After years of not booking roles as an actor, Ryan Harrison decided to make his own feature film. Here’s what he learned from the experience.
Building a community is a great place to start.
“My first feature, ‘Ninja Badass,’ came out last year, and I figured I’d try to get more serious about acting after it came out. I’ve used people from comedy classes in my feature and other videos. Anything that gets you around people is good. Just be sincere with people you meet, help people, and do favors.”
Don’t wait for others to make your own art.
“Pretty much everyone has to bust their ass and hustle to get anywhere. It really doesn’t matter what you’ve done, who you are, what script you’ve written, what connections you have—the only one looking out for you is you. You’ve got to make things happen.”
Tend to your work-life balance.
“All creative work is a roller coaster, and you need to figure out how to deal with the low points. Try to balance your life and projects out a bit so if one thing is going poorly, you’ll have something else going in a better direction. Try to be kind to yourself.”
Show off your talent with a fiery reel.
“Start [your reel] with something big: big jokes, big action, big moments—something easy to understand. Think of it like a trailer for you. And if you don’t have footage, [use] someone [else’s] scene or write your own and film some lines of the parts that fit your character type.”
A part may not seem like a good fit for you—until it is.
“Submit to everything that’s remotely appropriate for you, and do it as soon as possible. [Even if] you don’t think you’d be a perfect fit, you might get cast anyway. I submitted to a rap music video as a scared dude and thought for sure I wouldn’t get it; but they cast me because they thought I looked like Shaggy from ‘Scooby-Doo.’ Everyone gets rejected 99.99% of the time. You’ve just gotta hang in there.”
This story originally appeared in the Mar. 2 issue of Backstage Magazine.