Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Turner Schofield.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I only wanted to be an actor, but I am a transgender man, and when I started out, there were no possibility models for Hollywood to use to imagine someone like me in a regular role. But I had to act like my hair was on fire. So I wrote a one-person show; it was a success, and I wrote two more that I have toured to major venues (like the Carnival Center, the National Theatre of Belgium, and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica) throughout the US and Europe.
In 2015, I became the first openly transgender actor in Daytime television with a recurring role on CBS’s “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Out of that, I was discovered for my first leading role in a major motion picture, where I play a transgender jazz musician in the 1930s. “The Conductor” was a $10MM production that premiered in Europe in late 2018 and is currently in theatrical distribution negotiations for the US and the rest of the world.
Starting out independently gives you a sense of your own power that you can’t just give up. I’m in the process of turning my one-man show, “Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps,” into a trans-genre project that includes a film, a book, and a storytelling podcast. The transgender narrative is dominated by transgender women right now — which is great, but trans men still need to be seen, too. I hope this project will help expand the conversation and make more authentic visibility for all of us.
I still have a day job; I am fortunate to be able to share my experience and work with purpose, on creative projects, while staying flexible for acting projects. I train production companies on how to do transgender inclusion, from building an inclusive production office to crew etiquette, and from script to screen. I’m currently working on an HBO Original Series, and I helped curate the scripts for The GLAAD List — a partnership with The Black List, showcasing the most promising unmade LGBTQ scripts of the year–that was just announced at Sundance.
Please tell us about your art.
Everything I do is about authenticity. As a trans person, I had to fight so hard to even be able to articulate my truth, in a world that swaddled me in a pink blanket a birth and is willing to refuse me a fair shot at being loved by my family, have a job, or just even being the man that I know I am. That kind of “against all odds” story is one everybody finds powerful, so I tell it from my perspective, with an insistence that it is equally valuable to every other story out there.
Instead of the tropes still coming to a theatre near you, where “transgender person is sad, transition makes them happy, but everything is still terribly hard, and they suffer until they are murdered or die from their hormones/surgery,” I’m telling stories about how I found my true self beyond transition; about how I found my soul mate and how our love is beyond gender or sexuality labels; about being a person who was socialized as a woman, but finally is recognized as a man and is learning how to responsibly grow into that with love and a sense of adventure, and a lot of comedy.
That ought to make for a film or series or two! And when it does, the message is that great stories can be about (and, importantly, made by) people who are different in ways our culture still finds it hard to talk about. When my stories make it out there on a mainstream level, I hope people will take away the courage to find and be their authentic self, however that may look. I truly believe that could make a profoundly positive impact on the world as we know it.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
For transgender artists, I’d say that the root issue is the continuing struggle to be considered equal human beings by our peers. At the premiere of my first big film, my best friend from childhood tweeted that he wondered whether I would have got there a lot sooner if I hadn’t had to struggle so hard against discrimination. I wonder that too. I wonder what I could have made if I hadn’t been so caught up in all my feelings about how state governments were truly were trying to stop me from being able to use any bathroom outside of my own home. I am part of a community that can legally be fired for being trans in 30 states; facing a 20% chance of being homeless because of social rejection; with a suicide rate ten times that of the general population because of the compounding impact of all that discrimination. If we lived in a world where people were educated about transgender lives, had friends who are trans, and stuck up for us vocally and visibly anytime there was discrimination, there would be a lot more happy and fulfilled people in the world, and that would mean more creativity and artistic contributions that we could all enjoy.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
“Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps” is an independently-funded project. Joining our Patreon (patreon.com/127steps) gets you access to every step, as we complete them. We are also grateful to have an Independent Film Project Fiscal Sponsorship, for tax-deductible donations (https://fiscal.ifp.org/project.cfm/969/Becoming-a-Man-in-127-EASY-Steps/). What you’re doing is supporting transgender visibility, and helping make a positive transgender story that a young trans person could be inspired by — or that their family, friends, and teachers could access to better understand and support them with. It’s way bigger than me, or just my project, and it needs a lot more support to make it out into the world.
But beyond me and my work, if you’re a casting director or producer, you could support the great work of my community by opening up access for us in the entertainment industry. Hire trans people: let a trans writer tell a story about what it’s like to be trans; hire a trans actor to act in any role, not just trans ones; hire trans crew members to work on set. There are so many talented people waiting to do their dream job, and all it would take to unlock that potential is an opportunity.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.scottTschofield.com
- Instagram: /turnerschofield (acting) /127steps (project)
- Facebook: /turnerschofield (acting) /127steps (project)
- Other: www.127steps.com
Image Credit:
Photo with tie and 2 other headshots: Olivia Hemaratanatorn, Singing: Terra Naomi, Staircase: Scott Turner Schofield, Icon sign: Terra Naomi, Platonic Ideal: Matt Lawrence
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