We were lucky to catch up with Ofir Sofer recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Ofir, 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?
In my teenage years I struggled a lot with mental health, and I worked incredibly hard to be where I am now mentally, so I feel like no matter what happens now, I’m a lot more grounded and developed such a thick skin that made me pretty resilient and keeps me balanced. Also, I feel like growing up in Israel made me automatically more resilient to be honest, in the last three years here in LA I had A LOT going on and so many downs, I had points that my roommate kept telling me “I’m not sure how you’re still alive “, but when these things happen I keep reminding myself how lucky I am, how fortunate I am to be alive and have the privilege to move across the ocean to try and make my dream come true, which I never take for granted, and then I calm down.
Just always remember that everyone is fighting a war you might not be aware of. Be kind. It’ll always keep you grounded humble and empathetic. And hella resilient😅
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?
My name is Ofir I’m originally from Israel and I moved to Los Angeles three years ago to be an actress in Hollywood. If we’re being honest and looking at the “bigger than me” picture, my passion in life is people. My dream is to travel around the world, study cultures, volunteer, and help change people’s lives as much as I can. I wanna figure out how I can make people’s lives a little less difficult than they already are. But! My dad kept telling me at, some point in my life that to help people I need to build myself first, so I’ll have something to give the people, otherwise, I’m not helping anyone.
My dad is always right, so I started to focus on the smaller picture, me(:
I knew I wanted to be an actress since I was a little child but as I grew up I decided I wanted to come all the way to Hollywood, “go big or go home” style. I also knew that if I wanted to be able to tell people stories to a large crowd, Hollywood was the place to reach a lot of people. I’m not gonna lie, I almost got cold feet because leaving my family, friends, and my
country that I love so much was hard for me, but then, true story, I saw the news about Kobe and Gigi Bryant’s death, I cried like a 4-year-old and for 3 hours, understood how short life is, and just got off the couch and submitted for a school in LA. I’m not kidding hahaha, Kobe Bryant unknowingly drove me to not let my dream go. I ended up completing my degree at the New York Film Academy. During my degree, in addition to acting, I also discovered my passion for directing and rediscovered my love for voice-over. I had a dream to be a Disney voiceover actress since I was a little girl, and I felt like I put it off for years until I came here, so my main goal in the industry right now is to be a successful actress, voiceover actress, and eventually a Director, because I do enjoy working with actors, thinking about the “bigger picture” and being creative while telling a story. In terms of genres, When I moved here I was pretty fixated on comedy, and slowly I discovered how much I love and feel comfortable in drama as well. so I’m pretty open to genres, but my first true love is making people laugh, and I would love to make a career out of that. Especially a sitcom! being in a sitcom is my dream and definitely one of my immediate goals.
I just flew to act in a comedic commercial for “Aquaman 2”, which was “The Office” inspired. This experience made me realize even more how much I love sitcoms and I’d love to do it.
I’m also trained in stunts and wire stunts, and I have my own training from being a combat soldier in the military, so action movies are definitely something I’m passionate about.
I also love to write, dance, sing, and play music, and I basically wanna get to the moon. Quite literally, I love space 😂 so I can talk all day about my goals in life… but honestly, I just wanna be happy, healthy, and surrounded by good people.
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 would say that first and foremost the skill that brought me the farthest in life is being good with people. Building relationships and safe spaces for people. That impacted my journey tremendously, and that would be the first this I would recommend to people who come here for the industry to work on. In Hollywood, it all starts and ends with people. Networking and community is key. Another quality that’s served me well is being open-minded and receptive to new ideas and feedback, especially on set. I’ll do anything that would make me better. I’m not a native English speaker, so when I moved here I encouragd my friends and colleagues to correct my mistakes in English while we’re speaking, so I can continue to learn and grow. People felt awkward at first because they didn’t want to embarrass me. But I’m not embarrassed, when it comes to learning everyone should throw their egos out of the window. You can’t learn anything from doing the same thing over and over, open your ears and listen, I only got smarter and better by making this my mantra in life. Never regretted it.
The third skill that I would say was crucial for me going for this profession is a sense of business and awareness. I’ve learned everything I know about business from my father, and also to always be with a healthy amount of suspicion, always with my hand on the pulse because this business is not for the soft-hearted. Neither is this city. One thing I’m extremely happy I did was take a Business Of Acting class. I really believe that no one should start their way in this industry without it.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
As actors, ideally, you are going to experience “living” many different lives, and for that, you need to have life experiences and skills that you are not necessarily familiar with. from the simplest ones through the most painful ones to the happiest ones. So basically to be an actor you need to LIVE life to the fullest. and learn from everything you do cause you might use it. Let’s say you found yourself at a job you hate, working 9-5 as a secretary with a boss you can’t stand, wondering what are you doing with your life, hey! Who knows, You might be auditioning for this exact role of a frustrated secretary a year from now, and they’ll choose you because you are the most authentic! I find myself in times of heartbreak and pain recording myself, just so I’ll remember how it feels, because for me it’s another “skill” I’m working on. I’m jokingly saying that the pain is worth it, cause now if I’ll be asked to play the role of the heartbroken, I already got it in my toolbox.
I also always loved how to write, but when I moved here I was scared to write in English, I felt like I was not good at it, so I let it go. But then my acting teacher insisted that I would work on that skill, study and practice it because every good actor should be able to write his own stories. So I’m working on it, and on many other skills that I feel like I’m not the strongest because I know that one day it’ll serve me. This industry is so creative, that you’ll always feel like you need to add more skills. It’s fun though, I feel like a little girl who now made her after-school activities her main priority towards a successful career. “I can’t come today ’cause I need to practice my ukulele” was never something I thought I’d say with full seriousness as an adult, but here I am. I love it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Ofir_sofer
- SoundCloud: Ofir sofer
Image Credits
Pranav Mehta , Linh Tang, jared Hawkley
