Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Walter Anaruk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Walter thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I don’t really think I can list one. If I’m being completely thoughtful about my answer, I think I have to list three for very different reasons. They all marked major formative events for me as an actor.

1. – An indie film called Reaper. This was the first really meaningful project I ever worked. It made me understand so much about what is involved in a production. I was a VERY new actor professionally. And originally, the role I auditioned for was a one-scene bit part. About 3 lines and a couple of speeches. I booked the role. And for whatever reason, the writer/director felt like my character, and the story I told in that scene warranted a bigger role. The next thing I know, I am being asked to shoot almost 20 shooting days and my role is being rewritten as a lead in the ensemble. I learned a lot about maintaining continuity across months of shooting. I learned what it means to have to carry a huge weight of the project. But I think the biggest reason this project was so meaningful was because it allowed me to shake my initial imposter syndrome. All actors carry it. We wonder if we belong, if we have what it takes to make anyone see us. Not about fame, or notoriety, but about being good enough to be wanted. The evolution of this role, and the part I got to play gave me confidence that I did indeed belong in this industry. The film itself hasn’t been completed. It has been in post production since before Covid. And I am not sure if it’s still being worked on. But even if it never comes out, It meant the world to me.

2. Amateur, a Netflix Original Film (Mandalay Pictures, Ryan Koo director). Auditioning for this film brought back my imposter syndrome. It was a supporting role in a film that was, at the time of my audition, starring Jason Sudeikis and Michael Rainey Jr. Sudeikis would eventually back out of the project and was replaced by Josh Charles. For a no-name actor like me, I was auditioning for a fairly meaty supporting role in a film with this type of budget and cast. I was also auditioning for the role against a local actor with a much more impressive resume. An actor that I respect a lot and now has become a friend. But I was sure he would get it. I booked the role and worked my first big professional production. This role is what made me eligible to join SAG-AFTRA. It was the springboard for my professional career into the “big time.” Where I would begin to regularly audition for major network television, streaming services, and studio films. Smaller parts in much larger projects. It was my springboard to booking roles in things like Better Call Saul (AMC), The Cleaning Lady (Fox), Silk Road (Lionsgate), among others.

3. The Engagement Plot, a television romantic comedy on UPtv. This was a role that put me near the top of the call sheet. I got to work with a very creative and fast-moving director, and a group of the most wonderful cast and crew I’ve ever met. And I was #4 on the call sheet. Call sheets are the documents sent to all cast and crew every shooting day listing who is to come to set and what our general scene list is for the day. At the beginning of production, all cast are listed in order of their volume of appearance in the movie or episode and given a ranking number that will be their identifying number throughout production. So the leads are #1 & #2. I was #4. And I really didn’t expect to book this role. The description of the character in the casting breakdown described a towering hulk of a man to play the body guard and confidante of the leading man (Trevor Donovan). Trevor is over six feet tall. I am 5’9″ on a good day. But the audition sides spoke to me. I thought I could make him engaging and funny. And the director, Brandon Clark, agreed with me. I couldn’t believe I booked that role. And I had no idea that Brandon would put so much support and faith in me. He added extra scenes, and made clear to me that he wanted to begin and end the movie with my character orbiting the leads. It was a very meaningful role. It reinforced to me that I had a place in this industry. People wanted to work with me. And I could be confident that I brought something to the projects for whom I worked.

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?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be an actor. Ever since I was a kid, I watch movies and TV shows because I loved them, but also because I wanted to MAKE them. I wanted to perform. One of my big regrets in life is listening to all the people who told me when I was young that acting was a pipe dream. That it was too competitive for someone like me to “make it” as an actor … whatever that means. I let them into my head and spent decades of my life working in the wrong direction. I got a college degree I would end up using for less than a few years. I taught myself a profession that has been great for supporting my family and paying the bills. But in the end, I’ve spent decades doing things I haven’t been super passionate about. Going through life wondering if all we are meant to do is find a way to pay bills until we die.

