Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Yanker
Andrew, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My journey to being an actor has been rewarding and challenging one, but the most important thing I’ve learned is to never let anyone write your story for you. Even when it’s difficult, you can never give away your pen. You must not focus on past grievances, but on the present because it is the key to a bright future.
I’ve always wanted to be a performer; specifically, I wrote at 9 years old that I wanted to be a comedian till I was 30 and then an actor like my idol Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey’s performance in the Mask profoundly affected me. It amazes me to this day that as a 6-year-old, I related to a lonely shy 30-year-old man, who could then transform himself into the life of the party. He could embody his id and say and do all the things he always wanted to do with no judgement. Watching the transformation, singing and dancing at the top of his lungs, beating up bullies, dodging bullets and getting the girl, he was a real-life cartoon and an embodiment of the lone-wolf bravado and cathartic exuberance of an entertainer. From a person who felt constricted and shy, I was hooked and wanted to believe that one day, with a lot of work, I too, could be so confident, fun and free.
My father Gary Yanker had eclectic ambitions. While a lawyer on and off again throughout his life, he wrote a book on Political Propaganda, “Prop Art”, in college to accompany his collection of Political Propaganda posters. He amassed the posters from traveling in the Communist Eastern Block countries as well China and Russia. His rare collection is located in the library of congress.
He also wrote 45 books on walking and fitness ultimately culminating in a workout tape, Gary Yanker’s Walking Workouts. My father was a master of getting media attention in the 80s, eventually getting interviewed by such big names as Jane Pauley from the Today Show and Regis Philbin. He even tried his hand at writing scripts with his idols Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind.
He always encouraged me to write my own stories. As early as 6 years old, I still remember the moment we started: I had been watching The Lion King for the eighth time that day, he turned it off and said let’s write a story of our own. I would dictate the stories to him and he would draw the pictures. We wrote two screenplays like this “The Skeleton of Scare” and the “Kids Kick Back”. It culminated in my 6th birthday party, where we performed “The Skeleton of Scare” with all my pre-school friends playing the parts. It was a bright memory of my dad having my back creatively early on. He wanted to see me succeed from an early age. It also helped me get on a path where I sought out creative outlets and always wanted to express myself.
I started really coming into my own creatively when I got to the Rudolph Steiner School in New York City. It was kind of a hippie school, you learned to read when you wanted to. While it wasn’t great for mathematics and science, it was great in terms of getting a liberal arts education in History, Art and Literature. What other 14-year-olds were reading Moby Dick and learning about Emerson and Thoreau. It was also where I first found my love for the theater. All the cool kids, including the kids of celebrities tried out for the drama club and me having an accent from just living in Tucson, Arizona, I stood out. The drama teacher wanted to put me in everything. When playing the Steward in their production of Into the Woods, I delivered my lines, like Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols as I bellowed “don’t play the fool woman” and I wagged my finger. She pointed me out as an example “of no small parts…just small actors…”
Whenever we had a school project, I would choose to make a video and they were always open and receptive to it. One of my first projects “Mad History” covered the Italian Writer and Poet Giovanni Bocaccio. I modeled my host persona after the anger of Jim Cramer on Mad Monday and the fallacious judgement of one my Dad’s dinnertime staples, Bill O’Reilly. Then myself and my collaborator Barrett did a monotone historical reenactment, in wigs of course, of one of Bocaccios stories: a nobleman bribing a clergyman.
Barrett and I loved making sketches together, including a student council news show, mocking the goings on in high school. One of the funniest parodies we came up with was about Model UN and a quintessential line was: “Now Even more Modeled after the Real UN”.
Together, we realized a dream of making a feature film, “Going to the Westside”. One of the most memorable scenes was Barrett and I expressing our friendship which including chasing each other in a field, playing dress up and shaving each other. The movie’s vibe was a combination of Monty Python and the movie Harmony Korine’s, Kids. My signature outfit and uniform for the production was walking around in my Dad’s shirt from his workout videos. I also wrote a play in high school with the blessing of my English and theater teachers called “Product”, which dealt with themes of privilege and intergenerational judgement and anger.
