Today we’d like to introduce you to Vonzell Carter.
Vonzell, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Washington D.C. and raised in the DC Metro area, as well as Georgia. I remember, as a kid, playing outside for hours on end, pretending to be my favorite Power Ranger or character in an anime, fighting against the powers of evil. To be honest, I was still doing that in my teens, when it didn’t seem as cool to do so. But I kept at it. I imagined worlds. I created characters and powers for those characters. I wrote their stories.
I had done a drama class and some church plays growing up, but it was my junior year of high school when I decided to take theatre seriously. I majored in Theatre at Miami University (Ohio) and got into CalArts through auditioning in the URTA program, where I earned a Master’s Degree in Acting. I came out of school hot, sort of expecting the phone to ring. It didn’t.
So, in 2010, I went to a park in Santa Clarita with a few good friends of mine from college, and we shot a small fight scene. I had a few years of martial arts training, a few years of making short films, and a lot of years being a huge fanboy of the martial arts action genre. It also helped that one of these friends, Chris Cowan, is one of the most creative and innovative people with a camera and with visual effects that I know to this day. We put the video on YouTube and received incredibly positive feedback. So we did another. And after that, we tried our hand at a live action adaptation of the popular video game, “Street Fighter”, called “Street Fighter: Beginning’s End”. That video became a bit of a viral sensation, and from that, our indie martial arts action group THOUSAND POUNDS was born. All of our videos are posted on Chris’ YouTube channel, RivenX3i, which has over 500 thousand subscribers and over 73 million views.
I was also doing L.A. Theatre and acting in a few short films. But the success of our videos opened a lot of doors, connecting me with stunt professionals, and people who were also putting incredible action shorts on YouTube. I collaborated and trained often with them. The networking and the YouTube videos helped me to land my first professional stunt job in 2014. It has been such a blessing to work on superhero movies and video games; I am professionally reliving my childhood as a grown man. And, you know, I still think it’s cool to pretend fight.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Each obstacle, I think, is a chance for me to admit to myself how far I have come and how far I still need to go. I’m certain I will deal with obstacles for as long as I continue working on my craft.
The creation of that first YouTube video, and the creation of Thousand Pounds, was in fact a response to the obstacle of not having my acting goals met after graduation. There was also pressure to make any future video we put out better than the last one. For every piece that was posted, there are two or three that will never see daylight. We were always our worst critics when it came to releasing content.
Soon after going viral, I realized that I needed a lot more training if I were ever to work with high-level stunt professionals. I am an actor that loves intense physicality, but there were many times that I felt completely out of place. I am incredibly thankful to those who took the time to share their knowledge, and allow me the opportunity to play and learn. This journey would have been much harder without their help.
Sometimes I feel like I have progressed slower because I have been pursuing a career in acting and stunts simultaneously. But I got some great advice from a veteran stunt coordinator a few years back, when I told him I was also an actor. He said, “If you want to do both, fucking do both! Why not? If people say you can’t do both, don’t listen!” Funny enough, I was working for him on a show where I also had a speaking role.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I guess the adage is that I am my business. I understand it, but I also hate it.
I have made a point, however, to integrate as much of my physicality and stunt experience into my acting roles; while I also implement my actor training on any stunt job I may get. To me, it is all performance. It all comes from the same place. I have been very fortunate in that I have found some success with this mindset. I have been able to flip off of tables and compose fight scenes for the plays I’ve been in while getting opportunities to audition for speaking roles that include stunts on TV and film.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Sitting at home with my wife, watching the Netflix film Extraction. I was brought on to be a part of the core fight team, and was asked later to audition for multiple parts, one of which I booked. The work was very challenging. But I was a part of an incredible team, learning from some of the most talented and encouraging professionals in the industry. Seeing that film felt like a win; a confirmation of where I am in the journey, and a motivator to press on, regardless of the obstacles to come.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aosoularao/?hl=en
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2605366/
Image Credit:
Shoob Photo South, Sissy Nightmare
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