We were lucky to catch up with Jesus Chavarria recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jesus, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
Where do I even begin? Well, I’m a first generation college graduate and first time performer in my Mexican family. It is important to say that a life as a performer or anything having to do with the arts was never in the cards for me, that is until I decided to take a leap of faith and audition for a performing arts college. What was an even bigger risk was my attending said college after I was accepted. When it comes to Latinx families, it is expected for our kin to pursue something grand, whether that be a medical degree, or a law degree, so you can only imagine the grand risk that this was. Three years later and I can say that I’ve graduated, earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts, and am living in Los Angeles California pursuing my dream every single day.
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?
Hey! My name is Jesus A. Chavarria, I’m a 22 year old Latinx actor from southwest Texas, living in Los Angeles pursuing his acting career. I first began to dabble in the arts at the age of 12 in 7th grade when I joined the middle school band program as well as the theatre program and that summed up my middle and high school journey. Band and theatre were the two major extra curricular activities that kept me sane. It was the summer before my senior year of high school that I decided to audition for a performing arts college and low and behold, I got accepted. Deep down, this was something that I had always dreamt about, but was far too afraid to pursue due to my family. It is crucial to note that in Mexican families we live by one motto, “what will everyone else think?” And that is exactly what held me back for most of my life, until I saw a glimpse of what could be if I took this leap of faith. I’ve known from a young age that I love to tell stories, and doing so through acting, singing, and dancing, I mean how could I say no? I know that it was difficult for my parents to fully support me, but one of my proudest moments that I’ve achieved is to be able to show my parents a commercial that I was a part of and proving to them that I was gonna be okay.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One of the lessons that I was taught in life was to always strive to be the best at what you do and I think the overall message about that lesson is to always work on your craft and strive for perfection. But now that I have numerous experiences under my belt I think I’d rather change that phrase to continuously work on your craft even when you are “the best.” To be completely honest I think I would rather strive to be second to best because at least I know that I’m going to keep working on my craft until I achieve being the “best.”
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
I personally think that as a society we should go out and watch all sorts of movies, shows, visit museums, support small business whenever you can! Hell, watch that garbage movie that nobody likes and see what you think. I think as person in society watching all sorts of artistic media can help you develop your owns tastes and some that you have yet to discover. I also think that artists should be doing the same because it help inform you as to what works for you and what doesn’t. Why does this persons acting create such a depth and sense of relatability and how can I do the same?
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @jesus.a.chavarria
