Today we’d like to introduce you to KC Clyde.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I Grew up in a fairly small town in Utah. Close-knit community… My father decided at age 40 to change careers and become a filmmaker. So he started writing and making independent film’s in Utah in the early ’90s… It sounds maybe more glamours then it was. It was a very “blue-collar” job. No money, all hands on deck. On his first film, my mother, sister, younger brother and I were craft service. My father contained to make more movies and I continued to work on them… As a grip mostly. I learned about lighting and Camera… But I was fascinated with Acting. I loved watching the actors. I couldn’t understand how they did what they did. How they became someone else. How the memorized the lines, how they seemed to be one person when the camera wasn’t on and somehow else when it was. I know pretty early on that is what I wanted to do. Nothing else just act.
When I was 21 years old, I moved to Los Angeles… I have $800 bucks in my bank account and didn’t know a soul. I had no education past High school and I had never stepped into an acting class in my life. I got a job like most people and was waiting tables. I got a recommendation from a person I met who happened to know a manager. The manager agreed to meet with me. In the meeting he said he liked me but wanted to see if I was any good, so he sent me to an acting coach by the name of Dennis Lavalle. Dennis and I met and he had me read a scene for him and after he said I am going to recommend the “Manager” takes you on as a client. He then told me he had an acting class and I was welcome to come and audit. That’s how I got into my first acting class. I studied with Dennis off and on for ten years. I devoted myself to the study of acting. I devoted myself more to acting then to almost anything in my life before that. I wasn’t sure how talented I was but I knew I had a strong work ethic… so if nothing else I know that no one was going to outwork me. I would work harder than anyone else. I was in three acting classes at the same time for three years. I went to class day and night five sometime six days a week for years.
I wanted to learn and get as good as I can. I studied Meisner, Audition tech, scene study, Shakespeare, Movement, voice… everything under the sun that I thought would make me better. I started working fairly regularly after that. I was lucky to be able to quit all the “night running jobs’ and just be an actor. All of this study eventually lead me into the arms of Eden Bernardy. Eden was never my “teacher” but at the same time, she was always teaching me. We became artistically inseparable… She was a mentor and a friend… Eden was teaching at the time at the Margie Haber Studio… I had been a student there and she saw my work in one of the masterclasses and became a fan and then later much more… around this time, I had begun doing Private coaching for friends. I would help them with there auditions. My friends started to book jobs when I would help them and then they would recommend other friends come and see me… All of a sudden I had a people I did not know asking if they could come and coach their auditions with me.
In 2016, Eden found out that she was very sick and had limited time here with us. She needed to stop teaching and be home with her family… she called me and asked if I would take over her classes at the Margie Haber Studio. I agreed and the next thing I knew I was a teacher there. Eden and I talked about one day opening our studio. About doing something where we could create a community of Artists, not actors. Eden then found out she might be getting a little more time with us then they had previously thought… so we started talking about opening a studio again. She had started teaching again out of her house and I was still at Margie’s… the idea was to leave both of those situations and begin the studio. Unfortunately, Eden passed away suddenly before we were able to make that a reality.
Eden always knew her time here was short… she had everything for her funeral prepared before the passed… I was asked to conduct and speak and though I did not know it at the time Eden had left me her “Studio” in her will. It simply started that if KC wanted to open a studio that her client list would go to me and if not that it should just be dissolved… I was shocked, to say the least. I was not sure If I wanted to open an acting studio without her. Also, I am and will always be an actor first. Did I want to devote more time to teaching… I took four months to decide what I wanted to do. If I was going to do this I knew that there was only one way that I wanted to do it… Eden had a right hand, and Studio Director named Nawal Bengholam and I did not want to do this studio without her. Nawal (a brilliant actress) and I had met years before through Eden… we also Studied with Larry Moss together… We were friends and colleges and I had the utmost respect for her as an artist and business person.
