20230419
Age: 22
Hometown: Hamilton, ON (Born in Sofia, Bulgaria)
Primary Medium: Acting
Secondary Medium: Film Directing
When did you start acting?
And why did you keep up with it?
I started acting when I was a kid before grade school, so I did some acting classes in Toronto, um, and then, from then on, I stopped.
When I was growing up, I didn’t really do any monologues because I hated them when I did them.
And then in grade 11 of high school, Sarah Gervais, who was in my class in theatre school, she’s like:
“Why don’t you audition for the play?”
And I was like:
“Play? What? What are you talking about? Play? I’m not gonna play games here.”
And then I went and auditioned, I got the part, the leading part, and I was like:
“Okay, great, this is cool.”
And with a lot of encouragement from my peers around me, and even more encouragement from my drama teacher, I applied and got accepted to theatre school, and then from then on, I’ve just continued.
When did you start your secondary medium?
I started directing films after I graduated, um, or actually, during my fourth year at Ryerson University (Toronto Metropolitan University) when I directed Metamorphosis Limited.
That was the first short film I ever made, it was 30 minutes long, and then from then on, I was just working on directing outside of theatre school.
Does your secondary medium affect your primary or vice versa?
Oh yeah, 100%.
If I didn’t start as an actor, I would not be able to direct a potato.
And if I didn’t explore directing, if I’d never have directed anything, I wouldn’t know where a director is coming from when they’re working with actors, when they’re working with a script.
So yeah, it helps in both directions.
Aside from that, how else do you consume art?
What is your relationship with art in general?
Do you watch films?
Go to museums?
Of course!
I watch all sorts, because in our training as actors, we’ve always been encouraged to watch theatre, watch films.
I’ve watched films ever since I was a young kid.
My dad introduced me to Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
The latter scared the crap out of me when I watched the second film (Temple of Doom).
I thought it was in hell.
But that’s a whole other thing.
But yeah, it started there.
I’d also like to quickly take a moment to talk about my relationship to nature.
I feel that it’s such a blank slate of an environment that it forces you to go inside and find something in there that inspires you to express something to others.
Art, for me, a big thing, is expressing yourself, expressing something that you’ve experienced, to other people so they can experience it as well.
But now that I’ve moved to a place like Vancouver, nature has been where I’ve been able to fortify my relationship to art the strongest.
And the reason for that is because it is such a blank slate environment that it forces you to go inwards and grab something from inside that you want to then express onto a medium to then share with other people, whatever that experience may be.
What do you do when you feel devoid of creativity?
Well, that goes into the previous question.
I go into nature.
Or sometimes I just have to shut my mind off and do something, you know, because if I go out into nature, it’s very contemplative, right?
But if I go out and do something, let’s say hike a mountain, draw something, or start writing something, you know, I try to not take my pen off the page.
No matter what state I’m in emotionally, mentally, physically, something will come out of there, right?
So some mediums are better for some emotional states than others.
But when I’m stuck, it’s always…
I always find it helpful to not stay in your head and get into your body and feel.