Today we’d like to introduce you to Zak Barnett.
Hi Zak, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As an actor, they say you are your own instrument–your mind, body and emotional life coalesce to create a character–one that never existed before and never will again.
I’ve been an actor, writer, director since I was a kid. When I was 17, I went to NYU for Playwriting and suffered a traumatic incident where I lost my proprioception–my mind’s ability to know where my body was in space. I was forced to drop out after a year of study and began a path of understanding, healing and reintegration that took the better part of a decade.
As acting, writing and directing was all I really knew, I used it as a way of understanding what was happening to me, reintegrate my mind and body, and emotionally heal from the trauma. This gave me a certain objectivity as to how my “instrument” worked and subsequently how that instrument could be “played”.
During this time, I was writing and directing and exploring these same issues through storytelling. I served as the artistic director of a small experimental theater company, “ghosttown” in San Francisco in the mid 90’s, and our company performed at a local liberal arts college, New College of California. After the performance, the President and Dean of the school asked me to create their BA, MA and MFA in Performance. I didnt have a degree myself, so they put me through my education while I simultaneously created this program–primarily for performers that wanted to create their own work.
People were writing and producing plays, one person shows, multi-media performance pieces, etc. The emphasis was on cultivating individual artistic voice, and for eight years I deepened my exploration of the actor’s instrument with dozens of committed students, as well as the art of purpose-driven storytelling. I found the three main themes that were most potent in developing the artist’s voice were activism, spirituality and entertainment. While I certainly didnt have the answers for any of these artists in regards to these themes, I knew that the process of asking questions within them would refine their artistic voice and sense of purpose.
After eight years of charing the programs, I co-created a film “Less”, that started touring the festival circuit and brought me to LA in 2005. From there, I started teaching at one of the more well known acting studios in town, which was really an audition shop, and there I worked diligently in understanding what Hollywood needed from actors: the rapid turnover times and the subtle, and not so subtle distinction between genre, and how to approach each. Informally, I began marrying what I had learned in my own healing and artistic processes with the evolving needs of Hollywood.
After nearly a decade there, I opened my own shop, “Zak Barnett Studios”, which has really been the epicenter of my life’s work. The tagline for the studio is “Acting for the Whole Self”, and the three themes of activism, spirituality and entertainment hold the container for the student’s personal and artistic growth.
The school started with just me and a handful of classes, and six years later, there are 14 incredible teachers, 300 students, a conservatory, and an incredible community of actors of all ages, committed not only to their artistry and careers but living whole and purposeful lives. We have Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe winners as clients, and since we started counting in 2018, our students have booked over 200 Series Regular roles. It brings me immense joy to see our students become who they were meant to be, personally and professionally.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
They say having a small business in the start-up years is like having a newborn. A ton of joy, not much sleep, and stressors that tax relationships, health, finances, etc. All have been true for me. This has been a true labor of love, and the labor was painful. We are finally now getting to a place of sustainability and legacy.
There really are more stories than I can count, but I’ll start with the inception story. Originally I was set to start the school with my longtime creative partner, Dwayne Calizo, who co-founded the college program with me in San Francisco, as well as the theater company I had mentioned in SF. We were best friends and worked together for nearly 15 years. On the day I gave notice at the acting school I was working with, in fact, within a half-hour of my doing so, Dwayne died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism. A few months later, my father died, and a few months after that, my mentor died. The three closest people in my life all died in my first year of the studio’s opening.
Some people are crushed by loss. I am broken open. There is a quote that precedes one of my favorite plays, “Angels in America”. It goes like this: “In murderous times the heartbreaks and breaks and lives by breaking”. I dont know if it’s because of the traumas I’ve been through with my proprioception or what, but the losses rocket shipped my sense of purpose. It was as if my loved ones had left me on the doorstep of my life purpose and said, now it’s your turn, make us proud. So that’s been one of my driving forces since the school began. I have three angels watching over me and pushing me to further heights.
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?
Something that I LOVE about all of our teachers is:
1. They LOVE teaching, and they like me, understand it as part of their purpose.
2. They don’t talk down to students. The spirit of creativity knows no limits, and part of that is that it’s ageless, colorless, genderless–it knows no boundary that the world might like to impose it.
I can talk to ten years old or a 70 years old, and when we are connected in the spirit of creativity, there is no difference. There’s freedom and play and a desire to emotionally reveal and tell the truth. If, as a teacher, you try to condescend in that space, use it as a means of exerting power, or creating hierarchies, you actually shut down the actor’s ability to create. I love that there is a “fool” proof mechanism built into creativity–that is how people act the fool, lol. If you make it about you and your ego, as the actor or as the teacher, there’s no acting, no creativity, no artistry. This school has flourished because it knows that truth above all others.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most is that a person has the opportunity to become who they were meant to be. I am drawn to a person’s soul, to their innate creativity and boundless freedom. I want it to be free and fill every space they walk into. There is so much pain and fear that keeps that freedom, that PRESENCE, at bay. I can see and feel that block, but I can also see beyond it to their true creative potential and presence. Our job as actors, I believe is to walk through those barriers of fear, and become who we were meant to be, and help the audience that empathizes with us, do the same.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: zakbarnett.com
- Instagram: @zakbarnettstudios
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zakbarnettstudios/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVwW5d8UeJ7pVukPDmxE6tg