So I reached out to her and asked her if she wanted to do this with me. Truthfully she was not sure. Eden had just passed and she was not sure she could do it again, and I did not blame her. She eventually took time to think about it and decided she wanted to help make this studio into something great. So we became partners… We opened our doors in January of 2017 and have been going strong ever since. I feel like I have left so much out but maybe that is for the best. Its been a long journey for 18 years in Los Angeles, to say the least.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There are no smooth roads… If you can name it I have had it happen. I have been dropped by agents and managers… I have booked movies and TV shows that were “suppose to be my big break” and they weren’t, I have struggled and gone for a year without booking anything. When I moved to LA I had $800 in my account. that’s It… I worked at a restaurant and on the days I worked are the days I ate. I only ate one meal a day. Every dime I made went to rent and acting class. That’s it. I remember using ketchup and boiling water and mixing it to make tomato soup. It’s not mincing words I was poor. But I loved being a young hungry actor. I got married and went through a divorce… I have questioned if I even had talent. I questioned if I would ever work or “make it”
I found myself in what I would call one of the toughest years of my life in 2018… I had just lost Eden the year before my friend and Mentor… I had opened a new acting studio. Finances were tight because of that and my wife and I were pregnant with our second child… about a month before pilot season my then manager who I thought would be my manager for the rest of my career dropped me out of the blue, subsequently, the agency he placed me with the dropped me as well… I was moving into pilot season with no reps and no way to make money as an actor for the first time in 15 years… I was panicked. Two days after Christmas on December 28th I was rushed to the hospital with Bacterial Meningitis… it had attacked my brain and moved into my spinal cord… I was dying. My wife saved my life. I spend the next month in the Hospital and ICU and then a long recovery physical after that…
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The “Clyde Bernardy Acting Studio” is a studio that offers Audition technique, Character study, Business of acting classes and has a major emphasis on Script Analysis. We are a community first studio. We love our students and want them to get everything they need. That is what I am most proud of… What sets us apart is that but also our view of what an artist/actor is.
What is CRAFT?
An activity involving skill in making things by hand. It’s synonym with activity, occupation, profession, work, line of work, pursuit. I love the thought of making things with skill, by hand. Something out of nothing.
What is an ARTIST?
A person that practices, and is skilled in, any of the various creative arts. A person skilled at a particular task or occupation.
We throw these words around a lot…”craft, artist.” We separate them and try to understand their meaning. How do I be an “artist”? How do I know I am practicing my “craft”? The problem is we look at them as separate ideas. We don’t look at them as the same thing. We don’t see that one cannot exist without the other. The similarities between these two ideas are so closely tied together. When looking at the definitions of these words, they both require “skill, work, pursuit, and practice.” They require constant attention to detail.
There are a lot of places that you can learn the craft of acting. There are a lot of places you can go, to flex and push as an artist. What we want is for you to have both. To realize that being an artist…a true artist is being a student of your craft. Understanding what your job consists of, and how to get that. 50% of our job is understanding material. Understanding what we need do with this “character,” this human being. Understanding what the writing is asking for…not what I want the writing to be. Understanding that my “choices” as an actor must be supported by the material I am given.
Once we have all of the “craft” skills to do this, we must then bring our artistry to it. We must know how to play this instrument that we call a body. How to fully achieve what is needed emotionally as well as intellectually. To have the power, presence, understanding, and confidence that my craft is so strong that I can just BE. That I can listen and react honestly within the moment.
What we teach on “paper” is an audition technique. There are a lot of studios where you can get that. But what I will teach you is that 50%…that understanding of the material. How to break down a piece and apply it in the strongest way possible. I will teach you to fall in love with script analysis. And then, I will teach you how to couple it with craft, and ultimately mature your artistry.
I will give you everything I have, and if you do the same…give me all that you are…your work, your skill, your passion, your drive…we, together, will turn this into a town of artists, and we will kick all the actors out.
I don’t like actors. Actors complain about the auditions they’re getting, or not getting, who their agent is, or isn’t. Actors just complain. But artists…artists, I love. Artists want to grow and push. Artists are willing to be uncomfortable and TRY, and BE, and sometimes FAIL. Artists are willing to risk because they must. Artists do because they LOVE. So to be a true ARTIST, let’s remind ourselves that we must know our CRAFT inside and out.
That is the type of studio we are. It’s what we will continue to grow to be…a community of artists who know their craft.
What were you like growing up?
I was a wild kid… I loved sports and movies… Those were my two loves… I got into a lot of trouble… arrested a couple of times… Loved my friends and would do anything for them… I was and I am incredibly loyal. I was not great at school. I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia and dyscalculia when I was 13 or so… I did not learn to read until I was in Jr high… Math and switching numbers were hard for me… I felt dumb growing up… But in acting and sports, I felt free… especially with acting. I could disappear and be someone else. Not be me… The dumb kid (as I saw it) I would be the genesis or the doctor or the cop… I could be anything… Because school was tough for me I found attention in making people laugh… Getting them to like me… so having friends was very important to me… and My friends did not care that I was not the smartest person in the grade, all they cared about was me… Who I was… I would have my mom drop me and my younger brother off to the movies in the summer and we would stay all day. We would see one movie after another. We would theater hop… And we would sometimes see the same movie 2,3,4,5 times in a row. I loved how the movies made me feel… I loved the escapism…
Pricing:
- Audition Tech $285
- Character Study $ 300
- Script Analysis $ 300
- Remote Script Analysis $75
Contact Info:
- Address: 10834 Burbank Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601
- Website: www.cbacting.com
- Phone: 213-761-8828
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cbactingstudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CBacting/
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