We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Angelo Zervos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Michael Angelo , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Yes, I do. A large part of me wishes I had skipped university and gone straight into filmmaking. I think university was largely a waste of time, aside from the wonderful people I met. I could’ve been creating for six years before I had taken a step out of those doors with a diploma.

I don’t hire anyone because of their degree and I haven’t been asked about mine in any films I’ve made. With that knowledge now, I think it’s obvious what I should’ve done. But like I wrote, a large part of me wishes that–the other part is very, very thankful to have met people with whom I’d go on to have rich friendships with in the future. You see my conflict here, but good thing I can’t go back in time.

Michael Angelo , 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 have been making movies, commercials, and digital entertainment for about a dozen years now. While I am very proud of the relationships and

My career is always a journey to create something I’m proud of, something I can celebrate even for a short while. Up until this point, I always think my work falls short of my own vision of it.

Now, I have decided to take a journey around the world for two purposes. To break a Guinness World Record to be the fastest human to travel to every country in the world and to collect stories about human happiness. In every country, I ask people one simple question: what is the happiest moment of your life?

I am now in Central Africa, though when this is published I may be in East Africa. The journey has been long, hard, and probably the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. Already I believe I am teeming with ideas, new thoughts, and so much desire to continue to create. I’m only 15% of the way through!

Have you ever had to pivot?

Just recently, in fact, with Project Kosmos.

I took a chance on a position that was offered to me and it didn’t work out the way I was expecting. I was feeling unfulfilled creatively and needed a shock to my system to find inspiration. So deciding to tackle a Guinness World Record of this magnitude was a big enough way to put me out of my comfort zone and bring me to new stories I’d like to tell.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Artists need freedom to create above all.

The more of a chilling effect there is on expression, on the things you are able to say, or do, will result in the suppression of art. But there is a contradiction here that often artists are the midwives of change, not just the benefactors of it. It’s true that there has been good art created in circumstances where some quality, freedom, value, or desire is oppressed by, let’s say, a government, a religion, or an unhappy mixture of both.

I’d like to see a celebration of a multiplicity of views even if there isn’t an agreement with them. Between the institutional punishment of “bad thoughts” and the openness to express them, I’d hope others would feel the same way. That hasn’t been the case always–nor is it now. I think it goes in waves.

Contact Info:

• Website: project-kosmos.com
• Instagram: theprojectkosmos
• Facebook: The Project Kosmos
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazervos/
• Youtube: ProjectKosmos
• Other: theprojectkosmos (tiktok)

Image Credits
Obidigbo Nzeribe