We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Will Van Moss a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Will thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I’ve always been involved in the arts since I was a kid. I fondly remember attending my first musical theater summer camp with my younger sister when I was about 6 or 7. I also loved going to various dance and acting camps from an early age. At 8, I joined the local choir in our town in Belgium, which really sparked my interest in the arts.

What truly solidified my passion for the performing arts though was my mom encouraging me to audition for the Youth Choir of the Flemish Opera. I was accepted, and performing with them was such an incredible experience. Singing on a huge opera stage, in beautiful churches across Europe, and in other venues around the continent brought me immense joy.

Sadly, I had to leave the operatic youth choir when my family relocated to Italy for my dad’s job. I sometimes think that this move stifled my artistic development, and from ages 14 to 16, I found myself in somewhat of an artistic desert, both in Italy and later back in Belgium after our first attempt at living in Italy failed. This may have been due to me being a grumpy teenager, and hormones or something, but in any case I was not performing in any kind of arts for those two years of my life!

When I was 16, we moved to Italy again, and my mom told me about a local English-speaking theater troupe in Varese called “The Benvenuto Players.” Joining them reignited my passion for acting, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided I wanted to pursue this passion as a career. I even created a powerpoint presentation for my parents outlining potential career paths, with acting as my top choice. By the age of 17 or 18, I knew I wanted to do this professionally.

Unfortunately, it took another six years before I could actually pursue my dream, but that’s a story for another time.

Will, 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 started acting professionally right after graduating from NYFA at 23. However, performing in the USA was challenging since I’m not a citizen. I performed in a few plays and shows under the OPT Visa, which lasted about a year. After that, I had to find other ways to stay in the US, eventually getting an internship visa for two years and then my green card.

Once I received my green card, I fully committed to the career I had envisioned. Unfortunately, nine months after returning to the US from Europe with my new green card, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. During the pandemic, I had to find new ways to stay relevant in the acting industry since everything was shut down. I did virtual plays and short films and helped new actors shoot videos for their reels.

It wasn’t until 2021 that I got the chance of a lifetime. My good friend Jennifer told me about The Prep NJ, a professional performance prep school run by our old schoolmate, Jessi Clayton. They were looking for a new accent/dialect coach, and Jennifer suggested I apply. At the time, I was already teaching people how to speak different languages through Zoom and in person and had mastered about six different accents. I immediately dove into intense self-study to learn more accents and sent my resume to The Prep.

After a short interview with Jessi and co-founder Theresa, they hired me! From then on, I kept growing. I completed the Knight-Thompson Speechwork training, a prominent speech, accent, and dialect teaching technique. Since then, I have learned how to teach about 30 different accents and dialects from Europe, North America, and Australia/New Zealand. My clients have performed in shows across Europe and the US and in productions you probably have seen on your screen.

I am very proud of my work, and my business keeps growing! Thanks to the KTS method and my ability to speak five languages fluently, I can help my clients quickly adopt the accents they need. I continue acting and recently landed my first co-star role in a Netflix show, which will hopefully be on your TVs by the end of this year.

I also continue pursuing my passion for the stage and will actually be performing in a musical by my great friend, Oscar Selby, wrote called “Two Princes”, at Joe’s Pub on August 18th!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think non-creatives do not understand the amount of struggle we go through in the artistic industry!
Even in countries that are much kinder to artists in providing their basic needs than the USA, it is a struggle to make money and to survive. It’s either that you are undervalued for the work you do, and you have to work low-paying or even non-paying gigs to do what you love to do and “earn the respect of the people in the industry” (or even from the public), or you get paid an extremely high amount of money to do what you love to do. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground! Many artists tend to have a second or third job, just to make ends meet.
It’s easy to go into law school, because you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a good career, even if you do just some of the hard work. Artists cannot afford that. We always have to do the hard work to succeed, to be seen, to be heard.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Changing people’s lives with the stories we tell. Whether it’s on a stage, where you can palpably feel the audience change along with the story that’s being told, or in a movie theater where the audience experiences the story all together. Or even when someone reaches out after they’ve watched a show you performed in through social media or text to say how much they enjoyed the journey you took them on.
I think that’s the most fulfilling thing. Even if they don’t say it to you in any sort of way, you know that someone in the audience or at home will see the story’s message and learn something from it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.willvanmoss.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willvanmoss/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WillVanMoss

Image Credits

Headshot by Justin Clynes
Still from the Ghosts of Ethan Dean by Chad Larabee
Still from the Last Call by Jose Musse
Still from Let Mercy Come by Andrew Serban