Meet Loren Chadima

We were lucky to catch up with Loren Chadima recently and have shared our conversation below.

Loren, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Question about Resilience.

In 2003, I met a writer and read her script which was centered in Israel and was about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We worked for months on putting a producing team together and then when we found producers and were just about to sign a contract, she decided she wanted to go a different way. It was devastating, but I have come to find out that this is a common Hollywood experience.

Still, I had created a relationship with a wonderful Israeli/Palestinian peace organization and I didn’t want to lose its support. One of the leaders of the group handed me a book of stories for inspiration for a new film. I read a story of a mother whose son left for what she thought was school in the morning, but later she was told he had gone to fight in the war and died. It moved me so I looked for a writer to write a script. I connected with a former student Nathan Scoggins and he wrote and then we produced together my second film, CRIES FROM RAMAH.

Raising money for a short film takes so much patience and eventually we found a generous investor. We had finished production and were struggling to find affordable post production services. I remember laying in bed, sick with the flu, several months after completing principal photography. I was upset and worried about the post-production for the film, when my husband came home excited that he had made a connection at Sony Studios who generously offered to do the post production and allowed us to have the first screening of the film on the lot. This felt like a miracle.The screening was very well received and I began to apply to film festivals. I applied to 30 film festivals and we were turned down by every one of them. I kept remembering that Walt Disney had been turned down by 120 banks saying that Disneyland would never work. I kept going. The 31st film festival we got accepted into the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival at which two more festivals found our film and invited us to attend. We won Best Short Film for both of those film festivals: Sedona International and Rochester Film Festivals. We went on to qualify for the 79th Academy Awards. My moto is “Persistence prevails when all else fails.”

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 always wanted to be an actor but I got so nervous when I had to audition that I forgot my lines and even threw up. As many times as I tried to audition it was just too painful so I gave up acting and focused on directing.

Putting on plays in my backyard, performing in the community as a dancer and playing the piano were my passions as a kid. My elementary school didn’t have any drama programs so at nine years old I produced, directed and acted in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Frankly, I’ve never stopped. I kept producing and directing through high school and as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego. With the goal to be a great theater director who worked effectively with actors, I chose a graduate school, Trinity Repertory Conservatory, where I could train as an actor as well as a director. After getting my Masters Degree, I stayed on the East Coast and directed theater to critical acclaim. Next I decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue directing television and film. I made my first film, SURPRISE as part of The American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. My second film, CRIES FROM RAMAH won awards and was shortlisted for the 79th Academy Awards.

Still I had to pay my bills and I wanted to be home to raise children. An opportunity to teach actors came along. It wasn’t my goal, but it allowed me to be creative and gave me the personal flexibility I wanted.

I thought if I’m going to teach actors how to act then I have to teach them how to do it. My best teachers of any subject taught me how to do that thing – step by step. So that’s what I set out to do: create a step by step technique for acting. To start, I looked up acting – it’s defined as to do something. So then how do you do it? How do you act? What are the steps to acting? What are the steps to get into character in seconds? That’s when I realized that I had gotten so nervous when I auditioned because I didn’t know what to do and what to focus on besides my lines and my nerves. Like most actors, I was taught exercises, ideas, concepts and theories and to memorize lines, but there were no step by step instructions. That question: how do you act? What does an actor focus on first when they get in front of the camera? It’s that question that led me to develop a step by step repeatable acting technique called Intentional Acting.

The Intentional Acting methodology has helped to launch the careers of many actors such as: Bex Taylor-Klaus THE KILLING, HOUSE OF CARDS, ARROW, Disney Star Madison Hu BIZARDVARK; Brayden Maniago DAHMER and Paralympic Gold Medalist Blade Runner turned actor Blake Leeper: HOLIDAY TWIST, ABLED.

Intentional Acting has helped veteran actors take their career to the next level: Antonique Smith RENT NOTORIOUS, GENIUS: ARETHA, Kevin Gardner: AMERICAN CRIME STORY, LAST MAN STANDING. My eldest student (86 years old) is Gaylynn Baker (“Mabel” on Tik Tok Retirement House 5M Followers) and one of my youngest students, Ayla Rae (10 years old), is Queen Bee, the star of L.O.L SURPRISE the movie and TV series.

Before the pandemic several of my students hired me to act in their movies. I used my own technique to memorize lines, reduce my nerves and get into character. My own technique cured me of forgetting lines and my audition anxiety. I am currently in a national commercial CREPE ERASE and featured in several documentaries as myself, an acting coach in THE HOLLYWOOD COMPLEX and ABLED:THE BLAKE LEEPER STORY.

