Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Snow.
Hi Jon, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Gosh. Such a big and broad prompt!
First and foremost, I’m a survivor. I was raised in a religious cult where I was psychologically and sexually abused. I was also physically abused for many years by my mother, who routinely hit me with hands, fists, wooden spoons, whatever she could get her hands on in any given moment. So when people ask me how I got started, I open up with these experiences because I literally wouldn’t be who I am today without them. They’ve colored my world. In years past, they colored my world in a very bleak way. Thank god (isn’t that ironic for a preacher’s kid from a cult?) for therapy. Because as an artist, I’ve finally started scratching the surface of what it means to have a voice and a unique perspective, and it’s precisely because of these experiences that I have the opportunity to express that uniqueness in the work I put into the world.
I realize all of that sounds really lovely and wrapped up in a bow. But getting from one end of it to the other took a lot of years of being lost, fucking up, and I mean, like really badly and stupidly at times, falling down, getting back up, learning, growing, sliding backwards again, and doing that cycle many, many times over. And just when I think I’ve done something, or gotten somewhere, what I’m really starting to understand is that it’s just a new, deeper cycle of death, rebirth, growth, and on and on. But I also think that’s what is helping me to embrace the totality of who and what I am. And the fun part for me is that I’m just getting started.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Haha. Well, after answering the way I did in the previous question, I guess it’s safe to say that there have been many struggles and hardly a smooth road to be found unless I created one for myself.
When you’re raised in a religious cult, you’re told how to think, how to act, how to dress, how to physically walk (yes, really!) and nothing you do, or are allowed to do I should say, is for anything other than the glory of God. Or at least that’s what they tell you. And they brainwash you into believing that you’re thinking for yourself, but really you’re being groomed to do the bidding of the leader of said cult. Add to that this idea that you’re born sinful and that nothing you do and nothing you are is ever technically good enough for the big dude in the sky, then self-worth becomes something you wouldn’t recognize if it ran you over with a city bus.
For me, it’s been these mental and psychological abuses that have been the hardest to deal with. I almost said overcome, but the truth is that I haven’t overcome anything. I’ve learned to become more friendly with those parts of me that feel unworthy, unloved, or feel like I’m not enough and never will be enough. But that again becomes my superpower as an artist. As I learn to become more accepting and welcoming to those aspects of my personality, they become the lens through which I work and speak more truthfully to the world.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m an actor and a writer. I used to flip-flop when people asked me, and it depended on what I was doing or avoiding at the time. For a few years, I only identified as an actor. Other years, only as a writer. But as I embrace more of me and this incredible journey, I now confidently say that I’m an actor/writer.
I’ve been on tv shows like Good Girls, All Rise, MacGruber, and I’m currently recurring on The Rookie. I’m lucky enough to be a part of a wonderful indie film, Little Jar, which just had its world premiere at the Austin Film Fest this past week, and it’s currently making its rounds at some other festivals as well. I just shot something for Winning Time on HBO, and I’m really grateful and excited to be a part of the new Netflix show, The Recruit, which comes out December 16th.
The fun part for me as an actor is that I was a reader for multiple casting offices around Los Angeles. And in case “reader” means nothing to you, I was the person who would read the other side of the scene for the actors who came in to audition. Not only was that an amazing education for me, but I also built a wonderful network of people around me who know me and my work, Which has led to so many amazing opportunities for me. And like I keep saying, I’m just getting started.
I think that the thing I’m most proud of though is my solo show work. In the past, I’ve put together two different iterations of a solo show that tells the story of growing up in a cult, being abused, and how I’ve worked, and continue to work, with all of that in my life. I’m currently working on a third iteration because as I grow and evolve, the work demands to grow and evolve with me. There are so many others who have been or are being abused in the same ways I was, and sometimes we just need a voice or a flare to be sent up so that we know that we’re not alone. That gives me great joy to feel like I can touch someone’s heart the way I wished for someone to touch mine when I was in those dark times.
I’ve also written a television pilot, Gods & Kings, with my sister Shelly, that is largely based on the megachurch cult we grew up in. Of course, back then, the term “megachurch” wasn’t really a thing, but that’s exactly what it was, with a congregation of over 20,000 people on Sunday mornings. And while Shelly and I took extremely different paths that distanced us, both physically and emotionally – I ran away from home at 17, she stayed and became a missionary to Romania for 15 years – she and I decided to tackle the traumas and pain we experienced through a collaborative writing project. After placing in several competitions, we’re now going through the sometimes arduous process of trying to sell the show. Regardless of what happens or doesn’t, I’m pretty proud that we both found our way back to one another and some healing and that we allowed ourselves the space and freedom to explore it all in a creative manner.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
So, I know I’ve thrown a lot at you, and you might be wondering, Jesus, does this guy have any happy memories from childhood at all? I assure you that I do. It’s funny, but when you’re a kid, and your life is a certain way, you just think that’s what life is. I tell people all the time that when you grow up poor – which we certainly did – you don’t sit around as a five years old thinking about it. It’s just life as you know it.
My favorite memories are camping and fishing with my dad and grandpa in Missouri and Illinois. Being in Los Angeles, I miss the country far more than I would have thought I would when I was a kid and an angry teenager. But damn, we used to have a good time. I remember being allowed to take my shirt off once when we were fishing (normally, that kind of thing wasn’t allowed because indecency, and stuff that God supposedly said and whatnot) and getting my fishing hook lodged in my back when I went back to cast. Or the time we caught a fish so big – I say “we” but it was really grandpa – that it was put into a cooler with chains on top of it, and that thing still managed to jump up and almost out of the cooler. Or the time we went to the strip mines in Illinois and caught somewhere in the vicinity of 50 or 60 fish between four of us. It was easier than catching fish in Red Dead Redemption 2. I loved those trips in the summer.
Contact Info:
- Website: thejonsnow.com
- Instagram: the_jon_snow
- Other: imdb.me/jonsnow
Image Credits
Theo & Juliet
