It's important to take chances and put yourself in situations where it's uncertain if you will fail or succeed. Write down 3 small ways you can do something out of your comfort zone, then try them!

Day to Day

Find 3 ways to get out of your comfort zone!

Improv classes are offered at theaters, community colleges, rec centers, and more. Search online for classes offered close to you and sign up for a beginner class! Even better, sign up with a friend!

Career

Find an improv class near you!

Either join the theater group or class at your school, or find a local community theater where you can try out or volunteer.

Advice

Get involved in theater.

Actors

Play parts in stage, television, radio, video, motion picture productions, or other settings for entertainment, information, or instruction. Interpret serious or comic role by speech, gesture, and body movement to entertain or inform audience. May dance and sing.

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Second Interest High-Point

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

First Interest High-Point

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Third Interest High-Point

Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed

Actors, Producers, and Directors

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers

Study and rehearse roles from scripts to interpret, learn and memorize lines, stunts, and cues as directed.

Work closely with directors, other actors, and playwrights to find the interpretation most suited to the role.

Learn about characters in scripts and their relationships to each other to develop role interpretations.

Collaborate with other actors as part of an ensemble.

Perform humorous and serious interpretations of emotions, actions, and situations, using body movements, facial expressions, and gestures.

Attend auditions and casting calls to audition for roles.

Portray and interpret roles, using speech, gestures, and body movements, to entertain, inform, or instruct radio, film, television, or live audiences.

Work with other crew members responsible for lighting, costumes, make-up, and props.

Sing or dance during dramatic or comedic performances.

Read from scripts or books to narrate action or to inform or entertain audiences, utilizing few or no stage props.

Promote productions using means such as interviews about plays or movies.

Write original or adapted material for dramas, comedies, puppet shows, narration, or other performances.

Prepare and perform action stunts for motion picture, television, or stage productions.

Tell jokes, perform comic dances, songs and skits, impersonate mannerisms and voices of others, contort face, and use other devices to amuse audiences.

Introduce performances and performers to stimulate excitement and coordinate smooth transition of acts during events.

Manipulate strings, wires, rods, or fingers to animate puppets or dummies in synchronization with talking, singing, or recorded programs.

Dress in comical clown costumes and makeup, and perform comedy routines to entertain audiences.

Perform original and stock tricks of illusion to entertain and mystify audiences, occasionally including audience members as participants.

Construct puppets and ventriloquist dummies, and sew accessory clothing, using hand tools and machines.

Digital still cameras

Digital video recorders

Laptop computers

MP3 digital voice recorders

Personal computers

Photography tripods

Tablet computers

Wireless microphones

Apple Final Cut Pro

Email software

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

Microsoft Office

Motion capture software

Twitter

Web browser software

Website development software

YouTube

Owners

<p>The RV breaks down as the team heads from Los Angeles to San Francisco before they interview law professor and children's rights activist Thomas Nazario. Then they go to Golden Gate Park to talk with David Miles, Jr., the "godfather of skating." Driving east into Utah, they visit the Great Salt Lake and talk with theater owners Eric and Sandy Jensen. The team pushes on to New Mexico and meets up with Christina Heyniger, an adventure tourism consultant.</p>

Los Angeles - Santa Fe

The art work here of what we do in improvisation, it's something you can do in your own life. Whether it's dating, to having a conversation with your parents. You know what you wanna say, whatever it is you're in trouble or maybe whatever the issues are, but sometimes you have to be able to break away from that script because change is inevitable, right? In our lives, you get older, change is a huge thing and people are scared of change. If it's something that they're not sure of, they want it to be the same. So, change is inevitable. So if you look at life that way, where you say whatever career path that I take, it's okay to change. It's okay to change my mind because I'm changing. What I think is important now at 12, what I think is important now at 21, at 38, I don't feel the same. So you will have that coming your way. Where right now you think, okay, I'm 21 years old, I should do this. This is important, but it may not be when you're 31. So if you look at life, and you say, change is inevitable, and it's okay. Try to find yourself each year as you're taking the step towards whatever career path, whatever it is you wanna do. Try to enjoy what it is you're doing, and see if you can learn something from it. 

