We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chrissy Ly Peedu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chrissy Ly below.
Chrissy Ly, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
In quantum physics there’s a thing called the Law of Attraction which basically means that you attract what you think. I personally believe in that law heavily but mostly because the power of thought makes me act upon those thoughts.
Already from a young age, I learned that tears, sadness and doubt will not get me anything in life. They will not heal a bleeding cut nor land a backflip. They will just make me feel unnecessarily worse, whereas being optimistic is the bright light that guides me through the tough times.
Taking the first example – a bleeding cut will always stop eventually and heal. Therefore life is like a bleeding cut, every bad thing comes to an end at some point so being negative and looking for roadblocks in the way isn’t going to solve my issues, instead it’s going to prolong them. However keeping my head up while doing everything in my power for my goal is going to end up well. For example, I had always dreamed of moving to America and towards my last years of high school in Estonia, I was even searching for American colleges & universities. Until I started thinking “realistically” (negatively) and found too many roadblocks – too expensive, too much work, too far away, too many choices etc, therefore my dream kind of faded away. Months later, however, I had a big argument with my boyfriend at the time and that just flipped the switch in me and I said to myself: “I don’t care, I AM going!” I realized that I did not want to SETTLE for a life if I could have a chance at making my actual dreams come true. Then I started applying for colleges, a visa, an apartment, all while having no idea how I was going to pay for everything. Additionally, I had less than two months before the start of a college. I kept saying “I can; I will; I’m going” to all the pessimists and look at me now – I have graduated my college with a degree, in America and I’m still here, working, doing movies and dancing in shows. The moral of the story is if there’s a will, there’s a way. If i would have kept being a pessimist then I would have stayed in my country, doing a job that I hated, while being in a broken relationship and everything would have just kept going downhill.
Taking my second example – if I am trying a backflip and get so scared mid-air that I stop, then I will fall out of that flip very painfully and dangerously, (which I have done before). Instead, if I already started the flip, meaning jumped off the ground, then I have to finish it, there’s no turning back and only then, even if the landing isn’t going to be perfect, atleast it’s not onto my neck. Basically in today’s slang the saying would be “just send it”. That’s the way with life too – if you already started doing something, why on earth would you go back now? Because things got too hard or too scary? No, they are only too hard and scary if you let them be. Everything starts with your mind!
I attended a professional ballet school from 5th grade until graduation (12th grade), so 8 years. I did ballet classes 5 days a week, every week, sometimes even 6 or 7 days a week, and every day we had other additional dance classes aswell, such as pas de deux (partnering), jazz, character, contemporary, historical, improv, modern, stretching, etc. Starting from 9th grade I had several occasions where I almost switched schools to go back to a normal school. I thought that “I will never become a ballerina, the theatre will not want me anyways, I’m not good enough, there’s something wrong with me” etc. My mom tried to talk some sense into me, my friends tried to make me realize that me being in a ballet school is special and so on… I didn’t listen. In the end it all came down to me switching my brain into optimistic mode. I started finding my own personal reasons why being in a ballet school is good for me so I decided on staying. After graduation, I ended up being one of only three new females that were offered a position in the Estonian National Ballet company the year of. I also now have the highest degree possible in Classical Ballet (Vaganova method). Moral of this story – never give up on something big you already started. Chances are that the end result will be much better than you expected and if not, then atleast you gave it a shot.
In conclusion, I’d say that optimism eases everyone’s life. Having too much optimism may sometimes be referred to as ‘being delusional’ but honestly, sometimes people just have to be a little bit delusional when life is throwing too many lemons at them. Acting upon those delusions is the greatest power that will fuel people to bulldoze through every block in the way.
Optimism means that there is a way out.
Optimism means hope.
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?
For the past couple of years, I’ve constantly been switching my focus between dancing and acting. It’s a blessing and a curse. I love having several options, that way I will never get bored, I’ll never fall into a routine, however that means that I’m running around all over the place. Although acting and dancing kind of go hand-in-hand, I feel like if you’re trying to make it in a big world, and you’re in the beginning stages of making your name, you should direct your focus on one thing and get the snowball rolling from there. Or be like me – take the harder route for fun.
Having a dance mom, I’ve been a dancer ever since I was two years old. I can say that I’m born for performing. I’m very bad with expressing my feelings through words so dance helps me get in touch with them and get everything out of my system. Dance is freedom, that’s what brings me happiness in life. I’ve performed in Estonian National Ballet’s and Estonian National Opera’s productions and I’ve been a finalist in several international ballet competitions. I was and still am (whenever I go visit Estonia again) a lead dancer in a show-company called Dance Wonderland Kabaree (Cabaret). It’s located in Estonia but willing to do shows and performances internationally, given the space.
Currently I’m mainly doing acting and dance projects in the States, mostly in Los Angeles and Las Vegas – movies, series, music videos, you name it. I have a Method Acting degree from the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. Some of the short films I’ve been in, have even won awards at various film festivals. I first got into acting because I wanted to live many different lives in one. For example, I can now get the experience of being a criminal mastermind without the actual consequences of real life. Simultaneously I’m trying to find dance gigs, modeling gigs, photoshoots and pretty much anything with an audience or a camera. I also started doing aerial silks and lyra 3 years ago and silks is my way of escaping my problems & my reality. I’m currently having talks about me maybe joining an on-going notable show in Las Vegas and if they do end up taking me, the name of the show will be revealed on my social media.
