We were lucky to catch up with Rob Brownstein recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rob thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I think acting is one of those jobs that likes to get put in the “dream” category. But honestly, working actors are some of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet. First you have to work super hard to be good. Then you work super hard to make a career. Then to keep making one. Even “overnight successes” or people who take to it fairly easily, as children say – they end up working their tails off. It’s hard, disciplined work at every level. I’ve had a good career, made a living, I teach also now, because I kept working at it – especially when the road was hard and doors seemed closed. I wasn’t interested in taking no for an answer. I just found other ways in. Sometimes with luck, sometimes with sheer tenacity. The one constant for me – which I see in so many of my working colleagues – was I kept working at getting better, at learning. Acting is a craft, an art, and like every art you keep practicing and working at it. With coaches, classes, with others in theatre and film companies. It’s actually part of the fun. It’s why I teach also – to give back, to share what I’ve learned along the way.

Rob, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It’s actually funny how I got into acting as a profession. I’d taken a few acting classes in college for fun but I was a jazz major – played alto sax and guitar at the City University of New York. And between my sophomore and junior years NYC went bankrupt and the way the music department handled it was to cut the jazz program – it was an excellent classical program. This was pre-internet so I found about this the first day of school showing up for class that wasn’t there. I had to walk back through the drama building to get to my bus to go home. As I was passing through, they were holding auditions for a play. I asked if I could try out too and that’s how I became an actor.

I think one of the things that really sets my classes at my studio An Actor’s Space apart is that everything is approached from the point of view of working in the industry. We deal with everything actors go through – craft, business, life to be successful in their work. It’s not one part or another in a vacuum. We work to constantly get better and better in our work – at every level – and to deal with addressing and managing the challenges and stresses of having careers and getting where we want to be and accomplishing what we’re after. Not everyone’s after the same thing in the business – I also have writers, directors and musical performers in the classes. Community is super important also – where we all help each other with self-tapes, recommendations, filming material, etc. And my approach is to work with actors to build on the strengths they already have to find themselves in the work and the parts they play. And, pardon me for the acting jargon, but to be fully present, open and flexible, vulnerable and surprising in the work.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

You know, when I was starting out, nobody talked about the business of acting, how to have a career, how to feel about things. Teachers only talked about “the worK’ like it was some distant magic. Today is different. There are so many more resources for actors in that vein. maybe, in some ways, too many so it becomes hard to filter through all the voices. I wish I’d had some early on. Could have same me some time, for sure, and some pitfalls. One of the joys I have as a teacher is when an actor goes from being a student to a colleague. We’re at an audition together – or on set. I’ll occasionally do a scene in my Thursday Class for working actors with someone because that’s what we are.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

People often ask “what’s your favorite job you’ve ever done?” The Office, MadMen, Breaking Bad? Curb Your Enthusiasm? It’s hard to explain because they’re mostly all great – in different ways. Our experience making something is not necessarily your experience watching it. I was drawn to this because I love story-telling – whether in books, plays, music, films, TV, etc… And something I love as an actor is moving people – sometimes through laughter, sometimes other. Some years ago, I did a new adaptation of Anne Frank here in L.A. playing Otto, the father. Most of the last 10 minutes of the play were a monologue by me talking to the audience describing what happened to each member of my family after we were captured by the Nazis. It was at the Museum of Tolerance here in L.A. so each night there was always someone or several people who were either there or had family in Camps during the war. To tell this story to people who had lived through it was one of the most moving things I’d ever done and to talk with them after one of the most gratifying.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.anactorsspace.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rbrownstein
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0115282/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_8_q_rob%2520brownstein