Aussie Girls interview Eric & Sandy Jensen

Fear

Fulfillment

Change

(Roadtripper #1) Sandy and Eric Jensen. They opened up their own theatre. (Sandy) Eric! They're here! We've arrived! Hi, I'm Camilla, nice to meet you. Hi Eric, Su-Yin. Growing up I loved watching movies and pictured myself acting and doing things but as a child I didn't get to laugh a lot growing up. I had a very strict, very strict upbringing where I was seen and not heard. Even when I first met him, people thought that I spoke too softly, 'I can't hear her!' And I think with my husband I could be who I really am. An asian girl just came in! That's my wife and she's been drinking. (Sandy) What he taught me is, when I was silly and I broke that, I lost my fear because people laughed and I thought, 'This is a good feeling!' I don't have to be prim and proper and do everything that people think the perception of what I should be. It's what do I want to be and as I've been with him for the last 20 years now I'm loud and I'm obnoxious. People are like, 'You've been with Eric too long.' [Everyone laughing] And so I think that's where my passion comes from, is that we bring laughter to people. (Eric) There's something about live theatre that just, you know you're not becoming a doctor where you're changing people's lives physically but sometimes you make people's lives emotionally a little better. [Everyone laughing] When I was about 3 years old, I said, "Mommy what is it, those guys that make people laugh? What do you call it?" She said, "A comic, a comedian." I said, "That's what I want to be!" I think a lot of people know what they want to do but they don't have the courage to really follow it. You said that you had the passion from when you were three-- Yeah. And I'm just curious about how smooth the journey was. Like what were the roadblocks? Yeah I mean, maybe you have a perception that we have never a waning moment of, of thinking this isn't worth it. (Sand)  Or doubt. Or doubt. Gosh. All the time. All the time, especially as an actor you get up and in improv you'll see a guy and he comes out on stage and he literally will not know what he's going to say. What we're going to do now is play Da-Do-Run-Run. You guys know the song! ♪Da-Do-Run-Run and my heart stood still, Da-Do-Run-Run! ♪♪  We'll start with this person's name, right there! What's your name? (Roadtripper #2)  Mariana. Mariana! (Improvisers) ♪ Met her on a Monday and her name is Mar', ♪ Da-Do-Run-Run Da-Do-Run-Run. ♪ We made out in her timeshare, Da-Do-Run-Run Da-Do-Run-Run. ♪ Da-Do-Do Yeah! I shave my legs with nair, Da-Do-Do Yeah!♪ ♪  (Mariana) With the whole improv, I thought it was a really good metaphor for our life right now. We don't have a script, I don't have a script and that's probably what I'm struggling the most with is, I really want a script. I want something that's going to be like, 'If you do this and this, you're gonna know what the next line is.' And I'm paralyzed by the fear of not knowing what that next line is. And so how do you get out there, not knowing what people are going to say to you and how they're going to react and not let fear make you just stand in the sun and let someone else-- (Eric) I mean you have to have a little bit of fear in life because it kind of pushes you away from the edge that is danger but there's so many things that we perceive as dangerous and they're really not that dangerous. They're fine, they're just a little uncomfortable perhaps. Standing in front of an audience and not getting laughs is not going to make you die. It is going to be a little humiliating and you walk away going, "Ugh, my gosh‚" Okay, so you stepping on stage is the first step Showing up is the first step, in anything, showing up. The next thing, when you start going into it, you're going to be a little bit afraid, whatever it is. The fear of failure is what gets you all the time. When you're actually going through the failure, you're like, "Ugh, how am I gonna get out of this?! This is bad, but how am I gonna get out of it?" But the fear of failure is what keeps people from trying anyway. I've failed a million times on the stage. You say your joke and then somebody in the audience says, this cracks me up, they'll say, "You suck!" There's one guy on stage with a spotlight, taking a chance becoming as vulnerable as he possibly can, taking a chance trying to make you laugh, 'Here I go, there it is! What do you think?' Now, from a darkened audience, a completely safe place, somebody comes up with, seriously, the most ingenious ad-lib I have ever heard, they're saying, "You suck." That's it. That's all they've got. I'm better than that. (Sandy) Even though when people doubt you and they tell you to stop, we're continuing. You know my mom, my dad, 'If you're not making a lot of money then you should stop.' Well I've been doing it for 14 years, that's gotta say something. If you're happy to wake up in the morning and go do your job, whatever it is, it doesn't become a job, it becomes your life. And this is our life. [Crowd cheering and laughing] 

