Today we’d like to introduce you to David Salsa.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ve been acting since high school in Oregon. I became passionate about it because of an English teacher and a drama teacher gave me opportunity to discover art and language. It opened my eyes to storytelling and uplifting people through the emotional journey of a character going through something. It was so fulfilling. Before that, I was a class clown and a mediocre HS athlete. I felt like I found something that was challenging and good at.
I studied at the University of Portland and got an MFA at the Actors Studio at New School Drama in NYC. That was a when I gained technique and learned about great writing and structure. My second day of grad school was 9/11 and that set a tone for my MFA program, not sure if it was a good or bad tone, but it instilled how important storytelling is as both a device for helping people deal with trauma emotionally as well as being able to escape the stresses of life for a little while.
I discovered stand up while I was in NYC and was able to tap back into the class clown portion of my personality. I started working on that as well as doing tours of theater productions. After grad school and living in NYC, I decided to move west to LA. After a year in LA trying to find my footing, I was hired to be a company member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
For the next five years, I was working 20 miles from where I grew up as a part of a 100 member ensemble putting on 12 plays in nine months on three different stages. That was the biggest education of my life. I worked with incredible diverse group of actors of all ages working on original works as well as classic works.
I moved back to LA in 2013, where I started working in TV and film. At the beginning, I had to play roles based on how I looked, blue collar cops and construction worker types. I still do that, but over time have been able to get more opportunities in comedies and other shows as well as get back into stand up and write and produce short-form content with my wife.
Since being in LA, I’ve also been a faculty member at the Lee Strasberg Film and TV Institute teaching the next generation of actors.
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?
A collage professor told me to “Love the struggle” because there is more struggle than success. I think every opportunity has failure, struggles a learning chance in it. My first day on a network TV set, I was so excited. I felt like this was the first moment of many to come. It was a three days stint on Criminal Minds and after the first day, I drove home with a migraine headache and cried for part of the drive. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect on an off-camera. To make a great impression, as if they would see me and be like “kid, you’re a star!” I slowly drained everything emotionally I had out of me, and I didn’t even have any of my scenes that day. It was the arrest of the perp scene.
I talked to a friend after that experience and she said “even though its a dream, its also a job, and we have to treat it that way.” I also remember being on set with Kirsten Vangsness and mentioned I was stressed with it being my first TV job and she looked at me and said “you’ve done Shakespeare, this is easy compared to that.”
The journey is never gonna be the way we plan it, so we have to have flexibility in our acting and in ourselves with this work because it’s complicated.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m an actor, stand up, and acting teacher in Los Angeles. I’ve spent 20 years working on stage and film in TV in as many creative ways as possible.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I was in a point in my life where I was not sure I wanted to act anymore. I was working a regular job and I got a call from a friend who had a comedy, The Complete Works of Shakespeare: Abridged, with three characters on stage the whole time and one of his actors dropped out eight days before and they needed a fill-in. So I jumped in and told the cast “I’m gonna learn my lines and make sure you guys still get your laughs.
The performance was so incredible and educational. I was so reactive and listening the whole time on stage because I was terrified. I would forget all my lines any minute. They were in my head by a thread. But it was so real and organic, there were jokes and laughs coming from places we didn’t even expect because the audience was on the journey with us. It was wonderful.
Contact Info:
- Website: davidsalsa.com
- Instagram: @dancenotthedip
- Twitter: @dancenotthedip
Image Credit:
David Zaugh & Paul Smith
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