I am very glad that I have waited to pursue my goal. I feel like my travels and my life experience have given me some weight and breadth to my history that will permit me to be a better storyteller. However, I also feel that taking a break from actively pursuing my goal has given me the time to get a firm foundation underneath me. While I may dream of one day winning an Oscar, I understand that being a success in this industry does not mean that one has to be a box office headliner. In fact, in this day and age, actors seem to be gaining merit for being remarkable storytellers, and not simply for having camera-ready Hollywood looks.

When I look at the people that I most admire as actors, I realize that they all tell stories on multiple levels. Take, for example, Clint Eastwood. Eastwood could easily have been dismissed as an actor. His roles as cowboys and vigilantes did not seem...

However, as he has stepped behind the camera to direct, his true gift as a storyteller has become apparent. Anyone who watches Million Dollar Baby or Gran Torino sees an actor who is using this image, crafted over the length of a career, to tell these dramatic and engaging stories that might not ever have been told without Clint Eastwood. While I realize it may be almost overly-ambitious to aspire to a career like Eastwood's, what is not overly ambitious is to aspire to tell stories like Eastwood does. I want to bring my characters to life for my audience. With a movie, the actors, directors, producers, and other workers are all asking the audience to give up roughly two hours of their life and step into a make-believe world. I want to blur the lines of reality for my audience, and make them feel like, at least for two hours, they are part of a world that I have helped create. I feel that your program can help teach me the skills to make my desire…