I teach a series of classes: the Foundations of Intentional Acting, Intentional Comedy, Intentional Characters and Masterclass. Fortunately, the pandemic forced me to take my classes online, so now I can offer classes to actors all over the world online, as well, in person in Los Angeles. You can see my class and private coaching offerings on my website: www.IntentionalActing.com

I believe that actors should not be dependent on coaches to book roles. That’s why my classes teach actors how to be undeniable in self tape auditions or in person; on set or on stage with or without my coaching. Many actors worry that they don’t have enough time to memorize lines and prepare for their auditions sufficiently. Their anxiety and fear, along with the technicalities of on-camera auditions, distracts them from getting into character and being able to give undeniable performances that book jobs.

The Intentional Acting technique gives actors the skills and confidence to prepare their high pressure auditions easily, help them internalize the story and dialogue (or as many say: memorize lines) quickly and to get into character effortlessly while being undeniable on screen. The Intentional Acting technique has not only helped actors from the age of 5 to the age of 87 to memorize pages of dialogue, it has helped even my youngest students improve their reading comprehension and school grades. I am writing a book STOP MEMORIZING YOUR LINES! How to internalize dialogue and be prepared for “Action!” which will be published by the same publisher as Stanislavsky’s AN ACTOR PREPARES – Routledge. I can’t wait to share it with you in late 2025 early 2026.

Teaching acting began as a way to pay the bills and be present for my son, but now has turned into a passion and calling to empower actors everywhere to be self-sustaining creative beings who have the practical skills to actualize their dreams.

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?

Qualities:
I feel very fortunate to have been born with the qualities of being self-disciplined, persistent and determined. My mother says that since I was little I would set my eyes on a goal and work towards that. My focus and self discipline helped me to go to France when I was 16, study in England and Italy at 21, produce two films and build my own business – just to name a few things. I had a vision and then took small steps that grew into bigger steps. I had always wanted to go to France. I found an exchange program and got my parents to let me go to Nantes, France. When I got home from that trip, which included a side trip to England with my mom, I had my eyes set on studying Shakespeare in England for college. I immediately started earning and saving money for the next three years and went to England, then Italy and backpacking through Europe. Producing my first film I applied to The American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, because I didn’t want to have to pay for my film. I was accepted into this prestigious program and before the first day of the session I had three experienced producers to help me produce my film. Now building my business, creating an acting methodology and writing a book, it is my discipline, persistence and determination that keeps me going when it’s tough. Sometimes I am much too hard on myself and push myself and use these qualities against myself. Now I’m finding a balance – more ease and joy in doing this – probably because of the discipline of my morning meditation at five o’clock each day.

Skill:
The skill that has been most impactful is my ability to organize information from chaos into a story or method. I have done this many times as a Director and Producer for original plays and scripts. Now I am amalgamating the different acting techniques of the great teachers of the 20th century into my book and method: Intentional Acting.

Areas of Knowledge:
My studies and work as Filmmaker and Director make me an actor’s director. I understand the actor’s process as well as the needs for production. I am grateful for my early training as a musician: twelve years of classical piano and music theory and even more years of dance training: ballet, modern, jazz. Both have made me a better acting teacher, filmmaker and all around artist. The classical, methodical training of ballet and piano music theory has been a huge influence on my desire to create a system of practice drills for actors – much like Uta Hagen had aimed to do. I find that my experience as a choreographer helps me with understanding actors with a dance background as well as how to block actors and block the camera for scenes. My music knowledge helps me to be a great editor of information as well as film and is the base of my methods for teaching comedy.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Too many actors are desperate for opportunities to act, to do what they love and are called to do. They lack the confidence in their skills and choices and feel dependent on teachers and directors to tell them if their work is valuable and worthy. My mission is to change this way of thinking.

Intentional Acting methodology puts the power of creating characters, auditions, self tapes and performances in the actors’ hands. It gives actors the tools to be confident in their choices, themselves and their assessment of their work. It makes them self-sustaining in their expression and their ability to create the career of their dreams. I’m always looking to work with actors who are looking for what I have to offer. I offer a safe space to grow as an artist and a person and a repeatable step by step acting technique that with dedication and practice can create powerful, compelling and undeniable auditions, self tapes and performances within minutes of receiving a script.

I’m looking to work with actors, directors, managers, drama teachers, theatre and film professors, community theatre artists and professional theatre and film artists. Artists who are interested in learning the Intentional Acting method and sharing it with their communities. Our goal together will be to empower actors and artists all over the world with tools to stop memorizing lines, trust their instincts, engage with their life experience and artistic yearnings to live fulfilling, abundant, self-sustaining creative lives.

Actors, teachers, potential collaborators are welcome to set up a Discovery Zoom session with me. Together we can ask questions and discover if we are a good fit and what the next steps might be for our collaboration. Schedule your Discover Intentional Acting Session with me today: www.DiscoverIntentionalActing.com

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Headshot Photo by David Chan

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