Beliefs & Faith

Character

Choices

Confidence

Courage

Culture

Desire

Experience

Exploration

Family

Hard Work

Individualism

Money & Financial Security

Passion

Pressure

Pride

Risk

Success

Struggle

Interview

My dad told me, get a job that you, at least you don't hate going to work, that at least you can stand it. And I thought, wow, you can stand it, that's tough. I don't want to do anything that I can barely stand doing it, but I'll do it, you know. I mean, there are those things that you can just barely stand, and you do it. But gee a third of my life, during the work day, doing that? That's, that's tough. I would much rather do something I enjoyed doing, or really maybe even liked doing, or perhaps loved doing, which is what I did. And the question is this, if you had $4 million, didn't have to work again the rest of your life to keep yourself occupied, what would you do? That's a good place to start. And if I had $4 million and was going to be rich through the rest of my life, I would open a little theater somewhere and write plays, and try to do something to make people happy, and to maybe even educate the community, and, I don't know, effect kids, mentor them. Things that, I think that's where I'd be the happiest. 

Bad Advice From Dad

I think, with this type of business, theater is such a business that you can break, or you can make it big. And so I think if you have faith and belief in yourself and confidence, we just keep trying to move forward, even some people say, close your business down, it's too much work, you're getting older. I'm like, well, what do I do when I'm older? I don't wanna retire and just plant a garden. I want to work up till I can't work anymore, doing what I love to do, and meeting the people like you guys. >> [LAUGH] 

Don't Want To Retire

I think if you can overcome fear. Fear is the biggest- >> That is so true. >> Detriment to anyone and if you can overcome your fear. My husband taught me something as an actress, okay. A lot of girls wanna be pretty on stage. They don't want to make their nose big. They want their hair perfect because people are gonna see you. And their perception of you as an actress is if she's ugly, I don't wanna cast her. Where he told me if you can be silly and you can break that boundary and just, because people see men doing stuff, stunts and things, and they laugh at it. But when women do pratfalls they go oh, are you okay? What he taught me is, when I was silly and I broke that, I lost my fear, because people laughed. I thought this is a good feeling. That I can be obnoxious, and it's okay. I don't have to be prim and proper, and do everything that people think the perception of what I should be. It's what do I wanna be. And the fear of improvising and making mistakes he said it's okay, that's part of learning. And so he taught me to be a better actress because of that. It's okay to fail, it's okay to mess up. You can screw up and [SOUND] get back on your feet and do it again because you learned something from that mistake. 

Societal Pressures

Ok To Mess Up

I think a lot of people know what they wanna do, but they don't have the courage to really follow it or I don't know, maybe they don't even have the talent to do it. I'm not saying I'm the most talented guy in the world, but I know my brother in law loved the coronet, he loved to play the trumpet, but he went into computers cuz that's where the money was. I know that I could go into computers, or I could go into another field, but I love this, because it's different all the time. There's always challenges. 

Talent

Because you've done so many different things, and you're still in college and doing different jobs, what were your parents thinking? >> Oh yeah, well. >> Just kidding [LAUGH] >> They still are thinking, they're like oh really aren't you out of that phase yet? >> You know that theater thing, aren't you done with that yet? And it's literally because I'm 40 years old [LAUGH]. I'm a grown man, I should know better I guess. But I look at them and say, well, I can see that what they're thinking is, they are concerned for me. And at 40 you really should be thinking about your retirement and where you're going and things like that. And we do have those plans, but it sure makes them nervous because that's not the way they were brought up. That's not the way they went through their life. And so by doing that it makes them just really scared for us and they don't know how to tell us to, they get nervous because they don't know how to give us advice or help. But when we just ask them to just help us however you can by talking up your, in our particular instance, by talking up to the theater to their friends and coming and supporting it. And then them talking to their friends, helps us out a little bit. >> Sometimes people have expectations for you and they worry out of loving you, wanting the best for you. They want you to have that $2 million retirement plan, cuz everyone's doing it. But it's like, we just wanna life our life, cuz you don't know when you're gonna die. I mean, I'm not a risk taker where I'm jumping off a cliff, building or something like that, but I think this is a huge risk for us, actually living our dream, doing what we love to do. And there are a lot of people that admire that, and there are a lot of people that look down on it. You know, you're not gonna please everybody, so. >> So yeah. >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> She's absolutely right. 

