Meet Henry Pham

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

Hi Henry , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Being different from normal is not always bad. When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with a disorder called autism. However, I did not find out until I was in high school. Autism is a disability that limits my ability to communicate and socialize with others. It is difficult to be normal because I have trouble understanding people, making decisions, being in loud places, and concentrating on what I need to do. Despite this, I found that it was possible to achieve my goals. Even though I have autism, I could still do great things such as graduating from high school, being an officer in several organizations, writing a successful film review in the newspaper, and playing the violin.

During my time at North Garland High School, I had a hard time understanding questions asked of me and coming up with answers even though I studied a lot. With any troubles, I sought help by going to tutorials, asking my teachers and friends for assistance, and working hard in my special education classes. I joined many organizations in high school, like Student Council and Orchestra, because I wanted to help others, discover more about the world, and feel more integrated in the community. Later, I pursued officer positions in a few organizations because I wanted to learn and improve my leadership, communication, and management skills. The biggest trouble I had was understanding what members and officers said or asked of me since there were a lot of details, instructions, and events to talk about for the future school year. I requested help from my team of officers, and they helped me by explaining instructions more simply while demonstrating an example for me.

While studying at Richland College in Dallas, Texas , I joined the campus media organization and am currently a student film critic for this organization. My main task is to write reviews for films I watched. The biggest trouble I have is writing reviews with proper grammar, so I ask for assistance from the media students and staff before publishing any article in the campus newspaper or website. From the beginning of middle school until now, I have continued to play the violin because it is enjoyable, makes me feel accomplished, and allows me to meet great people. I feel that I can also better understand other cultures and connect with people through music.

I want to continue talking about autism and my experiences to encourage people with autism and other disabilities that they can still succeed in life. I want to help them reach their goals and make their lives easier because they are likely struggling to be normal. For example, I have trouble pronouncing and speaking clearly while people normally would not have this problem. People would normally speak clearly and descriptively without making a lot of mistakes. However, this problem motivates me to work harder and better myself. I will continue to keep moving forward throughout my life. This is where I got my resilience from.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My parents were born in Vietnam, while I was born in Dallas, Texas. I’m a film critic, wannabe filmmaker/animator, and a foodie. I formerly play the violin in middle school orchestra, high school orchestra, and college orchestra. I love watching movies (predominately Disney) and love to try out new things in my life, such as cooking (like making milkshakes for example), and playing LEGOs. I also love traveling to food places (mainly restaurants shown on television, social media, and news) around the Dallas area or elsewhere, and collecting neckties based on movies, animation, pop culture, colleges, holidays, and personal interest to remind me of who I am and what I like.

My biggest interest are movies and animation because I love to see how the characters and the pictures interact with each other in one drawing. I am also a huge fan of Disney and Pixar, which is one of the reasons why I got involved in a film world and the film community, As a film critic, I get to see many upcoming films (including Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame) just days or weeks before the film is released in theaters to the general public, which gives me secret knowledge of the plot. Being a film critic has given me the opportunity to meet several celebrities, including the late Stan Lee, Mark Wahlberg, Heather Locklear, Brenda Song, Macaulay Culkin, and others. It was a really wonderful experience to learn many great things from celebrities like him. I reviewed films for Richland College, Dallas Movies Screenings, Irish Film Critic, your[news] media, and my own movie website called Movies 365 by Henry Pham, the latter of which I currently published my reviews for.

Recently, I applied to Critics’ Choice Association and Rotten Tomatoes as a new member, but ended up getting rejected as well as Walt Disney Animation Studios as a production assistant back in November 2023, only to get rejected in July 2024. I currently applying to be a new member of Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, which I’m waiting to seek approval.

I currently work at TJ’s Seafood Restaurant and Market in Dallas, Texas, while still continuing reviewing films for my website and seeking many film opportunities.

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?

My greatest strengths are getting the work done ahead of time without stress, being organizational, and bring socially active at home, school, work, or elsewhere. I enjoyed doing what I do, such as watching movies, working at a restaurant, going to coffee shops, build LEGOs, and other things.

I, like many others, need to practice self-care and self-control from the stress and hardships at home/work/elsewhere, and just mediate and get outside to get some fresh air, and do the things you want to before focusing on your tasks and/or getting your work done. I have severe depression and anxiety from 2020 to 2023 due to COVID, friends getting married as I grew older, lack of finding work, experience life after graduating from a four-year university, and reviewing so many movies per month. But around 2023, I found a job at TJ’s Seafood Restaurant and Market, which I’m grateful for, as well as cutting down on reviewing movies to take it easy, since there are hundreds of films (including those produced by Disney, Warner Bros. Paramount, Universal, and Sony,) being made and released in theaters each year. This is how I fight and beat despression, and I’m still improving my mental health today.

Even though I graduated college and become a successful movie critic in Dallas, I want to continue spreading love and passion of movies and animation, whilst talking about autism and my experiences with that to encourage people with autism and other disabilities that they can still succeed in life. I will also encourage them to not let anything or anyone tell or treat you differently. My own obstacles have motivated me to work harder and better myself, so I will continue to keep moving forward throughout my life.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

There are many others I need to give credit for helping me overcome my challenges, mostly my older sister Kristina, my friends from North Garland High School, Richland College, and University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), and my movie-critic friends and colleagues, such as James McDonald (Irish Film Critic) and Ricky Miller (Richland College).

But if I have to choose one, I will have to give a huge credit to my older sister, Kristina Pham, who helps me a lot over the years. My sister is a psychiatrist and she is currently working with her patients, but she and I remain close together. She help me how to do good in school, avoid getting in trouble from school, grow stronger and braver while being indifferent from others, get super productive and active at school and home, doing SATs/ACTs. She usually helps me a lot whenever I need her, and so does my younger brother, Bryan Pham, since my parents do not understand English while I do mostly. Without her, I would be lost and ended up failing miserable at anything at home/school/work.

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