Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Sky.
Christopher, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story starts off with a mom who got pregnant at the age of 14, by my dad who was also 14, and had me at the age of 15. They were both run-aways out in the world on their own, because their parents experienced many hardships with drugs and my parents didn’t have much support. My dad also started selling drugs at the age of 13 and was in & out of youth camps and prisons most of my life.
When I was born, my dad ended up leaving, which caused my mom to have to raise me by herself. She, a freshman in high school and she had two younger sisters that she often helped feed and a mom who wasn’t always there for her. Through it all she did her best, fighting to make it through high school while working minimum wage jobs that at the time paid $5.25/hr. No one believed she could do it, often trying to get custody of me or trying to get her to give me up to another family, but she did it. However, It wasn’t easy for me a lot of my life, my mom did her best but certain hardships we couldn’t escape. I grew up with a lot of strong but very broken people and experienced many of the hardships that come with poverty, constantly moving from place to place, and staying in ghettos most of my life. My mom always kept me in sports though to make sure I wasn’t out in the streets, but I always stayed productive in a healthy way. She always had me learning and taught me as much as she could as early as she could. That led to me excelling in school and taking many high-level classes.
By the time I was seven, my mom decided to escape the small town of Columbus, GA and move to Atlanta. She had gotten married and wanted more for our lives. After moving there, their marriage experienced hardships that led to a separation then divorce, which led to my mom once more being on her own and not able to afford living in Atlanta with both of us. So she then sent me to live with my aunt in a ghetto back in Columbus, GA until she figured out a way of living for us in Atlanta. While living with my aunt I experienced staying in one of the worst neighborhoods in Columbus, Baker Village, often experiencing many fights, having to fight to protect myself from other kids, constant shootings & drive bys, being told to get on the ground in case bullets get in the house. I remember being hit and choked out by kids way older than me at school. I didn’t stay there long though. My mom came back to get me quick due to the things I was experiencing and disagreements with my aunt that I had been staying with. When my mom came to get me, she was still having a really hard time and it led us to staying at the Gateway homeless shelter in Downtown Atlanta.
While staying there, I went to school and I remember being made fun for eating all my food and asking the kids if they didn’t want the food on their trays they didn’t eat, it was also embarrassing to me being picked up by the school bus and dropped off in front of the homeless shelter. We didn’t stay there for long tho and my mom got a job that paid her enough to get us an apartment in a low-income ghetto in west Atlanta, known as Bankhead. We stayed in Overlook Atlanta and my cousins got jumped, I was 9 and the two cousins that were with me was only 8 and 10. The 8yr old was the one who got caught and beat up by the gang. (A gang most made up of middle and high schoolers) While staying there, I went to Carter G Woodson Elementary and it was my first time going to a school that had lots of extracurricular programs and sports. There I played soccer and was a part of a magnet program that would take us to Fernbank and the Botanical gardens everyday after school to teach us about our planet and animals. I was also in boyscotts and got to take trips and learn new skills. These programs kept me out of the streets and helped me escape the harsh realities of living in the ghetto. I remember playing hide and go seek with friends in the neighborhood and finding guns and drugs hidden in bushes and holes around the neighborhood.
After staying there for some time, we moved to another neighborhood that was bad but not as bad as the last in Adamsville. There I stayed right across from a recreation center, where I played basketball and spent a lot of my time. I also went to Margaret Fain Elementary School where I experienced the arts for the first time at the age of 10/11 years old. The school had a traveling dance team I was a part of called Wings Of Eagles. Ever since then, I loved to dance and perform. After graduating elementary school, my mom moved us to a better neighborhood just right outside of Atlanta called Marietta and I was able to go to a better school and often played sports, being on the football team at school and eventually getting into track & field. I was always gifted and stayed in advanced and magnet programs. Which reminds me haha, the first time they tried to put me in a drama/theatre class, I went to the main office and request that I be placed into something else because I really didn’t like it (funny that I’m an actor now) but instead I ended up in chorus classes. There I was in honor choir and we would travel perform at different events all over the city. After going thru middle school and moving up to high school, I didn’t keep up chorus and focused more on sports. Once I got into high school, I played football and I was very promising, I eventually got a bad concussion and it changed how passionate I was about the sport. Instead, my passion started drifting back to theatre and drama because I had joined the advanced program in school and chose to give it another try to get my advanced credit. There my eyes were opened to what it meant to really act and perform theatre.
