Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark McClain Wilson.
Hi Mark McClain, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Well, as an actor, it’s been something I’ve been doing pretty much my whole life. My first play was at age 12, and I was hooked from there on. I studied acting at the University of Michigan and continued my education in New York, studying Meisner with Jim Bonny Studios. At this point, after eight years in New York and over 20 now in Los Angeles, I have done just about everything you can imagine. I’ve done film, television, theatre, improv, voice-over, dubbing, audiobooks, and pretty much anything else that takes the muscles of acting. My CV is a couple of miles long, and a friend of mine once said, “You’re like the Michael Caine of fringe, indie stuff that only a handful of people have seen.” ;p Not completely true, but most of my career HAS been spent in more guerilla-style, independent productions. I find the work in these worlds to be far more engaging and challenging.
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?
The actor’s life is smooth for maybe .00001% of people who choose to follow this path. It is an unpredictable and inconsistent path where, even when your skills are at their best and most honed, your booking percentage is more often than not low. Results RARELY equate to ability. I think all actors, to a certain extent, must have a masochistic side because in no other field of work can I see the equation between actual rewards of work and the merit of ability to be so uneven and inconsistent. If you choose the actor’s path, you HAVE to become comfortable with the fact that there are simply a myriad of factors completely outside the abilities within. Your control that are in play when it comes to booking a job or a role.
Now, every actor’s journey is different and certainly, their personal relationship with the path of acting will differ person to person, but for me myself, it is precisely the unpredictable and irrational nature of our business that has steered my drive and passion to continue following this path. BECAUSE it is so uncertain, my focus becomes more specifically honed of the one thing I CAN control: myself. Both my commitment to the craft itself and my determination to offer myself as deeply and completely and vulnerably every time I’m on stage or screen is what drive me. At the risk of sounding corny, acting has become a very spiritual practice to me. It is about opening to the heart and soul to a character.
To remove the blocks that exist within YOU that keep you from using every part of your being when approaching a role. To expose ALL the parts of who you are. The beautiful, the submine, the divine, the disgusting, the ugly, the damnable. For they are all within us. The more I can do that in myself, the more I believe that, through my work, I can make an audience more comfortable in embracing all the parts of themselves, as well. So, has it been smooth? No. Has the rocky terrain made every successive gain and achievement more satisfying and progressively more so with time? Without a doubt.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am primarily an actor, but as with most actors in the industry, the longer I have stayed in the business, the more swiss army knifed my abilities have become. I also write and direct. I am a sound designer and editor. I’ve built sets; I’ve hung lights, I’ve made props. I’ve done it all. Though acting will always be the central drive of my focus, my passion is for projects. Helping projects that I am passionate about come to fruition. I love the collaborative process of creation. The diversity of voices, ideas, and abilities that must come together to make a strong project. I have felt extreme pride in projects large and small. I am still proud of a tiny, black box production of Lanford Wilson’s play “Burn This” that swept end-of-the-year awards in Detroit in 1992. I’m remarkably proud of the small role I played in Stephen Chbosky’s feature film adaptation of his best-selling novel “Perks of Being a Wallflower”.
I’m proud of the lead role I played in an independent feature that no one EVER saw called “Whatever Happened to Kathy?” I’m proud of the sound design I did for the play adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”. I’m incredibly proud of getting to play two dream stage roles in the last couple of years: Merrick in “The Elephant Man” and the title role of Richard III. And most recently, I could not be more proud of the small role I played in Brian Silverman’s small independent film, “Two Lives in Pittsburgh”, a movie that I genuinely believe will affect a great number of people.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Los Angeles? Oh my Gosh, I love SO much about it. The diversity, the color, the food, the creativity, the cultural wealth, the opportunity for experience, the natural splendor all around us.
BUT…….I could do without the trash and people’s insane addiction to honking. ;p
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markmcclainwilson
- Other: https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/markmcclainwilson
