Chapter 2: The Accidental Actor

....the producer deal died quietly....family commitments - members moving on....felt like I was the only one still standing at the door, ready to walk through it.

Had always been a Lone-Wolf. Just hadn't admitted it to myself yet.

A friend mentioned a talent contest at The Westin. The artist in me recoiled - already been there! My ego had a point. But somewhere underneath and barely a whisper, said simply: Go.

I listened. Got a callback. Then an offer of representation, contingent on flying to Orlando for a conference. Having been around the block enough times, something felt off. I called a local talent agency to confirm my suspicions. They did. But asked me to come in anyway. I did. They signed me on the spot bu said two things: fix your teeth and train.

So I got braces and signed up for Acting 101. A beginners class. I had performed on stage literally thousands of times, in front of thousands of people, thought I knew what performing was - I didn't know anything.

We wrote our own monologues and performed them the following week. Standing in front of a small room of strangers, something happened that I had no category for. Musicians talk about flow states — that place where you disappear into the music and something else takes over. I knew it well. But this was different. This was exposed. Naked in a way that playing behind a kit never required.

The level ofvulnerability, intimacy - the freedom! I had never felt anything like it up until then. And I think I’ve been chasing it ever since. To feel that, one more time.

In the following months, I booked a commercial. Then a short film. Then theatre work. And I discovered something: I could move at my own speed now. No waiting on a band. No consensus. No compromise. The Lone-Wolf was alive and ravenous.

That's when I found Bruce McKenna. A man of the Theatre.

Bruce ran a drop-in workshop — $10, Monday and Thursday nights. He brought together actors, writers, directors, people learning cinematography, all in the same room. You had 10 to 15 minutes with a scene and then you were up, shooting it. No safety net. No time to overthink. Exhilarating.

Bruce was tireless and demanding in the way only the truly devoted are. He introduced me to the work of Michael Chekhov and Vakhtangov — a relationship with their work that continues to this day.

Looking back, we all owe Bruce more than we probably ever told him.

My next teacher was John Dunsworth — a legend of a man I dearly miss. He sat me down one day and said something I've never forgotten: you can have this if you want it. My agent echoed with a caveat; but you've got to move.

I was scared. I had reinvented myself before, but always with a crew behind me. Now it was just me. An entire life in the rearview mirror. I needed a compass. I found two.

Deepak Chopra's The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire and Shea Hampton, a well-known teacher in Vancouver. I bought the book. Called Shea. Three weeks later I was sitting in the Vancouver Airport wondering what the hell I had done.

But the Universe guides, when you trust. 

The right people appear. Shea Hampton, whom I have a profound respect for, became a mentor and Monday nights - a refuge.

Work followed. Small parts in television, then bigger ones. But I wanted to go deeper. I applied to the Stella Adler School of Theatre — got accepted, couldn't afford it. So I built my own version of their curriculum from the outside. Voice work. Script analysis. Accent reduction. Audition prep. Whatever I could get into - I did.

That deep dive changed everything. Things started to pick up.

My biggest hurdles were ones I hadn't anticipated. Patience — never had much of it. And the fact that I hadn't grown up in theatre, hadn't been raised around it, meant I was perpetually catching up — not just technically, but culturally. I didn't fit in with the people who had. I didn't understand then, just how much that would cost me, and how much it would ultimately shape me. But I was moving. And moving, I have learned, is everything.

Years later, I booked a large Recurring Guest Starring role on HAVEN. John Dunsworth was a series regular. The man who had once pointed me toward the door was now standing on the other side of it, on set, as a colleague.

There are moments in a career that close a circle so cleanly you almost don't believe it's real. That was one of them.