We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marcus Folmar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marcus below.

Marcus, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I discovered my love for acting at an early age. In 6th grade I received a standing ovation for my portrayal of Poker Pete in Normandy Elementary’s production of the musical ‘Steamboatin’ and never looked back. My mother grew up singing in choirs and my father played the Trumpet for a time but that’s the closest anyone in my family had ever gotten to exploring the performing arts. One amazing thing I think my parents did right was not trying to redirect my interests. Though the concept of life as an actor was completely foreign to them, they found ways to support my dreams…even when it meant long, inconvenient commutes to Kidskits, the children’s theater in Denver, CO at which I did all of my formative training and where I got the bulk of my early stage experience. As much of a long shot as we all know a career in the arts can be, my parents always affirmed the viability of my dream. This is not the case for so many young artists. As an acting coach for over 17 years, I have seen first hand what a hurdle to success it can be when a dreamer doesn’t have someone at home who believes in the dream too. In fact having coached hundreds of actors, I’d go so far as to say that the presence or absence of support back home is maybe the greatest determinate of whether an artist’s career will sink or swim. So again a thank you and a job well done to my parents for helping keep the dream alive.

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?

As an actor I’ve booked over 80 TV shows, commercials and films that have appeared on every network and most every streaming service still the thing I’m most proud of is Alley Way, a web series that I wrote, directed and starred in. Even though this self-produced independent project has only appeared on Youtube and really hasn’t generated any revenue, it was the first time I had ever written anything for myself. Of all the work that I’ve done there’s nothing that more clearly illustrates my comedic voice or better showcases what I’m capable of as a comedic actor. What’s more, it gave me a chance to collaborate with other creatives that I really believe in and left me so proud to have provided a platform for them to shine. Fun fact, every actor that appears in Season One of Alley Way is or at some point was a student or client of The Booking Room, my coaching company.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up my parents would frequently tell me, “Don’t half do a job…if you’re going to do it, do it right.” These are words I continue to live by, however I used to believe that in order to do a job right you had to know basically everything there was to know about whatever it is you were assigned to do. For a long time if I couldn’t confidently say that I had obtained a certain level of mastery with a thing my tendency was to avoid the thing altogether until I could say otherwise. In retrospect this fear of being exposed as an imposter lead to me declining multiple opportunities that could have been real growth experiences. In particular I recall being in my fourth year at Northwestern University and my cousin who was an aspiring artist asking me to direct a music video for him. He knew that I was a film student with access to cameras and lights and other production equipment. The ride from Chicago where the University is to Detroit where he lived was a feasible four and a half hours. He offered to put me and my crew of classmates up in a hotel and rent us a van for transport. We could check out what we needed and travel on Friday, shoot on Saturday, do pick ups on Sunday and still be back on campus well ahead of the Monday morning equipment return deadline. We had everything arranged but ultimately I never made that trip. I told my cousin that my workload was just too intense, but the truth is that as much as I had learned about filmmaking I was hyper aware of there being so much more I still had to learn and I was afraid that my knowledge gap would be the hole that the project and all the money he was prepared to put into it would sink in. It took me a while but eventually I unlearned the need for perfection and embraced the concept of learning as you go. I’ve learned that as long as you have a clear vision of what a good job looks like the creativity and resources you need to manifest that end have a way of just showing up.

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

There was a former college football coach named Lou Tice that gained some level of popularity during the mid-late 80s as a highly sought after motivational speaker. Founder of The Pacific Institute, he did a workshop at some point with the leadership of United Airlines as did for many companies. My mom was a United Airlines executive and was so inspired by his presentation that she had her secretary dub for our home library, the whole series of “Investing in Excellence” video tapes that he provided them for corporate training. It was maybe 10-12hours of Mr. Tice talking about at the power of positive thing and how we as humans tend to move towards not what we want but whatever we think about. He was teaching “The Secret” before the secret. Today we’d call it manifesting. What ever term you choose, those tapes were a part of my daily routine for the entirety of my summer circa 1985. It’s been nearly 40 years but I still remember so many of his sayings and precepts. The examples he used and the illustrations he drew on his dry erase board. I take pride in being a very positive minded person and without a doubt the foundation of how I face challenges and process setbacks can be traced back to those VHS tapes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bookingroomla.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcusfolmar/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarcusFolmarFans
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BOOKINGROOMPRESENTS24-7
• Other: imdb.me/marcusfolmar

Image Credits
Marie Buck (Primary Photo) Artwork by @Bryansfaces (movie poster)