Support & Encouragement

Parents Worry

We'll do our little show, and we'll sometimes have kids coming from the Make a Wish Foundation. So this is their last year of life, and what do they wanna do? They wanna go to Disneyland, and they wanna maybe go, I don't know, to Florida and do something, go surfing or something. And they wanna, is it all right if we go to the Off Broadway Theater and see some silly play that I wrote in my head at 6 o'clock in the morning one day. I was writing a play and I write, that's kinda funny I guess, I hope that's funny, we'll see. We work on it for a few months and get it to be somewhat funny. And little kids, their dying wish is to see us do comical things on stage for them, and at the end they wanna meet you and, I mean you're not a Hollywood actor, but you've made a difference, not in maybe a hundred lives, but you made a big difference in that one life. And that keeps you going, that is something that makes you feel, wow I am making a difference. I'm really changing one person's life at a time, and that's, it makes you, it's overwhelming sometimes because you think, I've got a deadline to write something funny. I've got a deadline to make this play what's gonna sell. What can I do that will be funny? How about this? You throw that out there, that's not a good idea. Try this one, that might work. Okay, we'll put that with this one. You get an idea from someplace else and then you just write it all down, and then you present it, and hope something sticks, you hope it's funny. And most of the time it is, hopefully, and sometimes it's not so you kept those things out if you do it again, and make it funnier again. But when people walk out and say, oh my gosh this was the funniest thing I have ever seen, or I'm so happy that we came here instead of go to some movie that you've heard of, and it's like a big blockbuster. Oh yeah well we could see that later, but we wanted to see this because this is only gonna be here for the next couple of months, and, oh, you're one of my favorite guys, and this guy over here was so funny. And there's something about live theater that just, you're not becoming a doctor where you're changing people's lives physically, but sometimes you make people's lives emotionally a little better. In fact, one of the reasons that we even have art in our lives, is because it just enriches the quality of life. I mean, we can put bread in our mouths, and we can work for a living, we have to do that, right? But if we don't have art, if we don't have things that make us reflect, or laugh, or even cry, to make us have more enrichment in our lives, then what's it all worth? And that's a good question to ask yourself. So, sometimes, I feel like I'm not building, I'm not an architect and building great buildings. But what I am doing is just small things, that maybe make a son and a father high five [LAUGH]. >> [LAUGH] >> And say that was awesome, oh, I kinda got what that meant, did you get that? And the kid says yeah, but he doesn't really get it, and he still says that was so funny. Yeah, the man fell down you know or whatever, so. 

I'm still living my life. I am still eating what I want to eat. I mean I have a lot of money to go and travel and do a lot of other things like some people with more money. But I have a lot of friends that are wealthy, that aren't happy. Money doesn't buy happiness. I think if you're happy with a dollar, and you can make that work for you, you can make a million dollars work for you. You know I want to make a difference in the world and I think our theater makes the difference because we bring laughter to people. And so I think that's we're my passion comes from, is that we give something back to the community and it enriches my life. And if I die tomorrow I feel like I've done something good in my life. And I have a beautiful son, I have a wonderful husband and great friends and great family members. I don't think you could ask for more than that. Money is not the all and end of things. It helps in this world but, if you're happy to wake up in the morning and go do your job whatever it is, it doesn't become a job, it becomes your life and this is our life. 

