We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Loren Chadima. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Loren below.
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?
I always wanted to be an actor but I got so nervous when I had to audition that I forgot my lines and even threw up. As many times as I tried to audition it was just too painful so I gave up acting and focused on directing.
Putting on plays in my backyard, performing in the community as a dancer and playing the piano were my passions as a kid. My elementary school didn’t have any drama programs so at nine years old I produced, directed and acted in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Frankly, I’ve never stopped. I kept producing and directing through high school and as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego. With the goal to be a great theater director who worked effectively with actors, I chose a graduate school, Trinity Repertory Conservatory, where I could train as an actor as well as a director. After getting my Masters Degree, I stayed on the East Coast and directed theater to critical acclaim. Next I decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue directing television and film. I made my first film, SURPRISE as part of The American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. My second film, CRIES FROM RAMAH won awards and was shortlisted for the 79th Academy Awards.
Still I had to pay my bills and I wanted to be home to raise children. An opportunity to teach actors came along. It wasn’t my goal, but it allowed me to be creative and gave me the personal flexibility I wanted.
I thought if I’m going to teach actors how to act then I have to teach them how to do it. My best teachers of any subject taught me how to do that thing – step by step. So that’s what I set out to do: create a step by step technique for acting. To start, I looked up acting – it’s defined as to do something. So then how do you do it? How do you act? What are the steps to acting? What are the steps to get into character in seconds? That’s when I realized that I had gotten so nervous when I auditioned because I didn’t know what to do and what to focus on besides my lines and my nerves. Like most actors, I was taught exercises, ideas, concepts and theories and to memorize lines, but there were no step by step instructions. That question: how do you act? What does an actor focus on first when they get in front of the camera? It’s that question that led me to develop a step by step repeatable acting technique called Intentional Acting.
The Intentional Acting methodology has helped to launch the careers of many actors such as: Bex Taylor-Klaus THE KILLING, HOUSE OF CARDS, ARROW, Disney Star Madison Hu BIZARDVARK; Brayden Maniago DAHMER and Paralympic Gold Medalist Blade Runner turned actor Blake Leeper: HOLIDAY TWIST, ABLED.
Intentional Acting has helped veteran actors take their career to the next level: Antonique Smith RENT NOTORIOUS, GENIUS: ARETHA, Kevin Gardner: AMERICAN CRIME STORY, LAST MAN STANDING. My eldest student (86 years old) is Gaylynn Baker (“Mabel” on Tik Tok Retirement House 5M Followers) and one of my youngest students, Ayla Rae (10 years old), is Queen Bee, the star of L.O.L SURPRISE the movie and TV series.
Before the pandemic several of my students hired me to act in their movies. I used my own technique to memorize lines, reduce my nerves and get into character. My own technique cured me of forgetting lines and my audition anxiety. I am currently in a national commercial CREPE ERASE and featured in several documentaries as myself, an acting coach in THE HOLLYWOOD COMPLEX and ABLED:THE BLAKE LEEPER STORY.
I teach a series of classes: the Foundations of Intentional Acting, Intentional Comedy, Intentional Characters and Masterclass. Fortunately, the pandemic forced me to take my classes online. I believe that actors shouldn’t be dependent on coaches to book roles. That’s why the classes teach actors how to be undeniable in self tape auditions or in person; on set or on stage with or without my coaching. The pandemic forced me to teach my classes online and helped me to expand my reach to actors all over the world.
Many actors worry that they don’t have enough time to memorize lines and prepare for their auditions sufficiently. Their anxiety and fear, along with the technicalities of on-camera auditions, distracts them from getting into character and being able to give undeniable performances that book jobs.
The Intentional Acting technique gives actors the skills and confidence to prepare their high pressure auditions easily, help them internalize the story and dialogue (or as many say: memorize lines) quickly and to get into character effortlessly while being undeniable on screen. The Intentional Acting technique has not only helped actors up to the age of 86 to memorize pages of dialogue but has helped even my youngest students improve their reading comprehension and school grades. I am currently working with a publisher to publish my book, STOP MEMORIZING YOUR LINES! How to internalize dialogue and be prepared for “Action!” I can’t wait to share it with you.
Teaching acting began as a way to pay the bills and be present for my son, but now has turned into a passion and calling to empower actors everywhere to be self-sustaining creative beings who have the practical skills to actualize their dreams.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In 2003, I met a writer and read her script which was centered in Israel and was about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We worked for months on putting a producing team together and then when we found producers and were just about to sign a contract, she decided she wanted to go a different way. It was devastating, but I have come to find out that this is a common Hollywood experience.
Still, I had created a relationship with a wonderful Israeli/Palestinian peace organization and I didn’t want to lose its support. One of the leaders of the group handed me a book of stories for inspiration for a new film. I read a story of a mother whose son left for what she thought was school in the morning, but later she was told he had gone to fight in the war and died. It moved me so I looked for a writer to write a script. I connected with a former student Nathan Scoggins and he wrote and then we produced together my second film, CRIES FROM RAMAH.
Raising money for a short film takes so much patience and eventually we found a generous investor. We had finished production and were struggling to find affordable post production services. I remember laying in bed, sick with the flu, several months after completing principal photography. I was upset and worried about the post-production for the film, when my husband came home excited that he had made a connection at Sony Studios who generously offered to do the post production and allowed us to have the first screening of the film on the lot. This felt like a miracle.The screening was very well received and I began to apply to film festivals. I applied to 30 film festivals and we were turned down by every one of them. I kept remembering that Walt Disney had been turned down by 120 banks saying that Disneyland would never work. I kept going. The 31st film festival we got accepted into the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival at which two more festivals found our film and invited us to attend. We won Best Short Film for both of those film festivals: Sedona International and Rochester Film Festivals. We went on to qualify for the 79th Academy Awards. My moto is “Persistence prevails when all else fails.”
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
A writer and series of books that have truly inspired me and kept me going is The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. I use it as our class textbook. It is a must for any entrepreneur, artist, person with a dream. It is the how to keep persisting, when all else fails. It is this little book with short chapters that pack a punch. Stephen explains that any endeavor that we set out to do – and frankly, they all are creative endeavors – when we set out to create, forge a new path, change or grow,, that resistance will show its face in so many ways. The trick is to be able to recognize resistance, face it and keep on going anyway. This book will help you to recognize the cunning and baffling resistance. It will remind you that you’re not alone, you’re human and that somedays it may win, but to get up again and keep going – keep creating, changing, forging new paths. Persist as it is the essence of being human to be creative and it is the essence of creativity that there will be resistance – but just keep going. The payoff is worth it.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.IntentionalActing.com
- Instagram: @intentionalacting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/intentionalacting
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loren-e-chadima-440151b/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@IntentionalActing
- TikTok: @intentional.acting
Image Credits
Headshots by Innis Casey Photography and David Chan. Rest of the photos by Kerry Norman