Today we’d like to introduce you to Zachary Cowan.
Hi Zachary, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Known online as ZachCowman (get it? I love bad puns). I suppose the best way to describe me is an actor, content creator, and freelance marketing professional. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with stories… long stories, and I mean the long ones. I am the guy who loves the 10-20+ book series and the TV shows that have hundreds of episodes. I was and am an avid reader and love video games. I gravitated towards long series as a kid (i.e., series of unfortunate events, harry potter) and that continues to be the case to this day, currently working my way through Raymond E. Fiests Riftwar Cycle (30+books). That love of stories found an outlet with theatre and improv, which I continued to foster throughout college. I graduated college in 2016 with a degree in International Business and a minor in theatre. Back then, I was working full time in market research but still acting on the side. It wasn’t until 2017 I decided to swap those two and move to LA.
Since then, I have been auditioning full time for television, film, theatre while still holding a myriad of “day jobs” from Uber driving, to selling children’s book publishing contracts, to you guessed it, barista and waiter. I was an early adopter of TikTok (before you could tell anyone it was on your phone) but during COVID and after joining SAG-AFTRA, my acting agency dissolving, and an NCIS shoot being canceled, I decided to treat TikTok like my own acting self-tape / improv circle. It was then I started to go “viral” and I am blessed to have found a community of amazing artists and continue to share my work with an audience of ~260,000 and millions of views each month. I make acting content, POVs and improv. I also stream on Twitch and manage a super welcoming Discord server. It’s important to me to tell all types of inclusive stories. I tend to focus on making gender neutral content. You may know me as Chester the Librarian (an original character of mine), my “toxic relationship series” aimed at showing the nuances of consent, gaslighting and communication in relationships, or perhaps some of more “romantic comedy” povs / duets. You’ll be able to catch me in upcoming short film Suprise, directed by Madison De La Garza, starring myself and many other amazing TikTok artists such as “Laurel Toupal” “Jason van Tonders” “Paige Evans” and “Inka Magnaye”. Or in the film “X” on Amazon Prime. I continue to work and live in LA towards my dream and passion of supporting myself full-time off acting alone. We’d love to leave the business degree behind for a while, I think ha.
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?
What a great question, I was just thinking today how often I think of giving up. I think what’s hard for me is that this (acting) was never plan A. I am a firm believer you can love something and not want to make money off it. If it wasn’t for a turn of fate back in San Francisco, I may have never left. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been acting, theatre has always been in my life and always will be. I envisioned a life of working professionally in tech and doing regional/community theatre when the itch came. I think my biggest struggle recently is consistency and mindset. I have to remind myself that I’m working towards my goals and that I can’t dictate the timeline life has for me. I’m four years into my LA journey and may not be exactly where I want to be, but I know there are so many amazing people who support me and want nothing but my happiness and success.
If you’re looking for some more tangible “struggles” we could look at right before COVID and booking a decent gig on NCIS. As the pandemic hit, they nixed my role and my agency dissolved. Here I was, four grand down the drain (union fees) and no way to get auditions (for those unaware, the availability of work for union actors is drastically lower than non-union). I am still struggling with finding an agent that I feel believes in my quality of work and vision. If I had a dollar for every rejection I’ve faced in terms of auditions or representation refusals, I could just make my own movie. (I do however have a great manager and agent in the UK, I don’t want them to feel left out)
However, I remind myself that life is the journey not the destination, I am blessed to have an amazing family that encourages me, a community/following who knows I will reach my goals, and amazing friends who inspire me. Our brains are hardwired to remember the negative more than the positive, and I work everyday on counteracting that. Life is good, I am working hard, and I think the younger version of Zach would be proud.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a professional actor and content creator. Probably what I am currently known for is my small TikTok community where I make original acting content such as povs, duets, and improv series.
I think genuinely what makes me most proud of the time I’ve spent online is the relationships I’ve been able to make, and furthermore, the relationships that have been made in my communities. I realized early on when I decided to pursue content creation (in addition to acting full time) is that the creator becomes a catalyst for others to meet. I think my Twitch community and Discord server are a great examples of that. When COVID hit, a lot of us found ourselves isolated, perhaps back in a house/area we weren’t living before and no safe way to interact in person. I have met so many amazing people last year and watched very wholesome and beautiful friendships form, all of which came from me wanting to post silly little videos online. I actually just saw on my Discord a few long-time members (now vaccinated) met up for the first time, some even traveling from multiple states to do so. I’m not sure if they would have met otherwise and that’s a really cool feeling.
I also enjoy making content on all types of subjects, from cute romantic POVS to TikToks around grief, death, sex, and relationships. One that sticks in my mind was a 2 part series of a character (myself) crying quietly in a library and being approached by a stranger. Turns out my character didn’t realize a certain song was on their playlist and it vividly reminded them of their sister that had recently passed. In that moment, the stranger took time to listen and share their own experiences with grief. All of this was improv’d and like most things I do, not very thought out. But as it gained traction, I received so many messages of people sharing their experiences of loss and grief and feeling seen from my video. When I’m particularly hard on myself, I remind myself what my goals truly are. To tell stories, to have an impact, and to work with people that inspire me. In a lot of ways, I’m already doing that. I feel so blessed to make videos that impact people, if ever for a few minutes.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
Los Angeles, now there’s a mixed bag. To give some context, I grew up in San Diego and lived in San Francisco for about six years, and now in LA for four. So it’s fair to say I’m a bit of a Cali boy through and through. I think what I like most about LA is that there is always something to do. It is a very diverse city and whatever you’re looking for, you can find. Whether it’s food, music, a certain type of bar, event, you name it. Also, aside from the heat waves the weather is pretty gosh darn great. I think my least favorite thing is obviously the traffic, but also a “city feel”. LA is very much a driving not a walking city. There’s something great about not needing a car and walking out your door with a destination in mind but knowing you’ll see a lot on the way there. SF is special that way as it’s so small. The city itself is only 7×7 miles, so you can basically take a bus to pretty much every street corner. Now that I’m in Hollywood (I was living in NoHo for years) there is a bit more of that “walking city feel” but LA is gigantic, theres no way around it
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: zacharycowan.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachcowman/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachcowman1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/zachcowman
- Other: https://tiktok.com/@zachcowman https://www.twitch.tv/zachcowman
Image Credits:
Headshots: @arielfloresjr