In that class was the first time we truly got to act and perform, it wasn’t just writing papers, reading, and taking test. There came a point where I was on break due to my concussion from football and there were auditions for the play The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I had never auditioned for a play before and decided why not see what it was like. I was very nervous and didn’t want to embarrass myself so I went in to audition for the smallest part I could. Which ended up being the lion because he rarely appeared in the story. At the auditions, I realized that performing and acting came natural to me and I did amazing at the auditions and callbacks. The day after, the roles were posted and I remember none of my freshman friends getting a starring part. Then I looked at the list and my name was there, not only as a starring part but as the lead when I only auditioned to be the lion. I was shocked and extremely excited. I remember thinking I couldn’t wait to tell my mom. I went home that day to tell her and she wasn’t too happy about it. She told me that I wasn’t going to do it. She said that she had already paid for me to play that football season and that I was trying to get involved in too much at a time because my grades were slipping. I didn’t take to it well and told her that I no longer wanted to play football and so I ended up quitting the football team and not being able to do the play either.
That lead to all my focus being on track and field which aside from my academics, I focused on most throughout high school. I had also found a great church that I went to and had been involved in the choir there. I took a summer off of track and working out and ended up just trying to enjoy the summer vacation. The youth church choir auditioned to travel and do a tour in England that I got to be a part of and it was my first experience going to another country. We got to sing and tour in all kinds of iconic places in England and it opened my eyes to how much bigger the world was that I perceived it. Once that was over and I got back to track, I had gained some weight and I wasn’t as good as I used to be. I remember going into an event (High jump) and placing last, which used to be my best event. I worked extremely hard that year after that embarrassing moment and I worked out non stop and gave my all in my practices. I didn’t research, and I wasn’t giving up on being one of the best. After a year of hard work, I ended up winning 1st place in county for high jump during the school year. It was my senior year and I wanted to get a scholarship so I ran track in the USATF and AAU youth league and ended up qualifying for the Junior Olympics at the end of the season and getting a scholarship for track and academic at South Carolina State University.
Once I went to SCSU, I didn’t know what I wanted to be or major in so I went the safe route and chose business. I was in the honors college and wanted to make the most of my intelligence. But after a hamstring injury, I lost my passion for track because of the wear and troubles it was putting on my body. That caused me to lose my track scholarship and I thought after that ‘since I lost the last thing I was passionate about, why don’t I drop the other things I weren’t passionate about and refind my passion for something. I sat down with a professor who was known for giving good counsel and telling her how I felt. She asked me about things I was once passionate about and I told her about my experience and passion for theatre. I didn’t get to explore in high school. She encouraged me to give it a try again and change my major. So I did, which caused a lot of controversy at first. I was one of the only kids in Honors College that chose to do Theatre as my major. At first, my mom didn’t agree with it but eventually soften and realized I was grown and wanted me to go after what I wanted without regrets. After changing my major, I decided to get into everything else “performance” that I could. I joined dance teams, I was the college mascot, I got into the runways model shows at school. I also auditioned and had a major role in every play that year at school. I loved performing and I loved acting. My hunger to get bigger and go further in my new career lead to me deciding to move back to Atlanta and try to get roles not only at school but professionally outside of school.
So I started submitting to roles in Atlanta and ended up getting an audition for a movie called Marvelous. With the help of my professor Ursula Robinson, I booked that role and my first year deciding to act had my first lead role in a movie. I moved back to Atlanta and enrolled at Georgia State University where I did plays and musicals there my sophomore year alongside the movie I was casted in. I eventually auditioned for other roles once I finished that movie and booked project after project. Working on lots of indie movies and television pilots. I also joined a professional improv team. While my career started getting busier and I started to go out for more and more roles. I decided to drop out of college and take smaller acting classes alongside a full-time career as an actor. My mom wanted a fresh start in life and ended up moving to LA and encouraged me to make the move as well. This time without relying on her. So I made the move to LA with only 1,000$ and a first month Airbnb bill of 750$ at a hostel. So I had one month to find a job and survive with only 250$ in my account. Which I found and got hired at a job within my first two weeks in LA. I ended up working job after job in LA to survive alongside my career. Eventually, after lots of hard work and hardships In LA, I found my manager Brent Paxton at Kreativ Artists who believed in me when no one else would and helped me to really elevate my career. Ever since then, I’ve been a full-time actor and for the first time in my life making a living off of my dream going further and further and accomplishing more everyday.
