We were lucky to catch up with Dustin Whitehead recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Dustin, thanks for joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?
Both of my parents were always great about supporting me as an artist. Not only were they okay with it, they believed it was a valuable career to pursue.
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.
I am an actor and filmmaker from Chicago IL. As an actor I have worked on numerous independent films as well as the nationally televised NBC shows Chicago PD and Chicago Fire. I am the artistic director of Local Cinema Studios, a non-profit that helps students and recent graduates find their way into the film industry. In the summer of 2022, I directed the feature film Hero, a coming-of-age drama about a young artist struggling to find his place in the world. The film has played at the River Run Film Festival (Winston Salem, NC), The Sunscreen Film Festival (St Pete, FL), The Manhattan Film Festival (NYC), and in November it will play at both the Afro South Film Festival (Charleston, SC), and The Rome International Film Festival (Rome, GA). My previous feature film, Bruiser (2020), in which I played the lead role, screened at the Sarasota Film Festival, the Southeastern Film Festival, the Silent River Film Festival (Best Actor Award*), and the Spirit of Independence Film Festival in London. You can now watch it on Amazon Prime. My Chicago theatre acting credits include The Goodman, Steppenwolf, Chicago Dramatists, American Theatre Company, Redtwist, The Inconvenience, Lakeside Shakespeare, and Congo Square. I have been teaching acting at the University of South Carolina for four years. I received my BFA in Performance from Jacksonville University and MFA in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. I also studied filmmaking in Singapore at NYU Tisch Asia.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
A few books I recommend:
* On Acting – Sanford Meisner
* Declan Donnellan – The Actor and the Target
* Sonia Moore – The Stanislavski System
* Michael Shurtleff – Audition
* Judith Weston – Directing Actors
* Julia Cameron – The Artists Way
* Stephen King – On Writing
* Cal Newport – Deep Work
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I teach acting. And I am often reminding actors to pay attention to their partner keep the focus on them. An actor concerned with themselves is not interesting. As an audience we are interested in action and emotion coming up as a result of that action. And life, to me, is just like great acting. If I can take the attention off myself and put it on others, I move closer towards truth, meaning, and freedom. It is a beautiful thing to put other people first.
Rules I strive to live by:
Be Humble
Be Collaborative
Be Honest
Contact Info:
- Website: dustinwhitehead.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mydustylens/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whiteheaddustin
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin-whitehead-542a9360
- Other: localcinemastudios.com