We were lucky to catch up with Ryan Anthony Holcomb recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Ryan, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I’ll just start at the beginning. I used to do theater back throughout middle school and high school, but I wasn’t always interested in acting. At first I started off doing backstage, behind the scenes stuff, working on crew, until some of my friends actually peer pressured me into auditioning for the musical that we were doing that year, which was the Lion King. I ended up auditioning for the role of Pumbaa and got it! At that moment I just fell in love with acting. Thereafter I kept on doing it not because I was peer pressured, but because I loved it. Then Covid hit…
I definitely felt a little unmotivated to continue acting as I had a bunch of people that were telling me that it was unrealistic, and people I trusted in leadership positions telling me that it was unattainable, so my mindset shifted. I went to my freshman year at Virginia Tech for criminology, having to put that dream on the back burner.
While I was there, I ended up booking the lead part in Starcrossed, an original screenplay by Peter Gray. During the intense rehearsal process, I just fell back in love with acting. Being around likeminded people with the same drive I used to have who were focused about making a good final product as well as having fun along the way.
At that moment, I knew that acting was what I had to be doing.
I reached out to my brother, Brady Holcomb, a DP and Gaffer in the ATL area, who set me up with my now mentor Kevin Saunders. We sat down for a 4 hour long call and talked about the industry and its trajectory. He explained to me it definitely was not going to be easy, but the journey was necessary to learn as much as I could. As soon as we hung up that call, I decided to take a scary leap of faith and file for a gap year. I set my goals and my timeline in which I would meet those goals, otherwise I was going to go back to school. Luckily, I achieved my goals 8 months faster than I thought I would! So I decided to pull the plug on college and make the trek down to Atlanta, GA to pursue my dream.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Well I am originally from Williamsburg, Virginia. I started off my acting career at the ripe age of 2 with some SPECTACULAR home videos directed by my brother where I was the titular character in Superman: The Home Video. It did super well with critics (our parents) so we made 5 more movies after that. Sadly the sixth one got cut for budget issues (we didn’t have enough goldfish to pay the cast)
My family always has always been creative minded. My siblings and I would put on plays every Christmas Eve for our parents and force them to sit through about an hour of us doing improv about a random storyline that we decided (Willy Wonka, an origin story for the Grinch, A Christmas Carol). From then on I started taking place in plays and musicals in school and local theatre organizations, being a part of award-winning shows, eventually finding my way down to Atlanta, GA.
As an actor, I feel as if most people with an outside perspective only see the profession as standing in front of a camera, memorizing lines, saying them back, and then moving on. It’s not that simple. Becoming an actor, you take responsibility not just to entertain the audience but to educate and encapsulate them in your reality.
When they walk into a movie theater, or they log into their streaming service, and start watching your performance, whether they know it or not, they’re surrendering their emotions. They’re giving you the key to their emotions and the key to their reality. It’s your job as an actor, performer, and creative to turn that key and let them forget about their current reality and to let them become enthralled in yours. That’s why we laugh and cry at movies, because we are invested. I feel as if that is the most important and overlooked thing as an actor. You get to let people escape their reality and live in another world for a few hours.
Other than acting, I have found a calling to pick up photography! I’ve been shooting on film for the past few months and have learned an amazing amount of information about how things should look, work, and how things operate. I’m currently working on setting up a partnership with a local print shop in order to start selling my own pictures!
I feel as if film photography has so much more emotion and specific memories associated with them. Rather than shooting on digital, shooting on film is much more meticulous, having to be more careful on what you shoot. You can’t just shoot 1000 pictures a day, you have to buy a role, get it developed, and then pray that it turns out the way you want it to!
Coming up, I had the pleasure of working with a good friend of mine Tom Von Dohlen on a feature film called Gander Man. We finished principal photography back in April 2024 and are hoping to have it out sometime soon in order to catch festival circuits.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Determination is a big factor of my life. Whenever I say I’m gonna do something, it’s going to happen. Whether that be going on cross-country road trip without a lot of planning, going to support a friend at a concert, or something as simple as taking out the trash. I don’t like to give up, I feel as if it’s a sign of failure and I know that sounds intense but it helps hold myself accountable for the integrity of words.
Having faith goes hand in hand with determination. You need to believe you will make it to wherever your final goal is. It’s imperative to have faith, whether that be in God, yourself, or whatever you believe to be out there. Without faith, that determination and drive will cease to exist. You need to know what you’re striving towards in order to get there.
Keeping a level head and staying patient can be one of the most aggravating things ever, especially as an actor. It’s always a lot easier said than done. You might audition for a part and think that you absolutely nailed it and never hear anything back from it. Sadly, that’s the norm in the industry, but that’s something you just have to learn to deal with. I just try and shut it out of my mind and distract myself, by hanging out with friends or watching a movie/show!
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
A year ago, I was in the worst state of my life. I was going through a lot of mental troubles along with some relationship struggles, planting me into a multi-month depression. I felt as if I had no motivation for anything, even something as simple as going to my kitchen and making a ham and cheese sandwich. Until I woke up one day and asked myself “What are you doing?” and realized I was letting myself down by giving into the depression I had found myself in. That day I got up, went for a drive, called some friends I hadn’t talked to in a while, and that instantly brightened my mood. From then on, I started to feel like myself again.
In the following months, it definitely wasn’t a walk in the park to keep that mindset. Life happens, things change, but during those months I learned so much about myself. I learned I’m a fighter. I learned I have resilience. I learned I am perfectly capable of doing anything I set my mind to. I learned I have friends I can trust to have honest and real conversations with. I learned that I can’t do this alone. I learned to trust people. I learned to love and value myself for who I am but also know there are always ways to improve, whether that be physically, or emotional maturity.
Looking back at the person I was 12 months ago in comparison to the person I am now, I’m proud of myself for overcoming those individual battles that everyone didn’t know about and becoming the best version of myself (so far).
Contact Info:
- Instagram: ryanh0lcomb
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ryananthonyholcomb
Image Credits
Headshots- Joe Funk
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