Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip Smithey.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Philip. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I always knew I wanted to become an actor. When I was a kid in Dallas, I would spend hours practicing making faces like Jim Carrey in the mirror and then practice crying on cue. This is age seven.
I arrived in Los Angeles in the fall of 2011. I had just finished doing summer Shakespeare theater in Utah, right after receiving my acting MFA from the University of Connecticut, coming directly from graduating Morehouse College in Atlanta, following my childhood in Texas. Los Angeles was my final destination after a long connecting flight of education and adolescence. All my work and training brought me here to become an actor, but I had also unintentionally been developing a 2nd skillset as a coach.
It’s always been my natural instinct after I learn something, to want to teach it to other people, even if I don’t know them. Perhaps it’s because I’m easily excitable, or don’t consider myself that smart, so get very jazzed to develop new skills and knowledge. I also always look for patterns or puzzles. In everything, not just acting. So if I see what looks like a pattern, I’m quick to try and point it out.
When I was in high school in “acting class”, (really just a bunch of kids hanging out), I already started noticing patterns of performances observed through trial and error and used them to perform differently. In example, if a line of dialogue was meant to be happy, all the kids said the line the same way. I wanted to stand out so I would say the line a different way. I would get a new unexpected reaction from the audience. By the time I got to college and started doing this, I already had a reputation as a good actor just because I could recognize doing things differently.
This reputation is what launched me into coaching. Initially, just being part of acting organizations, I’d see different performances and throw out suggestions to change them. People liked my ideas and wanted to hear more, so they’d ask me to show them. By 19, I was the acting coach of the Atlanta University Center Drama Ministry, a group of students producing gospel plays to the Atlanta area and the founder’s native Los Angeles. After that, I was asked by a new friend Id made, incredible actress Carra Patterson, to become a teacher at her newly founded summer acting camp for children.
After grad school when I moved to Los Angeles with my full education, I started standing out in friend groups as an actor and became recommended as a coach. Not because I was promoting myself as such, I just couldn’t keep quiet when I watched people perform and wanted to give suggestions. I was eventually approached to help start an organization which we called the Actor’s Kitchen, where I became the main teacher and organizer of an ever expanding group of young actors. Our goal was to produce showcases with the intention of getting signed to agency. We had several successes.
After eventually shutting down the organization, I had been the student of another acting teacher, James Michael Marshall, who asked me to join him in teaching. He works with all ages but specializes in children. I worked with him for a brief while until deciding it was time to be on my own. I eventually became a recommended coach of the UPMT talent agency founded by Kharmony Fortune, working with their children and adults. Today in addition to my own acting career, I have successful students who I coach regularly. Most of my many clients come from recommendation, not any form of advertisement. And all because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
My name is Philip Smithey. I’m an actor and acting coach.
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?
Actors have many well-known challenges, be it competing to book a gig, surviving on a day job to pay bills, or just keeping your sanity in an industry that often makes you think you’re not enough as a person. My challenges are all of those things for myself, in addition to those issues for other people, my students. One day I couldn’t make it to a coaching session or an audition because my car got towed. That was a rough day. There’s been many. However, the truest challenge for me has always been to maintain confidence in myself. Meanwhile trying to instill that confidence in others as well.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’ve learned from every great teacher and method by this point, from Stanislavski to Meisner, to Chubbuck, to Strasberg, to Lecoq, etc. and I’ve instinctively looked for patterns and dot connectors. My coaching is a mix of everything that I’ve learned to approach acting from the holy trinity of mind, body, and spirit. The way of understanding a script on an intellectual level, connecting to a script on a personal level, and embodying the script on a physical level. But quickly because the audition is in a few hours lol. But if people just want to learn for general growth, we go down the long rabbit hole. Anyone who comes to me for coaching is going to learn something, but overall what I’m really trying to instill is confidence. I’m still very excitable and I get very hyped for my students and that gives them confidence.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck or fate in my perspective is when one of the five questions (who, what, when, where, why) encounter good timing. You meet WHO with good timing, WHAT happens with good timing. WHERE you were with good timing. Each of the questions has happened to me with good timing at one point or another. I’ve been at the right place at the right time. I’ve met people at the right time, I’ve done things at just the right time. All to see positive changes in my life or things progressing closer to my personal goals. It’s hard to pinpoint a single instance of luck because the whole journey has been filled with it.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipsmithey/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philip.a.smithey
- Other: imdb.me/philipajsmithey
Image Credit:
Casey Nelson Photography, Meraki Narrative Photography
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