Money Doesn't Buy Happiness

What prompted you to open your own theater? So you have, you have answered that. >> We had, like I was explaining to you guys, when we first started, we had partners. And some of our friends, like Eric and I, our personalities, we're not extremely assertive people. We're very laid back, you know, very casual, peacemakers, so we all kind of pooled our talent together to make it happen and it's kind of like a trial by error. We wanted to be entrepreneurs. We wanted to do things our way and see if it could work. What prompted us I think is the owner of the said you know, you don't understand how to do this cuz you're an actor. Open your own business someday and you'll understand. And we said, we could do that. Why not? Why the heck not? Let's do it. >> Was this just you two or was it [CROSSTALK] >> That's with the friends, because in any theater, there's policies, there's politics. And their policies is, you couldn't ad lib, you couldn't do certain things. They have a time, you get it, end it at this time or else you get in trouble, or you get reprimanded, blah, blah, blah. >> One of the things that I noticed is, he'd write a play, and he'd say, mm. >> Not funny. >> Too many jokes. Too many jokes in it. I'm like, well, it's a comedy. Aren't you supposed to? Nah, it's just too much jokes. >> Take it out. >> I don't like that. I'm like, yeah, well I really like it. Don't you like that? >> Yeah. >> It's not gonna sell. It won't? Hm. >> Let's test that theory. >> So you don't wanna do this play? Nah, I don't wanna do it. You'd be all right if we did it someplace else? Yeah, if somebody else would do it. So we would take a couple hundred dollars, and we'd go out to a park. Now this is a fun story. >> [LAUGH] >> We'd go out to a park and we'd pass out a bunch of fliers and say hey, we're gonna do a show on Saturday night. We're all ready to do it. It's called Robin Hood and it is gonna be really good. And people would say, oh, okay, well, we'll see. You'd see there was a very small, we were going to do it four nights, and it was a play we written called Robin Hood and that was just really, really funny, really slapsticky and just a lot of great comedy jokes. So we did this play and you'd noticed the people would be jogging by and would slow down, and they'd stop, and they'd watch for a little while. We had no curtains, we had, [LAUGH] it was just outdoors in a park. >> Few props and set piece but that's it. >> And we did it, see we did on the Thursday and the Friday, we had about 60 people. The next night we had like 120, 150 people, that last Monday night we had 500 people come, and we just sat there and look at all the people that were here to see our crummy little play. That we wrote in our basement and when we did that, we knew we had something and we knew that there was, I said this before, there was a real power in being able to make people laugh. They want to see that, because their lives are usually full of doldrums, and just being tired, and they want to find something funny. And there's a lot of funny things on television, but there's nothing like seeing something live, in your back yard, that is good and funny, and makes your life lighter and happier, brighter somehow. And when you can do that, when people find that, they flock to it. And that last night we had 500 people and it was amazing and it was a great night. And it even started raining and people stayed through the rain, put their ponchos up and [LAUGH] and they just watched this thing. And in the end that's when we knew we could do this if we had a permanent place. And we found this place and started doing it on a permanent basis. 

Dedication

Robin Hood

I'd encourage you guys, whatever you find is your passion in your heart to just keep doing it. If you don't know, dabble, try something and see if it works for you. Don't give up because money is not the all and end of things. I just believe in trying a little bit of everything so I can say yes I tried that, it's not for me. I don't look at it as a failure, that I did that and I didn't stick with it or I didn't go anywhere with that. Like maybe other people might judge you for that. For me I felt like I dabbled in it because I was curious. So now my curiosity's over because I felt like I didn't care about selling makeup or trying to do this, I'm gonna try something else. Whatever it is you want to do, just go out there and try it. Other things and then find out what makes you happy where you can't wait to get there and do it. Because if that the thing that makes you feel so good when you wake up and at the end of the day when you're done, you go, you know what, I've accomplished something and you feel good about it, stick with it. Stick with it for a little bit of time to know if that is something you wanna do. 

Dabble

We wanna talk a little bit more about the time when you weren't so sure about what you were doing and how you muddled your way through to get to where you are now. So would you mind telling us? >> Sure. >> What, were you out of college? >> You know, we actually laugh about this because as we were driving here today, we talked about success. And success is, really, in your [LAUGH] eyes we're successful. Sandy and I looked at each other and go, we're successful? >> [LAUGH] >> We're the ones they want? Why do they want us? Because we struggle all the time by saying, I mean, maybe you have maybe a perception that we have never a waning moment of thinking this isn't worth it. >> Or doubt. >> Or doubt, oh my gosh, all the time. >> All the time. >> All the time, especially as an actor. In an improv, if you see the improv show tonight, you'll see a guy step out on stage and he literally will not know what he's going to say. And he'll come out and say, here I go and, you know, probably 60% of the stuff he says might be just absolutely lunacy and crazy and ridiculous and doesn't make sense and it's not that funny. But that is that other percentage, I'm just throwing 60%. It might be 50%, or it might be 80% is great and 20% is bad. But there's gonna be a percentage. >> It depends on the night and it depends on the audience. >> Right, there will be a percentage that is definitely not good and you wish you could go a different direction. You wish you hadn't said it or done it or whatever, but there's that other percentage that is so great and so fresh and so wonderful and so funny, that you're so happy that you dared to do that. 

