We recently connected with Kyle Christiansen and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kyle, 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?
Stubborn determination and the knowledge that hard times and easy times are equally temporary and cyclical. I’m blessed to have a strong support system with my friends and family in whom I can find strength, solace, and shelter. A safety net like that encourages resilience – the ability to bounce back from trying times and keep fighting for your dreams as well as the means to step out of the battle when you need a break. Myself and the people in my life have all endured trying times, hardships, and defeatist mindsets yet kept pushing through and forward. With each passing struggle, I’ve increasingly trusted myself to get through those times.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m an actor, producer, writer and director. Acting has always been my first calling, as the films I loved growing up instilled a longing to be in them and explore the human experience through the acting medium. I’m a film buff all around, so producing was inevitable – but a major reason why I began producing was to give myself opportunities to be in front of the camera. In a highly competitive and over-saturated industry, creating your own spaces to show what you’re capable of is an extremely resourceful and beneficial skill. Many creatives also have several means of operation, and for me that includes various above-the-line (and some below-the-line i.e. script supervising, script editing) components of the film production process (I also sing).
Currently, the first short film I produced is hitting the festival circuit. “What Are We? Are We Going To Be? We Are.” was shot in April 2023. My team and I took our sweet time in post-production finding the right edit, so it’s fascinating to see it now finally going public. In some way it feels attached to who Kyle was two years ago, but also like a reminder of my continuing journey. Once the festival run is nearing completion, we plan to put together our own screenings.
Additionally, a film I had the pleasure of acting in, “Arthur Ave.”, is in the festival circuit right now. I’ve been representing it at various fests and have had the honor of winning Best Supporting Actor at several, including the Eastern Europe Film Festival and BLUEZ Dolphins Monthly Online International Short Film Festival.
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?
The first piece of advice I give to folks searching for insight on how to start is to literally do just that – start. Start writing, start practicing monologues and creating characters, start studying film and watching movies religiously, start submitting yourself to roles, start filming, start sharing your progress online. It can be the smallest amount of effort and it will still create more progress than if you put forth no effort at all. Getting comfortable with this notion was one of the first conversations I had with myself when beginning to actively pursue a creative career.
Secondly, know what your goals and intentions are. If your relationship to your work is shallow than your efforts will be shallow as well. If you truly love what it is you’re pursuing then your efforts will show that. Your thoughts manifest into behavior, so when you’re clear on what you want, where you wish to go, and what you aim to do then your actions will naturally fall in line. Additionally, when you’re at peace with your own process, you’ll be comfortable going at your own pace – the only pace worth going at.
Lastly, but in tandem with going at your own pace, give yourself space to rest. I recently found myself going through a long period of building burnout to the point where I was frustrated, bitter, tired, and delivering work that I knew wasn’t my best. It got to a point where I was hustling for the hustle, not for the love. My natural connection to performance and film felt withered. I’ve disciplined myself to make things happen consistently for the past five years – I needed to give myself permission to let my down time be time and do absolutely nothing other than relax. Rediscover equilibrium. This was also needed due to several other happenings in my life, but the point is: Now that I’ve allowed myself a prolonged period of time to do the bare minimum, I find my hunger, focus, and instinct coming back to an organic motivation. This new me will take what the old me has done so far and run even further.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I’m always looking to expand my network. For me, a strong creative partnership starts with an organic connection. It’s taken me 4 years to cultivate a circle I feel genuinely comfortable with and motivated by. A community that inspires me to keep working. Additionally, I’m really inspired by certain iconic creative partnerships that I aspire to in terms of cultivating those types of relationships: Duos such as Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, Martin Scorsese and Robert Deniro, Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. I tend to be drawn to filmmakers and creatives who I trust to bring out the best in me creatively and who I’m drawn to artistically. I love to have a “team” of sorts to turn to when we need to bring an idea to fruition. I would love to develop more connections like this – filmmakers and creatives who recognize me as an artist and that I value back equally. We can come together time and time again and become iconic ourselves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kylechristiansen.com
- Instagram: @kyleearthurr
Image Credits
Christophe McWhorter
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