We were lucky to catch up with Drake Aasen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Drake, thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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 am still very much in the process of making this passion of mine a full-time career. I am not there yet, but I have come far enough to be able to look back and see a long list of triumphs and failures and I am grateful to be able to even say that much. To pursue this career is to constantly be learning and I think that is one of the main things that keeps me so invested in it.

I was always aware that I wanted to pursue performance full-time, but I didn’t know to what end. I think my first step towards my career was nailing down exactly where I wanted to divert my efforts, and for me, that was film and television work.

While I have done live theatre for over 15 years at this point, the reason I chose to go after film & tv is because I was so inexperienced with it. Leading up to college, I had done a small part in a short film, a few commercials, and a few self-directed things here and there, but I had never had any legit experience in front of the camera. For me, pursuing film & television felt like a fresh start where I could still apply all that I had learned onstage, but bring it to a whole new medium.

That brings me to the single most important thing I have learned about this craft – STAY CURIOUS. Being curious about this industry has helped me forge connections, discover intricacies about different avenues within it, and in some cases, landed me roles. It is the greatest tool that someone can have because it immediately demonstrates passion, work-ethic, and confidence without spelling it out for anyone.

Curiosity was vital when I was starting out in this industry. It is so important to be able to take a good look at yourself in the mirror and know where you stand in relation to everyone else. It isn’t about comparing yourself to them or trying to be the best. Rather, once you know where you stand, you know what questions to ask to get the answers you need to move to the next step. For example, I knew that I needed an agent, but I didn’t know what they were looking for. Rather than blindly submitting to whatever agencies I could, I asked around to all sorts of people I know – connections to the industry or not. “What are agents looking for?” “What markets would you recommend working out of?” “This headshot or this one?”. Just that helped me refine my pitch that I was sending out to agencies, instead of doing it retroactively. Curiosity is the difference between coming in looking like you have no idea what you’re doing and going in knowing exactly what you don’t know and assuring them that you’re willing to learn it.
 
As far as the job itself and the skillset required, that can also be heavily assisted by curiosity. Say you’re working on a musical or play. You’ve been rehearsing with these people for a while, and you notice that one of your castmates makes a choice within a scene that is different from how they normally portray it. When they have a second, ask them why they made that choice. Was it intentional? Did it have the result they intended? These are open-ended questions with no right or wrong answers. I have met actors that never deliver the lines the same way twice, and others who find something that works, and stick with it forever. Neither are bad. Figuring out how somebody else approaches something can help you inform your own process.

Finally, on that; it is hard to find a process. I have been constantly changing mine since the day I started acting. If something works for you – use it. If you want to try something out – do it. Don’t be afraid to fail. I find myself falling into that from time to time and it is one of the biggest things to hold people back from realizing their potential.

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

I was born in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, but I was raised in Fargo, North Dakota. I was surrounded by performers growing up both within my family and within the community I was raised in. People making art their career has always been a given for me. I connected with the idea of someone being so passionate about something that they could live off of doing just that thing. I think I connected with theatre and film so much because they are such people-driven experiences. Everything you do demands connections with the people around you and comradery. Consistently, my favorite thing about this industry is meeting new people and befriending them. It is also amazing to see what lasting impressions you can have on other people and those that they can have on you. In a way, I think the mark that I have left on other people is one of the things I am most proud of. To see someone you know succeed in any capacity is always amazing. But it strikes a special chord when you know that you’ve left a positive mark on them.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think one of the biggest things I’ve had to unlearn is to not expect the world at first. What I mean by that is, obviously set your sights on your goal – no matter what it is, but don’t expect the first thing that happens to get you there.

(Before this story I want to prefect that I do not speak for all, or even any agents, as I am not involved in that side of the process. I can only relay my experiences, and what I have taken away from them.)

For me, this was learned when I was first looking for an agent. At the time of this story, I had recently had the pleasure of meeting an agent who represents some of the biggest names in Hollywood. My intention was, after this meeting, to pull them aside and ask if they could represent me too. Let me just get ahead of it and say DO NOT DO THIS. It just sets a bad first impression across the board. I luckily learned this the easy way, because I saw someone do exactly that right before I got to talk to them. This person went up to them with a headshot and resume and asked to be signed next and they were not having it. It just creates such an awkward atmosphere because doing that, gives the impression that you think that you’re on par or better than the A-list actors that they already represent. Even if you are, there’s a difference between knowing you’re good, and unjustifiably flaunting your talent. Not to mention, someone with as much experience and success as them, knows exactly what to look for in someone they’re scouting and can point you out of a crowd even if you don’t say anything. The biggest thing is respect. You have to earn it; you can’t show it. You earn respect for actors, agents, directors, by seeing their body of work or hearing them speak about it. The difference is though, you have to have done the work to get there. Even if nobody knows about your movie, you still worked on it, struggled through it, and learned from it. Even if you don’t outwardly acknowledge it, you change for the better by doing it. I think I have learned more from awful sets than I have from my favorite ones.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

To anyone, but especially to actors, I recommend Matthew McConaughey’s, “Green Lights”, Jenna Fischer’s, “The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide”, and Matthew Perry’s memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing”. Each of these books gives drastically different but very insightful looks into the industry, struggles of being an actor, and their own experience on how to get where they were/are.

Beyond that, my advice is to be well-read. Even if your literature isn’t about the industry you’re going into, just read books.

Contact Info:

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Image Credits

Eric Dean, Maya Culian, Faith Wilsted