Don’t get me wrong. I am currently primarily a software engineer. And I like what I do. I love the people I’ve met. The experiences I’ve had. Programming led me into being one of the first ever podcasters in the early 2000s, which gave me unique and amazing experiences. Programming is the reason I was able to move my family to this beautiful place – Littleton, Colorado which we love. If we hadn’t moved here, I never would have gotten into coaching USAV juniors volleyball – which is a huge passion of mine now. And it was here in Colorado that I found professional acting. So I’m grateful. And if programming is how I primarily make my living for the rest of my life, I’ll have no regrets.

It was moving here to the Denver area where I found my professional path. Or to be accurate, my wife pointed down the road and said “go.” I suppose I should back up.

I married my wife, Amy right after we finished college. In college, even though I did all the things I THOUGHT I was supposed to be doing, I was still acting. Doing little plays, and competing in drama. I was a member of the University team that traveled around the country and I competed in events like Dramatic Interpretation, Poetry Interpretation and many others. But these were basically events where we picked a category of literature – plays, screenplays, novels, poems, and then we would perform the pieces in competition. I won. A lot. And my wife was on the staff of the University newspaper. And the newspaper would cover the success of our team. It should have been a clue to me that I was more passionate about those competitions than I was about ANY class, ANY activity, or even getting my degree at University.

So after being married for almost 20 years, and having two kids, my wife bought me two months of gift certificates to an on-camera acting class I had been showing interest in. I was excited. But I thought “awesome. I’ll go to class, scratch this itch, and go back to real life.” Once I got into class, I was hooked. This wasn’t going to be a temporary thing. This is what I’ve wanted all my life.

When the instructor, Benjy Dobrin – to this day a wonderful friend and mentor – asked me if I’d ever thought of pursuing acting professionally, I was really taken aback. No one had ever asked me that with sincerity. It was always a question people asked to mock my dream. Let me know that it wasn’t possible without saying so.

It was then that I realized that everyone who told me I couldn’t do it, who spoke with such authority on how competitive and impossible acting is, had no experience, or understanding of what it takes to be an actor. Not one person. I had been doing the equivalent of letting a dentist tell me how impossible it would be for me to make it as a nuclear sub engineer in the Navy.

Benjy introduced me to who would become my business of acting mentor and my stunt teacher. Both of whom would, in turn, become friends. I met all of the people who DID know what this industry is like and would point me in the right directions. Keep me from making so many of the common mistakes new actors make. Give me so many perspectives to learn from and shape my own view of the industry and my place in it.

My career has grown from there. Benjy Dobrin Studios is still my creative home base. Where I stretch and grow as an artist. I work in other classes here and there to work on specific things like procedural acting, television script breakdown, audition intensives with casting directors and such. But BDS is my artistic foundation. It’s where it all started.

I learned to separate art from business when he introduced me to my business mentor Krista Gano. It was through Krista’s guidance where I learned to patiently and methodically grow my career into New Mexico, Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles.

There are a million things that go into how that happens for an actor. A lot of actors try to rush forward and do it all at once. Most of them fail. I am succeeding because I was shown those mistakes. I saw some of my peers impatiently make those mistakes. I vowed I would not waste my time recovering from mistakes made by trying to take shortcuts. I could write about so many of them but it would take an entire book.

Unfortunately, Krista no longer teaches the business of acting. I have tried to do my part to fill that void in Denver for beginning actors. Using my experience, and things I’ve learned from Krista I’ve started a workshop with my long time friend Risa Scott to help new actors avoid the mistakes I’ve made, the mistakes I’ve avoided, and watch many actors make. Give them what Krista gave to me. It’s not an acting class. It is specifically a business workshop to teach actors where the artist ends, and the CEO of their acting business begins. It’s very fulfilling. But teaching is secondary. I want to be an actor.

