We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Ryan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jennifer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I first discovered that I wanted to pursue a creative path at the age of 13. A little backstory. My parents were both educators and always felt it was vitally important for children to have an extracurricular activity. They tried me in everything to find something that I was interested in and good at. I tried softball, soccer, cheerleading and gymnastics. I do not have an athletic bone in my body and I was not excited about trying yet another sport. My mom worked with someone who had a child in San Diego Junior Theatre (SDJT) and loved it. I was a shy kid but was willing to try. I started taking classes. I then auditioned for my first musical there called “Here’s Love” and I was cast in the chorus. I loved everything about it. The process of rehearsal, learning choreography and songs, and hanging out with other kids that were creative and different (like me). After the first performance I was absolutely hooked. I went on to do about 12 productions there throughout middle school and high school. I’m not a natural singer, at all, but I was disciplined and took weekly vocal lessons, dance lessons and acting lessons. I knew those were all things I needed to do to be cast in lead roles. And it worked. As my father always said, “hard work, works.” I knew ever since I was 13 that acting is what I wanted to do professionally.
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.
After I graduated high school, I was accepted to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. I graduated from their two year program. After graduation, I was a little lost and couldn’t find an agent. My parents put pressure on me to go to traditional college and work part time, which left no room for acting any longer. I had to put acting and creative pursuits on hold. I ended up earning my degrees, got married, had kids, and worked in corporate America. After my kids got to be teens I jumped back into acting full steam ahead. I started by joining a local acting glass here in San Diego. I had the goal of brushing up my acting so that I could audition for local community theatre. However, my local class was a film and tv acting class taught by a professional working actor, Carey Scott. When I saw his passion for film and tv, along with taking class with other working actors in film and tv, I decided to follow that path. Although, at some point, I would love to do another play. There really is nothing like performing live. I’ve now been back at it for five years and I’m loving every single minute of it. I have been involved with several television productions, commercials, and films since being back in the industry. I also have the same dedication to work on and hone my craft so that I can be the best that I can be and be ready when those great auditions and projects come my way. I’ve been studying now with the acclaimed Los Angeles acting teacher, Howard Fine, on a weekly basis, for the last two years. Shoutout to my Wednesday night acting class peeps at the studio! I also now have a strong agent and manager that I work with. I really couldn’t be happier, or more fulfilled, being back in my craft. It feels like I’m “me” again.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
There are so many rewarding aspects to being an actor. I love storytelling. Being able to bring to life a character someone has written and digging deep to discover that character and how much of that character lives in me that I can bring out. I love making people feel through my work. That goes to if I’m making them laugh in comedy or cry in drama and everything in between. Being an actor is very brave. We are willing to be vulnerable and show ourselves to the audience through our characters. It’s extremely personal but I love sharing myself though my work. Lastly, it’s very rewarding to be able act in way, through a character, that we would never feel comfortable acting out in our real lives. How cool that we get to live many lives through the characters we play?
Besides acting itself, one of my most favorite, and rewarding, things about this industry is being around other creatives. It’s such a beautiful community. Everyone is so passionate about what they do and so willing to support and help each other. We all read for each other for our auditions, support each others wins, and lift each other up when we face rejection (there’s a TON of that in this industry). I really feel that if I had the same support system at the age of 21 that I have now, I would’ve kept persevering in this industry. Plus, we help each other out and cast each other in projects we are working on. I earned my SAG card by being in an actor friend’s film. That speaks to how amazing and supportive this community is of one another, It’s really special and I’m so happy and proud to be a. part of it.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I feel like artists, including actors, are often misunderstood by non-creatives. I think people often think you are just after “being famous” and the glamour of it all. Most have no idea how much work, dedication, and resilience goes on behind the scenes. People often times think it looks easy. Let me tell you, it takes a lot of skill to make it look easy. However, it’s anything but easy. We spend years working on our craft in classes before we may get that “break” where people know our work. And then the term “overnight success” is thrown out there. I can guarantee you that most of those actors have been working years, or decades, behind the scenes to finally get that break. It’s not an overnight success.
Many of my actor friends laugh because every time you see family or friends they always ask “Where can I watch you on tv?” This is very well meaning and people are excited for you and want to see your work on the big screen but I don’t think non-creatives know really how difficult it is to book something notable. I’ve been in many Casting Director workshops where they will say that for each character, even for a very small role, they will receive over 1,000-2,000 submissions of actors for just that one part. They may give auditions to 50, or even less, of those actors. Then only one will ultimately book the role. These are the odds we are working with. Trust me, nobody would love to book it more than the actor themselves but the odds are not in our favor. The only thing we can control is working on our craft so that we are competitive in those auditions. We for sure will let you know when we book something and where you can watch. We will sing it from the rooftops!
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Headshots- Sean Kara Headshots