From there, I went to American University studied Film and Politics. I originally thought I wanted to be a history professor and write about Dictatorships taking after my father’s interest in political propaganda, but always my dream deep down was the same as it ever was to be a comedian, actor and a writer.
Losing my father to cancer during my freshman year was a big blow to me and I retreated from a lot of the creative confidence I had built up in high school. All was not lost, I did end up writing and directing a film “Handout”, which wasn’t funny at all but it was an exploration of homelessness in DC. It had a simple premise that viewing giving money to someone as a “handout” was such a bigoted way to look at the unhoused. You don’t know what they’ve been through and your judgement isn’t fair to someone who you truly don’t understand. In the end, we are all human and some are luckier than others. It is our job to have empathy and believe in people and invest in humanity at all ages where we can.
After four years at American, I moved to Los Angeles and immediately became a vegan after signing up for a 200-hour Yoga teacher training. I also had the privilege of working at the Warner Brother’s lot doing script coverage, basically summaries of all the submissions they would get. I was fortunate to work for the producers of Airplane and then the producers of “Ten Things I hate About You”. I learned how to break down scripts and find the elements that really appealed to their particular styles. It was enlightening to listen to how many producers were looped in on a daily basis to get a single project off the ground.
Finally, I got to work for my idol Conan. Working at Conan was a dream, I got to meet and talk to writers, like the hilarious Laurie Kilmartin and Brian Kiley. I also as an intern got to meet people just like me, who wanted to perform, do standup and write. On Halloween 2013, I dressed up as Snooki’s baby put on some tanner and I wore a diaper. Conan saw me and instead of laughter, he was horrified and told me to put some pants on. Always going too far became my signature, thus began my journey into Standup comedy.
I started Standup how most start, by going to Open Mics. I ran a mic at the Tribal Café where you could listen to people bomb over the juice machines. I initially made a stage name Mt. Yanker, which I then proceeded to make a comedy short called “tickling the comedy bone: that’s not a bone”. It involved me having awkward interactions with people signing up to do the mic, think Michael Scott humor. It also chronicled into my leap into standup.
I fell in love with standup because of the freedom it offered and the direct appeal to the audience. You truly had the ability to be yourself and talk about whatever you wanted. It feels like one of the most democratic forms of expression. You get to say your piece.
The open mic at Echoes Under Sunset was a very special art gallery space run by Christian Chavez, and in it’s heyday, hosted by Jay Weingarten and Ryan Schumaker. While still an open mic, it was really a showcase of the best alternative, Andy Kaufmanesque anti-comedy that Los Angeles had to offer. Jay along with a rotating crew that included Travis Rust, Douglas Freedman, Austin Wolf Southern, Matthew Goldin and Ahamed Weinberg created an Avant guard environment where comedians mixed parody business PowerPoints, DJ drops, and awkward animations. There was always a good musical and varied ironic soundscape of: Ganghnam Style, Austin Powers and smooth by Santana.
Echoes was where I started crafting my one liners. I would be overly stiff and nervous trying to get the approval of the funniest people at the mic, including the likes of James Austin Johnson, Keegan and Smeza, Jason Flood, Brodie Reed, Kyle Mizuno, Anna Seregina, and Kayla Rosenberg. I admired the off the wall physical acts and impressionists.
Many times, I would get too vulnerable, bomb and then comment on how bad I was bombing. I started to realize that, it was only when I got in my body that people would understand what I was going for, and then proceed to laugh. One of my first successful bits was me acting out the process of beating back my anxieties trying to get a date. It ended with me in a squatting position saying “please just get a coffee with me”, when I probably already had five coffees and should have been cut off.
Simultaneously, one of the joys of doing standup was eventually, you meet collaborators who you mesh with and want to put on shows. Shows generally feels like comedian capital because good shows in LA can be hard to come by. I’ve run a ton of shows around LA; including Party’s On, Comedy Bath, Jacuzzi City (a lot of hot water themes) and finally a Standup show with my namesake “Yanker” for three years. I was blessed to be able to collaborate with the hilarious Geoffrey Feldman and Jason Flood. One highlight, was I put on a show for the 45 people on my Mother’s side of the family when I hosted the 61st family Rice Family reunion in LA and I will be doing it again this year.
