Meet Zele Avradopoulos

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zele Avradopoulos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Zele, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

My father. My father grew up surrounded by poverty. My dad had to work from the age of 5 and remembers being the the fields by his father. Hearing his stories of growing up in Greece, moving to America, traveling to Ohio without knowing English and slowly building his future was, the best embodiment of me learning resilience. I remember my mother distinctly telling us “We didn’t have the same opportunities in Greece that you have here in America. Your father couldn’t get a free education after 6th grade. Here you have free education, a roof over your heads and food. You are all (I have two siblings) smart so there is no excuse for you not to do your best”.
Besides strong work ethic and instilling us the importance of education, my parents had clear boundaries and reasonable goals we were expected to meet. From a young age I had chores. I was expected to get myself ready for school and get to school on time. If I missed the school bus I had to take the public bus to school. For ballet and piano lessons I had to take the public bus or ride my bike. I learned to get my homework done and there was no excuse to get a ‘C” on a test. Because my parents were not fluent in English, I had to figure homework out on my own. I could get some help from my older siblings, but they were often busy with their school work too. If we felt we needed support or help we could get it, however, we were expected to try to figure out on our own first. It was supportive, tough love. We were taught to take responsibility for our actions and learn to deal with the consequences. For one, they didn’t know the language well enough and two, they weren’t familiar with the American culture and how to navigate.
Now that I am 56 years old, I realize those early years in middle and high school provided the foundation of the resilience I have today. I was able to handle university, moving around the US, moving abroad, changing my careers and so many other pivotal moments because of the foundation I had growing up. I also learned when I needed to seek help and get the support I needed whether through counseling, friends and a support network. Feeling grounded also helped me strength my resilience.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am Columbus Ohio -born and raised and a former Buckeye. Coming from a 1st generation Greek immigrant family, I value hard-work, integrity and am thankful for all the opportunities my family and I have had here in the US. I was 5 years old dancing ballet at the Ohio Theatre when I felt the synergy of the audience and the artist. Intuitively, I knew then I was a performer. Many adventures (living in Greece & the UK), detours (living in Boston), careers (teaching, marketing and even a professional organizer) and decades later, I’m now a working actor in Atlanta with reps in the US, UK and EU.

These detours and adventures are the seeds that brought Actor Empower Hour in fruition. Through working on sets and meeting fellow creatives, I realized what came naturally to me, was a special skill set many creatives did not have. As a former teacher at international schools in Athens, I prepared students for British and US universities. As a Marketing Manager, I understand the business mentality, budgets and the different ways to sell and package products through digital and print media. As a sole-proprietor, I understand how important professional relationships and networking are in building and sustaining one’s business. As a former professional organizer, I am trained and adept in setting our organizing, time and productivity systems. I have combined all my former careers (teaching, marketing, acting and organizing) to provide personalized coaching to actors in their marketing materials for all types of different engagements, develop their acting skills and develop their business strategies. Besides coaching, I am currently collaborating with my agents creating Online Intensives for actors where they get to work one-on-one with agents virtually in a supportive, positive environment. These intensives empower actors to share their craft with industry experts they might not have been able to otherwise.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Trusting my intuition. Call it my gut or ‘a voice’ or a feeling. My intuition has never let me down. It’s when I don’t trust it when I get myself in situations I could have avoided. This has been quite frustrating for my family of origin, because I am the maverick in my family. I moved to Greece and to Atlanta because of that ‘voice’ and in both cases, those were/are the best decisions I made for myself.

Ability to listen. For some reason people feel comfortable sharing and being vulnerable to me. I don’t know what it is, but I am comfortable with the silence and the space between where most people feel the need to talk. It has helped me navigate difficult situations and has improved my acting tremendously.

Integrity. Sometimes I have had to make difficult choices usually choosing the moral one. Never has that failed me. It was always worked against me when I haven’t listened to my moral compass.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

Would love to collaborate with other acting professionals such as agents, casting directors, established actors who teach and coach. I would also be open to collaborating with other business owners who would like to improve their public speaking skills for their careers. I was a Marketing Manager for years, so I understand the corporate world and my acting skills are transferable to public speaking. Would love to be a speaker on panels for different film festivals, sharing my expertise as a former marketing professional and actor.

My ideal clients are actors new to the industry looking to navigate and develop their marketing and/or acting skills. Actors who left the industry and are transitioning back into it and hobbyists looking to take their acting to the next level within the TV/Film industry. I enjoy working with adults and teens in exploring their options and discovering more about themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.actorempowerhour.com/
• Instagram: #actorempowerhour
• Facebook: actorempowerhour
• Other: https://zeleavradopoulos.com