Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gabby Ostuni. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Gabby, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

The short answer is yes, I have always felt I would be way further along if I had started pursuing acting sooner rather than later. But a more realistic and honest answer is that I started pursuing this career at the exact moment I needed to FOR ME.
With acting, nothing is guaranteed. Like most creative careers, there’s no perfect formula to guarantee success. There are so many paths to follow in the pursuit of this career that it’s almost a personal journey in how you proceed.
I started pursuing acting seriously when I moved to New York City in 2019. I was 26 years old and had graduated college 3 years prior to that.
I had no real direction while in college because there was no one career that I was interested in. I took so many classes from so many different departments that I ended up graduating with an Interdisciplinary studies degree.

Always with the dream of being an actor in the back of my head but shoving it deeper and deeper in the back because “acting is not a real job” not unless you start as a child.

That is the narrative I told myself since the moment the idea of being an actor popped into my head.
I had to have started as a child, I needed my parents to support the idea and guide me in my pursuit. I needed to have access to classes and auditions and agents. I needed to look prettier and skinnier. I needed someone to “discover me.”
When I was a teenager, I thought “I missed my chance.” If I didn’t do it as a kid I won’t be able to do it now. While I was in college I thought “well if I’m here but not majoring in theater then I’ll never be an actor.
I graduated and found myself working in the service industry to pay rent. I reached a moment when I fully accepted that a career in acting was never going to happen. Not that I ever tried. But it was this relief of pressure that allowed me to start taking classes and auditioning for short films. I thought now that it’s not happening for sure I can do it for the love of it and just enjoy myself. After a couple of years of this, a light bulb went off and my confidence shot up. Why can’t I pursue something professionally that I love doing so much? It’s not like I was doing anything else that I loved.
After years of creating false narratives and excuses, I decided I CAN do this. And I can do it NOW. I’m ready now! I packed up, moved to New York and studied at a professional acting conservatory. I am 32 years old and recently graduated and now I am happily pursuing my dream everyday.
Now I believe that I had to go through all these things in life to become the person that would pack up and go to New York to pursue the career of my dreams. The person that I was as a kid or in high school or in college was not the person that was ready for this yet. Life made me who I am today. Someone that didn’t need anyone to tell them how to do it or when to do it.
I needed to do it in my own way and in my own time, not sooner or later but in the exact time that I did it.

Gabby, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Gabby Ostuni, and I am a New York based actor. This is the introduction I use for every one of my self-tape auditions. Since I am here to share about my acting career, I thought it would be appropriate to start the same way.
I started taking dance classes when I was eight years old and fell completely in love with performing. I wasn’t exposed to the theater at that age, but watching tv shows, movies and even news reporters, was an exhilarating experience. I didn’t fully understand that those were all real jobs that anyone could pursue. I just remember being mesmerized by their performance and thinking, “I want to do that.”

When I moved to the United States, my school only had a cheer team, so I joined and had a blast doing it. By this time, I realized acting was a career that I could pursue, but it was not something in the cards for me. I was too scared to even say it out loud. In high school I decided to take a drama class. However, because my school didn’t have a drama department, no one really took it seriously. Eventually I signed up for an acting camp and that was my first taste of putting on a play. Learning lines and building a character was so liberating and so much fun. In college I was able to take a few acting classes, and it really confirmed my love for it.

After graduating college, while working in the service industry and having no pressure to pursue an acting career, I began taking more classes and auditioning for plays and short films. With every short I filmed I fell more and more in love. I made the decision to move to New York, where I auditioned and got into The Stella Adler Studio of Acting Conservatory. For two years I worked every morning and went to class every night. It was probably the hardest and most rewarding experience of my life.

One of my proudest moments was playing a Latina character in the graduation production of El Nogalar by Tanya Saracho, at Stella Adler Conservatory. I’ve always struggled with my relationship to my Spanish heritage. I moved to the states when I was 10 years old. Although I speak Spanish fluently and I am very proud to be from Venezuela, I’ve always had trouble with “not being Spanish enough” or “American enough.” I had never acted in Spanish before, and doing this play really helped me connect with my Hispanic side. Not only was I able to connect more, but it gave me this hunger to embrace it and immerse myself in it. If the only thing theater and acting ever did for me was help me connect back to my Spanish roots, I consider this career to be a success for me.

Coming from a place where I thought something like this did not exist for me, to now being able to call myself a “New York based actor,” is the thing I am the proudest of. Trusting myself, my love for the craft, and my willingness to learn was the only thing I needed.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

When I got the confidence to pursue this career, one of the things I would do was listen to podcasts on acting. Listening to actors at different stages of their journeys was very motivating. I loved listening to working actors and their hustle in the industry. I loved hearing about their audition prep, rejection stories, relationship to agents and managers, and the schools they went to.

There was something very inspiring about listening to interviews of more well-known actors and how they made it. Whether they got discovered randomly or if it was the resilience in their pursuit, hearing the individual journeys was a huge motivator for me. But the one question I always had was, how did they build the confidence to reach the position they are in now?

I believe I would have benefitted more from listening to actors that were just starting out like me. I would have loved to hear how they also had this desire to act, but no idea on where to start. I would have loved to hear how they found the confidence to do something no one around them was doing. How did they fight the naysayers in their heads? I wish I had heard more from those that had a different career and changed it all for acting. Those that started a little bit later in life, or those that finally mustered up the courage to do what they love.

I’m excited about working on this podcast, mainly because I want to give people the podcast that I needed when I was starting out: A podcast on the mind set behind entering this big and scary industry. I will be speaking on the struggle of believing in yourself, along with sharing my story. I’m bringing in actors at different stages of their journeys, and we will discuss all of the intricate details that go along with deciding on a career in acting.

The ultimate goal is to reach all those that want to show us their talent but don’t feel ready. They ARE ready. If they don’t believe in themselves yet, I’ll believe in them until they get there.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up I always thought the best way to get through life was to blend in. I believed that going along with what everyone did was the right thing to do. I made it a point to never stand out or do anything too different from what was common or popular. I think this came from being a people pleaser and being really scared to disappoint my family.
This is one of the reasons it took me so long in life to pursue acting. I didn’t know anyone in my life that was doing anything like this, so I didn’t even think it was a possibility for me.
Living life this way was debilitating. I was not happy and I had to make a change
Taking this risk really changed my perspective on everything. It has been so liberating realizing that I could just be me. I didn’t need permission from anyone to be myself. I learned to trust myself and my decisions.
Learning that it’s ok to be different and that my uniqueness is what has allowed me to succeed as an actor, and artist and a human being.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: ggabby_or

Image Credits

Sarah Jack @sarahjackphotography

Gabriel Kearns @gabrielkearns.jpeg