Meet Cedric Gegel

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cedric Gegel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cedric below.

Cedric, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

These are difficult times, and I think creativity can have a tendency to be the first spark to go out when the storms come in. It’s definitely something that has to be nurtured.

Obviously, being in film, watching movies is a big creative inspiration. Most recently, I’ve found myself pretty moved by Jon Chu’s WICKED, Ingmar Bergman’s WILD STRAWBERRIES, and Ernesto Contreras’ WHERE THE TRACKS END. All of them made me cry. I think they all reflected some part of myself back at me, and when films can do that, it’s a natural spark for creativity – all my scripts come from some question I’m asking myself or some part of me that I’m trying to understand better. All the characters I play spring out of some aspect of me – but that’s where the imagination takes over. When art can help me see myself a bit more clearly, I have an instinctual response of creativity. If I stop engaging with cinema, how am I supposed to create it? The same is true of theatre. I try to go see it, whether it’s Broadway or Off-Broadway or regional or a cabaret or some little blackbox. There’s great art all over that inspires me.

Beyond that, I’m an avid reader, particularly of fantasy novels. I recently reread the all of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, and I’m currently reading Sanderson’s Wind and Truth, part of the Stormlight Archive. I enjoy nonfiction well enough, but I find fiction activates my imagination in the perfect way – it is both an escape and and a turning inwards. It expands my imagination, and that is my job. Imagining. When I’m acting, I’m using my imagination. I’m not big on using my own memories or anything like that. So the more I read, the more worlds I can make come to life in my mind, the easier it is to access that same imagination when I’m acting or writing or directing. I’m also into poetry, both writing and reading it. Maybe someday I’ll share my poetry with folks (I doubt it, but maybe). For now, it’s a way for me to take the difficulties and challenges of life and express them through abstraction, which I find really helpful.

I think keeping creativity alive is a matter of discipline, intention, and most of all, joy. Creativity is my job, but it’s also that spark inside of me that keeps me going, and like I said, that can be the first to go when things get dark. But that’s the perfect moment to have a spark. That’s the purpose of light. Keeping that spark is essential.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m an actor, screenwriter, and director based in the New York City area. I’ve been very fortunate to be in the award-winning dark comedy series THE CORONER’S ASSISTANT, films like THE HAUNTED FOREST, FORBEARANCE, and HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING, audio dramas like MURPHY, and to have written/directed the fantasy film CADIA: THE WORLD WITHIN starring Corbin Bernsen and James Phelps. I’ve also appeared on stage in SOMETHING ROTTEN! (Shakespeare), ANASTASIA (Gleb), KENNEDY: BOBBY’S LAST CRUSADE (Robert F. Kennedy), and PIPPIN (Pippin). Additionally, I am a cancer survivor and an advocate for cancer research and for mental health.

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?

I think these three things would all be qualities/skills/areas of knowledge, as they are both intrinsic and capable of being nurtured:

1. Be prepared. There will be many things in the life of writing/acting/directing you can’t anticipate – a last-minute offer where you’ve got to be off-book in two days, inclement weather that changes a filming schedule, a light that stops working while you’re on stage. Know your craft. Learn how you memorize, pick up as many little tricks as you can, and be prepared. Then, when things do go wrong, you’re able to go with the flow and not be a hindrance to a problem being solved. Life happens, but being as prepared as possible can go a long way toward building a meaningful career and a good reputation.

2. Be kind. Everyone has a life of their own, and you are likely not a main character in theirs; if you’re going to be a minor supporting role, be a good one. It costs nothing to be kind, and it can make a genuine difference. You never know when someone might need it. I can think of several moments – in my life and on set – where I was dealing with something extraordinary, like a death in my family or my cancer diagnosis, where I was overwhelmed with what was going on and someone’s kindness carried me through. Get to know people. Be authentic and genuine. Be interested. Be compassionate and care about the people around you.

3. Love. Love yourself, love your friends, love what you do. I’m fortunate to have a wonderful family that I love dearly, and I’m fortunate to have the most incredible friends. Their support gets me through the tough moments and makes the joyful ones that much more meaningful. Remember that love is a feeling, yes, but also a choice. Choose to love. Love the sun, love the wind, love the rain. Love the great moments and the difficult ones. Love someone or something doesn’t always mean liking it, and you simply can’t love everything. This isn’t some idealistic, solve-all answer. But it’s something to strive for. My friends and family make me better. If you love something, you want it to be the best version of itself. Including yourself (yes, therapy is a big help on this front and I highly endorse it). There’s going to be moments on set or when you’re writing or when you’re trying to get a film made that you’re just exhausted and miserable and wondering why you ever wanted to do this in the first place; that’s okay. You don’t always have to like it. But you must love it. And if you love what you do and you love the people around you and you love yourself (or are learning to do so, which is okay!), you’ll get through those tough moments.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

I suspect we’re all pretty often overwhelmed. I think that’s the structure of the world right now – we have supercomputers in our pockets and 24/7 news channels and amoral social media algorithms pushing notifications on us and there’s an information overload that’s tremendously difficult to break through. And in film and theatre, there’s a good deal of rejection. Just this week, I had two big auditions that I thought I nailed and then ended up not booking the jobs. The world’s becoming more and more expensive, climate change is existentially terrifying, the list goes on and on.

That’s when I come back to my friends. So often, things overwhelm us because we don’t talk about them. Human connection feels like it is an increasingly rare commodity today, but I do suspect there’s a deep hunger for it. In theory, we’re more connected than ever thanks to our phones, but I think that can at times allow the veneer of connection. Real and authentic connection requires real and authentic vulnerability, and in my moments where I’ve truly felt overwhelmed, talking about it with someone I trust, someone I love, has almost always helped. There are times when it can hurt – that person may say something thoughtless or hurtful in response. Worse, at times, is when they say something quite thoughtful and hurtful in response – it may be that I needed to hear I was doing something wrong. But it takes the pressure off by asking someone to carry that burden with you.

Of course, that’s not always possible. There’s those moments at two in the morning where you’re incredibly overwhelmed, sitting on the kitchen floor with a bag of shredded cheese and no one to talk to. That’s when the cliches come in helpful. Deep breaths. Drink water. Pull your shoulders back. Moments are only moments.

Those auditions I thought I nailed? Maybe I did. Maybe my audition was perfect, and they had to cast the other guy because he had brown eyes and that’s what the director wanted. The script that got rejected? Maybe it is great, and that particular reader just didn’t connect with it. Maybe it’s not great – that means it’s just a work in progress. So am I.

So when I’m overwhelmed, I try to take stock of my life and step back from it all for a second. I talk to my family and friends. I drink water and stretch. Maybe it doesn’t solve everything, but if it makes that moment easier? Then I can take a look at all that’s overwhelming me and, piece by piece, start working through it all.

Lastly – I’m a big hiker. If I’m well and truly overwhelmed, I get away from it all for a bit. Go take two hours in the woods. Emerson and Thoreau and Mary Oliver were on to something. Get away from the connection to my screens and into the connection to my world. Something about being in the trees reminds me of my place in everything. All will be as it will be. If you haven’t tried that, I recommend it. You may be surprised how quickly you re-find your footing out there in the wild.

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Image Credits

John Salangsang/Shutterstock for The Astras, Sane Lake Pictures, Indie Series Awards, Alexandrea Tombrakos Weiss/Sceneworks Studios, Daniel Stemen, Matt Owen/Alluvion Stage Company, Alexander South, Huxley Pictures, Dark Temple Motion Pictures

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