We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Esdras Toussaint a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Esdras, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

I don’t know if this is the kindest thing that someone has ever done for me, I’m not comfortable with the idea of quantifying kindness, but in middle school I had a teacher who devoted a great deal of time to making me a feel seen and heard, and that experience changed my life forever. His name was Mr. Z. He was the 7th grade math teacher at Horace Mann Middle School. Before meeting him, I had been suspended and expelled several times for getting into fights with those that picked on me. You see, I had migrated to the U.S. just two years earlier at the age of 11 and, I was having a hard time dealing with the cultural differences, including the language which I did not speak well. Kids, being kids, would often make fun of me for a variety of reasons. And I would lash out and fight them every time. During one of those fights, Mr. Z intervened. His intervention might have gone very much like all the ones before, but Mr. Z had two supper powers: He spoke french, and he actually gave a flying f@#k. After stopping the fight, he invited me into his classroom and spoke to me. And, for the first time since arriving in the U.S., someone heard me when I was talking to them. He did not try to blame, correct, or change my perspective of the event. He simply listened.

For the rest of my time at Horace Mann, I would turn to him and he was always available. He became my Homeroom teacher in the 8th grade, and we continued our conversations all that year. I did not get into anymore fights, and by the end of 8th grade I won the title of the Most Turned Around Student Award. I believe till this day that it was a made up award that Mr. Z came up with to help me feel accomplished. But even without the award, HE was the person that made the difference in me. I am forever grateful to Mr. Z.

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?

For most of my life I resisted being an actor because I never really thought of it as a “real” job. Like most of us, I was raised to be pragmatic. I grew up thinking that the only available option for me to make a living was to find a career that more perfectly aligned with the norms of our society. The people I knew as “successful” had these jobs like doctors, lawyers, and engineers. I hated the other two, so I was going to be a lawyer. Furthermore, there was always a negative connotation attached to artists, especially those just starting out. I had the dream, but I don’t think the dream itself would have ever been enough to sway me to follow the path of an artist. The dream started coming into focus only when the reality for which I had worked so hard “proved to be an idle theme”.

Suddenly and all at once it all came crumbling down when my marriage ended and all that was associated with it collapsed. I learned a very important and valuable lesson from that experience: nothing is guaranteed in life. All of my conformity and conservatism did not ensue security or happiness. I had to lose my inclination for security and take some chances. So, I took an acting class.

I don’t mean to suggest that everything came easy after that. Far from it. Each day brought with it new challenges. But my mindset had changed. While before I would stubbornly follow the rules of others, I was now making my own rules and following a path that brought great meaning to my life. By staying open and freeing myself from the shackles of security I have found more opportunities along the path and I am never afraid to say yes to something new.

I am not just an actor today. I am also a producer, writer, director, college professor, father, and grandfather and I wouldn’t change that for anything. However, I will also not close the door to the unknown wonderments to come.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

What a great question!

I think I had to unlearn the meaning of success. For some time, I defined success as material prosperity and I was willing to do anything to achieve that, including being non-indigenous to my own nature.

Early in my acting career, I tried so hard to be like Denzel Washington. He was successful and doing everything “right”, and I wanted very much to be a success in the biz. Tried, as I may, no success game my way. For six years, I had been trying to be someone I wasn’t and could never be. Denzel Washington was perfect at being himself, and the world did not need a fake Denzel mucking things up. I finally got tired and decided that I was going to give me a try. And, wouldn’t you know it, I was actually good at being me. I was so good at being me that not even the great Denzel Washington could be as good as I was at it. Slowly, but surely, I started to find my way and success soon followed. That was a great lesson to have learned: the path to success can only be traveled by one’s true self. I think that is what I try to instill in my students today: That they must be themself, trust themself, and define their own meaning of success.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is the freshness and rawness. I love that everyday brings with it a different set of novelty and originality, and that what is created today can never be created again the same way. That is what I love most about my work. It’s like live theater. You can go see the same play everyday of the week and never see the same performance twice. Every actor’s performance changes from moment to moment in front of an audience that is itself different every night taking in and reacting to the present moment. Getting to experience something new each time you do it is the best part of being an artist for me. I also like teaching for the same reason. No two students learn the same way. I love finding that in. That in that lets me know how best to connect a lesson to the individual so that it resonates with them. Oh, what fun!