We recently connected with Kristi Taylor and have shared our conversation below.

Kristi, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

When I was a kid, I loved making homemade movies with my cousins. We would put so much effort into them making them into our best renditions of those movies we’d seen in the theaters. Eventually, we began writing and creating stories on the spot for movie making as well.

But, it wasn’t until I had a few years of community theatre and little film projects under my belt, that I started thinking it might be something I could do forever. The moment of absolute clarity was when I was going to college pursuing a degree in Forensic Pathology. I actually caught myself while making my schedule for classes, figuring out how I could squeeze in more time for acting, singing, filming and so forth.

It felt like God was telling me that if I wanted to work that hard at creating more time to do what I love, why not do it full time and figure out how to do it for Him. So, I did. And it’s been the best decision of my life.

Kristi, 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?

I began doing little shows/programs in elementary school…the kind the school made us do for the parents to come and see the kiddos say a line or two and have us dress up super cute. Then, after doing a couple of theatrical productions where I had to audition at the school, I began to seek out shows elsewhere too.

Doing a few theatre shows alongside making homemade movies with my cousins lit a fire of inner performer within me. I constantly sang showtunes and was making up scripts in my head and could not wait for the next moment I had to be able to put those on screen or do them on stage.

I grew up being taught to work for everything you have. You must earn respect through hard work, diligence, and humbleness. During the summers, I spent time with my grandparents who owned a farm. Learning how to bale hay, feed and tend to the farm animals, and drive a tractor is just the tip of the iceberg. The mentality of getting your hands dirty to get a job done the right way I think, sparked my attention to detail for character building and research for how I portray characters. You can’t just halfway learn something if you want to be successful. You can’t expect others to do it for you and you get the credit. You must learn it yourself to the full and then apply all you’ve learned. And if you fail, you try again.

Then, as I mentioned previously, I went to college for Forensic Pathology. My mindset at that time was to someday help solve the biggest crimes for the FBI and whatnot. I figured that type of job, which is extremely interesting would always be needed because crime is always going to be around. And even though I thoroughly enjoyed my classes and the material I was learning, I still felt as though I was missing something. I kept telling myself I wanted to make a difference in the world through performance, whether it be portraying happy, sad, true stories, or fiction… I made room in my schedule to be able to perform and eventually decided to change my major so that I could do what I was meant to do full time.

I still worked in corporate America for a while, while pursuing this goal. Basically, I knew that if I wanted to make it full time in the Entertainment Industry, I needed to work whatever jobs came my way so that I could pay my way through college for the necessary education. I worked as a 911 Dispatcher outside of Dallas, TX, Customer Service for a call center, worked at a casino, a Nuclear Power Plant, in Construction etc…

This industry isn’t easy, but if you have the determination to succeed, you can do so. There is no doubt in my mind that each job gave me a set of skills and knowledge that at some point in my film career has been used to make my portrayal of a character more realistic and relatable.

Now, in between productions, I teach classes for a Film studio in the metro Atlanta area and have the best time sharing what I’ve learned and pray that it somehow helps someone in the future with their careers. I have even gotten to work with some of the people I’ve taught on set. Super cool and ultimately the best feeling to see their dreams come to fruition as well!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When we are young, we want things to happen right then and there and sometimes demand it to be so. Of course, we learn quickly that we can’t always get what we want, when we want it, if it’s not meant to be.

So, in this industry, I had to learn that not every part I thought I was best suited for was actually the case. It is quite the opposite sometimes.

I would see a call or get an audition request from an agent for a part in which I didn’t really want. My thinking was “Why am I auditioning for Party Member #7 in this production? They only have one line.” And even though it might sound stuck up, I thought I was better than that at the time. It wasn’t until my agent advised me years ago that it’s roles like Party Member #7 which gets you set experience, industry contacts, networking, and depending on how you conduct yourself on set…possible future work.

It’s roles like Party Member #7 that might get you just enough screentime for a demo reel for your acting portal websites. It’s roles like Party Member #7 that take the most work in researching to portray just the right amount of detail with the least bit of description given during the audition process.

So, after learning this firsthand, I began getting super excited to see and receive those Party Member #7 type auditions. And I would work my tail off to give the best audition I could give, in hopes of this particular Party Member #7 role pushing me to a lead role someday…and it eventually did.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I attended a prestigious university in which I dove into my studies and any extra time I had was spent on organizations that could further my career in some way. One of those organizations was the Student Government Association. I worked on the Building Committee, Grants Committee in which I wrote an order for assistance to deserving students to have funds to travel and study abroad at one point, and later became VP for the SGA of my university. It was a wonderful thing to be able to work with students, some younger and others older than me, who had backgrounds and majors in very different areas than my own.

At one point, a brilliant young man made a comment at one of our meetings, trying to make a point that certain studies are more important in nature than others. He said “I can tell you are very smart and it must be fun to play dress up for a living, but you have no idea what hard work is and what it can do for the world.”

I’ll never forget that. It opened my eyes to how ignorant people are as to what we do as performing artists. And even though he meant no harm in what he said, it really sparked something in me to prove myself to the world.

Not only will I go to my grave stating that artists are some of the best people in general to be around, but we have to be well rounded in various fields of knowledge. We don’t just appear on stage or camera with just our lines memorized. We spend what I reckon to be 85% of our prep time researching the who, what, where, when, and why of our characters and scripts. Then 5% is the memorizing, 8% performance, and the final 2% is praying that all the hard work we’ve put in will touch someone’s heart/soul and leave them yearning to see more of us in the future.

We truly have to become the people we are portraying and with that, it involves such hard work, dedication, and understanding of various fields of knowledge. We do what we do so that a story can come alive on screen or stage. And when we hear the laugh, or a gasp, or crying etc, We have done our jobs the right way. We touch the world in a different way than this young man could comprehend at the time. We change the world through knowledge, emotions, and understanding.

Contact Info:

• Other: www.imdb.me/kristi.taylor
  www.kristi-taylor-actress.com

Image Credits

Headshot Hair and Makeup by Patricia Reed-Striplin.