Check Out Ty Bamla’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ty Bamla.

Hi Ty, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today. 
I’m a third culture kid (TCK) millennial who grew up with a tyrannical professor father. The only safe haven in my childhood was television, such influential actors as Sonny Chiba from the East to Steve McQueen from the West. Likewise, motion pictures and television dramas, such as 12 Angry Men, Five Easy Pieces, Chungking Express, Sea Hunt, the Lone Ranger, and many others, were the only places where I could enjoy myself. I never thought I would become an actor. As a soft-spoken man, subtle and self-contained, I’ve keenly expressed whatever emotion comes to me. I give voice to them on the stage. The turning point of my life came when I was in Experimental Theater Wing at the Tisch, where I met Kate Whoriskey and ended up in her production as an actor. At that moment, I knew acting as my avatar for life. 

A perfect creative career in any medium should consist of being surrounded by wonderful, empathetic artists. Working in this kind of environment, such actors can develop invaluable reputations that are only enhanced by word of mouth. After my graduation from the Jack Kerouac School, located in Boulder, Colorado, I took a bag full of ramen noodles and a credit card to land in Los Angeles, knowing no one. I began to study with Claire Chubbuck at the Ivana Chubbuck Studio. Anything I do I’ve done with due diligence. The only thing that is permanent in the creative career is the uncertainty that embraces it. 

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’m a sigma male, the endless adventurer since I was twelve. I am very proud of the journey that I’ve taken. Every community is beautiful, and it has good and bad characteristics. While one can and does experience negative in the industry, to classify the entire industry is negative would be unfair. And obscure what the community is and offers. ‘Little House on the Prairie’ is one of my favorite shows; I learned in the era that the show portrayed, there were prairie fires, and the farmers saw the fires come toward them. They would hitch up their plows in front of them and contained the fire. All the dead grass burned would prevent more fuel for the fires. The houses, the barn, the livestock, and the family will be safe. Most of the time, to stop fire from burning is to stop fueling it. That’s the same scenario that is happening in the SAG-AFTRA: WGA strikes in their relationship with corporate America. On the other hand, Yeap, victim’s mindset is damaging for our overall growth. In my lifetime, I have come across many people who have a full-blown victim’s mindset and also people who like using the victim’s card from time to time. Many of those people don’t realize that they have this mindset, and they keep sabotaging their growth because of this lack of awareness. I’ve come across a few professional victims, and I don’t buy it. Nor will I listen to the whining. Look, no one chooses to get run over by a bus or afflicted with cancer, but professional victims do choose bad situations that they had a hand in orchestrating, from crippling consumer debt to partners that take advantage of them. To say that you cannot change anything about your life is to deny your own agency. 

The entertainment industry is so much more than the tangible. Actors are expected to be masters of many domains: information, culture, social influencers, publicity, and other more mundane skills. Los Angeles provides fertilized soils to artists. In this soil, one can produce drug abuse, another soil for disturbed sexual morality, another can produce status, and the other can produce evil things. However, if you plant oaks, support the life form, and scrutinize them carefully, that would be up to you. This is like adrenaline in these situations because everything is an indefinite time for creative possibility. No cutthroat competition needs to flourish. No one is a threat. The significance of communication and teamwork will lead you to profitable outcomes to build a better entertainment industry. 

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As for me, acting is not overnight prime Amazon delivery that took work. Being a resilient person, my personal devotion, indisputable work ethic, tons of emotional investments, and constructiveness efforts that could flaw natural grace on any projects I am in. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, like the best acceptance of Joe Pesci’s Oscar speech. Excellence in the creative endeavor is not like the excellence in other fields. Ingrid Bergman and James Dean were iconic actors in films. He made only 3 motion pictures, and she made many motion pictures in her over 40-year film career. Meanwhile, Pablo Picasso produced more than 140,000 works of art. Nevertheless, whether in describing 3 films or over 30 films or over 140,000 works of arts, excellence is not measured by the quantity of the art produced but in the quality of the content in that art. Any creative pursuit is a noble persuasion. My grandmother once said, ‘If you love what you do, you’re gonna mess up in your life, but keep on grinding easily because nothing lasts long.’ That lesson took me a while to get. As of now, I’m a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, and I keep on grinding easily. I am pro-American now that despite Union’s strike impact the vast majority of artists, this is the new booming era for the professionals. I never miss the chance to get on my soapbox about I am sorting the wheat from the chaff. Let it rip! 

What makes you happy?
Traveling! When I die, I want to be remembered for the life I live, not my tombstone. Stepping out of comfort zone & freeing from day-to-day hustles in the industry that leads you reconnect with your inner self. Off the top of my head, the Southern California Pine Mountain Club, Fawnskin & Lake Elsinore are such a gem. One of the most important things that people can do is to buy locally produced goods and services whenever possible. Out of CA could be AZ: Jerome, Oatman & Quartzsite, the nomads mecca, NV: Jarbidge, the old west community town, HI: Pahoa, Pāpaʻaloa Country Store & Cafe, MA: Berkshire County, Mass MoCA & Martha’s Vineyard, the island as preserving the local character, OK: Mount Scott & Medicine park, NM: Santa Fe for Burning of Zozobra, MI: Dearborn, the largest American-Muslim community, CO: Lyons for the planet bluegrass & Dream Lake for snowshoeing, MN: Duluth to honor Bob Dylan, LA: Abita Spring for cyclists with Tammany trail and breathtaking the North-shore swamps and TX: Albert surrounding Germanic towns in San Antonio & the rural farm community. My bucket lists include the Holler in the Appalachian belt, Savoonga, Alaska, Ramallah, Palestine, and Nuuk in Greenland. The place where local hospitality could be square or round, church or mosque, Hasidic or Mennonite, The Yellow Deli or Jonathan Club, you just need to open your ears and hear out the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Contact Info:

• Website: IMDb.me/tybamla
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=IzfbgJ0yD4wCkzIr6wl5JA
• Other: https://www.loc.gov/ (the permanent collection of the Library of Congress under the Asian American archives)

Image Credits
Rory Lewis
Lucca Carrara
Kristine Rowe’
Rory Lewis
Larry Gus