Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandru-Ioan Rotaru.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When you’re a kid all you want to do is be “big”. You want to drink Cuba Libre like your mother, smoke cigars like your father and you want to find out why you can’t do what they do even though physically you’re about 4 feet away from being their height.
My father told me once that I can’t watch Zombie Land because I am not “big enough” and that when I shave for the first time, I’ll be able to watch it with him. I then proceeded to shave my eyebrows and eyelashes at the age of six. When I was 13, I was diagnosed with obesity and therefore I was “big” physically, which mentally meant that my self-confidence and self-image were not “big” enough yet.
At 19, I was dancing in a club back in Romania, my home country, dropping it low and shaking it like there was no tomorrow when a mediocre white man told me that I am “too feminine and just overall way too big for all that”. I grew up in Romania, a place where rarely you’re told to not fit in. And I tried to compress my personality into these boxes but it just ended up doing more damage than good. I’ve spent at least 18 years of my life, I am currently 21, trying to fit into somebody else’s box. That was until I made my own.
I started acting when I was 15 after a pretty traumatic event which left me extremely closed off. I’ve always been an introvert; circumstance made me an extroverted introvert. And so after my first lesson, I knew this is my so far, first serious relationship. I went from loving acting to hating it to loving it again, but somehow I always end up back on that stage, and I feel like that’s home.
So when I realized that the spotlight should be my heat and the stage my bed, I decided that I would dare to do the unfathomable: leave. I dared to dream, and that led me to today. I took my “gargantuan” personality and my “humongous” nerve and I dismembered the box my past life had prepared for me and set sail (well I actually flew, but metaphors have to metaphor) to you guessed it LA to attend a two years conservatory program which changed my life. I learned a lot about acting and built my personal technique (book on that is coming out in like 40 years), I learned a lot about love in all shapes and forms, but most importantly I learned who I was. I’ve always been big but empty. I’m glad that now I am fulfilled in my greatness.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think anything is ever smooth. If it is, I am definitely not interested. We love mountains because of all of the different levels they have. Those mountains were created because of tectonic plates that crashed into each other millions of years ago. If it wasn’t for the crash, they would’ve never been as beautiful as they are now. I think my greatest obstacle has been my mind. I now have a pretty open and trusting view on life, but I used to be terrified of the future. I would lie if I said that occasionally I don’t think about it. But once I started treating my mind like my friend and not my enemy that’s when I really got the hang of things. We are highly advanced computers that can be reprogrammed by will, by sudden change or by repetition. It’s our choice how we make ourselves believe that we can do whatever it is. Some people call it delusion, I call it “speaking into existence”.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am pretty chameleonic, I would say. I tend to kind of mesh very well with almost any environment I’m put in.
I am an actor first. Diving into the mindset, and habits and just overall nature of somebody’s work of fiction (at times) is just the most delicious treat I can imagine. Directing-wise, I know that I kill that because I have great vision (figuratively and realistically speaking), and I think that it’s time that we take classicism and twist it not to make it modern but to make it plausible and relevant to our days. 5 out of 10 people I meet feel like Treplev at least on Sunday in between lunch and whatever HBO has on at 9 PM.
I first got into the theatre space through make-up and hair styling. I think that’s a great tool for developing a fully fleshed character because that can tell you so much about the state of that character and where they’re at. I do write a lot. I find it a great way to decompress and to channel all that creative energy when that casting director hasn’t emailed you since your callback.
I am actually working on some super exciting stuff which I can’t talk about, but I would say be on the lookout.
I would say what sets me apart is this killer body and these fierce looks. Haha, no even though I’m not wrong about that, I think that I am unique. Because I am. I tend to see things differently and that scares people and I love that. Because from fear comes the strength to overcome that.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
If I could associate myself with some characters, they would definitely be Katherine from Taming of The Shrew and Bernarda from “The House of Bernarda Alba”. True, I am a gentleman and I have manners so I will not fight you for no reason, but I do have a very thick skin. I’ve survived a lot in my life and that made the tough biscuit (I break teeth while cookies just chip them) I am today. With that being said if you earn my trust and my energy, I am pretty great. I am a romantic at my core, so I would never intentionally hurt anybody, but homo sum so I can’t help it sometimes.
Pricing:
- 10$ coffee and a chat
Contact Info:
- Instagram: alexandruioanrotaru