In the entertainment industry, the more versatile you are, the higher your chance of getting booked. That’s why in my free time I’m always keeping myself in shape by taking various classes or learning new skills or new dance styles (HipHop, Break-Dance, Heels, Reggaeton, tumbling, etc). Basically my career takes up all of my time but I am not complaining because that is fun for me. That’s why it’s so important to make a good career choice, if you’re going to be doing that job every day for years then you better be enjoying it. In my opinion work should not feel like work because the point of life isn’t to work but to live.
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’m going to give you two mental skills and one skill that is specifically impactful for dance and anything physical:
1) Staying positive
2) If you want something, you do it yourself
3) Flexibility
As cliché as “staying positive” on my list sounds, it’s actually very hard not to get consumed by all the negativity that’s surrounding people nowadays. Especially for entertainers, such as dancers and actors, like myself. We are always compared to other people, we are judged by our appearances, we are always in a competition with others in our field, no matter how good we are, there’s always an 8-year-old Russian kid who is way better. I, personally, take all the negative comments that I’ve heard from people and turn them into my fuel to be better. Someone says I’ve gotten fat – I take a look at myself, determine if they are right and if they are I do something about it, instead of sitting down and feeling insulted. Someone says I’ll never be able to do something or makes fun of my “unrealistic” dreams – okay, let me work hard and prove them wrong and figuratively spit in their face. Latter is my strongest fuel, I love proving people wrong with my whole heart, perhaps some people call it “toxic” but I call it “whatever works best”. I’d recommend people not to take everything so personally and to stop being sensitive about every little thing and comment. Most of the time people who are giving negative comments are just projecting their own insecurities and they are seeing you as a threat to their ego so they want to bring you down so they could feel better about themselves, they get a fake sense of confidence from hating. Don’t let anything bring you down. Additionally, positive people are better to work with and especially in the acting industry, someone always knows someone who knows someone so you want to keep your reputation pleasant because you’ll never know whom your name might reach.
The second thing on my list is pretty self-explanatory. Never trust anyone’s words unless they actually back those up with actions or contracts. Everyone can say that they are going to help you but 99% of them are just very smooth-tongued in order to get something from you. In Estonian we have a saying “Suuga ehitab terve linna, käega ei kärbsepesagi” which means “He builds a whole city with his mouth but with his hands, he doesn’t even build a fly’s nest”. The only person you can 100% trust to get you what you need, is you and only you.
In rhythmic gymnastics the teachers used to stretch us like we were inanimate objects. They would mercilessly sit on us while we’re in a split, one leg on a high chair. They would make us lay on our backs on a bench, in a middle split, one teacher pushing the right leg and another teacher pushing the left one. The more we cried, the stronger they pushed. They also made us sit in a split from a high chair, without our hands touching the ground for support and we had to count to 200 and as soon as just one person in the group put their hands down, we all had to go back to counting from the beginning. The teachers always said: “You’ll thank us when you’re older.” Not once did I believe them at first, in fact I hated them for that, but now I just have two words: “THANK YOU!” I can’t put it into words how much being flexible has helped me in my career. Everything is so much easier – my poses in aerial silks look much more graceful, I’m able to do whatever a choreographer’s vision is because my body is able to move in any way that they may want it to, I stand out of the crowd, meaning I have something special about me. There have even been occasions in films where I’m part of a group of dancers but I’m featured more because of my flexibility. Therefore I’d recommend to always have atleast one certain niche that you can use to make yourself seen, that way people will also have something to remember you by. For a last example, I once did a dance audition and then later I became friends with a guy who knew another girl from that audition and this girl had talked about me, a complete stranger, just because I was “the flexible girl who was doing over-splits as a warmup”.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
My current number one challenge is trying to overcome my indecisiveness and listen to my smarter self. In general I’m the most indecisive person in this whole wide world because I want to make the perfect choice but sometimes it isn’t clear which of the options is the perfect one and I can’t handle making the wrong choice and then living with the “what-ifs”. For the longest time I didn’t know if I wanted to keep staying in the States after my student visa ends or go back to Estonia. I was leaning towards going back to my country but then I realized that I don’t actually want to work there, instead I’m just being nostalgic because after all, my childhood memories (good & stress-free), my mom, my pets, my car and my original long-time friends are attached to that place. So I made a pros and cons list and currently for me in my age, the job opportunities outweigh everything. I’m in my peak for my field and need to get the most out of it. Therefore the States, having Hollywood for movies and Broadway & the Las Vegas Strip for dance is the perfect place for me. However, now that I’ve actually firmly made up my mind, I need to apply for a new visa which is a very time-consuming, expensive and complicated work so I need to listen to my own advice and be “delusional” (VERY optimistic), not give up “mid-air” and prove the haters wrong. I might have talked about the optimism so effortlessly before but even I heavily struggle with it from time to time but the important thing is to always win the struggle, no matter how hard the fight is. What helped me right now was also taking a week-long break from everything, I left town, didn’t talk to anyone on the phone, just me and a beautiful fresh place that had lush nature. That helped me to de-stress, de-clutter my head and reset myself. Now I already feel much more motivated to keep moving forward, much less overwhelmed, I have better ideas for my next steps and I actually feel happy & confident again despite all the challenges around me. I’m ready for bulldozing those roadblocks!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://msha.ke/chrissyly
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrissy_ly?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@ChrissyLyPeedu
- Other: IMDB:https://m.imdb.com/name/nm13858698/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_1_in_0_q_chrissy%2520Ly%2520Peedu
Image Credits
The photo that’s outside in pointe shoes with a pink-blue-ish dress: Aleksander Pedosk
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
