We recently connected with Natasha Mayet and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Natasha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I remember the exact moment when I decided to pursue a professional acting career. It was nearly ten year ago, as I left the Los Angeles campus of the New York Film Academy and looked over the street of Burbank at the Warner Brother Studios, I looked over at the posters on the studio walls, and over the horizon at Hollywood and decided that I wanted this. To live in LA, be a part of an acting studio and to call acting my day job. It actually didn’t matter to me if I was famous or not. For the first time I realized that anything was possible, and that this was something that many people successfully do as a career. I think I fell in love with the idea of studying acting in LA and living in that city. At the time, everything about LA was appealing to me, the grocery stores there, the yoga studios, restaurants, and people. I wanted to come to Burbank and go to my acting classes and look over the horizon as the Hollywood sign. This was in my late twenties. I remember asking my then acting coach if it was too late to start an acting career in ones twenties, and he said “Honey, look at the golden girls.” And that was it for me, I made the call to my parents who I’m pretty sure thought I was going mad. It has been such a journey since. They have actually been really supportive along the way, but I’m sure it was a shock to the system at first. I knew it was not going to be easy, but I also knew there was no turning back and for the first time in my life I was excited and felt like I knew what I was meant to do. A year later I was back in LA, living in Hollywood and taking classes in an acting studio. It has been a journey since then for sure, but that is where it started.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an actor, producer and acting coach. I am blessed to be a coach for actors with Anthony Meindl’s Actor Workshop (founded in LA) here in Cape Town, South Africa. I was formerly based in Atlanta, where I was part of the studio and in early 2020 I got the calling to move back to South Africa and bring this way of working and community for actors here. We started online, since soon after I got here the pandemic hit, and now we have in person classes for actors as well as online classes. It has actually been a gift to work with actors online and have classes full of students from all around the world during the pandemic. What makes our way of working with actors different is that it is a very right-brained approach that empowers actors to be the best versions of themselves. It starts with the premise that every actor is enough, and my job as a coach is to help them unlock more of themselves. For me it actually made acting fun again. I feel like the coaches at our studio teach from their heart and I feel there is a need for more coaches who operate from the heart space and who are kind, encouraging yet challenge you to keep growing. Acting should be a source of joy and we are all unique and enough. At AMAW we empower actors and it has truly empowered me and changed my life as well. We also have a studio in Atlanta other cities in the US and worldwide.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

While I feel that my journey has unfolded as it was meant to, and that maybe I had to learn some lessons the hard way so that I could help others, I wish in a way I had learnt earlier on in my journey that I was already enough and that I didn’t need to try to be anyone else. I wish I had been told earlier that acting is actually about not acting at all but that it’s about being. I wish I had known that my emotions are a gift and that its ok and actually vital for me to allow myself to feel them instead of stuffing them down. I wish I had also known about resources available to me so that I didn’t feel like I had to figure out everything on my own, like therapy, podcasts, meditation, etc. I am grateful to all the teachers and people who have influenced my growth along the way, my acting coach Katelin Chesna, Wendy Braun who showed me how to crush my limiting beliefs, and teachers like Mark Groves and Brené Brown who made vulnerability cool. I wish I had learnt to love myself a lot earlier.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

As an acting coach, my goal is to empower actors to know they are enough and to help them find play and joy in the work, and to inspire people to feel their emotions and open their hearts. I want actors and people in general to know that we are not competing with anyone since we are all unique and the world needs us to be our authentic selves. I want people to know that they are not alone in how they feel because we are all human and are connected by our humanity, and inspire them to be more compassionate and loving towards themselves. I want people to know that this is a kind and loving universe and that there is an abundance of love available to them and that dreams can and do come true. Through my work as an actor, I want to open peoples hearts and minds through storytelling. I want to grow community amongst actors and filmmakers so we can support each other, learn from one another and collaborate. I think we all need community.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.imdb.me/natashamayet
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natashamayetacts
• Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/act-out-of-love-with-natasha-mayet https://www.instagram.com/amawcapetown www.capetownsquad.com

Image Credits
Jono Wickwar (@harrfastfotos) Justin Munitz (Headshots Cape Town)