Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Clay von Carlowitz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Clay, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
When I was growing up, I witnessed my mom struggle to keep the family together. We lived in small-town Northeast Ohio, mixing with lower-middle and upper-middle classes, moving constantly with a lot of kids in tow. Financially we were always struggling, and on top of that, my dad was an alcoholic. Even though there were lots of dark, harrowing moments, I couldn’t help but notice the radical positivity my mom held onto through it all. Her dedication to instilling traditions of escape, unity, togetherness and faith made a huge impact on me early on, as did the surge of joy when my dad was in a good mood and felt like being funny or playing pretend. To watch someone switch from simmering rage to free-flowing buoyancy inspired me to take hold of my own reality and use specific tools to conquer fear, sorrow and doubt. In some ways, I went too far in that direction; teachers and coaches had a hard time reigning me in, as I became more and more at home with a wandering imagination and a hunger for playing roles outside of reality.
As time went by, I learned a few other important skills: dogged determination and inner strength. Being so innocent and free exposed me to malice, bitterness, jealousy and resentment. It would take a while for me to not take everything personally, but gradually I found ways to be my best self and preserve the inner child. When faced with rejection, hardship or loss, I got better at articulating to others – and to myself – reasons to look back fondly, reasons to be content, and reasons to look forward with hopefulness. Further on in my journey as an artist, I started to notice that I was giving friends, peers and co-workers little kernels of knowledge and gestures of support, as I noticed them navigating situations I had, and it made me feel good to give them some of my positive energy.
The challenge of having an inherent sense of optimism is to be careful not to give too much of it away, or to offer it to those who use it cheaply and then require more, as if it’s a temporary high to mask deep, unresolved pain. But having such a gift can be a tremendous blessing, if used responsibly. Now that I’ve gotten a foothold in my passions of acting and filmmaking, I challenge myself to maintain a commitment to working on projects that activate my imagination and engage in dialogue with my inner conflict. This is no replacement for therapy, but it does fulfill me by giving me a sense of accomplishment, a place to focus my energy and a reminder that I continue to control my destiny inasmuch as I create it. The rest, I’ve come to understand, must be left to the universe.
It’s impossible to know the future, but to me, that’s all the more reason to celebrate what we already have.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m an actor, writer, producer and director. Almost as far back as I can remember, I’ve been doing versions of all four of these things. As alluded to earlier in my assessment of optimism as it pertains to my life, I had to develop methods of escape, deflection, healing and meditation in order to survive a chaotic environment. Here’s the fun part of that journey: I knew I was good at it right away! I saw what joy it brought people to imitate them, to draw them, to involve them in my bits of theatre. I had the good fortune of many siblings (I’m the second oldest of 9), so I could easily cast them in original scenarios or remakes of my favorite movies, as told through the backdrop of a living, garage, parking lot or backyard. I got very organized with being creative, and when I saw that people responded to my boldness, I took bigger risks, often in the form of classroom pranks. I found that I enjoyed the preparation as much as the payoff, and I eagerly looked for chances to take my love of stagecraft to the next level.
Aside from minor sketches I wrote, performed and directed in elementary school, I wasn’t able to actually audition for a play until freshman year of high school. I seized that opportunity and kicked its ass. Yes, it was a supporting role, but every single time I made an appearance, I got a huge round of applause from the audience. I had no guidebook for acting, so I just assumed I had to “become the character.” This meant nobody in the cast really knew me, and most assumed I was a senior, as I came off older and more removed. That was the part of me that aged rapidly as a child, and I found comfort in accessing it, channeling it and putting it back at will.
Flash forward to college and I finally really got to learn the craft of everything involving theatre and film, all while testing my skills against others with similar or superior ability. I dabbled in mainstage shows, but truly felt at home with indie black box productions, which felt like truly intimate works of collaboration, requiring a kind of punk rock mentality, an all-or-nothing approach to storytelling that ultimately paved the way for my career in independent film. As Kenyon College was more focused on theatre at the time, I latched onto the few students in my school who wanted a career in cinema. We made stuff together, learned from each other and dreamed of making movies for a living. I made it a mission to hone my writing skills to the point that I had a sense for my voice.
Through the confines of that small campus, I rallied support from classmates, professors, siblings and family members back home and made my first feature film, a supernatural horror thriller that more or less captured a hardening of my soul at a time when I felt scared and uncertain with where I’d go from there and how I’d reconcile unresolved trauma. Fun stuff, right? Anyway, making that movie (available somewhere on YouTube) taught me a lot about how indie film really tested an artist’s tenacity and belief in the value of a story no one else would necessarily care about.
Jumping ahead into the real world, I hit the bricks in NYC, looking for acting jobs in small plays, student films and anything else that could make me look legitimate to the greater industry. Somehow or other, this led me to a crazy supporting role in a cult indie horror comedy, RETURN TO NUKE ‘EM HIGH, which is where I met my future wife, the amazing actress/filmmaker Asta Paredes. I was rewarded on that set for my creative risks and penchant for improv, and I got a crash course in self-promotion and film distribution with all the hoopla thereafter.
Coming off the high of that experience, I continued to tap into my love of all aspects of production and fought to make my own opportunities by collaborating with trusted peers. Though I’ve worked on some studio productions, largely my background involves indie film. This can be both invigorating and, occasionally, frustrating. Making a movie outside the studio system means lower budgets, fewer guarantees and a longer road toward distribution. You can’t go into this realm expecting immediate payoffs. Often, from concept to script to production to festivals and finally to limited theatrical and physical media/streaming release, it takes 2-3 years. For an actor, that means you have to work twice as hard to stay busy, so you’re not stuck waiting for one project to attract other opportunities.
