Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Erika Marks. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Erika , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?
If you asked me this question when I was a younger actor, I would have, of course, said “EARLIER! SOONER THE BETTER!”. I’m sure most young creatives feel this way, like time is not on our side. Early in my career, late teens /early 20s, I always was thinking how lucky child actors were, getting their resume bult up young, years of training from an early age, and having connections I would sell my left arm for before they’ve finished growing. Even though I was not perusing my creative career as a child, I was honing the skills that I would need for this path. I was making connections with the world around me, and embarking on my career for over two decades before I even knew it. Looking back now, I can see how clearly the path to a career in film and television was being laid out.
In elementary school I did a few community plays, I would write full movie plots to be acted out over recess with my friends and put on shows with my cousins for the family. In middle school, I started at Second City doing sketch and improv, and then making movies with my first camera phone and using those lovely early computer graphics. High school I remade Monty Python and the Holy Grail for a class (no this was not the assignment, and yes, my class did think this was a very weird thing for me to do), I started acting in the school plays, taking theatre classes, and continuing at Second City in their young adult groups. When I was 16, I was cast in my first short film, and I never looked back. On that set, the director asked me if I wanted to go into acting as a career, and that was the exact moment I realized that acting could be a career, not just something little kids want to do, like princess or spy (both of which I do think I’d be pretty good at).
So truly, though my career did not begin until I was in college, or even after, I was finding my way to the screen and acting at every step along the way. Each timeline is unique, and isn’t that what’s beautiful about being an artist?
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
The first time I felt like a true professional actor was when I was in college. Robert Love, in Madison, Wisconsin was hosting open auditions for some voice over and mocap work, and of course, I signed up. Our audition session was pure magic, the way we worked together was seamless. We both knew before leaving that room that we were going to have a stellar future of film making together. I got a message from him a few weeks later telling me that he wrote a spy/sleuth short called The Chronicles of Samantha Derringer: A Deadly Game, where he wrote Samantha for me. This was the first project I was cast in where I was working with professionals. Before, I had made a few short student films, and lots of shot gun videos made on my camera phone, all with my peers. Now, I was not only working beside professionals, one actually being my college professor, but somehow lucky enough to be the lead in the film.
This was where I got a glimpse of what my acting career in Hollywood would be like, taking in everything that happened on set, never missing what was going on either side of the camera. The days were long, and yet I never wanted to leave. I knew on that set that I wanted to spend all my days, for the rest of my life, telling stories like this. Although I was already a declared theatre major, everything was so hypothetical for me, but now I could picture it. Love and I made three films before I moved away, and we have even worked together on projects from afar. He was the first director not just to believe in me, but to make me believe in myself.
Now, being a working professional actor, I take lessons from every set I have stepped on and am living the life I first imagined on a garage set in Wisconsin. Each year I grow and search for new opportunities, new projects, and new connections. Continuously diving deeper into the life that I always wanted to live. My favorite genre of any film I have worked on, or could work on, is comedy horror. If I had a chance to play any role in any show, Chanel Oberlin in Scream Queens without a question (Hi Ryan Murphy if you need anyone to scream for you, hit me up).
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
There are a few social and systematic changes that I think would be incredibly beneficial for the artistic community. To start, I have always been a huge advocate for STEAM over STEM. The fact that so few children and teenagers have access to arts as a part of their curriculum is astounding to me. The benefits on a developing mind being as engaged in the arts as they are with math and sciences are truly insurmountable. Even if these kids do not go into an artistic profession, having some foundation in it will benefit any career they end up working in, from helping with creative problem solving, to presenting and public speaking.
Another thing that many artists, especially actors, need to do is change the way that we view one another. I have said it a million times, but acting is a community, not a competition. Each actor, and each human being for that matter, is completely unique. Even if you are up for the same role, it is not you versus them, but rather, Casting finding the right embodiment of a character. When I was in college, I had a professor tell me that “everyone in the casting room is rooting for you to succeed, they want you to be the answer to their problem” (aka the casting of the role). That is true for every actor in every audition room. We aren’t being pitted against one another, but each showing what we have until their vision for their created character is met. No one succeeds without help, every time we have a success, there are a thousand people who lifted us up along the way to get there. Share your connections, share your stories, share your growth. Success is a community endeavor, and we all need to support one another, seeing each other as allis, not competitors.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
As I stated earlier about acting being a community, when those connections are fostered, there is very little that is more rewarding. Something that I noticed early on (as is true for all aspects of life), IT PAYS TO BE NICE. Being yourself and being kind (assuming those things are synonymous) is one of the best possible things you can be. It is such an incredible feeling when you are working with someone on a new set, and it feels like you worked together on all ten seasons of Friends. The number of times where these kinds of relationships lead to more work, more connections, and more cool people is innumerable. The boundaries of personal vs professional relationships are extra tricky in this industry, but once you start being able to balance that, the rewards of these connections are vast.
I’ll walk you through a fun line of how some of these connections can work. So, about a year-ish ago I signed with my manager, Kacie Newport, who she and I from the second we laid eyes on each other KNEW that we were going to have a fruitful relationship and career together. Kacie recommended for me to get some new headshots with another woman she works with, Kimberlee Peterson. Again, I got to that shoot, and we had FIREWORKS. The amount of fun we had shooting together, and the easy communication and relationship we had while creating that final product, made us know we had to keep working together. Now, she and I shoot together on a regular basis creating high fashion and editorial photos/art and have become true friends.
On Kimberlee and my first editorial shoot together, me and the makeup artist, Samantha Chapman, vibed super well (I say vibe now that I live in LA). Sammy reached out to me a few weeks later and got me on a Donna Karan shoot when another model dropped out. A shoot I never would have stepped foot on without a modeling agency if it weren’t for her calling me while I was at work.
A few months ago, Kimberlee and Kacie recommended me to hop on a music video set in the strike simply to meet cool people and make a few connections (and because they both know how much I love to dance). I got on set with Holy Wars, who since then have become one of my favorite bands, Kat (their lead singer) has become an idol of mine, and I have worked on two videos and one photoshoot with them, all within a few months.
Connections lead to connections lead to connections lead to connections.
Be nice, be authentic, be someone people want to work with again, and they will.
Contact Info:
- Website: erikakmarks.com
- Instagram: @erikakmarks
- Youtube: @erikakmarks
- Other: imdb.com/name/nm9141845
Image Credits
Lotta Photo for all photos