My focus now is television. For a long time, when Krista would ask me “what is your goal? Television? Film?” my answer was “Both. All of it.” Krista would smile. She would not ridicule me, or tell me I was giving her the answer of a very inexperienced actor. But she would tell me that when the time came I would see what was important to me business-wise and artistically. And I would know. And she was right.

I love doing movies. I just finished working in three made for television movies for a company called Truebrand Entertainment. And I loved it. But what Krista was talking about was realizing my goals and joys in acting.

I realized that what I wanted to was to really get into, and get to know a character. Get deep with that character. And have a way to transition into being a full time artist. As I came to understand the industry, it became clear that what I wanted is to be a series regular member of an ensemble cast television series. Whether it’s a drama, or sitcom, or procedural doesn’t matter to me. But that is the big goal for now. I know I have other goals. For example, I want to establish myself enough in the industry that I can also become a professional screenwriter. And I do still want to do movies. But for the foreseeable future, my big target is maturing my television career.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Fame is a huge thing that people conflate when they hear that someone wants to be an actor. Non creatives assume that actors all want to be famous. They often assume that we are all extroverts who are hugely attention seeking. This idea gives people the wrong idea. For non-actors out there with a truly committed acting friend, please understand that everyones’ idea that a working actor’s aspiration is to be a “rich and famous” actor is rarely the goal. The goal is the same as with any other profession. To attain a level of work that allows us to make the business our profession. The industry isn’t divided into Leonardo DiCaprio and losers. There are literally thousands of actors who you’ve seen in multiple movies and TV shows but you have no idea what their name is. Many of these familiar but unknown faces are making a real living as an actor. And that is all most of us want. If the end goal is Red Carpets, and being interviewed by Jimmy Fallon then the person with that goal doesn’t realize what they want. They don’t want to be an actor. They want to be a celebrity. There are tons of ways to become a celebrity without cultivating a stitch of talent.

Fame is defined by others. Being an actor is intensely personal. The two are sometimes associated but not the same. And one does not necessitate the other. So when you meet an actor, please stop asking “what would I have seen you in?” The likely answer is probably “nothing, yet.” Acting is years and years of paying your dues in small indie projects, student films. Projects that may win awards in small festivals but never see the light of day. I’ve been in TV shows a lot of people reading this have seen. Many readers have seen the episodes I was in. But they won’t remember me. And that’s okay. Don’t ask them to justify their career. When I meet a doctor I don’t ask “what surgeries have you performed that I would recognize?” When I meet a lawyer I don’t ask “what cases have you argued that I would know?” It’s a horrible place to put someone because whether you mean to or not, you are telling that actor that they are not successful unless your recognition legitimizes their work. And we get enough of that from our families.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

When you think of the Renaissance do you think of the the plumbing? The militaries? The politics? No you remember the amazing works of art that defined the time. When you think of ancient Rome or Greece you think of the literature, the architecture, the statues, the mythology. The arts are a mirror of society and are some of the most enduring sources of social commentary. Think about the societal affect of Saturday Night Live. The commentary on the political spectrum. When you think about the 1980s do you think about just the hair and the questionable fashion? And if you do, does it have a soundtrack of incredibly nostalgic music, and movie quotes?

There have been so many articles that show that some of the greatest music and greatest cinema come out of turbulent economic and bleak political times. And when you look back at history, the events define our direction as cultures. The arts document it.

Support the arts. Vote for things like the Colorado Film Incentives. Reject initiatives to take art and critical thinking out of the classroom in favor of standardized testing and government metrics. Let teachers teach and let them teach the arts. A vibrant and diverse education should not only be rooted in math, science, and grammar. To paraphrase Robin Williams in the classic film Dead Poets Society: These are the things used to sustain life. Music, cinema, literature, cuisine – these are what we live for. And these will tell future generations more about us than text books, or fleeting social media accounts ever will.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.walteranaruk.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/walteranaruk
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/actorwalteranaruk
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/walteranaruk
• Other: https://imdb.me/walteranaruk