Incrementally, I’ve managed to build relationships with a variety of creatives in the indie world, so I’m more likely to enjoy this kind of overlap. In the background of all this, naturally I’m working towards getting my own personal passion projects made. While those gather momentum, I maintain a regimen of screenwriting, a discipline in and of itself that opens up conversations with producers, because everyone is always looking to make movies and it helps to have a solid script to draw from.
I’m a big admirer of the rebels, mavericks and self-starters of this business. Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, John Cassavetes, Larry Fessenden, Danny McBride and Jim Cummings all recognized something special in themselves and didn’t necessarily wait for the industry to notice them or hand them their big break. Importantly, they placed value in longterm relationships, investment in all aspects of storytelling and the belief that their perspective mattered. It’s a privilege to get regular work as an actor, but regardless of the level of stardom you enjoy, you have to have a sense of direction, and a flow of ideas that make a compelling case for your participation in telling stories that reflect the concerns, dreams and nightmares of today.
Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to work on some fun and provocative indie films as an actor. Werewolf horror-drama BLACKOUT, by the singular East Coast auteur Larry Fessenden, can be found on most streaming platforms. Toxic romance/horror-comedy CANNIBAL MUKBANG, from the mind of first-time feature filmmaker Aimee Kuge, has just wrapped up a long, wide-ranging festival run, and will be getting a big streaming release sometime early next year. Psychological arthouse thriller ANTON, from multi-disciplinary NYC artist Alexis Karl, should be hitting festivals next spring. Beyond all of the above, I’m privately working on getting some of my own feature films off the ground in the next 12 months, as well as prepping to act in some exciting stuff from friends here in Los Angeles.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1) Courage: You must know in your heart you are good enough, and that your impulse to follow your dreams is related to something unique that has an effect on people. Accepting this as fact, you then need to put yourself out there, knowing you’ll sometimes fail, but believing that you’ll eventually connect. The more you refine your skills as an artist, the more easily you can show up, do your thing, own it and feel the electricity in the room.
2) Passion: Admit that you have a point of view and that there are things you notice and relish more than others. Whatever your reasons for going into a certain field, know that they matter. You want to prove something to someone? Great. You want to confront unresolved trauma? Valid. You want to help people escape? Wonderful. Do not be shy about pursuing this thing which brings you joy or gives you a sense of purpose. You’ll find that you attract others with similar feelings, and those people can build something with you.
3) Community: No man is an island. I’ll be the first to concede that there are times in my life when I didn’t think I needed anybody, that I could do it all on my own. I learned quickly that I had miscalculated; see, even if you are a visionary, and you want to protect that vision, you have to be willing to let the universe know that you need help. You have to be vulnerable to see others’ work that might be more advanced than yours, and to listen to their advice, whether or not you use all of it. Find people that share a common language. Support them, celebrate them, look out for them, and you’ll find they do the same for you. Be brave enough to sit down and share some of your dreams, but also share your anxieties. In these moments, you’ll see that people are endeared to you and will want to share their resources. Building your tribe takes time. I’ve got the good fortune of friends on both coasts, across the pond and a handful of places in between. We stay in touch, we root for each other and we hold each other accountable to the dreams we’ve been daring enough to articulate.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
THE ART OF ACTING by Stella Adler, Edited and Compiled By Howard Kissel.
While I majored in Drama, I never had the luxury of the conservatory experience. Fortunately, there are many books out there that try to bridge the gap, and this one might be my favorite. Stella Adler might be most famous for being Marlon Brando’s teacher and champion, but her lectures and initiatives have had an impact on countless others. For me, Stella felt like an intimidating mother figure, loving mentor, staunch disciplinarian and intense patron of the arts. Beyond her very useful, practical distillation of Stanislavsky’s “Method,” Stella impressed upon her students that being onstage – or, as the case may be, onscreen (assuming it was a worthy story) – meant you weren’t just showing a slice of everyday life. You were representing big ideas. And in order to represent, to communicate, to project those ideas, you needed to understand the context from which they were born. You needed to do the work, whether by reading, by going to view great works in an art museum, by walking the streets and taking in the realities you would otherwise avoid. You had to let those bigger themes sink in, to let them affect you, to know why that writer or director wanted to put it out there. The Greeks understood this well, but in modern society, as Stella explains, so much is taken for granted, ignored, cheapened or forgotten – not just in terms of history, but in terms of thought, of deeper meaning, of efforts to make things beautiful, and how those efforts often fail.
Stella also encouraged the actor to go outside him or herself, because as special as you might fancy yourself to be, life, the world and the universe are so much bigger than an individual. You should want to participate in the great debates of your time, to wrestle over the ideas we inherit from the zeitgeist. You should have an opinion, and you should listen and learn in order to cultivate a nuanced point of view. When the time comes to take to the stage, to put pen to paper, to call “Action,” to chisel the stone, you should feel an integration of this immersion, and the work you do will bear a greater depth than it might have otherwise.
Finally, Stella knew that acting was a business, and she made sure to let her students know she felt for them. It can feel silly printing pictures, making the rounds, bothering casting directors, working out, looking pretty, broadcasting yourself in the hopes of securing employment. She conceded that this was the reality, and that ultimately, you had to build a life for yourself outside of the industry so you didn’t get lost in the soulless game of it all. Finally, as I remember Stella putting it, you should know a life in the arts is a noble path, and it’s okay to acknowledge the naivete required to say “I think I can do this for a living.”
Contact Info:
- Website: www. clayvoncarlowitz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clayvoncarlowitz?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==
- Twitter: https://x.com/ClayvonC
Image Credits
Asta Paredes
Sean Chee
Eastwood PAC
Aimee Kuge
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