I'm hard on myself, too. I always nitpick, and I always say, oh, I could have done that better. Ooh, I should have done that better. In fact, that's another thing that drives me. I have yet to do the perfect show, I've yet to do even the perfect performance, where I've done everything flawlessly. I mean, there have been a couple times where I'm like, hey, that's pretty good. I don't think I, well, I might have, yeah I guess I could have done that one little thing better. Yeah I guess I could've done that better. And that's something about me that probably drives her crazy, but it's something that I really think allows me to keep trying, for a better performance, and trying to improve myself instead of just stay at the same thing. I used to be a bank teller, anybody ever be a bank teller? >> [CROSSTALK] >> What? >> Met a lot of them. >> All right, so here's what it is. The bank teller, you say the same numbers, the same process, it is exactly the same thing. And I was horrible at it, because I would do it, and my mind was doing something else. Oh, anywhere else, just not the same numbers, adding them, subtracting, checks, balances, cash. Oh my gosh, I can't do this anymore, I'm thinking of jokes and things to say, [LAUGH] and people would come in and say, sorry about the wait. But if you stop eating fudge bars, [LAUGH] or something like that, [LAUGH] just terrible jokes. People would come in and, I don't know, but I couldn't do that work. And I tried as hard as I could, and it's a very necessary job. Some people, just that is their challenge, to do it the exact same over and over, and they love doing it exactly the same. I can't, I try, the things that are monotonous, I just literally check out of them and I don't focus on them. I go over here and I start going to Hawaii, or I'm writing a two-man show. [LAUGH] I'm like oh, I should be reading, [LAUGH] or I should be driving a car correctly, or whatever, just those type of things. So, creativity in my opinion is something that is great because it keeps challenging you to do better, and more, and different things, so it's an awesome thing. And you affect, like I say, you affect people differently, too. >> And I don't think it's so much a flaw, I think that's just your character. You're a perfectionist, it'll make you great at whatever it is you do. He's a perfectionist when it comes to anything artistic. Any minor minute detail he wants to add in, where another actor or another director or whoever would go, yeah, it's okay, that'll do. My husband's like, no, I gotta fix that. And it's okay, because that's who he is. >> And at sometimes, you'd have to concede and say, okay, that's good enough, good enough, I can't do anymore, that's gonna be good enough. Because, you talk to these artists, and every time they pass the painting, they gotta let the paint dry, cuz otherwise they'll keep messing with it, and fudging with it, and doing different things to make it different, and the same thing happens. Once the play is open, you try to keep it, but as you'll see in our shows, our plays are open, but we'll always do them again. So anything that's added or subtracted or different, or things that we thought were too long or boring, we cut out and we do them again with an improved version of it, so. 

Perfectionist

Tell her some stuff that you did. He cut grass. [LAUGH] >> Oh yeah, I- >> Tell her some stuff! >> You got a lot of stuff, just like normal things that everybody did. I actually like cutting grass. I think I did yard work- >> Tell her about the M&M job. >> Oh, man, I worked in a factory where I just put M&M's in a vat for eight hours a day. And that's one of those where I just went boop! I was writing, I was singing songs in my head thinking you know what I would really like to do. And I think one of the reasons why I took those jobs and that forced me into a place of isn't this what you wanna do. I'd go do something else but not necessarily boring, and it would take me over to this area of that's what you wanna be doing huh? And so I realized by doing these other jobs, it forced me into what I want to do. In fact, there might be something else out there that I love even more than this, but I haven't found it yet. This is, so far, the thing that has charged my batteries more than anything else. 

Past Jobs

I met my husband, found out he was an actor, had a passion for it. At that time, when we were dating, he really wasn't doing a lot of acting until after, probably about six months after we started dating that he actually did a show and I loved it. Growing up, I loved watching movies and picture myself acting and doing things but my parents were like yours. They wanted me to be a doctor. I don't have the stomach for it. I tried like the candy striping when you're in high school to get a feel. There's a way, it's kinda like a mentorship where you go in and you [LAUGH] find whatever areas that you might like to work with children, elderly. And I tried everything and I did not have the stomach for the hospital, so I asked them to take me out of the elderly section, out of the kids section into concession area. Cooking, cuz I like cooking, too. You guys could probably be the next generation of creating something different in business or in art or in communications or doctors, you know be in the medical field. Maybe you want to do that maybe you don't. Maybe you feel pressure from your parents, you know, I need to be a doctor but If you go in and you start studying, you can't stand the sight of blood. Mom, dad I love you, but I can't stand the sight of blood. If I pass out on my patient, I'm gonna kill them, you know? 