Throughout my shows, I was very grateful to have the house band “In Parenthesis” made up of Jason Flood, Stamati Arakas, Donovan Hernandez, Cody Vaughn and their Tenacious D meets Ween sound. It is definitely something you have to experience for yourself. Check out their EP, Horny Boyz on Spotify.
Running shows was a great way for me to meet some of the funniest people in Los Angeles. Acts like Johnny Pemberton, Brent Weinbach, Ahamed Weinberg, Joe McAvoy and the wild Chase Bernstein, always continue to inspire me. Having a monthly show, I was also always able to vamp and perform new material and characters.
Simultaneously, I was also a part of a wonderful sketch team, Gunslinger, at the Pack Theater. I learned a lot about sketch comedy while working very closely with the hilarious Sam Brown from Whitest Kids You Know. I was also blessed to perform with some of the most gifted performers at the Pack: Will Morgan, Dan Duddy, Drew Hobbes, Bart Bidlingmeyer, Erin Bounds, Alex Vaughn and my time taught me not only how to write but to be part of an ensemble. Slowly but surely, I started to write tighter funnier scripts where everything could be a joke with no wasted room. Everyone was very generous on the team, and I got written for a lot. Some particularly funny sketches from the team were: “Dogs eating Chocolate”, “Asshole Farm Animals” “Heinous Anus Hot Sauce” among many, many others.
Throughout this time, I also did Improv, but in improv I always felt somewhat like a pariah. At times I struggled to connect and have chemistry immediately with people in class, that paired poorly with being very hard on myself, beating myself up in real time on stage, it made it difficult to build a world and play games with people. With time and effort, I did start to shine and work better with others having a firmer grasp of my own comedic instincts in real time.
A crucial moment was when I finally found clown. I finally felt like I had found a tribe of sorts, and it makes sense because my idol Jim Carrey, was a clown. It was a huge relief to me because it combined the elements of standup that I liked: the focus being on you and your relationship with the audience at that point in time. However, in clown, I liked that you were encouraged to take risks, break the wall, beat yourself up and if it didn’t work the audience tended to be more understanding. I could finally truly be silly and go up with nothing and have discoveries onstage.
The Idiot Workshop and in particular, teachers and talented clowns like Kevin Krieger and Amrita Dhaliwal really helped create a nurturing environment to explore what could be successful on stage. Also watching the “Boss Clown” himself Chad Dhamani. taking his workshop “Introduction to Nonsense” was a good way to test your confidence. His show, “Standup and Clown”, is much needed bridge in these highly polarized time between Clowns and Comedians. It is inspiring to see well-crafted comedians be directed by Chad, a master in chaos and roasting. If anyone is curious in clown, clown curious, take Chad’s workshop and you will be a stronger human for it.
Similarly, I think a huge turning point for me was starting to take Joe Salazar’s class at the Actors Company. He is a very nurturing soul, someone who truly loves the craft of acting and wants to see you succeed. He himself admits, he attracts a lot of actors who are overly hard on themselves. He helps you to believe and trust yourself week by week, through the only remedy that works: repetition and practice. His passion and gratitude is infectious and thanks to him, he was the encouraging parent that I didn’t get to have into adulthood. His energy is like a kid in a candy store, given any role and it helped me to finally accept myself for the beautiful artist that I am.
It also helps that every week, Joe puts you on camera. You can learn so much from watching yourself back and while at first it was a painful experience, now, I know it’s an experience of self-love finding the things that you liked about what you did and giving yourself understanding and compassion for the things you didn’t. Every week that I watch myself, I settle deeper into my understanding of my behavioral intricacies and ultimately learning to love just how only I can shine.
I truly love acting and what you can learn from inhabiting different characters, different thoughts opinions and points of view. Inhabiting and having empathy for others ultimately gets you to check back in with yourself and learn better what your own thoughts, beliefs and values truly are. I am in a very hopeful place doing work that I love and I am grateful to be pursuing my childhood dreams. Every day I get to strengthen my imagination, learn to better respect myself and get stronger, I am lucky.
Alright, 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?
