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

Joshua, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?

Currently, I’m signed with Daryl Schwartzberg from play management that represents me with the acting aspect of things and my manager, Tania Peralta that helps me with everything else in life.

I was signed to an agency for a few years and entertaining the idea of pivoting from acting for a while to focus on something more financially stable.

Finishing, what I thought would be the final project. I work on in a while called Next Stop. I met a producer on the set, Soko Negash. She was telling me about this film that they’re looking for funding called box cutter, she told me the story, and I fell in love with it and asked if I could audition for it. When the time comes two years later, Soko sends me direct message via Instagram asking me if I still wanted to audition. Because this was literally years in the making I remember doing at least 60 to 90 takes trying to get it right but sent in what I felt was the best and whatever happened happened.

When I sent in my audition, the casting Director, Tannaz Keshavarz- Agulto sent me an email inquiring about me. I wanted to set up a meeting, we talked about once, needs, career goals, etc. I thought that I had another meeting set up with Daryl and ended up signing to play, which I’ve been with for a year now.

I decided to work with them because a lot of people that I respected are on the roster, Golden Madison being one of them. And also I felt the need for something new.

I can’t see why they decided to work with me. I can only hope they believe I have a long lasting career as an actor as long as I have the discipline to work towards that.

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 the people that don’t know me my name is Joshua Obra. I’m an actor/creative born and raise in Toronto Canada, Scarborough to be exact. Majority of my life I never really aimed for anything I was mostly cruising through life, high school Mentary I didn’t play any sports. I was too afraid to explore hobbies at a high-level, always picking up putting them down, but it wasn’t until I was forced to pivot from a more academic career to a creative one I was studying to be a nurse because I enjoy helping people, but it was clear that the medical field wasn’t my outlet to do so because of my grades. After course correcting, I coasted for a bit just working jobs and it wasn’t until I came across a construction opportunity to do interlocking that changed my life with the worse, ultimately leading me to the direction of the arts trigger warning! I remember waking up every day, wishing I wasn’t here because of how much I hated my occupation. One day I got into an altercation with my employer and I walked off the site with that being the last time to do anything for money as well as anything I don’t enjoy. This was one of the most vivid experiences I’ve ever had but one night I just said out loud that I’m going to pursue acting and it felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders to this day. Very few feelings I’ve experiences as an adult that, meet up to that. That was in 2015, now looking back with it being almost 10 years. I’m an actor who is still on the come up with intentions to give up any resources or information I may have with the people who are interested in exploring acting. My manager and I started collective to where we share resources and give opportunities to actors of all levels. Right now as I’m writing this , we will be having our first headshot series where we give 12 actors the opportunity to be photographed by an award-winning photographer Anthony gibber Hewitt, free of charge, and as a time passes, we intend to gather more resources to be able to provide and multiplied number of people we could give access to these opportunities. I remember starting out not knowing where to start so It’s important for me to give back while I’m able to because why not.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, I feel the most rewarding aspects of being a creative are always when you put into scenarios or projects that force you to grow out of your comfort zone, where you can learn something new or I’m learning right now that when you give back to your community, I feel as that they are able to energize me similar to a feeling when you see yourself on the big screen or your family is able to interact with your work in real time. Community workers important, I never feel like you can do too much of it because there is always going to be community and people looking for resources and information and I want to be the one provide the way I can

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The book I feel that has made the most impact on my life has to be the four agreements that my friend Sydnie got for me on my birthday. The principles I found in that book are so simple, but I found have made a drastic impact on my psychology.

The first part of the book introduces how each of the agreements can shape the way we think about ourselves and act to others. The middle of the book is dedicated to explaining the Four Agreements, which are: Be impeccable with your word, Don’t take anything personally, Don’t make assumptions and Always do your best.

By far, the biggest Takeaway for me was don’t take anything personally, especially in this business where I find people usually say things just to say them, with auditioning, thinking that you got the job because the director or casting Director gives you so much praise, realizing that there isn’t much that’s in your control… Facing rejection on a daily has become a norm and the sooner you’re able to understand/adopt these principles I want to say it could lead to a happier life.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: loveobra
• Linkedin: Joshua Obra

Image Credits

celine brown @celinebrownn