 2019, first Equus and then 52 Blue, and from there I realized that I had an amazing vision for business and how to make a new project work. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I took some professional risks, I had been working as an English teacher for four years at a certain school while I was also assisting an editor at a publishing company; the publishing company offered something seemingly more convenient and I decided to leave the language school. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I was laid off soon after I had been hired and suddenly I was unemployed. This moment of uncertainty made me start thinking of ways out from that ditch. I always say that crisis creates opportunity. So, I started talking to my closest friends who had different talents and shared an entrepreneurial spirit with me and we ultimately co-founded Abroad in 2020 and Punto Zero in 2021.

Being an entrepreneur – especially in the creative industry – and an actor has given me a strong sense of sufficiency. I am confident in creating opportunities for myself and in finding likeminded people who want to collaborate with me. It has also given me insight into how business works and how I am supposed to see myself as an asset and exploit my potential. I have continued to produce plays and films, and have debunked the notion that producing is something that is left to a certain elite. Especially in this era, actors need to have multiple talents and need to create their own source of work. There are still some tricks from LA that I am learning, but I am glad to be in a place that challenges me.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Although we see less of it these days, there is still a lot of noise saying artists and creatives are bound to fail. We have set such a high standard of what success looks like that there is very little room for trial and error, and those standards we look up to often have a lot more to do with becoming famous than with becoming successful. I was lucky to have had parents that pursued their own artistic passion: Architecture. Therefore, my journey was always looked at with curiosity and empowerment. However, I still had voices around me saying I needed to come back to the ground, that acting was not a serious career and that without connections I was meant for failure. I am pretty sure those voices never really cultivated their own artistic skills, which we all have. Worse yet, they did not see how art is a way of perfecting our soul and, terrified to face their inner demons, opted to despise it and discourage people like me from pursuing it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Connection is definitely what I value most from this career. We are social beings and need to feel like something connects us to one another. Seeing someone moved by your work or knowing that they could relate to your character’s experience is the most rewarding gift.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/DiegoSalazarLira
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diegosalazarlira/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diego-elias-salazar-lira-9a5161128/

Image Credits

Frida Alexa Martínez Sánchez, Kim Fowler, Teodora Avramovic