Parental Pressure

I look at our lives and I say yeah, we struggle. We have doubts and stuff. But I think we always kinda knew, he knew what he wanted. I know that I love to do pretty much anything. I'm not great at everything that I do, but I'm good at whatever I do. If you put me in that category, I can be good at it. I can work with people. And so I figured this field, since I love it so much too, and it gives me the opportunity sometimes to do things that I would never do as an Asian, having my looks. But I can do parodies, I can make people laugh. As a child, I didn't get to laugh a lot growing up, I had a very strict, very strict upbringing, where I was seen and not heard. And I hated that, and I- >> Well Vietnam in the 1960s, you know what I mean? Pretty difficult time. >> And I know when I wanted to marry someone or meet somebody that would make me laugh, that was my goal as a girl growing up. I'm going to meet a guy that makes me laugh. Because I want to be a happy person. That's who I am when I'm at school, with other people but at home, I was very recluse, quiet, my demeanor, even when I first met him, people thought I spoke too softly. I can't hear her. My demeanor was different. And as I've been with him for the last 20 years, now I'm loud and I'm obnoxious. People are like, you've been around Eric too long. [LAUGH] I'm okay with the bodily function and the potty jokes. I grew up very prissy. Girly girly. I want to be pretty, cute, sweet. But I was also a tomboy. But I wasn't allowed to be that. And I think with my husband I can be who I really am. The sweet and cute side of me, but yet, the dirty raunchy. >> [LAUGH] >> If I wanted to be, and it's okay. And my son loves that, because he gets to see mom and dad doing both parts. And I think that's what makes me happy, is that I help my husband be happy. I help my son be happy. I make other people happy as well as myself. I feel proud in the sense that even though when people doubt you and they tell you to stop, we're continuing because we find ways to make it work. And I think in life you just have to. You can't give up because somebody tells you you can't. 

Reserved Child

I like to know you more about, you did all these jobs and some of them were after you'd finished college. So at what point did you decide that I wanted to have my own theater, had you done theatre work before that? >> Yeah, that's really a good question because even then, I didn't have a lot of confidence to open a theatre cuz it takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of knowhow, but I was afraid as we were talking about this theory of fear and things like that. Well, luckily, I had a couple of friends that did acting, and they wrote me into a play. And I found that I really liked it, and I had a lot of experience from my acting in college, so I had a little, I knew what to do. And I realized as I was acting, that some of the things the guys were telling me were ultimate rules. And that this is the way it is, [LAUGH] really that was wrong advice. I could tell that what they were saying wasn't true, and so I would experiment on my own and find out for myself that these ideas that I had were the right way and even better than theirs. And I worked at a little place called the Desert Star Playhouse, and I wrote plays there and I directed them and I started realizing that God, I love doing this so much. I'd really like to do it all on my own one day, be able to control every aspect of it, the lighting and the sets, the story, who I cast, who I work with, costuming, paint and sound design, sound effects, props, everything. I thought, well that would be such an amazing thing to do. It's a lot of work, and that scared me again, but I thought, well I'm going to try it. And there have been many times, where I've just been so overwhelmed I just wanted to sit down in the middle of the Walmart and cry. Because I had no idea where the money was coming from. How I was gonna do this, and how I was gonna to do that. But then you say, okay, you know what? I'm just gonna go forward and believe that it's gonna get done. And it always does, it always does every time. Sometimes not as great as I wanted it to be, every little detail wasn't exactly the way I wanted but it still got done. And in the end you learned so much that it was certainly worth it. What was the question? >> [LAUGH] >> It was 

Transitions

Opening Theater

[Eric] There's something about live theater that just-- You know, you're not becoming a doctor where you're changing people's lives physically, but sometimes you make people's lives emotionally a little better. When I was about three years old, I said, "Mommy, what is it those guys that make people laugh, "what do you call that?" She says, "A comic, a comedian." I went, "That's what I wanna be." I think a lot of people know what they wanna do, but they don't have the courage to really follow it. I mean, maybe you have maybe a perception that we have never a waning moment of thinking, "This isn't worth it." Or doubt or "Oh my gosh" all the time--all the time, especially as an actor. The fear of failure is-is what gets you all the time. When you're actually going through the failure, you're like, [sighs] "How am I gonna get out of this? "This is bad, but how am I gonna get out of it?" But the fear of failure is what keeps people from trying anyway. 

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