Great, 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?
It’s been far from smooth, which I’m grateful for. I feel like the hardships I’ve faced has made me strong and resilient. They’ve also encouraged me to help others and be grateful for all the blessings in my life. Within the first six months of my moving here, a couldn’t even keep four figures in my account and I work seven jobs, five of which I got fired from. Two of which I quit. The first job fired me for accidentally giving a vegan ice cream with dairy in it (while I was still in training) others I got fired from because of being too goofy while at work and doing things like dancing around or choosing to call out of work for auditions or bookings. I stay in hostel after hostel. Some of which were in Skid Row just because they were the cheapest. There I just wanting back and forward to the bus stops I would see lots of homelessness and people who struggled from mental illness. I would see people doing hard drugs and attacking people there everyday. Once a roommate in the hostel came home freaking out because I’m his way to home, we was knocked out by someone random and woke up in the hospital.
After leaving hostels, I stay with an actor friend who ended up losing his job the same time I did which lead to us getting evicted. And I had no more than a hundred dollars in my account and nowhere to go. My mom stayed in Orange County I’m a hostel herself and so I couldn’t go stay with her. Someone ended up letting me stay on their couch for sometime until I found work. My manager and agent in LA at the time didn’t really seem to believe in me and wouldn’t send me out for much work And almost only commercial and not tv shows or movies, which I found out after looking at the submission reports. I was very discouraged for a time and thought that I just might not be cut out for being an actor in LA. While staying on my friend’s couch, I ended up submitting myself and getting auditioned for a show on HBO called McMillions and a show on Adult Swim called Eric Andre show and booking both. I tried to use those two new credits to pick up new representation and still had a hard time. Then I ran across Brent Paxton who started his new management company and took a chance on me after seeing some of my audition tapes and taking a meeting with me. His belief in me changed my career and led to me getting more opportunity. But due to not having a stable career, yet I still faced financial hardships. I eventually had to leave my friend’s couch but I didn’t have much money at all because I hadn’t yet been paid and was waiting on checks. I used what little I had and paid for one month in a super cheap hostel which had six people in one small room.
After one night of staying there, I was a bit all over my body by bedbugs and had an allergic reaction. No one would take me in their house because they didn’t want bed bugs. So I found myself on the streets for a day and having to get rid of clothes until I found another place to stay. I ended up find another cheap hostel (this time bedbug free) to stay in. At this point, I only had like 40$ and one small bag worth of clothes and two pairs of shoes. But thankful to my manager Brent he helped me as much as he could, getting me roles and opportunities I hadn’t had before and also coaching me to be a better actor. I eventually got more and more work which help me to always make enough to cover the cheap rent at the hostel. The hostel ended up getting shut down and I had to find somewhere to live again. But thanks to Brent I finally ended up getting a place of my own finally and being able to pay bills and survive off just my dream.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am an actor, trained in handguns, assault rifles, martial arts, surfing, and many sports. I am a trained dancer in Hiphop and experienced in freestyle dance. I’ve been in plays, musicals, done professional improv, movies, tv shows, commercials, I’ve been in virtual reality films, been in music videos, industrial videos, done motion capture for major video games, voice-overs, and performed in dance showcases for shows like So You Think You Can Dance. What I believe sets me apart from other actors is my ability to feel and resonate with so many different kinds of characters. I have ranged from the deepest of dramas to the silliest of comedies. I have lived a life where I’ve seen and experienced a strong spectrum of emotions and human lifestyles, that I’m able to channel and use in my work. My art reflects real, authentic, and diverse facets of life and emotions I have experienced.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Nothing makes me prouder about my career than the times I’ve been able to encourage and inspire others to go after their dreams and never give up.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 213-245-0465
- Email: chris.sky.actor@gmail.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/Christopherskyofficial
- IMDb: IMDb.me/Christophersky
- Other: https://youtu.be/Weit2QX1m_g
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