Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgan Eliza Hill.
Hi Morgan Eliza, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story starts when I was born in the wrong year. I was due on a January 1st, and born on a November 13th. My life has sort of followed a similar trajectory: things happening much more rapidly and early than would be recommended, let alone considered safe.
I was raised in a peculiar dichotomy: under one umbrella of a culture and belief system that opposes intuitive thought and belief in one’s self, and under another that is purely intuition and leading from the soul based: Structured, finite fear-based indoctrination and… the arts.
I’m one who believes everything in our life is designed to work for us; pronoia, if you will.
Pronoia is the belief that everything is working in our favor. It is the opposite of paranoia, which is the belief that everything and everyone is working against us.
The first half of my life was fraught with varying traumas: a chronically ill mother, who lived 23 years longer than expected and kept becoming terminal in one way or another. The number of times my brother and I were asked to “prepare ourselves” for her death was lost in the sea of nonstop. I developed an autoimmune condition early in life. I fought severe eating disorders to the point my organs were shutting down, my skin was translucent and I could barely form a coherent sentence let alone stay conscious for any length of time. I was hospitalized for my heart stopping, my appendix bursting, an IUD puncturing through my uterus and into my abdominal cavity where it was stabbing me internally to potentially fatal degrees. I’m one of many women that has survived multiple SA attacks, as well as rape. I also married very young to a man I had only known for 5 days before we became engaged and entered into sort of what could be referred to as an “arranged marriage” in the culture I was raised in. Those married years were turbulent at best. 12 moves in 9 years, 3 babies in under 3 years and one more two years after that saw my nervous system all but collapse. The kids were all very small when their father walked out of one of their birthday parties and didn’t come home, ending our marriage 10 minutes down the street at the playboy mansion in Las Vegas.
….and all of this is the stuff I’m willing to talk about. 🙂
Through it all…I had my faith and connection to something bigger than me, and at the core of it: art and magic.
I can find magic and meaning in any given set of circumstances.
Everything I’ve lived through has made me more compassionate, has broadened my empathy, has given me more strength and love for the human condition and what we’re capable of than I would have otherwise.
Acting has always been and will always be my deepest and most profound artistic love.
To me, acting is the art of energy. It is the way our souls paint the stories that make us laugh, move us to tears, give us pause to think in broader terms, allows us to escape our versions of reality for a bit, and creates the stories we go to for connection and cohesiveness in an uncertain world.
At this stage of my life, I find myself incredibly fortunate to not only look forward to collaborating on stories that I love, but to teach the art I love so dearly.
In 2023, I was finally ready to take up an offer that had been extended a few times at that point: To create a Foundational Program at my acting studio home in Los Angeles, L.A. Acting Studios.
I came upon LA Acting Studios near the year anniversary of my mother passing in 2017.
I had just honored her year mark on February 2nd 2018 and followed my intuition I was still honing at the time by signing up for my first class in Los Angeles: an On-set, On-camera program ten minutes away from where I was living in North Hollywood.
The moment I walked through those classroom doors, my life as I knew it would change.
David Rountree, owner and head instructor (only instructor at the time) quickly became my film mentor. I had been with the studio just a few months when they acquired what is now our current building in NoHo on Cahuenga. We went from a small rented classroom in someone else’s studio, to a multi-room, multilevel studio with ever changing sets and exciting new projects always in varying degrees of development.
The moment I first walked into the classroom, the whole world stopped when the first face I saw was on a screen monitor featuring an impossibly handsome face of one of the evening’s cameramen who also happens to be a fantastic actor…who also happens to be celebrating 7 years with me coming up in May.
David’s wife Rosie Garcia became one of of my dearest friends, a remarkable actress in her own right (Jane The Virgin, the Closer, etc) and she and I started The Children and Teen Program that ran at the studio for three years.
Taking a year break after the pandemic to focus on family things as well as to place some focus on my own neuroscience and metaphysical studies, I returned in 2023 to open LA Acting Studios Foundational Program.
Getting to teach what I love to do is something I had never considered, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover how my life has played out has trained me particularly to deeply love being an acting teacher and coach.
Sans any representation, I’ve been fortunate to work on a handful of projects, including my first co-star ever on General Hospital, I’ve also worked as an actor on Independant as well as short films, web series, and featured bits on varying TV Shows.
My Los Angeles theatre credits include SBTS, The Archway, Surf City, and joyfully getting to put up LA Acting Studio’s first ever live performances. (We mostly focus on the film side of things).
While my story of getting to where I am today may not be brief or easy, it has been exceptionally rewarding.
…I also have a distinct feeling it’s only just truly begun.
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?
Whelp, I believe I described that previously haha.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m an actor, an artist at my core. Over the past two years I’ve discovered a deep love for teaching and directing as well. Through my unique upbringing, being trained in a variety of the foundational methods and techniques, I’ve created sort of my own “language” regarding my approach to teaching. Something I’m particularly proud of is the training I dove into to reset my nervous system and rewire the traumatized synapses from the elongated period of time I experienced a myriad of traumas. My system got so wrecked I would experience what we came to call “stress seizures.” I’d be on the cusp of a PTSD episode or panic attack at any given moment, and anxiety was running my life. I dedicated myself to finding ways to calm my nervous system and heal my “invisible” wounds, which were also contributing to severe autoimmune flare ups. Over the course of the last 7 years, I’ve studied a veritable array of metaphysical, neuroscience informed, quantum physics, yogic, and other well being modalities that has seen me heal in miraculous ways. I discovered that many of the well being techniques married beautifully with the foundational acting methods, and when I was given the keys to build an acting program at my resident acting studio where I’ve been in the master class for several years, I began teaching a combination to my students that has seen immense growth in not just their acting skills but their personal lives as well.
One of my well being mentors told me a few years ago: “Morgan, I believe you’re meant to bring the light to Hollywood.” That meant the world. To me, “Bringing the Light to Hollywood” means providing a space where actors can come and learn about and be their most vulnerable selves and create from joy and inspiration. It means “raising an army” of healthy actors who genuinely love themselves, each other, the craft and creating amazing stories be it on screen, stage or in scripts or books.
I’ve dedicated my artistic life to becoming the best, most centered, vibrant, loving and healthy version of myself and sharing that with all those whose paths I’m honored to cross.
That may seem idealic, even “cringe” to some. But, it’s what I believe. And this past year saw the department I head put up its first live shows in the studio’s history. The shows were filled with exceptional artists on and off stage and the joy created is rolling over into a new year of exciting work to look forward to.
I love being at the point in my life where I take take what I’ve survived, and turn it not just into art, but a way to give back as well.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love the hope that’s filled in our city. I think people thrive on hope.
So many folks move here on some level of dedication to following their dreams, and I find that just beautiful.
A city full of artists and innovators is a city that rallies and changes the game and keeps creating, no matter what else is going on.
I don’t like how quickly some folks feel crushed.
It can be alarming to put so much focus into going after a career you want in the medium you love and discover how difficult the business side can be.
There can be an emptiness and coldness on some streets where our unhomed persons are seen as and treated like they’re invisible. There’s opulence and destitution, and we haven’t seemed to figure out co-creating a happy medium together.
Pricing:
- $275 for four weeks in one month of the foundational program
- $225 for 3 weeks in a single month
- $170 for 2 weeks
- $125 for an hour of private coaching
- $160 for an hour and a half of private coaching
Contact Info:
- Website: www.laactingstudios.com
- Instagram: @morgan.eliza.hill
- Youtube: @morganelizahill7024
- Other: imdb.me/morganelizahill
Image Credits
Brandin Rackley
