SAM STRALEY

My name is Sam Straley, I am 5’11 born July 13, 1995 and I am an actor and a filmmaker and consider myself a humble creative vessel… (laughs)

I strive to align myself with the present moment as much as possible because it’s the birthplace of all action, and is, at its core, complete creative potential. It’s the only place there is really… it’s always right now, you know. 

Preface - I am a little stoned, so I might come off so annoying, or stupid, or woo woo (giggles)

This is all part of it. 

Well.
Here I am.
I’m stoned.
Hopefully at the tail end of a depressive episode.
And this is who and where I am at right now. So yeah…
This is me. 

(Begins to sing Highschool Musical, ‘This is Me.’)

What is it about acting and filmmaking that makes you want to do it? 

Well first of all, I really just love art and art history. I love music, painting, architecture… but the two that come most naturally are performance and filmmaking.

Performance because I grew up very sensitive and was prone to emotional outbursts that resulted in shame, guilt and feeling like a bad person. So to find a space where I was able to express everything I was feeling and be rewarded for it - that’s why I love acting…

And Filmmaking… Well film was my first love. My grandfather was a film critic back in his day and he’d always take me to movies when I was little.

When I was growing up he was the director of theater at a local highschool, but before that he was the film and theater critic for Cincinnati’s local news station, and would be the one to interview all the actors and celebrities who came through town during their press circuits.
He’d tell me all about the people he interviewed... Who was nice, who wasn't.
As the story goes, after he interviewed Danny Devito, they got along so well that he was invited to the Batman Returns premiere.

He also worked with Nick Clooney, George's dad, for more 20 years, and watched George become who George is today.  As a kid it made me feel like ‘woah this is possible. I can really do this.’

He’d take me to private screenings and I remember it would just be us in a theater together.
It was just so special. It’s how we related. It’s how we’d bond. Sadly, he died before I started acting. It was the year I could finally be allowed  to join the school plays… but I later went to the highschool he directed at and did theater there.

ANYWAY I feel like acting and filmmaking are interconnected for me. I feel that everytime I act I, I learn to be better filmmaker, and everytime I direct or produce, I learn to be better actor.

At the end of the day, my dream is to have complete creative freedom to explore every sort of artistic medium. Again, this might make me sound like a douche - but I just learned to do tin-type photography… The process… It’s incredible. These prints survive for like 300 years.
I dabble in writing.
Painting.
I just love being expressive. I think if you are going to start with an answer to that question, I would say I just love to express myself. And I think growing up I would express myself a little too much so I had to find somewhere to put it. And I have been in love with it ever since.

The reason I love art is because it forces me back to into the present moment.

Because we live in a society that’s so result based that it’s really easy not to be present most of the time. It’s always next, next, next… go, go, go. And to constantly cut myself off from the present moment like that - it can be painful.

Alan Watts has this great quote about how art reflects the true nature of the universe - He says something like ‘The point of music is not to rush through and get to the end of the song… the point of music is the playing of the song.’ In other words, it’s meant to be enjoyed presently. “

It’s the same with any art form.

When you watch a movie, you don’t fast forward through it, you must surrender to the present in order to enjoy it.
Same goes for acting.
Presence is required…

I think why I love what I do, why it feels sacred to me, is because I get to practice presence.

I read a passage in a book called ‘The Actor and the Target’ by Declan Donnellan once that I found really profound.

I’m not religious by any means, but I was raised Catholic and have always been familiar with Christian terminology… Anyway it says something like ‘The best news you’ll ever hear is that God is real, and the Devil doesn’t exist.’ He goes on to explain that the capital T- Truth of the universe is that it is always right Now. It is never NOT right Now.

He goes on to explains that essentially right now is the only place any action or creation is possible, and so he call’s the ‘Now’... ‘God’.

And because The ‘Now’ is constant and everpresent, the past and the future don’t really exist.
They only are made real in our minds. It doesn’t mean they won’t or didn’t happen.
The past happened. But when did it happen? It happened in the ‘Now’ when it happened.
And the future will come to pass, but it’ll happen ‘Now’ when it does.
I sound insane I know. And I’m probably butchering this… 

but basically he says The devil isn’t real… because he only exist in thought forms of  ‘the past’ and ‘the future’, and he takes the form of GUILT in the past and ANXIETY in the future.

I feel like the past is depression and the future is anxiety. 

Totally. All the worlds a stage. We, for the most part, create the drama we live in by feeling bad about the past or stressed about the future, when all there is ACTUALLY is right now. The present. And when you let go and live in the present, you realize anything is possible. 

What is your biggest failure as a creative and what did you learn and change after that experience? 

I think my biggest failure happened after my first series regular job ended, on a show called ‘The Kids Are Alright.’ I had just spent, albeit uncomfortably, eight months on a job. And during that time I had naturally (but foolishly) attached all of my self worth to the idea that I was a working actor. For the first time in my life, I could go ‘AHA. I did it. You thought I couldn’t. But I DID.’... And then it was canceled. And suddenly all of my self worth went with it. 

I’m grateful for that failure though because it taught me not to attach so much, and it led me on a ‘spiritual path’ that I’m still working through today.

What do you hope to create that will continue to repeat? 

That’s a really good question…
Everything.
I want to create things that live on.
Both big and small.

What do you feel like you are on the verge of? 

I genuinely feel like I am on the verge of being again.
Where I’m one with it all.
Not resisting the moment, but accepting it, in whatever form it takes.
When I’m in that state, that’s when things start to click. It’s when I’m open to doing my best work. 

Say something you love about yourself. 

I love that I’m playful… So thankful for play.
It brings about that childlike sense that I’m always chasing.