Meet Alexander Staunton-hill

We recently connected with Alexander Staunton-hill and have shared our conversation below.

Alexander , thanks for taking the time to share your lessons with our community today. So, let’s jump right in – one of the most essential skills for unlocking our potential is self-discipline. Where does your self-discipline come from?

I suppose majority of it came from when I was younger. I have a mum who is incredibly supportive & in her own right is very self disciplined so I always had someone to look to for that. When I was younger & to be fair now, if something was thrown my way & it was either complicated or really short notice that’s where it really came into play. I think it was also mixed with that thing you have as a kid where you just don’t feel anxiety you are totally in your own world. Now it’s a lot more awareness of if I want to accomplish something I have to keep pushing towards it.

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?

I’ve always been aware that I’ve been quite lucky with the life I’ve been able to live. Having a Mum who moved a lot & travelled meant that I got to see a good amount of the world. I’ve also been lucky in the case that I’ve always known what I’ve wanted to do. Not as much as I do now but when I was younger I just knew what I loved doing & that was performing. Something that I always remember is when I was living in Spain we had a restaurant that we loved to go to called “The Streets of London”. Not exactly the most Spanish name but still. Anyway in the garden area there was a man there called Neil who would always play his guitar & sing. One evening, just for the hell of it I suppose, I asked him if I could sing with him & he looked down & just asked “What song would you like to sing?”. He had the chords & we just sort of started doing a very tiny show. But this old lady must’ve thought I was tourist because she went around each table with this hat of hers collecting money & gave it to my mum. I think it was one of those moments that made everything clear. Shortly after that I then really got into acting. The thing that solidified that was when I was asked to play Ferdinand in the “Tempest” & I had 2 weeks to learn all the lines. I must’ve been about 10 maybe 11 so back then it was “Yeah let’s do it”. Do that to me now & I’ll go “You’re nuts. Absolutely nuts”. But that one experience made me go “This is what I want.” My main thing is my acting but music will always have a special place for me because that’s what I started with.

I think one of the most recent things made me have feeling again was doing the short film I made with my good friend Peter Tilley & my now film dad Kemal Yldirim called “The Foreboding: Fractured”. We had just under a month to get the crew, the location, the cast, the script just everything we’d need. Absolutely mental. Loved that team, everyone was fantastic. I know that project will always have a special place for me, especially now we’ll be trying to turn it into a feature. Through that short film I got myself a nice little band with it with Olivia Grace Bennett called “Twin Pinnacle” & our first studio session was to make the soundtrack for “The Foreboding: Fractured”. Things worked out quite nicely.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I mean, I am still learning. This whole industry is basically constantly learning. I think being tenacious is such a key thing. There will be so much thrown your way & it is so, so easy to get bogged down. Never be afraid to take a risk, whether it pays off or not it doesn’t matter, you learn from it either way. And most of all just enjoy it. You’ll find there are moments that you will treasure, that you will always look back on & it will still give you the exact same feeling.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

I feel like I have a lot of people who have helped me get to where I am. My mum has obviously played a massive part in that. She found schools that had amazing drama departments. Through that I found the SPACE where I studied acting after leaving school. There I was taught by David Duthie who at the time I thought was just giving people a hard time for the sake of it but in hindsight, it preps you & I do owe that to him a bit. When it came to confidence in continuing acting I owe that one to Jerry Hardingham because I did have a point where I thought maybe I should go into something else. But he was very supportive & I know there are students of his that feel the same way. But of course & if I didn’t thank these guys I’d never hear from them again but Peter Tilley for giving me a colossal challenge with film making, Kemal Yildirim for giving us the support & believing that we could do it & Mitchell Burrows for just being a guy to keep that creativity going.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm13734079/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexanderstauntonhill/

Image Credits

Credit Creepyduckdesigns for the poster.