Losing, my mother to cancer when I was 9, was a huge blow to me. I had to learn to be maternal and nurturing to myself as an adult. I’m lucky for all the friends and family that have helped me along to be courageous and honest. And then losing my father to cancer when I was 19 during my freshman year was a big blow to me and I retreated from a lot of the creative confidence I had built up in high school. Slowly but surely, I have gotten out of my own way, stopped listening to anxiety as often and have fought back against the voices that doubt my happiness and confidence. It does get easier, the book “Letting Go” by David Hawkins has been particularly helpful as of late.
The reality of getting to the top of your game is a lot of hard humbling work with no guaranteed result. It is a grind and a hustle, but also a hero’s journey, a journey of self-discovery and ultimately self-love. Every day that you work on your craft is a day that you believe in yourself. It is a radical act of self-acceptance and self-love. One of my hardest challenges as vulnerable as it is, has been learning to love myself, no matter what the environment, many times in the face of judgmental and critical energy. Mainly because I am someone who started so shy. Since I was so critical, outside criticism was too much for me for a long time, but that has changed as I have gotten stronger through practice.
In this past year, I started to teach after school and that was a good balance to my performer’s life. I always wanted to have kids and I have a special connection with them. Kids are so easy to talk to and make a connection with. They tell you their life story freely and without any judgement. They equate with the passion and love that I seek to bring to my performances and writing. The other day kids just started playing the game “go to target” and there isn’t in my opinion, a more perfect clown bit.
I am constantly in the presence of utmost professionals and consistently humbled to be around tremendously gifted comedians, actors, writers and artists. There are too many to name. I have now realized whenever I am critical, it’s time to be more generous and do something for others even if I don’t feel worthy, even if I am angry and resentful. Being an encouraging, positive force can to make the difference
While it is a challenging time for the industry on the flip side, the old cliché about actors waiting around by the phone is no longer true, we create our own opportunities now more than ever. Now it’s a question of cultivating your essence, your vibe, what feeling you want to bring into the world. I sound so LA.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am known for my Acting, Standup, Characters and Reels. In terms of acting, I did a commercial for Oath Media, a docuseries on Apple TV called “The Jet” where I got to play a legal arms dealer. And you can recently see me in the feature “When a Righteous Man Falls” where I play an angry and abrasive unhoused person yelling at a priest. The intensity that I brought was seen as a very humorous stark contrast to an otherwise somber, reflective piece. I even got to play a goldfish named Stan in a great Chapman student film.
Also I have been doing encouragement reels on Instagram and Tik Tok where I simply play a friend who is encouraging you in a generic situation “Congrats on your perfect SAT score”, “Congrats on getting married”, “Congrats on having a baby”. Even simple ones where I say “hope you’re having a great day” “Congrats on your new plant” I am giving the world the one thing that I felt like I never had enough of: encouragement. Even if you’re confused, I always aim to be lighthearted.
I also have made a few sympathy reels, where I cry and then offer some kind of condolence “Sorry the airline lost your bag”, “I’m so sorry you got hacked”, “I’m sorry your house burned down because you left your broccoli steaming overnight”, The absurdity of my reaction to the circumstance is where the humor comes from. .
I also like to do wacky off the wall characters: one example was a guy who goes on a juice cleanse: drinking Welches for 30 days. I am most recently proud of is a sketch I wrote with Stamati Arakas, where I play a car salesman trying to sell the cars parked in the Von’s Parking Lot. It perfectly blends my manic intensity with the throwback elements of local TV commercials.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
One of my biggest role models in art is my cousin Josie who has my mother’s kindness, empathy, devotion, but also an amount of courage and gumption. She is an artist of beautiful murals and flowers please follow her on Instagram Josephinerice.flower and commission her.
I would like to say that presence is your most powerful asset. You should always be trying to help others and be in service, especially when you are depressed. Depression is a withdrawing. We all deserve to get involved, be engaged with our loved ones and our community. That is how we build commitment and ultimately character. I am blessed to have finally built a commitment to my art and I wish the same for you. Whatever beauty you want to want to cultivate in your life, you can do it, I believe in your ability to do so.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.andrewyanker.com
- Instagram: www.instagram/andrewyanker
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/andrewyanker
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/andrewyankerplus
- Soundcloud: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0KEVBsr1wLeY8NuCcKxG1i?si=-thdjmoARgmQOF_-IKASWg
- Other: www.instagram/Josephinerice.flower
