Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicholas Thurkettle.
Nicholas, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My professional life has gone through so many unexpected turns; my attitude has really become that, while it’s important to set goals, it’s just as important to sense where the current may be taking you and use that momentum rather than fight it. I started out of college working as a script reader for a film producer while nurturing my writing ambitions at night. I had a really fortunate breakthrough into the professional screenwriting ranks at an early age, but the script I sold never got made, and there were a lot of close calls that were very exciting but not putting money in my pocket. I found that Hollywood has a million ways of making you feel powerless and ignored and that this will break your sanity and happiness if it’s all that you’ve got happening.
I saw this generational shift into taking more control over your creative destiny and, rather than singlemindedly chasing one thing as I had done, I branched out. I chased writing opportunities in every medium and wound up publishing three books and a play, writing and producing a dozen original audio dramas for a sci-fi/horror podcast, and getting hired to write the first-ever original English-language anime pilot, “Children of Ether”. I had studied acting in college, got back into it, and doors opened shockingly quickly. Working onstage, especially at a professional outdoor Shakespeare festival, built up my vocal discipline, and I started landing work in audiobooks and animation/videogame voiceover. Performing in independent films broadened my filmmaking knowledge and creative network and, when I decided to take a more ambitious step to produce and direct a short film from one of my own scripts, I suddenly had a battle-tested group of collaborators readily available. And once I’d had a taste of making my own film, I got addicted to that as well.
That’s a very quick summary of many years and paves over a whole lot of bruises and catastrophes; but it’s all taught me that you have to just keep making stuff, to keep that professional mentality and constantly work your creative muscles, whether the industry is giving you a chance or you’re making the chance yourself.
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?
People treat money like a dirty word but it’s always a struggle. Maybe one year out of five I’m not worrying about money. I have had many, many blessings in my circumstances that have allowed me to keep pursuing this, but I’ve also gone way out on a limb with the credit cards when I’ve sensed an opportunity. Call it betting on yourself, or investing in yourself; you try to make it the latter more often than the former.
More than once, a script I wrote looked like it was going to get made with Famous Director So-and-So and Rising Star Such-and-Such, and maybe put a handsome sum of money in my pocket, and then it would all fall apart for reasons a thousand miles removed from me. The sense of helplessness and isolation is brutal – you’ve done your job and written a script that excites people, now you’re just waiting, no idea whether the day will bring good news, bad news, no news. You soon learn that, in this business, you are never going to be anyone else’s number one priority, so you need to have at least one thing you’re working on where you’re not depending on someone else to move things forward.
The hardest thing and the one that cannot be turned into a cute anecdote with a lesson is just the grind. You plant seeds, you hope they’ll blossom, and so many times, nothing comes of it; and there’s nothing to learn from it because whatever happened to prevent it from blossoming has happened to you two hundred times already. You just have to figure out what your personal recovery cycle is – whatever your unique formula is for shaking it off and getting the fuel in your tank to get back out there again. No one can teach it, you have to go find it.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I have my personal business as an independent creator – I call it being an independent storyteller since whether I’m writing, acting, or making films, I view each as a storytelling discipline, and I think working it from so many different angles has made me stronger and more versatile across all of them. If people know me, they tend to know that I bring that multi-disciplined approach, plus years of experience analyzing and breaking apart stories to see what their mechanisms are.
I also work part-time with the non-profit arts agency Arts Orange County, managing many of their programs like artist calls and the O.C. chapter of the Emerging Arts Leaders network. My biggest goal with EAL is to foster connections between artists and arts professionals – not to dictate objectives for them, but just to put them together and try and stimulate some energy; great things emerge organically if you don’t force the process.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
The first thing that comes to mind is exploring the woody trails down the hill behind our house in Ohio. If I saw them now, they probably wouldn’t seem like much, just a few dirt paths near a creek; but to a little kid, they were the prompt for thousands of flights of imaginations. I still love a hearty stroll through nature, and I’ve written more than a few stories where characters are in the woods, searching for something.
Pricing:
- My short story collection “Stages of Sleep” can be had in paperback for $15 or e-book for just $4.99! http://a.co/bdmPKow
- My award-winning comedy short film “The Dinner Scene” is streaming exclusively at the independent film channel “Seed and Spark” – subscriptions start at just $2 a month! https://www.seedandspark.com/watch/the-dinner-scene
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nicholasthurkettle.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/NThurkettle
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/NThurkettle
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/NThurkettle
- Other: www.vimeo.com/NThurkettle
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
